Now onto things populational....
John P Hughes
Quite deliberately. My guess was that the Maboder had ceased to exist as an independent body, any remaining clans having joined neighbouring tribes (probably the Cinsina and Torkani, as I guess further that the Maboder spoke Sartarite, not Tarshite). But I could very easily be wrong about this. Given what Sandy has said about the flexibility of numbers, postulating <1000 Maboder in the hills is far from unreasonable.
Sandy Petersen
> [the] G: CotHW population figures [...] are ALL off by _up_ to a factor of 5
> as a regular thing, and that occasional estimates are off by even more - --
> up to 100 if need be.
Bang goes my lovely house of cards population figures for Sartar. Pity. I like playing with numbers.
>Anyone basing serious theories about Glorantha by using those
>numbers is going the wrong way round -- use the theories to forge the
>numbers, please.
OK, here's a theory I'd like to throw to the savagery of public viewing:
Sartar built five sets of city walls in what became the Kingdom of Sartar. This was an odd and new fangled idea in the region, the people having nothing bigger than a town at the time. The city walls that Sartar built were large, none of the them (not even Boldhome) have been filled as of 1621.
However, some people thought that this city idea was an interesting one, and moved into the area bounded by the walls. Over the suceeding 100+ years the cities grew, until Boldhome became a major city (and one which inspired jealousy in the Red Emperor) and Jonstown housed a major university. I postulate that Wilm's Kirk faired quite well too, Swentown not so well and Duck Point quite poorly (we'll get to why later).
Now, two things should be noted immediately. This urbanisation was artificial. It arose from royal policy, and not from the natural development of the area (the central place theory referred to in RQ). The second point, which follows from the first, is that the urbanisation was not supported by the countryside. It was artificially induced, and ahead of what the countryside was ready for, economically.
The result, which I postulate as a theory, is that Sartar is relatively over urbanised and a net *importer* of food!
Why? Where does the food come from? How do they pay for it?
People may have gone to the cities because the king said it was a good thing. But it would take more than that to keep them there. They would need to earn a better living then they could by going back to the farm. What could provide that? We are always told how strategic a place Dragon Pass is. Sartar sits on the main trade routes between the Hoy Country and Peloria. With the road building activites of the Sartar royal house, this position would only have been improved. I postulate that the cities (in particular Wilm's Kirk, Boldhome, Jonston and Alda-Chur) got rich by taking tariffs from and providing services to the merhants trading north-south. This eventually (probably within one or two generations) produced an affluent class ofmerchants and artisans which required luxury goods on which to spend its new found wealth. This encouraged the further growth of the artisan class, who had already been selling wares to the passing merhants. Eventually the cities became rich enough to start producing enough goods to start trading them north and south, again increasing the wealth of the cities.
This wealth would have encouraged more people to leave the countryside and head to the cities, which would have led to the unbalanced population figures. A corollary of this wealth is that the Lunars did not invade Sartar solely for resaons of religion and revenge over Sartar's aid to the Tarsh rebels. Sartar had become rich and the Emperor wanted the money. Remember that jealousy is said to be the fourth of the reasons the Emperor hated the kingdom. If it wasn't money, why was he jealous? And it would take more than the produce of hill barbarians to generate enough money to make the emperor jealous. While the Sartaries where simple hill barabrians the emperor was not interested, invasion was not worthwhile. With the wealth of cities invasion became a viable proposition economically, the cities were wealthy enough to produce reasonable tax returns.
So where does the food come from to support the Sartarite cities? That's easy: the breadbasket of Esrolia. Up the Lyssos river, than via the Stream to Quackford. From there distribution is via Sartar's excellent road system. I think Quackford is a much more important settlement than Duck Point. Sartar built that city in the wrong place. I would not be surprised if Qauckford was two or three times larger (in population) than Duck Point and that there was actually only a very small settlement at Duck Point. The map in TotRM #5 seems to back this up a least a little (maybe).
So Quackford is important and the riverine trade and the offloading would have been (before the Lunars) controlled by the ducks (so we can have Duck Issaries worshipers to go with the stereotype Duck Humakt and Lhankor Mhy worshippers). Puts another light on the proscription on Ducks after Starbrow's rebellion doesn't it? Perhaps this event was used as the opportunity to get rid of the duck control of the river trade and replace it with Etyries Priests. This would explain why the bounty was never actively persued. In 1621 there are still ~10000 ducks in Sartar. Once the Lunars had purged the duck merchants of Quackford, they did not really care. But they needed the excuse of the ducks being responsible for (should that read *financing*?) Starbrow's rebellion so that they could get rid of the Duck merchants without upsetting the populace too much. So was Gringle at the Sartar council meeting as a frontman for the Ducks? Could be - I can't see why a local merchant from a village is there otherwise.
