Life on some of Safehold's larger islands

Hammer Island, Windswept Island, Westbreak Island, Tryon's Land (aka Tryon's Island in some sources) - do we have any indication about people living on these or nations claiming them?

None of them are too small to attract people or to avoid having hurricanes scour buildings clean off of them, or too hot or cold to make living there plausible. Tryon's Land may be too close to Armageddon Reef for complete comfort, but still no closer than the southern end of Charis.

Absent any other word, my own speculation would be that they're each a lot like Fallos: barely populated with a nominal central government and people making a modest living extracting raw materials from lumber, fishing, and some farming, mostly for local consumption with trivial exports, imports, and interest in or from other places. Hammer Island, Tryon's Land, and Windswept Island are all solidly within the EoC's sphere of interest, and people there are probably working out a quiet modus vivendi with the Empire short of participating in it, just like the Raven Land's and (plausibly) Fallos.

My best guess for Westbreak is as nominally a part of the Harchong Empire without tight political ties, or the value or population to give them a point.

Greentree Island, north of it, is a bit of a puzzler, just because it does definitely have a city (Vairnos) from the Safehold map. The font and location suggest that it's part of Harchong too.

And rounding out this round of Obscure Safehold Geography - hey, there's a city in the Barren Lands! Taylar, at the end of a bay in the northeast corner. I suppose it's a port for the least barren lands, probably just so that the people way out there have some slight contact with the mainland and the Church.

The only information given on those islands was an RFC post stating there were a few million people on all of them. I forget the actual number. He gave that bit along with the population of all the other nations before MTaT, I believe.

PeterZ wrote:The only information given on those islands was an RFC post stating there were a few million people on all of them. I forget the actual number. He gave that bit along with the population of all the other nations before MTaT, I believe.

Oooh, thanks!

For anyone else curious, it can be found at
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2963&p=62352&hilit=Windswept#p62352

I have to wonder if the Raven Lands figure - 123,000 - had a zero dropped. That makes it smaller in population than Fallos or Windswept Island, by a factor of 3 in the Fallos comparison even. 1,230,000 would still be very sparsely populated, and still less than a tenth of Charis, Corisande, or Chisholm individually.

Green Tree and Windbreak Islands are included with the Barren Lands in that listing. It's slight evidence that they are not tied that firmly to any other nation.

Hammer Island and Tryon's Island are not listed at all. Given that the level of detail does descend to count Green Tree, Windswept, Windbreak, and Fallos, that suggests that neither of them have even close to 100,000 people. Still, 100,000 people is still a lot more than a desert island.

Tryon's Island's size and location may not leave it empty, but can very plausibly leave it barely inhabited at all, especially since terraforming an island of that size and location is a serious undertaking with not enough support. Maybe if Charis had had another "normal" century or two they would have gotten to it.

Most of these islands are sparsely enough inhabited that they should all have significant commonalties. They all should rely in fishing, subsistance farming and locally produced crafts. Their societies would emphasize the individual's responsibility to God and community. That would suggest to me that the pre-Book of Schuler Writ would be emphasized. Such simple lives so far from more civilized support don't have enough excess resources to waste on the esoteria as is described in the Book of Schuler.

Life is already simple. Why spend the effort to parse what sorts of simplicity is allowable or not? Certainly there is no point in considering esoteric punishments. If anyone lives a life that leaves him estranged from his kin and community, God's creation will kill him quick enough.

Those sorts of parameters will limit the sorts of society that might develop. Most of what might develop will find the CoC a good fit to what the local clerics preach.

I can see the empire using their influence to build and develop these islands, using goodwill, money and material. At first they would negotiate outposts and stations to aid in naval logistics. Those bases would aid and help the islands and local communities. Eventually they would be made part of the empire by sheer associated.

JeffEngel wrote:

PeterZ wrote:The only information given on those islands was an RFC post stating there were a few million people on all of them. I forget the actual number. He gave that bit along with the population of all the other nations before MTaT, I believe.

Oooh, thanks!

For anyone else curious, it can be found at
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2963&p=62352&hilit=Windswept#p62352

I have to wonder if the Raven Lands figure - 123,000 - had a zero dropped. That makes it smaller in population than Fallos or Windswept Island, by a factor of 3 in the Fallos comparison even. 1,230,000 would still be very sparsely populated, and still less than a tenth of Charis, Corisande, or Chisholm individually.

Green Tree and Windbreak Islands are included with the Barren Lands in that listing. It's slight evidence that they are not tied that firmly to any other nation.

Hammer Island and Tryon's Island are not listed at all. Given that the level of detail does descend to count Green Tree, Windswept, Windbreak, and Fallos, that suggests that neither of them have even close to 100,000 people. Still, 100,000 people is still a lot more than a desert island.

Tryon's Island's size and location may not leave it empty, but can very plausibly leave it barely inhabited at all, especially since terraforming an island of that size and location is a serious undertaking with not enough support. Maybe if Charis had had another "normal" century or two they would have gotten to it.

I think that the terrain and climate of the Raven Lands accounts for the population figure pretty well. Wondering why they don't have more people is about like wondering why the northern reaches of Canada and Alaska don't have more Eskimos.

Don

n7axw wrote:I think that the terrain and climate of the Raven Lands accounts for the population figure pretty well. Wondering why they don't have more people is about like wondering why the northern reaches of Canada and Alaska don't have more Eskimos.

