7th Ed. Lizardmen world population

[Grungni]

Is there any thoughts on this? What is the Lizardmen total population do you all/each think?

 

[hardyworld]

I'm curious what the consensus is on this.

My thoughts (mainly just gut reaction) on the main Lizardman races:
Slann: 200
Saurus: 50 Million
Skinks: 200 Million

Not trying to hijack the thread, but what do you think the general population of each of the main Warhammer races are in the setting?

Humans: 1.5 Billion (short scale)
Elves: 500 Million
Dwarfs: 100 Million
Vampires: 50 Thousand
Undead (only sentient beings): 200 Thousand
Orcs: 50 Million
Goblins: 300 Million
Ogres: 5 Million
Beastmen: 50 Million
Skaven: 5 Billion (short scale)
Daemons: 200 Million

I could be wildly off on many/all of these, but it's my first guess.

 

[pendrake]

Daemons: 200 Million

This number ^ seems irrelevant? Instead: summoned in whatever numbers required.

What does “(short scale)” mean?

What do your figures total up to?

(Never mind I see that your total exceeds 7 Billion)

Somewhere (might have been on this forum) I read that the Warhammer Planet (WP) was like Earth but “twice as big”. I took that to mean 2X the surface area, but the same acceleration due to gravity at sea level. (I think that is achievable with normal physics, if a smaller Iron Core is assumed so that the mass is about the same.)

I think, at most, WP would have a population capacity twice that of Earth at a similar Tech-level.

In the figures that follow in the next post the numbers for 1500 AD are emphasized with bold.
I think 1500-1700 is about where the technology is, at least for food production. If WP has twice the surface area my guess would be its population —all totaled— would only be double that of Earth at a similar era.

I have never given this question any thought at all prior to this thread. But I think the upper limit is:

1 to 1.5 Billion

...total for all sentient species/races. (Conclusion: your first guess is way too high.)

 

[pendrake]

Real World Population Estimates (in millions)
Year Lower Estimate Upper Estimate
1 AD 170 400
200 AD 190 256
400 AD 190 206
500 AD 190 206
600 AD 200 206
700 AD 207 210
800 AD 220 224
900 AD 226 240
1000 AD 254 345
1100 AD 301 320
1200 AD 360 450
1300 AD 360 432
1400 AD 350 374
1500 AD .............425 .........540
1600 AD 545 579
1700 AD 600 679
1800 AD 813 1,125
1850 AD 1,128 1,402

Source: http://www.ecology.com/population-estimates-year-2050/

 

[Grungni]

My thought is the Warhammer Fantasy world played out as a game with every model included. It uses a ratio of 1/100 for size ... 100 km on world map is 1km on imaginary tabletop (tis naught but a fun thought) ... i am also trying to work out the wh40k galaxy but that is a seperate thing ... my thought is the warhammer world and its entire populations are played out in a standard game setting ... it would take, i guesstimate, millions of turns and involve more models and time in life than is currently achievable. I think the summoning rules important and i wish to know them. How many Chaos Daemons would be summonable? And Undead Ghosts? Endless?

Ratios are what i really need. I figure so far 1/100 Elfs would have magical abilities, 1/500 Chaos followers, 1/1000 Humans, the Dwarf Clan or Morgrim are one family, apbeit i assume one of the stronger ones and i put tbeir total number at about 5,000 - that is 1/1000 of all the dwarfs, Greenskins i put at 1/1000 also... i play dwarf so i have not great knowledge of warhammer magic ...

Ulthuan and its island manner makes imaginary gameplay of the world awkward ... it needs boats. I figure 5% of Dark and High Elves would be sailors, 1% of Empire and Greenskins and Chaos, naught but a few Dwarf ships near Barak Varr -i have them listed as perhaps 3 iron clad warships ... note -i am using ships with crews of at least 50 to move and up to 200 models transportable ... the ships move 6" per turn each turn ... in keeping with sea variations...

