Myles Kenihan wrote:
Quote:
There were, Myles, although I think they're a bit high
Thanks for that, Dragon, Pop figures for Brymstone do seem high. Clyster, in my campaign hovers around 5500 and is not significantly smaller than Brymstone, although it is more purpose-built for defence and circular. Brymstone looks as if it evolved from a seasonal trading campus on the shoreline into a town.
Back in the 14th century, Norwich had a population of approximately 6,000-6,500. But, as with any city, would have had a transitory population much higher than that, as much as doubling its size or more, especially during market days or popular events like executions, festivals, etc.
I'm not sure whether it's more insulting to Norwich or Brymstone to bring a comparison between the two, but I just used it as a relatively large medieval east-coastal British city. I could have used Newcastle as a comparison, which is more northerly, but that's only about 60% of the size of Norwich (maybe 4,000-4,500 or so), and wouldn't have helped my point at all
.
Has anyone ever used population in their games? Other than as background, it's never really impacted the game unless the PCs embark on wholesale slaughter, but even then there're probably more than enough folks flocking in from the countryside. For example, even when the black death was killing people in London at a rate of about 200 per day, the population barely quivered because there were always people migrating to the city to replace them (yes, even in times of plague, the mad crazy fools...).