| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| webmanus |
Posted - 30 Jul 2005 : 17:16:15
I have a settled country named Urgarham, with the following description:
Urgarham is the name of a community (98 inhabitants) that consists of the nonwalled thorp of Urgarham Thorp (39 inhabitants), the walled hold of Glothfall's Hold (35 inhabitants), and the manor of Durnan the Farmer (24 inhabitants). Urgarham is located c 6 miles east-north-east of Anathar's Dell.
Although I have described the places as a thorp, a walled hold, and a manor, they are actually three thorps ... if DMG terms would be used. Still, I have placed the walled hold ca 400 ft northwest of the thorp and the manor house ca 300 ft south of the thorp.
The question is, how far would you place the hold and the manor house from the thorp, and how would you describe the different places to "maintain" the "illusion" of only one thorp and "two other things"?
Link to my communities page (scroll to the bottom for Urgarham):
http://user.tninet.se/~bsu242v/realmslore/regions/dalelands/daggerdale/communities.htm
Link to my Urgarham page:
http://user.tninet.se/~bsu242v/realmslore/regions/dalelands/daggerdale/urgarham.htm
Thanks in advance,
Manuel the Webmanus |
| 5 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| webmanus |
Posted - 08 Aug 2005 : 18:14:29
I have updated my Urgarham.
Link to the page:
http://user.tninet.se/~bsu242v/realmslore/regions/dalelands/daggerdale/urgarham.htm
Please feel free to comment.
/webmanus |
| Mkhaiwati |
Posted - 31 Jul 2005 : 16:17:37
Webmanus, that looks really good. I would not worry what the DMG says to call a thorp, hold, or whatever since it can always change. The people may call Glothfall's Hold a hold even if it is the size of a village, because that is what it has always been called, it is what their parents called it, and it is what their parents parents called it, etc.
Kentinal is right on the money when it comes to farmland needed. There are a lot of variables included, such as type of plow, the soil, the type of draft animal, the rotation system (two vs three part field system) and more items depending on the level of technology. FR (and most Fantasy games) just assume the highest level of Medieval technology and I am fine with it. I feel that gods of the land, fertility, and the sun will always help out their people with new farming techniques.
If you do a lot of number crunching, you can probably come up with a number that may reflect actual living conditions, but it would be easier to go with 2 acres. If you really want some books to read, go with the Medieval Machine by Jean Gimpel, and Frances and Joseph Gies have several books, Life in a Medieval Village and Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel which is my personal favorite. In gaming books, Harnmanor by Columbia games has some good stuff too and it is put into gaming language.
Mkhaiwati |
| Kentinal |
Posted - 30 Jul 2005 : 22:47:18
quote:
Originally posted by webmanus
About acres needed per person ... I have no real knowledge. I used information regarding social ranks presented in a Swedish Fantasy RPG named Eon. For example, the owner of a small cottage (maybe two adults) has 2 acres of farmland, while the owner of a small farm (two adults plus two servants) has 8 acres of woodland.
There are bits of history that tend to point to different land needs , also time period matters and how many bees are about. I suspect Eon numbers a little low unless it is a taxless society, however woodland should not be forgotten. Foraging for nuts and berries, trping animals are all food sources as well as providing wood for trading to get food.
Types of facts I have found was the Roman legion fed each troop 11 bu. of wheat per year. There appears to be unstated implication that additional food was aquired at least from time to time, certain wine was part of the diet which implies that fruits were available.
Grain yields per acre vary in part by type of gain. Though 8 to 10 bu. could be expected of wheat very often, yeilds could be as high as 15. A peasant living off one acre of land appears posible, but one would not be as well fed as a Roman troop.
There are just too many varibles to provide a rule that every place in the world one acre per person of crop land will feed one person of the cummunity, that 2 acres of woodland will provide food per person directly or indirectly via trade.
Not counting the crop growing conditions there are also factors like feed for plow animals, payment of taxes (which for a peasant could be 50 percent) and gifts to the church (10 percent plus first fruits which over all could be 13 percent of total yeild)that froce up the amount of land a farmer needs.
The manor system required the peasants to work a lot more acreage then needed to feed his family and his animals. |
| webmanus |
Posted - 30 Jul 2005 : 21:10:06
Thanks Kentinal. I have updated my homepage ... but continue to update Urgarham pieces here and there,
About acres needed per person ... I have no real knowledge. I used information regarding social ranks presented in a Swedish Fantasy RPG named Eon. For example, the owner of a small cottage (maybe two adults) has 2 acres of farmland, while the owner of a small farm (two adults plus two servants) has 8 acres of woodland. |
| Kentinal |
Posted - 30 Jul 2005 : 19:17:42
"Urgarham is the name of a community (98 inhabitants) that consists of walled compound called Glothfall's Hold (35 inhabitants) in the Northeast the community, the center of the cummunity consists hpmes and businesses (39 inhabitants). The south lies Durnan's Manor (24 inhabitants). These three parts of the comunity are divided by fields 300 to 400 wide." might better serve to describe what you have now.
As for how spread out the community should be a lot depends on the terrain, at minimun the community to feed it self needs 150 acres of tillable soil, 1/3 lying fallow each year and this relies on good growing conditions and no paying of taxes to anyone.
The farming land needed is based on one acre able to feed one person, this sometimes comes up for heated debates when looking at medeval crop yields and the amount of food a peasant needs per year. It though should be good enough for the game were magic can ibcrease crop yields and it appears the food requirents for humans in the game are much lower then Real World.
There placement of the three parts could very well depend on who owns what fields. The center could tend to have fields runing East and West about 800 foot wide and the cotages in about the center on North South axis and built near the stream (or fields could extend beyound the stream if it is shallow and easy to cross.
The Manor fields extend or laying mostly South of the Buildings and the fields of Glothfall's Hold could lay mostly to the North. If the terrain permits I would put the Hold on a hill one of the highest points of the farms and community. |
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