1/100 for Hero
1/1000 For Lord, Empire Count
275 crew per boat (boats range from crews of sizes 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400, 450, 500 (note Dreadfleet "superships", in this warhammer based game i see a boat with 180 cannons ... i assume the war machines fitted to boat need only 2 crew ... not 3...) the average crew for human sized models is 275 on average.
(Note militancy,)
Empire - 50,000,000, 30% militant = 15 million troops, 1% sailors = 150,000 sailors, 275 to crew each boat, 1/1000 Greatswords = 15,000 Greatswords, 1/1000 Counts/Other = 50,000 Counts, 1/100 Heroes/Other = 500,000 Heroes, 1/1000 Wizards, Witches, Magicians/Other = 50,000 Spellcasters
Cathay - 50,000,000, 30% militant = 15 million troops, 1% sailors = 500,000 sailors, 275 to crew each boat =
Ind - 50,000,000, 30% militant = 15 million troops, 1% sailors = 500,000 sailors, 275 to crew each boat,
Nippon - 10,000,000, 30% militant = 3 million troops, 5% sailors = 150,000 sailors, 275 to crew each ship,
Brettonia - 2 million total population, 30% militant = 600,000 troops, 1% sailors = 6,000 sailors, 275 to crew each boat,
Kislev - 1 million, 30% militant = 300,000 troops, 1% sailors = 3,000 sailors, 275 to crew each ship, 1/100 Hero/Other = 3,000 Heroes, 1/1000 Lords/Other = 300 Lords, 1/1000 Spellcaster, Mage, Wizards etc/Other = 300 Kislev Spellcasters, 1/1000 Winged Lancer/Other = 300 Winged Lancers.
Tilea 500,000, 30% militant = 150,000 troops, 1% sailors = 1,500 sailors, 275 to crew each ship,
Estalia 500,000, 30% militant = 150,000 troops, 1% sailors =1,500 sailors, 275 to crew each ship,
Norsca 1 million, 30% militant = 300,000 troops, 1% sailors = 3,000 sailors, 275 to crew each ship,
Dwarfs 5 million total population, 50% militant including Miners = 2.5 million Dwarf Troops. 1/1000 Lord/Other = 2,500 Dwarf Lords, 1/100 Heroes/Other = 25,000 Heroes, 50,000 War Machines divided fairly equally as 10,000 each of Cannons, Bolt Throwers, Stone Throwers, Organ Guns and Gyrocopters with perhaps less than 1,000 Flame Cannons as they are new. The Stone Throwers and Cannons are split between normal, big and normal, great and seige by even splits eg... 10,000 Cannons = 3,333 or so each of normal, great and seige cannons with perhaps half bearing runes, of these i am trying to figure out the rune combinations. The stats and maths is boggling and shall take me much time...
Wood Elves - 1 million, 50% militant = 500,000 troops, 1/100 Spellweavers = 5,000 Spellweavers, 1/100 Nobles = 5000 Nobles, 1/1000 Lords = 500 Wood Elf Lords, 500,000 troops with perhaps 50% Archers = 250,000 wood elf archers, 15,000 Warhawk Riders (note 150,000km square is Loren Forest land area or so, 1,500 Treeman, 15,000 Dryads (1/100 Forest Spirit = 150 Forest Spirits). 15,000 Great Eagles
High Elves - 1.5 million, half militant = 750,000 High Elf Troops, 5% sailors = 37,500 sailors (275 to crew each boat...) = 750 High Elf Ships - The High Elf Navy ... 1/100 Spellweaver, Mage etc/Other = 7,500 Mages, 1/100 Nobles, Heroes etc/Other = 7,500 Heroes, 1/1000 Lord/Other = 750 High Elf Lords, 15,000 Great Eagles, 1,500 Treeman, 15,000 Dryads (inc 150 Forest Spirits) Note Avelorn houses much the same again as Loren as a forest... 1/3 of High Elf troops may be the newcome Archers - some 250,000, 1/1000 Swordmaster/Other = 750 High Elf Swordmasters, 1% charioteer =7,500 (2 per chariot = 3,750 chariots split between Tiranoc and White Lion 2/1 ... 2,500 Tiranoc and 1,250 White Lion Chariots)
Dark Elves - 1.25 million, 80% militant = 1,000,000 troops. 5% sailors = 50,000 sailors, 275 to crew each ship = The Black Fleet, 1/1000 Lords/Others = 1,000 Dark Elf Lords, 1/100 Spellcasters/Others = 10,000 Spellcasters, 1/100 Heroes/Others = 10,000 Heroes, 20% Corsairs = 200,000, 20% Witch Elves = 200,000, 40% Warriors = 400,000, 1% Executioners = 10,000,
Undead - 365,000,000, all militant, 10,000 Vampires, 30,000 Necromancers, 300,000,000 Skeletons Warriors and 60,000,000 Zombies, 6,000,000 Giant Bats, 24,000,000 Bat Swarms,
Orcs 100,000,000, all militant, 1% sailors = 1,000,000 sailors, enough to crew 20,000 ships, 1/20 Black Orc/Other = 5,000,000 Black Orcs, 1/1000 Boar Riders/Other = 100,000 Orc Boar Riders
Goblins 300,000,000, all militant, 1% sailors = 3,000,000, enough to crew 60,000 ships, 1/1000 Lord = 300,000 Lords, 1/100 Boss = 3,000,000 Bosses, 1/1000 Shaman = 300,000 Shaman, 1/100 Mounted = 3,000,000 mounted = split wolf rider, charioteer, spider rider (1million each?))
Hobgoblins 300,000,000, all militant, 1/4 mounted = 75,000,000 wolf riders
Gnoblars, 300,000,000, all militant,
Ogres - 2 million, all militant,
Skaven - 125 million, all militant, 1% sailors = 1.25 million sailors, enough to crew 25,000 ships, 1/1000 Assassin = 25,000 Assassins, 13 million Clanrat, 100,000 slaves
Lizardmen - 40 million, all militant, 1% sailors = 400,000 sailors, 275 to crew a boat, 1/1000 Stegadon = 40,000 Stegadons, 30-35 million Skinks, 2-3 million Saurus, approximately 1 million or zo Temple Guard. 1/10,000 Slann Mage Priest/Other equals 4,000 Slann Mage Priests, 1/100 Terradons/Other = 400,000 Terradons and Riders, 1/100 Salamanders/Other = 400,000 Salamanders
Beastman - 15 million, all militant, 1/1000 Beastlord/Others = 15,000, 1/500 Shaman/Other= 30,000 Shaman, 1/100 Hero/Other = 150,000, 1% charioteer = 150,000 charioters (2 per chariot) = 75,000 Beastman Chariots,
Chaos Marauders - 2,222,222, that is 2,000,000 normal and 222,222 Mounted
Chaos Warriors - 1,111,111, that is 1,000,000 normal (1/10 Knights = 100,000) and 111,111 Chosen (1/10 Chosen Knights = 11,111 (or so)).
Daemons ... i need to know the summoning rules as these effect the game massively. If the game is to be played out properly as an imaginary thought then the summoning of more chaos troops and also undead is a major factor.
Harpies = 500,000
Chaos Spawn = 250,000
Giants = 250,000

