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Checking some M'chek assumptions

Posted: Mon May 10, 2004 9:32 am
by Cyberqat
I've been retrofitting an old chacrter into Avlis and, for the msot part, its fit in very well.

I do need to check on afew assumptions and detail though.

M'Chek has a huge population. In roder to feed sucha population in an agrarian society I would assume that each town is surrounded by extensive farmlands. Is this a reasonable assumption?

Second. One would assume that in addition to farming for food ther would have to be some racnhing of work animals liek horses, clothign animals such as sheep and food animals such as goat if not Cow. (Cows are kidn of resource expensive so you might not see them but rather see goat meat and goats milk products.)

All in all I'd expect it to look a lot like the US midwest, where every almost reasonable peice of dirst is being used but its still very agrarian in look and feel.

Is this on target?

Re: Checking some M'chek assumptions

Posted: Mon May 10, 2004 11:14 am
by Deider
Cyberqat wrote:I've been retrofitting an old chacrter into Avlis and, for the msot part, its fit in very well.

I do need to check on afew assumptions and detail though.

M'Chek has a huge population. In roder to feed sucha population in an agrarian society I would assume that each town is surrounded by extensive farmlands. Is this a reasonable assumption?

Second. One would assume that in addition to farming for food ther would have to be some racnhing of work animals liek horses, clothign animals such as sheep and food animals such as goat if not Cow. (Cows are kidn of resource expensive so you might not see them but rather see goat meat and goats milk products.)

All in all I'd expect it to look a lot like the US midwest, where every almost reasonable peice of dirst is being used but its still very agrarian in look and feel.

Is this on target?
Yes, except for one thing - this is all sort of past tense. M'Chek used to have enough food to feed itself, but as the population grew things got out of hand. What resulted was a desertification of a lot of the land. M'Chek right now is basically unable to support its food demands as I understand it. They are trying to correct the situation in three ways:

1. import food from allies such as Toran Shaarda and the Kurathene.

2. 'export' people to these same allied nations.

3. get more land from T'Nanshi. The elves and fey are seen as having lots of lush forestland that is sparsely populated

As to the wisdom or success of any of these three countermeasures, that's a matter of opinion.

To answer your question then, you'll still see farms and livestock in M'Chek, but you'll also see a lot of desert and scrubland. And a LOT of people.

Posted: Mon May 10, 2004 8:15 pm
by Cyberqat
Maybe sort of like texas?

I understand food supply is short, but I'd think there has to be (barely) enough food to sustain the popualtion or else you would see population shrinkage, not growth. (Famine is a basic way that nature controls a population.)