again territory is not the map or whatever, big parts of the kingdom might be very sparsely lived by except bigger cities
Yeah well those names were meant to throw people off to start with. They weren’t meant to be an accurate discription.
Territory is really important as it means more: dungeons, Dungeons, various facilities, mines, Mines and all sorts of resources. It also means having a buffer during invasions and incursions. As for the territory being sparsely settled, that's not been my impression. There are probably sparsely settled regions here and there, especially danger zones that the Yvesian military hasn't been able to clear, but those would be the exceptions after a thousand years.
Perhaps we are only seeing the Big Rivers in Yves and Nadria because that's closes to Richter, there may well be other Big Rivers in the other Countries that aren't shown on the Map because he hasn't been there yet and he hasn't found any Maps Good Enough to show them in any Detail, so there might well be more Big Rivers then we can see in the Map, plus lots of Little Rivers.
You will have settlements and maybe camps only in sparsely settles Ares, not sure how safe are the inner lands of the kingdom are, but outer lands will have plenty of monsters/pirates/thief's.. so this seems like a reasonable guess that most of the population will live in the cities/towns/camps... with few sparse homes maybe in safer areas.. its not the same geographical location as we have now. Inner area around Law might be different.. but not the outer lands of the kingdom (noone wants to live in a buffer zone fore a reason) Yves now seems more like a colonial USA with settlements across vast distances.. also defense would be harder if ppl do not live in settlements. Yves is super lucky 1/3 of their border is sea.. so they are no surrounded on all sides and rivers offer good defense lines
1) Dnd is lousy with sea monsters, raiders and pirates that come by sea. Having a long coastline with no big cities and a comparatively small navy isn't a good thing. I don't think that third of the kingdoms border is particularly safe. 2) I agree with the comparison to the US, but this is a thousand year old version. Most of the big monsters in the interior of the kingdom will have been slain, driven off, suppressed/sealed, or bought off somehow. Possibly with the occasional bull or two. In the regions bordering the nonhuman factions, I could see settlements being much sparser. It also stands to reason that much of population live close to various manors where they work the surrounding lands (serfdom, not to be confused with slavery), where the local noble and his warriors can quickly respond to attacks and hunt down the aggressor. That's how we taught wolves and bears not to take humans in the real world.
I’m not so sure. Not trying to be contrary here but how many dungeons did you mention Being in Yves? I thought that Dungeons were supposed to create conditions for stronger and larger monsters? Wasn’t that one of the things everyone was excited about with Ricthers dungeon? If the number of Dungeons you had mentioned is correct. There should be a very perilous region inside Yves due to over lapping ranges between the dungeons. I would think that alone would cause people to gather together in larger groups. Unless someone in Yves has the ability to make wards that drive off monsters small settlements or camps should be very few. I would also think that all of Yves townships would have strong walls with a substantial number of guards. They would likely have weapons mounted along walls or on towers to deal with larger monsters. I know many people here had believed that the larger monsters ranging around the Mist Village would grant it another form of defense. The thinking was any group wishing to do them harm would draw monsters upon themselves. Wouldn’t that work the same in Yves?
We don't know how many old ruins there are, nor how many Dungeons, Core buildings, or other treasures Yves has within its dominion. We just know the river peninsula is lousy with old ruins, tainted lands and is generally considered too troublesome a region for outsiders to invade. A lot of smaller settlements likely have a manor or two nearby whom they owe fealty to and whose lands they work in return for protection. Lets then look at it from the perspective of a yvesian knight. There is a troublesome monster on his lands. Its hunting his peasants. That's costing him money and prestige, he might even care about those peasants or they might be serfs meaning he has a pesky oath of fealty hanging over his head (fealty goes both ways and in the land its a magically binding oath). So what does he do? He sends out his men-at-arms and he raises however much of the levy he need, and he goes hunting rabbit. Sometimes you might need to bring in adventurers or professional exterminators, but in most cases I think a couple dozen men with hunting dogs, spears and slings can kill a tier 1 monster or small group of such monsters. If they've been allowed to build up their numbers, that's a different story. Of course that's the point then the knight calls on his liege, activating HIS magically binding oath of fealty. I think the Yvesian heartlands are mostly heavily settled farmland with few monsters roaming around. The border regions almost certainly also have plenty of smaller settlements, some of which get sacked by raiders and swarms of monsters. Those are the breaks, and a level 2-4 peasant can't do much about it. Nor can a level 30 - 40 knight stop a large band of raiders on his lonesome.
On a side node the sprites told Richter they too have issues with monsters being attracted. They hunt them down, in order to keep their territory safe.
I think you’re right here especially because the cities Richter visited seemed safe enough, even if they were bad to live in as non-humans.
