Patrica C. Wrede's Worldbuilder Questions

Rural Factors

• Given the magical/technological level of this society, what is an appropriate ratio of farmers to urban residents?
• Given the state of roads and transportation, how much food is it possible to ship to a given location before it spoils? (This limits the size of cities.)
• Are rural areas primarily farms, forests, fields for grazing, or "waste land"? In outlying areas where there aren't many people, how many roads are there, who builds them, and who maintains them?
• How reliable is the weather from year to year -- is crop production relatively dependable, or do people have to cope with regular famines due to drought or floods?
• What kinds of catastrophic/weird weather are common--tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, waterspouts, dust storms? How do people cope? How do non-humans cope?
• How are farming/food-producing areas divided up between humans/nonhumans? What kinds of conflicts are likely (example: expanding human farms encroaching on the forests werewolves or dragons use for hunting)?
• Can peasants/yeomen own their own land, or does it all belong to the lord? What kinds of rights over land, crops, game, etc. does the lord/landowner have? Is poaching a problem?

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