Topic: Karnorthe

[Skaran]

Just to let people know;
I will be taking this site down in the next few weeks to concentrate on a new version. The main continent from Karnorthe has been transferred into a new setting so there will be a number of adjustments.

The new world is Arana and if interested the start of it can be seen at
http://arana.skaran.net

[Skaran]

Well in the end I havn't taken the site down, but this and Arana's will merge in the longer term.
In the meantime I have put together a basic outline for one of the nations from my campaign which some of you may like to have a look at. It is not completely stand alone, some of the information being on other parts of the websites.

The nation is Acsynae. You can find a pdf for the outline at
http://arana.skaran.net/pdfs/acsynae.pdf

[Skaran]

For what is going on here refer the last post under Arana.

[Skaran]

Just letting people know that I have updated some of the maps done of towns on Tekumel. You can view these via the subdomain at
http://tekumel.skaran.net

The actual locations of the updated maps are
http://tekumel.skaran.net/tekumel/alasum.html
http://tekumel.skaran.net/tekumel/kilsum.html
http://tekumel.skaran.net/tekumel/sirsum.html

Sirsum was sanctioned by the late professor Barker while the first two are unofficial.

[Skaran]

I can see I havn't posted here in awhile. For the time being the website for Karnorthe will remain up.
Here is a glimpse of the world as it currently exists. Comments welcomed.

[Skaran]

After a long absence; here is an image of the kingdom of Masra map. Obviously at this scale you cannot see many details but it gives you an idea. Masra is located in the south west of the Sea of Zirsis region. On its western border in the mountains I have placed a hobgoblin settlement which raids into Masra. I do have a question regarding this. How big a hobgoblin population should I place there? The entire kingdom of Masra has a population of around 260,000.

[jdale]

Personally, I would look at the area they occupy (in square miles) and then ask how they support themselves (e.g. do they farm? hunter-gatherers?).

If they are hunter-gatherers, maybe see this:
https://persquaremile.com/2011/08/17/hunter-gatherer-populations-show-humans-are-hardwired-for-density/
And increase maybe by 50% because I think hobgoblins are smaller than humans.

If they use agriculture, goblinoids are usually assumed to occupy poor quality lands, so maybe population densities around 10-20 per sq.mile.

Storywise, it has to be a big enough population that Masra can't just wipe them out, but probably you don't want them to outnumber Masra enough to conquer it either (although hobgoblins lack organization, so there's some margin there). So maybe 30,000-300,000. How big a threat do you want them to be? Should it be a disaster if someone comes and unifies the hobgoblins?

Of course the settlement right next to Masra will be smaller than that. I personally imagine hobgoblins having trouble maintaining stable local groups bigger than a couple hundred, unless someone strong is able to hold them together for a while.

[Skaran]

The hobgoblin centre of Hnamasta is located a scant 25 miles from the human town of Highreach, seat of the baron of Highreach. This town has a population of 1500. The territory under which Hnamasta exists has an approximate area of 1600 square miles of which about 220 square miles can be used for grazing etc. tended to my slaves so a maximum of 1380 square miles under mountains. Another small mountain range is found around 60 miles further west so I could place more hobgoblin settlements there.

Looking at just Hnamasta; Hunter/Gatherer does not feel right as this is a permanent settlement, though hunting does play an important part. Assuming the settlement utilises all of the grazing lands and about 10% of the area covered by the mountains I have 220 square miles with a population density of 3-40 people per square mile (say 20) and a population beneath the mountains of about 10 per square miles. This would give a total population of the order of 4,400 on the grazing lands and 1,380 beneath the mountains for 5,780 total. I am not sure whether to include slaves in this total as they are also food sources for the hobgoblins. Obviously by altering the density the population totals can balloon fast. At 20 per square miles underground population goes up by another 1300 odd hobgoblins which seems reasonable.

