Village 4: Kash

Here’s the 4th village for the 69 villages project, the second of in the “random results only” format that’s designed to save me time and give GMs more flexibility.

Good news is that I’ve gotten “production” time down to 30 minutes, including the map. Bad news is that I’m seeing a not-great trend with certain random results. Check the overview below and see if you can spot the same trend I’m seeing.

Overview

Kash (1 hex = 50′)

Kash
Population 250; Chaotic with few laws

Ruled by House Ikrogri

  • Matriarch is middle-aged and savvy (AL Neutral)
  • Medium household of 13 members
  • Average influence with appreciable holdings (18 regional hexes)
  • Recently achieved Pyrrhic military victory
  • Currently acquiring land supporting a special feature
  • Secretly harbours a band of foreign spies

First Impressions

  • People here are known for their potentcy
  • Crime Rate: 4d6 [roll each week: every “1” indicates a crime; PCs are victims if the 4d6 roll exceeds total party level]
  • Spending Limit:
  • Recent Events: Disaster caused by disease
  • Worth Checking Out: Plagued by flocks of beady-eyed carrion birds

Population Breakdown

  • Ruling House: 13
  • Officers: 4
  • Clergy: 2 [lesser priests]
  • Freeholders: 19 [1 charcoaler, 2 cobblers, 2 furriers, 1 glassworkers, 1 jeweler, 1 litigant, 1 metalsmith, 2 millers, 2 tailors, 1 tanner, 1 tavern, 1 vintner, 1 weaponcrafter, 1 weaver, 1 woodcrafter]
  • Citizens: 211 [1 hireling]
  • Buildings: 70 [1 mansion, 1 church, 23 businesses, 1 municipal, 44 homes]

Final Words

Have you identified the mystery trend that I don’t like? If you said, “The freeholder list is starting to look the same for every village,” then you get a gold star.

On one hand, this makes sense: given the populations required to support certain freeholders, the results are going to be fairly identical for any settlement with a population of 50-300 people.

But it’s not terribly exciting, and after a few villages, it’ll start to become boring (perhaps even predictable). This suggests that I might want an alternative to the Medieval Demographics Online tool for population generation (gasp!). Less drastically, I think I’ll tinker with how population breakdown is calculated. More to come on that front—suggestions welcome.

5 thoughts on “Village 4: Kash”

  1. Make a switch: Classic calculation vs. random fantasy calculation which varies way more.

    I think the most awesome thing would be to combine the tables with the MDO tool so I get the results for the past and all ruling houses as the webs calculate the population. Also, expanded tabels. =)

  2. @Benjamin Yeah, I’m playing with population alternatives. One benefit of this exercise is stress-testing these randomisers–the MDO tool works well for low-fantasy, but I like a little more spice these days…

    As for the rest, it’s in the works. Let’s just say that I’m learning a lot about Inspiration Pad Pro.

  3. A good portion of the freeholders are boring necessary jobs for and self sustaining village, so I don’t see a problem with there being one tailor for a population of ~200 people…

    But some of the problem is that the generator is making % decisions for you. The original article just had you dividing the population by x for each profession, and then left it to you whether you should round up or down. The online generator is making that decision before you ever know it happened.

  4. @Zorku: you’re correct; there’s a common cast of freeholders that will always form the commercial basics of any village.

    Also, you’re right that the generator makes the % decisions for you, but for clarity, those decisions are based on random rolls. For example, if the x/population results in a 40% chance, the generator actually rolls for that, and the result reflects the outcome of the percentile roll.

    Whenever I come back to this project (i.e., working on a revised generator in IPP), I give more consideration to Benjamin’s suggestion that there be a “fantasy” version the skews more readily to adventuring opportunities than low-fantasy “realism.” Just adding it to the list…

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