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Statistics:Posted by yankeeschic — Tue Jun 03, 2025 11:23 am
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Statistics:Posted by yankeeschic — Sun May 25, 2025 10:48 am
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For me, it's really a means to an end - how often are players likely to encounter a village, and how many Adepts are there (especially at the higher Circle). That's why I was so thrilled with Mataxes's post - it acknowledge our discussion point, the population, while getting to the more important impact of that, the Adept population. Whether the population is 600k or closer to 1m, it doesn't change things that much for me - most people will still likely be clustered in the cities, and while it does mean a few dozen more Novice and Journeyman Adepts per Discipline, it doesn't fundamentally change the higher Circle head count, which is really the more important piece of the equation.
So, why does population matter TO YOU? Are you really interested in the number of Race X in Barsaive? Or is it just a means to some other end, in which case, does a change from ~600k to ~1m really matter?
Statistics:Posted by The Undying — Sun Mar 05, 2017 12:02 am
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Mataxes wrote: ↑
(I have no idea how this measures up to the "real world" counterpart of that area. I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole.)
It's tough to estimate because the mountains have moved, but I estimate it to be around 640,000 square miles. So during the Age of Legend, Earth was much bigger and much much more massive.Sat Mar 04, 2017 1:21 am
A tangent just occurred to me, based on the population thought... what does the average population density look like? Based on (very) rough measurements from the map in Barsaive boxed set, the province covers about... 1.5 million square miles. Maybe about half the size of the continental United States.(I have no idea how this measures up to the "real world" counterpart of that area. I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole.)
Statistics:Posted by etherial — Sat Mar 04, 2017 11:33 am
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Also note that at least in the Throal book that the Kingdom accounts for one third of Barsaive's population is presented as something that people believe, not something that is necessarily true. From Pg. 11 of the ED3's Nations of Barsaive 1: "Common wisdom has it that the population of Throal is one-third of the total population of Barsaive. However, as no practical way exists of counting the population of the entire province (much of which remains unexplored), this figure is popular conjecture rather than hard fact."
It's very likely that they wrote it in those terms because by 3rd Edition, the writers had realized that the one third figure didn't add up.
Statistics:Posted by Lys — Sat Mar 04, 2017 3:23 am
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The old Barsaive box set makes it very clear that 'Adepts can go days [during overland travel] without encountering a town or village' and that are only 'hundreds' of villages and towns. Then, the text from the Serpent River source says that, in summary, most modern villages and towns are along the Serpent or the Aras Sea. Combine that with some general ideas of average size of villages (both in space and population), and you end up with something like:
- Pretty much every 'hex' (one day of travel), or every other hex, along the serpent likely has a village of town.
- Likely, every cluster of seven hexes (one center, and the six adjacent) in the plains and foothills around the Serpent's banks but not adjacent to it likely has a single village or town.
- Beyond that, in the central and eastern plains, maybe one village or town every week's worth of over-land travel.
- Aside from Iopos and Jerris, there MIGHT be a handful (say 4 or 5) of villages in the entire Northwest of Barsaive (basically, the square with Glenwood Deep in the lower right corner)
For the mountains:
- The Throal mountains immediately around Throal have villages pretty much every hex, probably for a total of about 15-20 villages.
- The Twilight Peaks have the troll moots for the Crystal Raiders - I haven't read up enough there to suggest density.
- Likely, other mountains can probably be considered generally uninhabited, except where the GM wants to do something special.
However, that ALLLLLL goes out the window when you also take into account that the Barsaive box set says VERY PLAINLY: Throal makes up 1/3 of all Barsaive's population (so, ~200,000), another ~400,000 are in other major cities (95k in Travar, 50k in Bartertown, 80k in Jerris, 100k in Iopos, 50k in Bartertown), and then the numbers break with the official number for Vivane at 95K (we've somehow gone over 600k in the same book that says the total is about 600k). So, all Namegivers are present and accounted for in just the major towns and cities...
Statistics:Posted by The Undying — Sat Mar 04, 2017 1:53 am
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Thanks for the compliments. I think the discussion here inspired some of my thinking. Kind of like how, back in the 90s, the discussion of why they used d20+d4 for Step 14 instead of 2d12 inspired my probability analysis of the Step System (archived here if you've never seen it before).
Which is to say, rather than get bogged down in the forum discussion, I said, "That's an interesting question," and figured out how to get an answer.
A tangent just occurred to me, based on the population thought... what does the average population density look like? Based on (very) rough measurements from the map in Barsaive boxed set, the province covers about... 1.5 million square miles. Maybe about half the size of the continental United States.
(I have no idea how this measures up to the "real world" counterpart of that area. I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole.)
Using the figures from my linked article (600,000)... you end up with an average population density of 0.4 people per square mile. That's an area more than twice the size of Alaska (663,000 sq miles), but with one third its population density (Alaska is the lowest population density in the fifty US states, with 1.4 people/sq mile).