Now the payment for the food obviously comes from the wealth generated from trade, but the last conclusion from this is that there were severe food shortages in Sartar's cities whenever the Lunars were at war with the Holy Country, as this would have disrupted the river traffic.
So Sandy, how's that for a theory? Regardless of what the population of Sartar is, I postulate that more than 10% lives in the cities and pursues urban-type occupations. The excess beyond what the ocuntryside can support is fed from outside the kingdom. And there was more to Lunar motives for both the invasion of Sartar and the proscription of Ducks then there might seem at first glance.
John P Hughes
>SARTAR POPULATION WHOOPSIE - SEVEN TRIBES THAT AREN'T.
John says I should not have included the Princeros, Vantaros, Tovtaros, Bachad,
Tres, Amad and Dinacoli in my population figures as they are not part of Sartar
in 1621 and so aren't in the 180,000 figure in G:CotHW.
Afraid I have to disagree. While those tribes may be part of Tarsh as far as
the Lunars are concerned, I think the book in question treats them as still
part of Sartar.
Genertela Book, p.53 says Tarshite is spoken in north Sartar. Same book, p.58
says Sartar consists of 24 tribes. Seems pretty clear that as far as this
book is concerned those tribes are part of Sartar, and so the 180,000 figure
must include them.
John also seems to imply that the Dinacoli speak Sartarite, not Tarshite. Don't know about this one. I assumed they spoke Tarshite. Got any references for them speaking Saratarite John?
Sandy has alread shot my numbers to pieces, as numbers. I am going to re-cast them as ratios. Then you can choose your own population for Sartar and simply work out the tribe sizes for yourself. Anyway, I like the 180,000 includingd the north. If we look at the figures in G:CotHW as providing rough ratios between areas, I would think that Tarsh being twice as populous as North and South Sartar together is, if anything, an underestimate. Tarsh is flat and fertile. Much of Sartar is hilly. Tarsh, I think, is bigger than Sartar. Therefore its population should be signifiantly larger. Twice is a moderate estimate, in my view.
>As for the Far Point Tribes, I'd keep the figures as they are, or even drop
>them by 20 or 30%. Far Point is wild and rugged, with few towns or roads, and
>all the local tribes were originally exile disaffects and rebels.
The Dinacoli live in a lovely river valley (hence my making them the biggest tribe in Sartar - no apologies to Colymar supporters). As to the rest, well, they did produce Alda-Chur, a medium city. The popuation must have been reasonable. Yes trade would have contributed to its growth, but it did not have the push of Sartar building its walls. It is a much more natural creation. And these tribes were able to raise a (relatively) large army in support of Tarkalor the Huge when he wanted the crown of Tarsh. They sent 9,000 warriors to support him (KoS, p.121). Figures are wispy notions, but that number must be read as a significant force.
Joerg Baumgartner
>From the glimpse on some friends' work on Jonstown (they work on
>material by Greg) I'd estimate its total population as closer to 4000
>than 1500, which still is quite low for a city sporting the greatest
>university of the country.
I think you will find that 4000 is a reasonable size for a university city in such a culture. Look at St. Andrews, first university of Sotland. It was a pretty small town when the university was founded. Perhaps Jonstown is, in part, a univeristy town. It supports the university and the merchants and maybe that is it. Maybe the town is divided betweeen them (politically at least).
>(Jeorg quotes some figures from RQ Companion which, for the most part, do
not disagree with mine).
Hmmm. forgot to look at that map. But if it puts Clearwine <100 then we are still stuck with that problem. Why do you think Runegate was the same size as the cities? It's not on the trade routes.
>(Joerg postualtes that 40% of the Sartarite city dwellers do not follow urban
occupations but rural ones)
A reasonable assumption. There is a lot of room within the walls (or at least I think so) and using some of it for grazing and farming would be reasonable. I actually think that the percentage of Sartar's population which lives in the towns and cities and follows urban occupations is biggger than 10%. Just becuase they live in the towns you can't ignore them and consider only the cities. It's whether they are engaged in primary food production or not that matters.