I figure less than 10,000 dragons world wide with less than 1,000 emperor dragons, i am also trying to calculate the number of castles...

The thought requires imaginative work, extra for underground areas and areas within buildings, but i find it fun...

THIS POST IS A WORK IN PROGRESS FOR NOW, NOTE EDITS

 

[pendrake]

@Grungni you seem to be asking and half answering questions beyond what the OP asked.

How many Chaos Daemons would be summonable? And Undead Ghosts? Endless?

Chaos Daemons, summonable: endless (but in practice the number that can exist outside of the Chaos Void is limited by other factors)

Undead, all types, summonable: roughly equal to the total population currently alive. So not endless (plus there are additional limiting factors).

100 km on world map is 1km on imaginary tabletop

One tabletop is nowhere near 1km of distance. A regulation 6x4 foot table is only 1/10 of a kilometer long.

If 150 tables were shoved together edge-to-edge in an array 10 by 15 tables that would create 1 square kilometer at Warhammer Scale.

 

[Grungni]

Pendrake i am the op

No i mean... to imagine the warhammer world on an imaginary table you must try to picture it ... i am using 1/100 size ratio ... so 100km on world map represents 1 km on the imaginary tabletop needed for this thought ... hundreds of kilometres across with vast oceans and tabletop mountains representable by sincere sized hills...

6 foot by 4 foot is 72 inch by 48 inch ... thats 180m by 120m ... i figure this is about correct ... maybe i /90 instead of 1/100 but its near enough for a fun guesstimate...

This is one of my favourite thoughts ... i will visit here often to work on this. I appreciate all help...

 

[pendrake]

Oops. I didn’t scroll high enough.

