Ravenloft Demographics out of whack?

[alhoon]

Well, the doppelgangers are few hundreds and they need to hide within those societies. Even if 1 out of 10 university professors is a doppelganger, you need 9 university professors and a doppelganger that's very good in one scholarly topic.

Now, if you adjust Paridon to 50K people with a small amount of farmland (on top of the rooftops) to be able to supplement the foodstuff imported it makes it all better.

[brilliantlight]

Generally I ignore it and make the domains much larger. I made some of the cities pretty large with populations of 50,000 and more.

[Cromstar]

Up until I read this thread and gave it some thought, I never realized just how much the 3rd edition Ravenloft campaign setting had managed to cut the populations of the domains.

I mean, in both the black and red box sets, it plays fast and loose, but the general sense is that the domains are significantly more populated than the 3rd edition hard numbers.

I think this largely boils down to the following line hat 3rd edition seems to have ignored or overlooked from the village sizes listed in the black and red boxes:

Wherever a population for a city or village is provided, the number includes only folk who live within its proper boundaries. As a rule an equal number of people reside in the immediate area[...]

It also mentions that it doesn't give details/map icons for places with populations under 1000 (exceptions like the village Barovia not withstanding) and further mentions that most domains have scattered rural populations across much of their terrain.

So, the case of Darkon:

Ignoring Il Aluk (curtesy of the the Grim Harvest), the city population of Darkon in the first two box sets is 54,500, or about 109,000 metro population. That's assuming that all 25k residents of Il Aluk and another 25k nearby souls all die in the Requiem. That does not count small villages or scattered rural populations across the largest domain in the Core.

In the 3rd edition book, the same 13 cities add up to 58,700. The entire domain of Darkon is listed at 117,300. That's a mere 8,300 population GREATER than the metro population from the original settings. I suspect that the rural population of Darkon exceeds 8,300 people. I also doubt that all 50,000 people in and near Il Aluk died in the requiem...I might be mistaken, but if I remember right, the harvest stopped not too far outside the city's limits, meaning that while some 25k+ likely died in that incident, a few thousands of the outside population could have survived (Necropolis is listed at 26,800 undead population).


Falkovnia, however, is even more surprising.

In the original boxes, the metro population of Falkovnia is 60,000 people. 3rd edition book lists the entire domain's population at 64,300, with half that living in the cities. Considering there's tons of farms (Falkovnia is the bread-basket of the core) it seems unlikely that the population in the box sets is entirely tied to the cities, and a significant part of the population is found outside that 60k. To further imbalance this equation, 3rd edition added an extra town of 1,500 people that wasn't previously listed.

Despite the fact that the towns listed for the domains all have higher (or the same) populations, the overall domain populations don't make too much sense from this info, seeming to imply that the populations outside city areas are nearly non-existant. This might make sense in some domains, but in larger domains like Darkon and Nova Vaasa I would expect the rural populations to add up to fairly significant numbers.

Oddly, the exception to this is Richemulot, where 3rd edition added another 10,000 people to the population of Pont-a-Museau for some reason.

That said, I'm pretty sure the Dark Powers and the Mists screw around with all this anyway and the details were originally vague for a good reason. For starters, the Mists love to deposit new people all the time in domains with no seeming rhyme or reason. I wonder what the 'immigration' rate to Core domains is, courtesy of Ravenloft suckering people in.

But the biggest reason I figure the powers that be screw around with it all is Har'Akir. In the original setting material, it has ONE populated location listed as having fewer than 100 people. Its built on the only spot in the domain that has water, and there are no other people in the domain outside this single spot. It even goes so far as to point out that all the creatures of the domain live in the cliff's below the Pharaoh's Rest coming out only at night, that nothing lives in the open sands itself, and that all the creatures in the cliffs are predators. It ends with the statement "how they survive is a mystery." That is not a sustainable human population (see: genetics, generally), and there isn't the life in the domain to support the living predator's of the cliff...yet the domain carries on for centuries with no problems, just waiting for Anhktepot to wake up from his mummy's sleep and once again loath his very existence. Because the Dark Powers don't care about 'realism,' they willingly flaunt it all the time with the very existence of Ravenloft.

[alhoon]

Falkovnians die quite fast, and leave fast but certainly not THAT fast.

Richemulot is reasonable to have grown in 10 years because of people settling there from the rest of the core. The figure you gave, 10K in the about 20 years from black box is a start IMO. I would say in general... 20K in total moved around in those 20 years. Including Il Aluk and grand conjuction people living.

Har'Akir is a mess. Sure, the fountain that sustains them is cool. Sure, Ravenloft is supposed to feel artificial so (mostly) predators in the cliffs is OK.
But 100 people is boring. And I wonder how they do with all the raids from the warlords of Pharazia.

I bumped Har'Akir to 350 people and added another small village of 80 people in the domain. Then I added some arable land and also gave them herds of goats and chickens so they don't have to rely on a magical fountain.

[Cromstar]

What really makes the boxed sets confusing is that nobody changed any of the demographic information between the Black and Red boxes, despite the Grand Conjunction occurring in between them. That's assuming that domain had any demographic numbers. Dementlieu wasn't given even rough numbers, despite the description listing its two main settlements. It seems the numbers in both the box sets and the 3rd edition book were just...made up without too much rhyme or reason.

Har'Akir is a mess. Sure, the fountain that sustains them is cool. Sure, Ravenloft is supposed to feel artificial so (mostly) predators in the cliffs is OK.
But 100 people is boring. And I wonder how they do with all the raids from the warlords of Pharazia.

I bumped Har'Akir to 350 people and added another small village of 80 people in the domain. Then I added some arable land and also gave them herds of goats and chickens so they don't have to rely on a magical fountain.