Interestingly if I use the old Chivalry & Sorcery Red Book it gives this number of hobgoblins about a 100 Ogres, 100 Cave and 100 Mountain Trolls as “protectors” plus a Balrog! Now that is a threat.

[jdale]

You've got some wiggle room in terms of deciding the productivity of the land. The hobgoblins probably supplement their own resources by raiding, and probably various types of violence (both between the hobgoblins and in their raids against the humans) kill off older hobgoblins while not having much impact on the children, so there are a disproportionate number coming of age at any given time. That makes things worse than having a human culture parked on that land.

I think these kinds of calculations are useful to get a sense of what's "normal" which allows you to then push things in whatever direction you want, generating new ideas. Underground productivity is a good example of that.

[Skaran]

One of the things that sprang to mind was from the book "The Mote in Gods Eye" where thre Moties essentially use war as a population control measure. So perhaps every now and again the hobgoblins and goblins also if they are there too have a population explosion. It is then that they attack their neighbours in force, not so much to conquer though they would accept that, but to reduce their populations to a more manageable level. As to why they have a periodic population explosion, perhaps a particular alignment of the worlds moons and the other star (it is a binary system)

[jdale]

If during a population explosion, you get a roughly equal number of male and female offspring (which isn't necessarily the case but it's not unreasonable), and during war mostly you kill off the males (which also isn't necessarily the case but is quite plausible), then it would make sense if right at the same time the males are going off to die you also have a similarly large generation of female goblins who are producing children. War would happen when those children are all reaching maturity around the same time. So maybe every 15 years or so? You'd probably also see an uptick in raiding right before that war (because with all those children growing up the goblins are resource-limited) and of course a decrease right after that war.

[Skaran]

That's pretty much what I have in mind and into this I would drop the pc's who are looking to make a name for themselves. Maybe get rewarded (if successful) with some border lands.

[Skaran]

Playing around with the populations I came up with approximately 7500 hobgoblins which produced about 3,100 assorted hobgoblin fighters in that one tribe. Up against this is the barony of Highreach with the small Barracks of the Order of Karinak (a religions fighting order devoted to individual fighting prowess). These two areas have a total population of 12,900 which with a 100% call out of all the regular and feudal levies could raise 2,383 troops of which a third are peasant levies. So about 18% of humans (if they all turned up!) would be in the defenders forces while nearly 41% of hobgoblins are fighters. So if I want a major threat from the hobgoblins I do not have to raise their population by much and that does not include any tribes further west.

[Skaran]

So as a sort of introductory adventure something like this;
The number of raids by hobgoblins in the Highreach area has been increasing. The barony is relatively low in resources and the baron of Highreach has headed for the capital Almabury to ask for the aid of the king, a journey of nearly three hundred miles as the crow flies. During his absence the steward of Highreach has become further alarmed when a patrol made by the Barracks of Karinak vanished just west of the village of Larham, a mere 10 ½ miles from Highreach itself. The steward had also sent a message to the outlying villages of Eyrie and Garnet Delving but has had no reply.

The adventurers are requested (ordered if any feudal obligations to the baron or the knight commander of the Order of the Barracks of Karinak are owed) to investigate the region from Larham to Eyrie and possibly beyond. The mission to estimate the number of Hobgoblins in the area, determine their intentions and if possible, thwart them without revealing their own presence. (ie if they are spotted by hobgoblin scouts the scouts must be killed before they report back) the barony is not yet ready to fight a massed attack. Then report back.

A lot of this will be on the adventurer's own initiative. If they can weaken the hobgoblin forces sufficiently to cause a significant delay, then it is acceptable to be revealed.

The steward will want this information to decide whether to contact the baron and or summon the levies.

The steward can provide a small crate containing four homing pigeons (these are normally sent in pairs) trained to head for Highreach.

[Skaran]

Here is the final (possibly) map of the kingdom of Masra. Obviously to keep size down this is a reduced resolution version but it will give you an idea of where the mapping has gone.