Medieval Demographics Online
An automated tool for creating fantasy populations (with offline version, too)
This tool lets you generate figures for populating low-fantasy kingdoms and settlements. Instructions are included in Low-fantasy Populations article, also included in the offline download below.
Use the drop-down menus and input fields in the form below to generate realistic population numbers for any low fantasy setting. Fields with grey backgrounds are filled in automatically by the Generator.
Original codebase drawn from The Domesday Book by Brandon Blackmoor, based on Medieval Demographics Made Easy by S. John Ross. Released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
Downloads
- Low Fantasy Population Generator (offline version)
How do you use the offline version? I downloaded it but I am lost after that
@Evil Eli : Just unzip the download into its own directory. Navigate to that directory and double-click on the ‘lowfantasypop.html’. It should open in your web browser, and you can work it from there (it won’t look as pretty as the above). Drop me a line if you get stuck (admin AT welshpiper DOT com).
Tks, I got it working!
The population number of people in a settlement: Does this number represent the entire population (including children and the elderly, i.e. non-labor force) or the adult population able to provide work?
@Summer : It’s the entire population (i.e., every single living inhabitant). Details about determining workforce are found in the companion article, “Low-fantasy Populations.”
Specifically: “Not all citizens are workers; the Generator groups citizens into households of 4.75 each. These include one or two parents and children of various (pre-marital) ages.”
Hope this helps!
Thanks, that helps a lot! I must’ve missed that particular line…
@Summer : What? You mean that 2-line sentence buried in a sea of text?
You’re not the first one to ask, though, and I should update for the current version of Chimera. Thanks for the nudge.
I have playing with the numbers but cannot seem to generate a University.
What does it take before my kingdom, realm, country, province, whatever supports a University?
Thank you in advance.
Rex A. Loewen
@Rex Loewen : You’re right–universities are very rare. Based on the source material, the output is 1 University for every 27.3 million people.
You could come up with a university-to-population ratio that fits in better with your campaign, or you could add your universities “manually,” based on what you want in your campaign.
If you download the offline version, the University calculation is lines 107-110 of the “pop_functions.js” file.