What to Do When You Do

Let's say for the sake of discussion that as a group of characters, you've decided to settle down near the town of Odda, the example from the last post.  Let's say the party isn't concerned about its distance from Bergen because they have a light schooner and can make the journey in near a day.  Let's say the party has just had a recent adventure in the town and has just gathered a few henchmen, and now they'd like to have a general meeting point for the main party and the secondary party, for further adventures in the area.  Let's say the mountains and tundra to the east provide lots of opportunities for just that.

And let's say the party has already explored the area, so we can freely give them the map shown on the left, indicating type-6 and type-7 hexes surrounding Odda.  Most of them are forest-based but one is in high country with less trees.  We count a hammer in every hex and 30 food (as opposed to "30F" which should now be understood to mean something completely different), amounting to a total of 1350pd (45pd per food), with a rural population of some 210.  Odda has a population of 862, so the small region is food-abundant, able to export food outside as the production is more than Odda's needs.

There are four coins in the area and we can postulate 15 active support persons per coin, supporting families that number three times that on average, or 60 persons per coin.  These are probably all based out of Odda ... so we can postulate that Odda's population of 862 includes 240 bourgoise and 49 of the aforementioned food-producers.  Most of the labor operating in other hexes would be based in Odda as well ~ earlier we described these as 5 persons per hammer, and each of them has three times as many dependents, so this accounts for another 20x8, or 160 persons, a quarter of which are not at home a lot of the time.  All told, 449 persons.

I said during the mapping coins post that the coins accounted for everyone related to making money and controlling money, so what about the other 413 persons in Stavanger?  We can't call them government or officials or guards ... these are accounted for already.  They're not farmers or foragers (all the food is accounted for), they're not scouring the countryside for valuables.  Who are they?

A small number, perhaps 2-3%, about 16 to 24, fall into two categories: they live on charity or they have enough money that they do not need employment.  This includes beggars, of which there would be only two or three that would be tolerated, the local cleric, his second and their one servant, and those who are living on investments, sinecures or are simply rich.  If the player characters settled in the area and simply hung around, they would fit into this third category.

The remainder are dependents whose principle wage earners are elsewhere ~ perhaps working aboard ship in the North Sea, or working aboard a trawler outside of Stavanger, or working some small mine or trap line further afield than those near Odda.  A few might be in the Norwegian army; one of the houses may have ten servants and seven members and be owned by a noted minister in Copenhagen.  Each of these would send money home to support their dependent family, who use the money to buy food in Odda.  That accounts for all the extra people.

There, now we have a good, solid concept of the town, how it makes its money, where the food comes from and who is doing what.  These are things the PCs can know without harm ... and we can even give them numbers as this only contributes to their "feel" for the place.

We were talking about settling down.  I'd like to run through some of the ways the players might do that.  Let's do it in point form.


Continued on the blog, the Higher Path, available through my Patreon. Please support me with a $3 donation and gain the complete series of estate posts related to the post above, as these have all been written.