(Assuming my figures are accurate.)
That's... impressive. Like... WOW. Barsaive is empty.
Statistics:Posted by Mataxes — Sat Mar 04, 2017 1:21 am
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Others like me may not have noticed the great article that Mataxes (or one of the other developers) posted on this topic on the main web home: http://fasagames.com/2016/12/06/adept-populations/
First, I'd just like to acknowledge this entry. I'm ASSUMING (posts on the main site aren't dated) that this post was made around the time we were discussing it, which is a definite nod from FASA that they're paying attention to the stuff we talk about and are weighing at varying levels (and I'd credit a man-site post as a bit more "official" than a forum post given the time, thought, and polish it tends to require). Sadly, it looks like (at least for me), it flew completely under the radar. So, I just want to say, thanks Mataxes/FASA for weighing in on this, your entry on the topic is great, and as always, I appreciate all the hard work (even though I know I tend to sound critical - it's always easy to critique, much harder to DO, right?).
Anyways, to the post ...
There's not much I can really add to the post since it's great and doesn't belabor the point. Population numbers jive with published info but also gives a nod to the number we've come up with (~million) while providing commentary ("pretty high"). The Adept population information is really the more interesting part, and is why I even embarked on futzing with population in the first place.
The big take-aways (again, focusing on the Adept stuff, since population calculation was really just a means to an end for me):
- The number of Masters of each Discipline is minuscule (5-10), with only about twice as many Wardens.
- Between the small head count at these tiers and the Legend status associated with it, good chance they're well known, even if specifics about them and their whereabouts aren't.
- Opportunities for high-Circle Adept enemies aren't great, campaigns really need to built around them as masterminds, they aren't going to be villain of the week to be killed.
Statistics:Posted by The Undying — Sat Mar 04, 2017 12:41 am
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The Undying wrote:Could be, didn't get to that part. 
this particular blurb occurs in the reinforcement of "Everybody hates Nethermancers!!" topic. 
Every village has an Adept to advise, and it's not a Nethermancer. Hah! this particular blurb occurs in the reinforcement of "Everybody hates Nethermancers!!" topic. Statistics:Posted by Tattered Rags — Wed Feb 01, 2017 6:28 pm
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Statistics:Posted by The Undying — Wed Feb 01, 2017 2:34 pm
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The Undying wrote:Reading through the ED3 Player's Companion again, and I noted this cherry line in the Nethermancer section, pg 54: "most villages can boast at least one adept to serve as an advisor". This is not something I really envisioned, so it's nice to stumble across.
I would have thought that kind of thing would be in the Weaponsmith section.Statistics:Posted by Tattered Rags — Wed Feb 01, 2017 2:15 pm
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ChrisDDickey wrote:How about Adept population?
What percentage can become Adepts? What percentage have been Initiated? What percentage have reached Journeyman? Warden? Master?
When the party hits Travar (pop 95,000) with backpacks full of silver and everybody in the party wants their weapons and armor forged... How many Weaponsmith Adepts are they going to find?
The Travar book isn't quite out yet, but hopefully will soon, and while it doesn't specifically go into numbers, its written with the angle that there are more adepts in Travar than other cities, especially during the run up to the Founding. Xoros Honeyed-Tongue runs a number of forges in and around the city, there is the Dragon’s Forge run by the Strugen family, there is the gate market at the Twilight Gate that caters specifically to that kind of thing. All the rich merchants and big trading houses, would have Weaponsmiths in their employ, you just need their patronage. There's even and adventure about a forge and a Ledgendary Weaponsmith.What percentage can become Adepts? What percentage have been Initiated? What percentage have reached Journeyman? Warden? Master?
When the party hits Travar (pop 95,000) with backpacks full of silver and everybody in the party wants their weapons and armor forged... How many Weaponsmith Adepts are they going to find?
Statistics:Posted by Flowswithdrek — Tue Jan 24, 2017 10:00 pm
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My personal rule of thumb is about 10% are practicing Adepts, including Initiates. Maybe another 5-10% have the capacity to become Adepts but are not for any number of reasons. Another 5-10% don't have the capacity to become Adepts but are more attuned to magic than the mundane population. The latter two groups perform various minor ritual magics and half-magics - nothing to rival Talents or spells but still very useful.
Weapon smiths fall into that has valley: how accessible do you as a GM want them at your table. My thoughts are as follows. Novice weapon smiths are problem easy to find, esp in cities but also possibly even in mid-size towns. Journeyman weapon smiths are likely available for general use in cities, maybe rarely in large towns, but it's likely they have a bit of a waiting list (forging a single thing basically takes all week). Warden weapon smiths are inaccessible except viable exclusive memberships (secret societies, royal guard, etc) which is very hard to get in to. Master weapon smiths are basically not accessible - players would have to really seek them out and, due to Karma concerns, it would take quite a lot to get them to forge, much much more than simple coin.
Statistics:Posted by The Undying — Mon Jan 23, 2017 10:25 pm
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