Building Farrenshire

[Prince of Thieves]

I am in the midst of trying to flesh out Farrenshire for a campaign I've recently started and I'm intrested in advice and opinions. Here are some critical points, but feel free to chime in with any thoughts.

1) Given Farrenshire's small size, maybe 300 miles from the western port of Mouren to the easter border, what would you guess the populations of the two major cities are?
Any help here at all would be very nice.

2) How important in the current days of Weyrth do you think Xanar's bloodline should be? I was considering giving the king and all other high nobility claims (true or not) of tracing their bloodlines back to Xanar himself, since Xanar took a wife and beget a soon in each of the lands. Certainly these lands didn't include the nations that Weyrth knows today, but I still think his children would of made them selves powerful kings in the years after Xanar's "sacrifice."

3) In adition to the nobility I'm also trying to design the Priesthood, which I'm trying to modelling after the RW church of medieval Europe. Does anyone know of any good research resources, on the internet perferably, about structure of the church or the fuedul model in general? My current understanding suggests Farrenshire would have one Archbishop who answers to the Xanarth (Highest Priest, who is located at the Seat) and a handful(only a couple really considering Farrenshires size) of Bishops who in turn answer to the Archbishop. I'm not so certain where Cardinals fit in. :(

4) Anyone have intresting ideas for locations or happenings in Farrenshire which you may have used/witnessed in-game? Heres some of my locations, just a few to start. If people are intrested in how I fleshed out Farrenshire I'll be happy to share more as I get it finsihed. Right now my ideas are scribbled on about 3 sheets of scratch paper and I need to makes some time to orginize my work.

Mouren Castle sits on a majestic bluff over looking the sea and the city-proper which gracefully winds its way down to the sea and the docks which are busy with the work of fishermen.

Denaille is a bustling city full of wealth, trade and much joy. There are many vistors and from Stahl, Ouestenreich and Cyrinthmeir arriving to sample and purchase Farrenshire's sweet wine and hearty brandy. Likewise many bold Farrenshire folk make their fortunes delievering said spirits to the neighbors.

I plan to also include the "Giant's Dance" (which if you remember your Arthurian Legends is what Merlin called Stone Henge) and like the legends they may have magicial properites if someone knows how to use them.

I'm trying to make Farrenshire come alive for the players so as the threat from the Gelure Empire continues to grow the players will feel like they know the land that is in peril.

Thanks in advance for any input.

[Caz]

I ran a game around a place I made known as farrenguard keep.  A large strategic castle overlooking farrenshire bay, a strategic port.   Gelure made a marine invasion and ended up in a long siege of the castle based in the port.
   Uglub got impatient and ordered a couple of unsuccessful assaults, there was a nasty fight under the wall when they tried to undermine it, and the pc,s sallied out a couple of times to assault the camp combined with some commando attacks, setting fire to the gelurian ships.
 Uglub had some mercs with a "tamed" gorem called tiny, trained for sieges brought in.

[Jake Norwood]

Farrenshire is my favorite place to begin games in, actually. There's so much potential conflict on every scale. Here's my take on a few things:

1) Highly populated for the time, because despite it's size, Farrenshire has a good economy (wine, etc). OTOH, I have no idea what "average" would be "for the time." Maybe a few 10 thousand?

2) Interesting idea, especially when some of those claims are through "bastard" children. It actually brings up a lot of interesting moral issues that your Church will have to address.

3) Good call. No help here, I'm afraid.

4) I like to make players involved with the ruling family right in Mouren. In one favorite campaign one of the PCs was son to a duke who had decided to revolt against the king. The PC had loyalty: King and passion: love father. Great game.

I love your ideas about locations, etc.

Jake

PS
Sorry I haven't posted much around here lately. I do read the board several times a week. I'll try to be better!

[Irmo]

Farrenshire is my favorite place to begin games in, actually. There's so much potential conflict on every scale. Here's my take on a few things:

1) Highly populated for the time, because despite it's size, Farrenshire has a good economy (wine, etc). OTOH, I have no idea what "average" would be "for the time." Maybe a few 10 thousand?

Well, economy is one thing, but eating money is still difficult, and the most limiting factor should, I think, be how many people the country's agriculture (including fishing) is able to sustain. While Farrenshire is supposedly pretty good for that, the small size still puts quite a limit to how much city population the peasants can support, I believe. We are, after all, not talking about modern high-yield agriculture.

[Valamir]

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm

S John Ross has a quick and dirty population essay on his site that discusses the number of cities and population of a medieval kingdom based primarily on area and % of arable land.

Highly recommended place to start.


From my rough attempts with the map and scale, I'm guessing Farrenshire is about 15625 square miles (250 x 62.5).

Jake indicates the region has an above average population.  Germany had a population density of about 87 and France 105 according to S John's site, so lets take a range of 100-120 for Farrenshire.

That puts the total population of Farrenshire (throughoughly developed and populated) at between 1.5 and 1.9 million.

