Sunday, October 29, 2017

How Many Dwarves?

In the wake of the previous article on How Many Peasants, out of curiosity I zeroed in on an island that is part of a larger province, to see how numbers stack up in a small setting. I chose Miyuki Island for this experiment. According to CAL1 In Stranger Skies, shipwrecked Kumoshimans settled this remote corner of Caldwen's magiocracy after their fleet crash-landed there as the result of a malfunctioning Kahuulkin gate. It eventually became part of the province of Garamial, in the College of Invocations. What do we know about this province?

Province Surface: 30,880 sq. miles.    Province Population: 1,054,218 people
College Seat: Garamial (14,759 ppl.)     Main Cults: Astafeth 45%, Naghilas 20%
Races: Human (35% Gandarian, 20% Kumoshiman, 10% Norse), 15% shatim, 10% elven, 5% dwarven
Military: Garamial (town) 344 semi-permanent militia (part of the town's population)

Quick measurements and calculations revealed the following information about the island itself:

Island Area: 5,897.00 sq. miles, 60% of which is settled land.
Population Density: 36 people/sq mile
Total Population: 214,651 Miyukians 

Based on original numbers established from Garamial's demography, the island's main town, Hisetsu, is home to 12,299 folk, which includes a local militia of 287 people. The fortress of Yukimatsu houses a permanent garrison 186 strong (they are the brave fellows on the lookout for Godzilla-style visits from the sea). The total number of troops on the island adds up to 473.

Garamial and most of the magiocracy's other provinces provide a certain number of permanent troops to the High Wizard Chancellor in Arcanial (the realm's capital city). In other words, these are like "royal troops" as opposed to local militiae which are paid for and under the command of provincial authorities. These permanent forces form Caldwen's standing army.  They are typically posted to the various out-of-town fortresses guarding Caldwen's coast. This includes Yukimatsu.

I'd established earlier that not more than 3.5% of urban population belong in the military. This means that the island itself supports/provides up to 430 native Myukians (ethnic Kumoshimans) to various military roles. This falls a bit short of the total 473 troops actually on the island. The remainder, 43 round-eyed "strangers," therefore came from the mainland and are most-likely posted at Yukimatsu. If so, then the 186-strong fortress garrison counts 143 ethnic Kumoshimans plus the 43 "strangers" (23% of the garrison).

Since we know from the stats posted at the beginning of this article what the population mix is, we can figure out what kinds of people make up these 43 mainland soldiers, as follows:

19 Ethnic Gandarians (human descendants of Munaan's Nav-Gandarians)
  5 Ethnic Norse (human descendants of Nordheim migrants)
  8 Shatim (half-blood demons, mostly of Gandarian culture)
  5 Elves
  3 Dwarves
  3 Other (gnomes, fellfolk, half-orcs, whatever a game master wants)
43 Total

Voilà! You'll be pleased to know there are exactly THREE dwarven warriors assigned to Yukimatsu, the Kumoshiman fortress in the far-eastern reaches of Caldwen's magiocracy. Bet you didn't know that! The good news is that the general numbers used in the previous article seem to work still when looking at a small area. This experiment is rather obscure and mostly useless, but still interesting at least to me.  

2 comments:

  1. It's exactly the kind of experiment i do with my own world :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting stuff for those who like numbers and what might result from them.

    ReplyDelete

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