Alphatia Re-Design Project: Populations
by James RuhlandWithout further ado, a breakdown of possible populations, by kingdom, for the mainland - with some notes as to why.
Aquas: 135,000
(DotE gives 60,000. The PWAs each give 50,000. The "wartime" Aquas armies come to 6,750, which would be 13.44% of 50,000, well within the permissible range. But the Warmachine "population" states 135,000, and some prefer this figure, so it was adopted as a "consensus-building" measure).
Ambur: 200,000
(This is the same as the DotE figure. Ambur is a small Kingdom, and in the frigid northern region - but this figure comes to 17 persons per square mile none the less. It will be employed as a rule of thumb for calculating some other Kingdoms, below).
Floating Ar: 600,000
(50,000 on the floating "islets". This comes to about 11 persons per square mile, significantly less dense than nearby Ambur. So I guess there is room to adjust this upwards).
Foresthome: 2,600,000
(yes, lots of trees here. But also more plains than people typically remember. And it's one of the largest Kingdoms in Alphatia. The above population still produces a density of less than 9 persons per square mile).
Frisland: 1,200,000
(At the same latitude as Ambur, but lots of Frisland is covered in hills and mountains. So the population density only about 7.5 per square mile).
Arogansa: 1,600,000
(Though this Kingdom occupies some of the more lush & beautiful lands in Alphatia, this density is slightly less than 12.5 - significantly less than that of Ambur.)
Bettellyn: 2,000,000
(Bettelyn is mostly plains, likely suitable for agriculture. None the less, this density is only a bit more than 12 persons per square mile).
Blackheart: 300,000
(Blackheart is "supposedly" dark woods, sparsely inhabited. But it probably wouldn't do to leave it's population so "low" as DotE describes).
Eadrin: 600,000
(roughly the same density as nearby Arogansa).
Greenspur: 1,250,000
(slightly greater density as nearby Arogansa).
Haven: 3,800,000
(About 15 persons per square mile. Yes, Haven has some significant mountains, hills, and marshlands. But so does Darokin, and Haven has no "Orcland" that anyone's willing to admit to. As one of the longest-settled areas of Alphatia, it is I suppose appropriate that it have a fairly dense population. It is still not as dense as Ambur, however).
Limn: 250,000
(Too many trogs would make Alphatia seem like an unbenevolent place {see later re Shiye-Lawr}, and Trollhattan isn't very large anyhow. So population remains the same as per DotE).
Randel: 2,800,000
(Well, you can never have enough Randel guys, I suppose. The density here is approximately the same as for Haven. No swamps in Randel, so. . .)
Stonewall: 1,600,000
(Well, I know that the density here is high. But they can import food from elsewhere. Plus, Stonewall is about the only place in Alphatia that a sensible, self-respecting non-spellcaster would want to live. Of course, later modules in the Re-Design Project will likely make the rest of Alphatia more utopian even for non-Spellcasters, so this figure can be re-visited later if it seems too high, and adjusted downwards).
Stoutfellow: 1,000,000
(Yes, per DotE the Dwarves haven't been in Alphatia long. But that is as fungible as anything else, so we may as well assume that Dwarves, Gnomes, and Halflings have been in Stoutfellow long enough to fully populate it. Stoutfellow is at least as large as Rockhome, which has a population of 1,000,000. So that is the number I used here).
Shiye-Lawr: 1,000,000
(I made a mistake, I believe, and left this one out of my previous calculations in error. So bump those up by 60,000. In any case, Alfheim is fairly densely populated, considering. No real reason for Shiye-Lawr to be less densely populated. Plus, given the high reputation of elves among gamers, their presence {or lack their of} and relative numbers is usually used as a rule-of-thumb to indicate how benign a nation is. So there should be lots of elves in a Re-Designed Alphatia. By comparison, a currently vocal list member who has done his own version of the MAs, even more Alphatia-centric, has made a point of removing all the Elves he remembers exist from Thyatis, to show how bad he views them. So lots of Elves in Alphatia makes sense from that standpoint. And from the standpoint of those who are "only concerned with 'realistic' population densities", note that the density of Shiye-Lawr in the above total is still less than it is in Alfheim).
Theranderol: 1,800,000
(Slightly less dense in population than Haven).
Vertiloch: 2,000,000
(40 persons per square mile, but this is the Empire's showcase Kingdom, the seat of its ruler. 40 persons per square mile isn't that outlandish, I suppose).
TOTAL MAINLAND ALPHATIA: 24,735,000
So, in effect, 25,000,000 (my margin of accuracy is probably +/- 1% anyhow, so in this case rounding is insignificant. Plus, the above doesn't include the "Imperial Territories" AKA "Zandoria" AKA "Jafilia" - and I find it hard to believe that *no one* lives there, even if they aren't settled or organized into a Kingdom).
So, say 25,000,000 on the mainland, and that's probably a "conservative" estimate all things considered. If a larger monster population was imputed to Alphatia, or if it was accepted that much of it was very sparsely populated and/or wilderness, then the total might be lower. But the general consensus seems to be that Alphatia is a civilised region, well settled, with low numbers of "wild" monsters that would make some areas unlikely to be inhabited by Alphatians proper. Given these things, this estimate (which comes to almost exactly 12.5 persons per square mile for Alphatia as a whole, or approximately that of Darokin, which *is* noted as having borderlands regions, monster-infested ones, and the like) should be generally acceptable in my humble opinion.
But some may none the less find fault with it, so if they have better
ideas, please let me know - help in a final solution to this dilemma is
welcomed. Otherwise we can put this aspect of the population to rest,
having resolved it, and move on to Bellissaria next.