Using the given guidelines we can figure the population of  the largest city in Farrenshire, Mouren.  Given that Jake indicates a strong economy based on wine as a trade good.  And that Mouren is a well located port, we can assume Mouren is on the high end of city size for a country the size of Farrenshire.

That puts the city of Mouren between 20 and 25,000 people or about the 1/2 the size of London 1/3 the size of Paris.


Since Farrenshire is so highly developed it probably has a higher proportion of its population living in towns and cities, so we'll figure that to be 94,000 to 150,000.

Subtracting out Mouren, we're left with 74,000 to 125,000 in other cities.

Using S John's guidelines that would make:

1 city of about 12,000

1 city of about 9,500

1 city of about 8,000

and between 20-50 towns of 1000 to 8000 in population.


From there we can figure the portion of various professions present in the city.  Mouren for instance likely has between 50 and 60 taverns and 10-12 inns.



We've determined Farrenshire to be fairly highly populated so there likely isn't going to be much actual wilderness, though plenty of broken up forest for game and forage.  Even so 55-66% of the country will be undeveloped or undevelopable.

There is likely only 8-10 legitimate castles in Farrenshire (counting only castles less than 500 years old).

[Irmo]

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm



Jake indicates the region has an above average population.  Germany had a population density of about 87 and France 105 according to S John's site, so lets take a range of 100-120 for Farrenshire.

Are these average, though? Both were extremely important and powerful realms and S John specifically says France TOPS the list. So going ABOVE its number sounds like a bit more than 'above average' to me.

Great site, though

[Valamir]

Yes it is above average.

But both France and Germany were alot larger than Farrenshire.  Given that Farrenshire is so small, it probably enjoys a larger number.

After all I would suspect that the population density of the Isle de Paris would be much higher than the density of France overall.

But you can always adjust the numbers to taste.

[Emiricol]

There is likely only 8-10 legitimate castles in Farrenshire (counting only castles less than 500 years old).

Are these full castles, or does that number include more mundane fortified structures like many manors?  I would assume the 8-10 cited include only proper castles.  Also assuming 1 castle for each of the major cities listed (as such placed tend to grow around castles, and be worth defending with a castle) that leaves us 4 castles elsewhere.

I think Farrenshire is an ideal size for a country to model, by the way.  S John's guidelines are also worthy, having been based on the historical model.    Without having to worry about twenty wizards per village, a real-world extrapolation would seem to be much easier to utilize.

IF you want to get into higher details on a relatively historical model, I might also recomment A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe.  It is not D20-based, being instead concerned only with modeling reasonably accurate realms, from the top level down to individual manors if you so wish.  You can purchase it inexpensively as a PDF at www.rpgnow.com and  is also available as a printed volume.

[Valamir]

There is likely only 8-10 legitimate castles in Farrenshire (counting only castles less than 500 years old).

Are these full castles, or does that number include more mundane fortified structures like many manors?  I would assume the 8-10 cited include only proper castles.  Also assuming 1 castle for each of the major cities listed (as such placed tend to grow around castles, and be worth defending with a castle) that leaves us 4 castles elsewhere.

Actually I misread that section.  That would be 8-10 old ruins.

Castles would be more on the order of 30 to 40 and would probably not include fortified manors, but would include smaller as well as major castles.

[Jake Norwood]

Farrenshire is my favorite place to begin games in, actually. There's so much potential conflict on every scale. Here's my take on a few things:

1) Highly populated for the time, because despite it's size, Farrenshire has a good economy (wine, etc). OTOH, I have no idea what "average" would be "for the time." Maybe a few 10 thousand?

Well, economy is one thing, but eating money is still difficult, and the most limiting factor should, I think, be how many people the country's agriculture (including fishing) is able to sustain. While Farrenshire is supposedly pretty good for that, the small size still puts quite a limit to how much city population the peasants can support, I believe. We are, after all, not talking about modern high-yield agriculture.

The Farrenshire economy probably revolves around import/export. It's near several large powers, has open sea ports, and produces lots of high-quality stuff that the population isn't going to use on its own (booze). The food definitely comes mostly from imports...which is a fine story consideration in-and-of itself.

Jake

[Tom]

1) Given Farrenshire's small size, maybe 300 miles from the western port of Mouren to the easter border, what would you guess the populations of the two major cities are?
Any help here at all would be very nice.

According to this excellent page:
http://www.rpglibrary.org/utils/meddemog/

If you put in 100,000 square kilometers (which you need for 2 big cities and which fits to the 300 km across you mention) then Farrenshire's total population is 30 mio. and the 2 big cities have 150,000 inhabitants total, i.e. around 75,000 each.

Personally, I don't think the scale on the map is correct. From the background info given on Farrenshire, it should be much smaller. If you assume that the cities are normal cities, not "big cities", and you want 2 of them, you can go for 25,000 sq.km - giving you a total Farrenshire population of 750,000 and 2 cities of about 11,000 people each.