>When calculating the size of the tribal population, don't forget that
>most Sartarite cities have at least 75% percent tribal population,
At least, and possibly more
>Not even the larger stockades (Clearwine, Runegate) really would sport
>an urban population, IMO, they'll just be slightly overgrown farming
>(in case of Clearwine, gardening) communities, with the odd seat of a
>noble or a temple strewn in.
I think some (if not all of them) fit the definition of town given in RQ. Thus *most* of their population classifies as urban. That's why Sartar is over urbanised. Before Sartar (the man) came along the area was quite happily urbanised, the urban population living in the stockades, probably running to about 5% of the population. His cities have possibly whacked another 10% on top of that. It's quite possible that the rural tribal populations were only just getting back to their pre-Sartar sizes before the Lunar wars chopped them down again.
>Thus, we have to divide about 170,000 Sartarites unevenly between 24
>tribes, averaging about 7200 people per tribe. The relative strength of
>the tribes can be estimated from the 1613 numbers of followers given in
>WF 7 for the Sartar High Council freeform scenario:
I don't think these figures can be used in this way. The support for this rebellion was too patchy for these figures to be reliable guides to relative sizes.
By the way, were do you get the numbers of clans for some of the tribes?
Alex Ferguson
>Michael Hitchens:
>> The RQ GM's book says the maximum urbanisation is 10%.
>Urbanisation is a pretty vague, nay, woolly concept. It's somewhat
>artificial to assume that everyone in a settlement of 999 produces
>110% of subsistence values of food, and everyone in a settlement
>of 1000, 0%.
True, as far as it goes. But urbanisation can be postulated in terms of what percentage of working hours are spent in non food producing activities. 20 people who spend half their time in other activites counts the same as much as ten who spend all their time.
>if it (Clearwine) serves
>as a trade centre for the Balmyr (and others) too, then you'd expect a
>concurrent rise in importance, and population.
I thought Wilm'skirk was the primary centre for the Balmyr?
>By the classifications of RQIII:3, a small city or smaller (up to 3000
>people) can be self-supporting, so wouldn't necessarily count against
>maximum possible urbanisation. Towns/stockades certainly wouldn't,
>in my view.
I think you are misreading it. It says that "This (small city) is the largest size that an average city reaches before it must bring in food from beyond the immediate region". That's not the same as self supporting. I don't think living in towns counts as "living in the coutnryside". So towns (by RQ Book III) seem to count towards urbanisation. That seems to match what I remember of studying history. Towns were a lot smaller back then, but the historians considered them urbanised.
>I personally feel that it would be Very Odd Indeed were as large a tribe
>as the Colymar, in as densely populated an area, to have no town of
>more than 500 people.
I would have no trouble with Clearwine being up to 1000 (ie a town). And Runegate may not be as big, but still seesm tot be a town as well.
Percentage of population, by tribe (includes stockades as listed, does not include members of tribe living in cities)
Princeros (inc Glasswall) 3.2% 5 clans Tovtaros (inc Ironspike) 2.4% 5 clans Vantaros 3.4% 6 clans Tres 1.6% 3 clans Amad 1.3% 3 clans Bachad 2.4% 5 clans Dinacoli (inc Herongreen, Dangerford) 8.2% 12 clans Torkani (inc Torkan's Last Fort) 3.4% 5 clans Cinsina (inc Redcow) 5.7% 8 clans Malani (inc Two Ridge) 5% 8 clans Colymar (inc Clearwine, Runegate) 7.1% 12 clans Culbrea 3.7% 7 clans Aranwyth (inc Toena) 2.9% 4 clans Lismelder 3.6% 6 clans Kheldon 3.2% 5 clans Locaem (inc Famegrave) 4.5% 7 clans Balmyr 1.8% 3 clans Sambari (inc Roundstone) 2.1% 3 clans Balkoth 2.1% 3 clans Kultain 4.7% 7 clans Dundealos (inc Jaldon Kill Fort) 5.2% 8 clans Sun Dome County (inc Stagwood) 3.7% Telmori 2.5% Durulz (inc Duck Point, Quackford) 5.3% 9 clans
Percentage of population for cities (includes all people who live within wall, regardless of occupation)
Bold Home (Large City) 5.3% Alda-chur (Medium City) 2.1% Alone (Small City) 0.5% Jonstown (Small City) 1.6% Wilmskirk (Small City) 1.0% Swenstown (Small City) 0.5%
Well, that's it from me for now
Michael
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