I assume they don't have to deal with the warlords. In the Amber Wastes cluster, Sebua sits between Pharazia and Har'Akir, and likely forms a fairly decent buffer, especially with the 2-3 mountain ranges crossing Sebua in the way.

Yeah, even 3rd edition bumped the village population to 300 and gave a total pop of 600. It also added palm trees and plants, something the original description explicitly stated didn't exist (all natural vegetation was stripped away for meager farming).

Magical fountain? Out of curiosity, where did you get that idea? The stuff I've read described it as being a spring-fed oasis, despite the generation of the material.

[alhoon]

From Touch of Death adventure. There is a magical fountain that you drink from and you don't have to eat food.
I didn't like that at all. At all.

And according to ... was it Realms of Dread? 3e Ravenloft? I don't remember... but according to something I read and remember vividly, the Pharazian nomads raid Har'Akir for slaves periodically.

[Don Fernando]

Regarding Har'akir, I made the domain bigger and added some nomad camps along the desert. I also added more ruins ala valley of the Kings in Egypt.
Har'akir was conceived as a weekend in hell domain, and through all editions remained as such. But if you would like to run a campaign in the Amber Wastes, Har'akir needs a lot more more developing.

Considering the above, I have placed the local population over 10.000 souls for the entire domain, that live in the Muhar Oasis or in smaller oasis that can also shelter nomads and caravans from Pharazia. This way the raids, that Alhoon talks about actually become sustainable. I have placed the population in the Muhar oasis at 7500 souls, mainly because is the most extreme settlement in the north of the cluster, and functions as a fixed point for venturing into and arriving from the mists and beyond.

[Ryan Naylor]

And according to ... was it Realms of Dread? 3e Ravenloft? I don't remember... but according to something I read and remember vividly, the Pharazian nomads raid Har'Akir for slaves periodically.

I would like a reference for this please, because I think you have this around the wrong way. The Akiri buy slaves from the nomads according to both DoD and RL3e.

[alhoon]

And according to ... was it Realms of Dread? 3e Ravenloft? I don't remember... but according to something I read and remember vividly, the Pharazian nomads raid Har'Akir for slaves periodically.

I would like a reference for this please, because I think you have this around the wrong way. The Akiri buy slaves from the nomads according to both DoD and RL3e.

ooohhhhhh... That would make more sense indeed!
Well Ryan, you could tell me "I'm sure you remember wrong alhoon" We've been around each other long enough.

[Jester of the FoS]

Going with the Domesday Book based on Medieval Demographics Made Easy the Core is 89,223 km2 with a rough population of between 13,005 and 8,670.

This is a bit low for a Renaissance era land - and a criticism of those sites are erring on the low. So it's possible to handwave the population and double the density to an average of 21,675 people.
That's how many people the Core *should* support.

Keep in mind that it's ridiculously small.
Problems with scale are common with TSR settings. Dragonlance is also pretty teensie weensie and the scale of Kara Tur was reduced to 1/3 when it was merged with the Realms (it was massive).

[alhoon]

Ahem... with the core at 90000 sq km (35K square miles), then how you get such a low figure?
Using the "low" side of the suggestions, 30 people/square km you actually get 1 million people.
Using your link and 21% arable land we get about 1.35M people. Double the population in towns and cities (just 9% is weird for late Medieval, renaissance areas) and we get 240K urban population supported by 1.1M rural population.

NOTE: Medieval demographics made easy is based on high population era. 30-120 per square mile is OK for Western\Southern Europe in 15th century, but in 12th century the same areas had like 1/3 of the population. And Eastern Europe (Wallachia, Russia, Baltic states) have less than that density now, let alone in 15th century.

a criticism of those sites are erring on the low.

On the contrary, the usual criticism of me and a couple of friends that have read about that time is that they err for the high, based on the era before the plague where population density was very high and not taking into account that while France certainly had its feudal wars and problems, they didn't have 15 white dragons in the Alps and 500 frost giants ON TOP of those.

[Jester of the FoS]

Ahem... with the core at 90000 sq km (35K square miles), then how you get such a low figure?
Using the "low" side of the suggestions, 30 people/square km you actually get 1 million people.
Using your link and 21% arable land we get about 1.35M people. Double the population in towns and cities (just 9% is weird for late Medieval, renaissance areas) and we get 240K urban population supported by 1.1M rural population.

I just typed in the numbers and copied. The Core is around 180 miles by 200 miles (289 by 321 km). The site hasn't been updated in some time; I wonder if website updates have led to a glitch or other error.

[alhoon]

Perhaps there was an error with copying the "after the ',' " part or something; maybe it wasn't recognised.
Now about the criticism for high population part: OK, even if Ravenloft is about the size of Scotland, and even if Scotland had 1 million people in 1400... Scotland is not a good comparison for Ravenloft. Not to mention I doubt they had as many as 1 million people in 15th century.

[Ryan Naylor]

And according to ... was it Realms of Dread? 3e Ravenloft? I don't remember... but according to something I read and remember vividly, the Pharazian nomads raid Har'Akir for slaves periodically.

I would like a reference for this please, because I think you have this around the wrong way. The Akiri buy slaves from the nomads according to both DoD and RL3e.

ooohhhhhh... That would make more sense indeed!
Well Ryan, you could tell me "I'm sure you remember wrong alhoon" We've been around each other long enough.

While I always try to check my references, I do make mistakes occasionally. So I wouldn't want to say you're wrong when you might have seen it somewhere

[Satyrwyld]

I just assumed the Powers maintain a baseline population, "borrowing" people from elsewhere as needed to keep numbers stable while maintaining that gothic isolation feeling, and whammying the newcomers with a Darkonesque mindwipe. Heroes from other worlds trying to find a way back? Guess who made their save against the brainwashing effect...