That sounds more reasonably to me given Farrenshire's background information.

[Tom]

4) Anyone have intresting ideas for locations or happenings in Farrenshire which you may have used/witnessed in-game?

I have an entire town with NPCs and a few adventure hooks fleshed out. I'm in the process of writing it all up and will post the link as soon as I'm done.

My campaign has started in Farrenshire as well. It's just a great place to begin playing and introduce the players to the world of TRoS.

[Valamir]

Hey Tom.  Seeing that the site you gave is pretty much a calculator based on the S John Ross information from the site I gave, I'm wondering how your numbers came out so dramatically different than mine.

Did you perhaps make a math error converting from square miles to square kms?

[Ian.Plumb]

Hi,

I am in the midst of trying to flesh out Farrenshire for a campaign I've recently started and I'm intrested in advice and opinions.

3) In adition to the nobility I'm also trying to design the Priesthood, which I'm trying to modelling after the RW church of medieval Europe. Does anyone know of any good research resources, on the internet perferably, about structure of the church or the fuedul model in general? My current understanding suggests Farrenshire would have one Archbishop who answers to the Xanarth (Highest Priest, who is located at the Seat) and a handful(only a couple really considering Farrenshires size) of Bishops who in turn answer to the Archbishop. I'm not so certain where Cardinals fit in. :(

A quick and dirty run-down of the medieval church:

When a village forms a church is built and the parish of the church equates to the boundaries of the lands belonging to the people of the village. In a frontier situation this may be an enormous area of land. The priest draws his income from administering the sacrements to the people of the parish and from tithing.

As the village grows so too does the church. The priest will require ancilliary staff to manage the church (a vicar and so on) and may indeed require additional priests. It is important to note that these additional priests do not automatically have the right to perform the sacrements. Their right to do so devolves from the original rights granted to the church in the village.

As the village grows it may require other churches. As these are built the original church determines which of its rights will devolve to the new churches. Commonly, the original church retains the right to burials as these are the biggest money earner. This will cause friction within the church.

Above the priest you have the rest of the regular church structure, starting with a Canon. A Canon controls an area (in French, called a prebend) containing a number of parishes from which they derive their income. The Canons will belong to an order of the regular clergy. In the case of an Archbishopric the Canons will belong to the Cathedral Chapter of (whichever Saint the cathedral is dedicated to). Above or beside the Canons, depending on the political situation, will be the Bishop. The Bishop may also be an Archbishop if their seat is the seat of the Diocese. The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, amongst other titles. The Bishop of Lyon is also the Archbishop of Lyon and the Primate of Gaul. Above the  Archbishops is the Pope.

Beside this structure of the regular clergy are two other structures. The Cardinals are political appointees. The Cardinal may have other titles, both secular and church, but in the end their appointment is political. They provide infrastructure for the Pope in Rome.

Then there are the monkish orders. An abbey may have many priories and may in turn produce other abbeys with priories. The head of an Order of monks, such as the Clunisians or Cistercians, owes fealty directly to the Pope. The structure of the regular clergy is circumvented.

Cheers,

[Prince of Thieves]

Thanks for the help with the population, those sites are great! The Domesday Book may just give me an excuse to find my old hex-paper. :)

I was working on dividing Farrenshire into Baronies last night, heres what I what I've got so far. Farrenshire is split into 5 pieces, (Baronies I'm calling them)

The Crown Barony(in the NW) includes Mouren, about 2/3 of the coastline and almost 1/3 of the road(Which I'm calling the King's Road) that travels from Mouren to Denaile(and on into Stahl)

Cuthhill Barony(in center N) covers about 1/3 of the northern border and dips just far enough south to cover 1/6 of the King's Road

Denaile Barony(in the E) includes Denaile and the eastern 1/3 of the King's Road. It also covers a large portion of the southern border with Ouestenreich and the northern border with Stahl.

Southvine Barony(center S) shares another 1/3 of the southern border and the last 1/6 of the King's Road.

Coastrock Barony(in the SW) controls the last 1/3 of the coastline and shares the a 1/3 of the border with Ouesenreich
[/list:u]
Heres an ugly typed map. ;p

,,,,,,,,,,Crown.....|.......Cuthhill......../.............\
sea,,,,,,_______|____________|....Denalie
,,,,,,,,,,,,,Coastrock..|..Southvine..|......./

If the map only confuses you ignore it, as trying to type it in was probable a bad idea. Anyway each of these Baronies will, of course, been seen to by a Baron who's lands will further be subdived and seen to by bannerets (which is Bacholar Knights right? A step above a normal Knights, having his own lands?) The exception of the Crown Barony which is the seen to almost directly by the Kings and his Bannerets.

Among the Royality I've created(or will create) I have the King, 4 Barons and 14 Bannerets. How does this sound? If any one has a better understanding of the fuedal model please feel free to chime in, I look forward to some help.

And thanks abunch Ian.Plump I'm taking notes!