6 foot by 4 foot is 72 inch by 48 inch ... thats 180m by 120m ... i figure this is about correct ... maybe i /90 instead of 1/100 but its near enough for a fun guesstimate...

Having a hard time following ^ these maths.

This much: “6 foot by 4 foot is 72 inch by 48 inch” is correct. Everything else that followed was a mathematical train wreck. Sorry.

 

[Scalenex]

First I think you can have as many or few people as your story requires and not to let math get in the way of a good story. It still can be fun to make imaginary demographics.

In the real world, the human race did not exceed one billion people until well into the 19th century.

The Warhammer World is twice as large as the real world. If you take the highest estimated population figure at 1400 and then double it you get about 800 million humans. But that assumes that the WHF is equally inhabitable to human life.

But the WHF equivalents to North and South America, and Africa have far fewer living humans in it than the real world did at that time. North America is covered up by a large amount of Dark Elves, a modest amount of Lizardmen and lot of inhospitable wastland. South America is mostly Lizardmen and monsters. Africa is split between a lifeless desert full of angry undead, an inhospitable jungle, and some tiny human settlements near the northern seas and some tiny non-human warmblood settlements near the southern seas.

Europe's equivalent to Scandanavia is tainted by Chaos and filled with horrible monsters. That means it can support proportionally fewer humans. In the medieval world, a lot of the land was inhospitable forests, that works in WHF, but Europe would have a smaller population if said inhospitable forests were full of hostile goblins, Beastmen, and the like that make taming the wilderness really slow if not impossible.

So for starters, the WHF has a lot less productive arable land at least proportionally than the real world. Then you establish that large portions of what we know as human inhabited lands are ceded to Lizardmen, Elves, Dwarves, undead, Skaven, greenskins, Ogres, random monsters, the number of humans is smaller still. Next add-in WHF had a lot more wars, and famines plagues.

400 million humans is generous. Maybe Warhammer humans are more fertile than real world humans. In real world medieval era, you need at least 20 civilians at home growing food and manufacturing supplies to support a soldier in the field. We are talking maybe 20 million able bodied fighting men (and this includes the Empire, Brettonians, other countries AND Warriors of Chaos).

Don't ask me to allocate the 400 million humans to the various nations, I'm too lazy for that.

Ulthuan is probably the most resource rich land in the WHF world, it's also described as under inhabited because the High Elves have been gradually declining for generations. Naggaroth is a lot less fertile but it's bigger. The Wood Elves lands are resource rich, but they want to clear the land or anything like that. I'm thinking at most we would have 50 million elves. But the High Elves and Dark Elves have mandatory military conscription. The Wood Elves live in a hostile place and have to fight on a routine basis to survive. They also routinely train their women to fight more than humans do with there. They can probably muster around 10 million soldiers if they are fighting defensively, maybe more. If they are fighting in campaigns far from the homelands, their armies would need to be much smaller. Maybe 3 or 4 million.

The Dwarfs have roughly the same amount of lands as the Elves do, but the Dwarfs lands are mostly mountains and less conducive to growing crops unless you adopt the fantasy trope that because of magic, the underground world is extensive and produces a lot of fungus based food. Even then, unlike the Elves, the Dwarfs many enemies are not far away. The Skaven and greenskins are practically sitting on their doorstep. Even if you throw in Chaos Dwarfs and consider that Tilea and the Empire have tiny Dwarven minorities. We are probably thinking 25 million Dwarfs. Maybe 30 million if you put a few Dwarfs out east. Samurai Dwarfs sound kind of kickass...

Much like the Elves, a higher proportion of able bodied adults probably have combat training. Defensively they could probably muster 8 or 9 million fighting Dwarfs. Campaign supply lines would be a nightmare to maintain. They can probably support two million Dwarfs on campaign under ideal circumstances.

Ogres don't really have any lands of their own. They certainly don't have farmland. They also eat a lot more food than humans. I cannot imagine more than 3 million Ogres and some change. An adult male ogre that cannot fight is not long for this world, but they rarely let their women fight, so we are talking about a million fighting ogres at best.

