Forum > Fan Created Worlds
Karnorthe
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)
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