Vedic era Indians - I am bringing them
in circa 750 BC Earth time and they live at the southern end of the
Tirnakaur peninsula, I am thinking one small, forgotten city that was
destroyed by disaster, I think a great flood, 5,000 people. This
makes them Hindu with all of the Vedas and they speak Sanskrit and
work iron. Time compression means they've been here for 920 years or
46 generations at campaign present. That's longer than the Celts, but
they start in a crappier area, those mountains are infested with
Goblinoids and worse, then there's a vast expanse of forest to cross
to get to the really good lands.
Pagan Arabs - They could really be from
anytime before Muhammad, but I am going to try and keep a more
ancient focus here and say they are from the semi-Mythical kingdom of
Sheba; which is mentioned several times in the Bible and was probably
in modern Yemen. They were traders and controlled the Red Sea trade
route so coastal shipping is not beyond them, they were conquered by
their Arab neighbors to the north in the 2nd century BC and their
capital city was destroyed. They made a comeback eventually, but I am
grabbing them from their powerful classical period, when they
straddled the Red Sea as a kingdom. So, 300 BC, random natural
disaster, say sandstorm of enormous proportions destroys major Sheban
settlement of say 8,000 people. They end up on the same end of the
Tirnakaur peninsula as the Vedic Indians, who welcome them as they
are being hard pressed by an invasion of Goblins, Ogres, Giants and
Trolls when they arrive with their slightly superior technology.
They've been here for 770 years or 38 generations, also longer than
the Celts. Their culture and language became slightly dominant over
the Vedic Indians, but they mostly are pretty cool with each other.
Muslim Arabs - These guys can come from
anytime after Muhammad, but I want them to be not right after his
revelation or lifetime. I want them to have Damascus steel and
Scimitars, so I have to wait until both of those are invented. I
looked it up and it's later than I thought when I talked to Darryl
about it earlier. Damascus Steel isn't a problem, it dates to the 3rd
century BC, but Arabs didn't START using Scimitars until after the
Mongol invasion and conquest of Baghdad. Call it a century or so
later for them to be in common usage and we're looking at the
mid-14th century. I am cool with that, we have some fairly late
arrivals yet to come, and it explains their superior sailing
technology. So 1350 a hardy group of Arabs end up over here, that's
220 years, or 11 generations, since they arrived and formed their
"Maritime Emirates/Pirate Isles" and began wondering which
direction was Mecca I guess. Give them an initial population of 5000
people or so.
Iroquois - Their confederacy wasn't
even formed until sometime after 1450 AD, possibly as late as 1600,
although the proto-Iroquois peoples were living in the Finger Lakes
region as early as 1000 AD. I am acting under the assumption that we
want real Iroquois and not their ancestral group, so I will pick a
spot in the mid-range 1525, meaning they've been here for 162 years,
or 8 generations. I will be nice though and move them into the
forests of Tirnakaur instead of the Swamp that the Muslim Arabs live
in; otherwise I think a stone age people are going to be slaves, even
as bad-ass a stone age people as the Iroquois. The Celts in Tirnakaur
have too much else to worry about to try too hard to make this new
band of Humans their property. Which tribe of Iroquois do we want to
bring? Should I just roll a D6? Or a D10 and divide by 2 because
technically the Tuscarora weren't part of the league until 1722. We
can't have them all. I rolled Mohawk, which is the result I think
most people would have wanted anyway. Their relative low population
density means I can't see them losing more than about a 1000 people
without it being really noteworthy, and that's pushing it.
San - Apparently these guys, also
known as Bushmen, have been in South Africa for something like 15,000
years. I am going to grab some from about the time the Zulus start to
rise up and kick all of their asses into the Kalihari desert, these
guys are serious stone age hunter-gatherers. They store water in
Ostrich Egg shells and eat caterpillers and grasshoppers, along with
anything else they can forage up. I am doing them the "favor"
of moving them to the desert west of Wodanslund, otherwise they'd
easily end up as a slave caste to the Muslim Arabs too. Now the Zulus
really start to rise under Shaka, pre-Shaka they were just another
clan of Bantu speakers in southern Africa, they mostly got kicked
around by the other Bantu speakers and lived in crappy land that they
forced some of the San out of. Shaka comes to power in 1816, Zulu
ancestors had been in the neighborhood since about 1000 AD. So I am
bring my San over in 1000 AD, they don't live in villages, just
mobile bands, so this group of mobile bands, say 2000 people, just
walk directly to Garnia World, how? Who knows, ancient San magic?
Sidhe felt bad for them? Anyway, they have been here for 337.3 years,
or roughly 17 generations.
The Roma - commonly known as Gypsies,
they don't even come into existence until the middle ages, so we have
to wait for that anyway. I am bring them in from 15th century France,
they've got all the traits associated with Gypsies at this point
(fortune telling, bright wagons & metal working) and they'll be
happy to get away from the increasing prejudice. So 1450 AD, meaning
they've been here for 187.3 years, or about 9 generations. We'll
bring 1500 or so of them.
Lastly, the Aztecs - the entered the
valley of Mexico fairly late, they were relative newcomers when
Cortez came and kicked their asses. They showed up and started
kicking ass around the 1300's AD, so we need to grab some before they
all get infected with various White Man diseases by the Spaniards,
before 1519. Let's pick a spot in the middle and say they were
supposed to be wiped out by a volcanic eruption, but the Unseelie
Court really loved their heart-ripping-out mass Human sacrificial
style, a small Aztec city of, say, 12,000 people are transported to
their new home, buildings and all, right near the coast so there's
fishing too. They formed the Empire of Xochitli (which means
"Flowers" in Nahuatl, the Aztec language). They've been
here since 1425 AD, so that's 195 Garnian years, or about 10
generations.
Are we good now? Or do I have to add an
addenda for initial populations for all of the ethnic groups I did
yesterday too?
I wouldn't mind initial pop counts for yesterday's migrations...I'll compile all this into some kind of info graphic soonish...
ReplyDeleteOK, but then we have to figure out 2 things; first for how long the nearly geometric progression of population happens? I can extrapolate that from ancient world estimated populations for similar sized areas of similar climate. Then second does everyone get that near geometric progression? Or is just certain groups? I can't see the San getting it for instance, just because they are really primitive hunter-gatherers. I think I actually did give initial numbers for some people, just not everyone. I'll reread the post.
DeleteI believe you did mention some numbers - it would be useful to have it all in one place though...
DeleteI don't think most folks should get the same progression as the Celts for numerous reasons; usually unfavorable or difficult territory (either climate, mucho humanoids/other monsters, pre-existing transplants who would prefer to kick your ass, combination of them all...), initial size of transplants (most smaller than our Celts - I think a certain critical mass as it were might be needed to overcome the difficulties, leaving a number of these groups to either struggle or at best struggle to thrive with some living relatively comfortable if insular lives set apart from the bulk of the world...), the fact that the setting is called Garnia World, based on a Celtic warrior king who set his people up to become the dominant life-form on a greatly important and powerful planar outpost, and not called Shingoku World after the mighty Shogun who blah blah not our story... (a number of logical and simple because we said so reasons mean that we can set the current population of most other ethnicities to manageable levels with little complaint)
as i'm thinking about that, I realize there is info over like 4 posts now I think...it might be easier if you were to compile just the data into a simple outline that lists when, where and anything notable about all the migrations into 1 post... be sure to differentiate the Celts - once we get that roll call I'll try to make some maps showing population expansion and what not...
ReplyDeleteI think the demographic data is just in this post and the previous two.
ReplyDelete