The Beastmen, Orcs and Goblins are stuck in the wilderness and do not keep farms. They certainly have a lot of land though, and they reproduce fast. They also fight each other a lot which keeps their numbers down. However many there are, nearly all of them are able bodied fighters. These creatures can once in a while show up in terrifying numbers. Considering the humans can field about 20 million fighting men. Terrifying numbers would be 20+ million. Collectively the Beastmen and Orcs and Goblins probably fluctuate between 10 million and 40 million "people" not counting Night Goblins and other subterranean creatures. When the Beastmen are numerous, the Orcs and Goblins are not numerous and visa versa.

The Skaven are generally said to be more numerous than all the other races combined. They don't have to literally outnumber everyone combined to be terrifying. I figure anywhere between 400 million and a round billion Skaven is appropriate. The Skaven, like the humans would probably need at least 20 civilian rats to support a well equipped fighting rat. They probably need 10 slaves at home to support one conscripted fighting rat. The Skaven probably have about 20 to 40 million professional soldiers at any given time. Most of the time, these soldiers stay in the Underempire to make sure the other soldiers don't try anything. For short periods of time, the Skaven can probably conscript 100 million slaves at almost any given time.

The Skaven have to share their underground realm with Dwarfs and Night Goblins. Dwarves were already covered. I'm thinking the Night Goblin population would fluctuate between 8 and 20 million. That's not quite outnumbering all the other greenskins combined.

A single vampire probably needs at least 1000 living humans nearby to feed off. A single vampire would probably need 10,000 local humans if he or she wants to quietly exist as a vampire and maintain anonymity. I'm envisioning only a couple thousand vampires at most though this tiny number of vampires can raise armies numbering in the millions fairly easily.

The Tomb Kings only have a small amount of land, but their living empire existed for thousands of years and the vast majority of their monarchs and soldiers were magically treated to come back again. They could easily have hundreds of Tomb Kings, thousands of necromancers, and 100 million fighting skeletons. It takes a lot of magical energy to animate a skeleton and Settra is a hard ass, so most of the time, most of these skeletons are sleeping.

The best baseline for Lizardmen is the Pre-Colombian population of Native Americans. Unfortunately, anthropologists don't have much of a consensus on this. There are many Southlands Lizardmen too, but since most of "North America" is devoid of Lizardmen, we will call it a wash. The peak Native American population is estimated as low as 10 million or as high as 100 million. That doesn't give us as much to work on but lets go with 50 million Skinks and see how that works.

Lets say it takes at least five Skinks to support a Saurus Warrior long term, and that's assuming that Saurus rotate into the workforce (based on the arbitrary numbers I set for my own temple city). The bigger Temple Cities probably have proportionally more Skinks so average how we have 10 Skinks per Saurus give or take. So let's five million Saurus (this counts Cold One Riders and Temple Guard too).

In the army book you need 8 Skinks for every Kroxigor, but not every Skink unit is paired with Kroxigors. Lets say there are 20 Skinks per Kroxigor. That's about two and a half million Kroxigors.

While nearly every Skink can probably pick up a sword and fight Weapon Skill 2, Lizardmen are close enough to human that it probably takes several civilian Skinks to produce supplies to support one fighter in the field. That said, Lizardmen are cold blooded and primitive, they probably don't need as much as humans do, supply wise. Maybe it only takes four civilians to support a fighter in the field. Of the fifty million Skinks, 20 million of them are already spoken for. They produce weapons, armor, and food for the 5 million Saurus Warriors. Saurus Warriors can contribute to the civilian workforce, at lest when it comes to catching food and carrying heavy things, so lets free up half of those 20 million Skinks, so 10 million skink civilians are needed to support 5 million Saurus.

Kroxigor are laborers first and warriors second. They contribute to the civilian workforce far more than they take from it. You probably only absolutely need one Skink to support one Kroxigor. This means 12.5 million Skinks are stuck in civilian roles. This leaves 37.5 million Skinks. Lets say 7.5 million Skinks are warriors and hunters full time (counting those riding Stegadons, Terradons and the like). 10 to 15 million Skinks are part of the reserves, they can be drafted into cohorts if a Temple City is threatened but they rarely march out in battle more than 50-100 miles from their home cities.

There could be 50 Slann, 5000 Slann, or anywhere in between. Where they fall on the continuum, matters a huge deal to how much magical power the Lizardmen can muster, but a Slann is not that hard to care for. Even if it takes 1000+ Skinks/Temple Guard to support one Slann, the Lizardmen have the manpower to support 50,000 Slann without taxing their overall population overmuch.