Don

It's more extreme than that though. The Raven Lands are about as far from the equator as the northern halves of Siddarmark and North Harchong, most of the Border States, Zion, and (on the far side of the equator) Delferahk and deep southern Desnair. Most of these are genuinely, seriously cold. Granted. But they're also very seriously inhabited. Hammer Island, just a little south of the Raven Lands on average, with far less land, is given about the same population.

The Raven Lands do have going against them also being so very mountainous. But then, so does central northern Siddarmark. Tarikah is a bit nippy - and frankly, being that far inland should make it more extreme for climate than the Raven Lands' coastal regions - but certainly isn't a no-man's-land.

I'm still inclined to the typo explanation. 1.2 million people on a landmass that size on Safehold is still a very sparse population. If I had to believe and explain a mere 120,000-odd in the Raven Lands, I'd have to suppose that it's been intensely hard to terraform, has had very little interest in anyone terraforming it, and has persistently had people leaking over the Fence, not on raids, but to become Chisholmians. Southern Chisholmians. Possibly Zebediahans....

JeffEngel wrote:

n7axw wrote:I think that the terrain and climate of the Raven Lands accounts for the population figure pretty well. Wondering why they don't have more people is about like wondering why the northern reaches of Canada and Alaska don't have more Eskimos.

Don

It's more extreme than that though. The Raven Lands are about as far from the equator as the northern halves of Siddarmark and North Harchong, most of the Border States, Zion, and (on the far side of the equator) Delferahk and deep southern Desnair. Most of these are genuinely, seriously cold. Granted. But they're also very seriously inhabited. Hammer Island, just a little south of the Raven Lands on average, with far less land, is given about the same population.

The Raven Lands do have going against them also being so very mountainous. But then, so does central northern Siddarmark. Tarikah is a bit nippy - and frankly, being that far inland should make it more extreme for climate than the Raven Lands' coastal regions - but certainly isn't a no-man's-land.

I'm still inclined to the typo explanation. 1.2 million people on a landmass that size on Safehold is still a very sparse population. If I had to believe and explain a mere 120,000-odd in the Raven Lands, I'd have to suppose that it's been intensely hard to terraform, has had very little interest in anyone terraforming it, and has persistently had people leaking over the Fence, not on raids, but to become Chisholmians. Southern Chisholmians. Possibly Zebediahans....

I think the 123,000 figure is probably about right. These people are hunters and subsistence farmers with some fishing thrown in on the side along the coast. The only thing they are known to export are snow lizzards mentioned in LAMA. In addition to that, they are clansmen, given to frequent feuding. Along with issues of terrain and climate that I mentioned in my previous post, none of this is conducive to large numbers of people.


Don

They're herding as well. Especially given to building up their herds during visits across the Fence, when they can manage it.

The many similarities to the Scottish Highlands are probably not coincidental, and population figures for that region would probably be a useful guide here. Unfortunately, I'm not getting very far looking for decent numbers, probably because there aren't any until after the area had been largely depopulated during the 19th century [given that the Clearances are a subject comparable to the US Civil War in terms of calm debate, this is probably inevitable]. I'm going to stick my neck out, based on a variety of unreliable figures, and guess at a peak of c.250,000 in the mid-18th century. The problem was that, whatever the number, it was way, way above the carrying capacity of the land. So, if my guess is anywhere near the ballpark, 123000 for Raven's Land is quite likely to be in the sustainable range. IOW, once again Himself did his homework

n7axw wrote:I think that the terrain and climate of the Raven Lands accounts for the population figure pretty well. Wondering why they don't have more people is about like wondering why the northern reaches of Canada and Alaska don't have more Eskimos.

Don

JeffEngel wrote:It's more extreme than that though. The Raven Lands are about as far from the equator as the northern halves of Siddarmark and North Harchong, most of the Border States, Zion, and (on the far side of the equator) Delferahk and deep southern Desnair. Most of these are genuinely, seriously cold. Granted. But they're also very seriously inhabited. Hammer Island, just a little south of the Raven Lands on average, with far less land, is given about the same population.

The Raven Lands do have going against them also being so very mountainous. But then, so does central northern Siddarmark. Tarikah is a bit nippy - and frankly, being that far inland should make it more extreme for climate than the Raven Lands' coastal regions - but certainly isn't a no-man's-land.

I'm still inclined to the typo explanation. 1.2 million people on a landmass that size on Safehold is still a very sparse population. If I had to believe and explain a mere 120,000-odd in the Raven Lands, I'd have to suppose that it's been intensely hard to terraform, has had very little interest in anyone terraforming it, and has persistently had people leaking over the Fence, not on raids, but to become Chisholmians. Southern Chisholmians. Possibly Zebediahans....

n7axw wrote:
I think the 123,000 figure is probably about right. These people are hunters and subsistence farmers with some fishing thrown in on the side along the coast. The only thing they are known to export are snow lizzards mentioned in LAMA. In addition to that, they are clansmen, given to frequent feuding. Along with issues of terrain and climate that I mentioned in my previous post, none of this is conducive to large numbers of people.


Don

Using advance tech, merlin could survey those islands for potential sites of great worth or potential areas of great development. Places where steam engines or canals/waterways can be created.
THose islands have limited resources on their own, but imperial and commercial resources may allow for them trukly be grown and strengthened.
THe empire has invested a lot in hteir own farms to feed the republic and themselves, so in the future, these foods can instead be shipped to these islands, to aid in their food suplies.
THe spread of resources and money amongst the island will encourage immigration to these islands of businesses and workers from both inside and outside hte empire.