| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Airmage |
Posted - 09 Mar 2021 : 16:44:58
Hello! I have been reading Ed's answers on FR for a while and I am building my own fantasy setting.
I like details and as far as I understood Ed has designed and written out a lot of details for a lot of NPCs – where they live, how they move about different cities et cetera.
My question is that I do not understand the amount of villages and hamlets in Cormyr. For example, here's a map of 2e Cormyr: https://i.imgur.com/adQ8KWQ.jpg where we mostly see cities and some villages in certain places, but I do not believe I saw detailed answer from Ed on what was the initial level of village detail design he'd put in Cormyr. As in, whether he basically omitted a lot of villages by handwaving them "being there, yet nothing interesting therein to see" for players, or whether he'd still wrote out all the NPCs in them but the info didn't make it through the TSR/WotC publishing. Basically, what's the village density in the original setting design? Were there 10 times more locations that we see on 2e map? 2 times more?
(The only quote I could remember off the top of my head about Cormyr settlements/population density design was this:
quote:
In Sembia and upland Cormyr, crofters are the norm: except in strips of land fronting along all major roads and in the most remote locales, almost all of the tilled land is owned by one wealthy family or another. In 'downland' Cormyr (roughly: south of Immersea and Waymoot), wealthy families may own large numbers of seperate individual city buildings or smallhold farms, but their properties are amongst the smallholds of independent Cormyrean citizens ('freefolk').
)
Sorry in advance if there's an answer somewhere about this.. I wish I had time to read all answers thorougly before asking. And I decided to ask here before bothering Ed on Twitter. In case he'd already answered this. |
| 2 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Airmage |
Posted - 10 Mar 2021 : 13:51:23
I see, thanks! |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 09 Mar 2021 : 17:05:58
Ed's got truckloads of stuff that he gave to TSR or Wizards and they never did anything with it.
A lot of detail gets left out because of page count considerations. Given the choice between detailing a village most PCs will never go near, or giving us more spells or player options, TSR and WotC both went for the latter.
And a similar thing happened with the maps. There are a lot more small communities scattered around, but many are either out of the way, or they're the proverbial wide spot in the road, so they get left off the map. The attention remains focused on places and things that will attract player attention.
I would imagine that Ed's maps have a lot more villages and such, and he's likely got notes on some of the more prominent folks in each village, as well as anything noteworthy about the locale. Ed is a highly creative sort, so he may have detailed out everything -- or he may just wing it, when needed.
It's not really necessary to detail everything, when PCs are unlikely to go there -- but it is a good idea to have at least a couple things you can flesh out and run with, if needed. |
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