 

[Grungni]

Scalanex it is not a story i am typing, but a detailed work of my thought = the Warhammer World played out as a game... i appreciate your info and shall amalgamate the consensus...

Pendrake, for my thought i use 1 to 100 size ratio ... so for example the Loren Forest is 300 kilometres by 500 kilometres ... so it would be represented on the imaginary table within my thought, the one i need to clarify to share clearly in the future, the forest of the wood elves is 3 kilometres West to East and 5 kometres South to North... 1 to 100 ratio for the game...

 

[pendrake]

The Warhammer World is twice as large as the real world.

I knew I had read that ^ on this Forum. So my ‘source’ for this is @Scalenex . But, that begs the question: “what is Scalenex’s source for this?”

Where did you read that O scaley one? And by twice as large do you believe it to be twice the surface area, twice the diameter, or twice the mass? (Those are three different things...three differently sized planets.)

 

[Scalenex]

I knew I had read that ^ on this Forum. So my ‘source’ for this is @Scalenex . But, that begs the question: “what is Scalenex’s source for this?”

My Source is my friend @eron12 , the only forumite on Lustria-Online who I know in real life. He came across that factoid when doing background research on his plan to create his own fantasy world from scratch. I don't know where he got that factoid from. I just took his word for it.

Where did you read that O scaley one? And by twice as large do you believe it to be twice the surface area, twice the diameter, or twice the mass? (Those are three different things...three differently sized planets.)

The answer is surface area. The square mileage of all the land masses is double their real world counterparts. On the map of the Old World, the Empire is basically where Germany is in the real world. The Empire has roughly twice the square milage of real world Germany before the first World War.

 

[Scalenex]

Scalenex it is not a story i am typing, but a detailed work of my thought = the Warhammer World played out as a game... i appreciate your info and shall amalgamate the consensus...

Pendrake, for my thought i use 1 to 100 size ratio ... so for example the Loren Forest is 300 kilometres by 500 kilometres ... so it would be represented on the imaginary table within my thought, the one i need to clarify to share clearly in the future, the forest of the wood elves is 3 kilometres West to East and 5 kometres South to North... 1 to 100 ratio for the game...

I would recommend giving this link a look over. If you type in the fertility of the land and the dimensions of the land, it will tell you roughly how many historical medieval humans could have lived there, how much of the area would wilderness, how much farmland, how big would the largest city be, etc.

However in WHF (and most fantasy stories and RPGs), the cities are larger than this tool says they "should" be. The castles are bigger and the towns have more guards.

Obviously you need to figure how to tweak the chart for incorporating non human peoples. For instance a Orc needs fewer resources to survive than a human, so they might be able to packed more densely into an area, but a goblin is not nearly as productive of a farmer or craftsman, so they might be packed less densely into an area.

 

[Vengefulnoob]

I think it's important to remember that the guiding influence of the Old Ones can't really be over-stated; They literally shaped the world to be as hospitable to the various races as they thought they should, and with a planet twice the surface area of Earth, and clearly a lot of pseudo-scientific magic to uplift the various species and modify them at will... that's a lot of potential. It seems fair to imagine that the predecessors of Humans, Elves and Dwarves all proliferated and profited from thousands of years of relative abundance in which to populate the planet, while the ranks of Saurus were large enough as to counter the completely unregulated forces of the Chaos Gods across much of the world for over a thousand years. Indeed, the sonic bombardment of Quezotec resulted in the deaths of "Billions" of Lizardmen.

GW has a flair for over-statement, but it feels fair to state that the numbers being dealt with are of a realm beyond the imaginable. A planet that could previously support a figure near a trillion in a near-paradise, even with the heavy devastation implied by all Chaotic Invasions, Waaaghs and Skaven attacks, might have the potential to support a small fraction of that once again, some 7000 years later.

While of course, relying on art for reference in Warhammer is a poor metric, it does give something of a feel for the universe. The numbers imply armies that span so wide as to blot out the terrain they cross. Such a world population could potentially be billions, spread across all races.

Basically, GW's maths makes no sense. But then if it did, it wouldn't be the Warhammer World we all know and love.

 

[Grungni]

I will amalgamate the consensus and alter my numbers, i shall need a bit of time. Please post all thoughts on this subject...