Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 julescarv Jan 15, 2009 15:01:23	What do you think the sort of statistics of that sort would look like in Eberron? Life expectancy, for my purposes, refers to human life expectency. I've actually considered a way of measuring "race-adjusted life expectency," but that's beyond the purview of this post. Also, it refers to life expectancy excluding deaths in the first year. Infant mortality rates are another issue -- although if anyone else on this thread wants to tackle that -- and maybe maternal mortality, and maybe incidence of obstetric fistulas -- be my guest. I'm not stopping you. Nope. You go right ahead. My take, completely made up on the spot, looking at the "big ones" of the Four Nations + Riedra (the most populous five areas): Literacy: Aundair: 93% Breland: 90% Karrnath: 71% Riedra: 1% Thrane: 73% (Human) Life Expectancy: Aundair: 45 Breland: 42 Karrnath: 40 Riedra: 51 Thrane: 48 Fertility (live births / woman) Aundair: 3.9 Breland: 4.1 Karrnath: 4.0 Riedra: 2.5 Thrane: 4.9 Contribute your own thoughts, either by adding more nations/areas to consideration (Zilargo? The Demon Wastes?), or by adding more statistics to consideration (GDP per capita? Gini coefficient? Infant mortality?), or by telling me that this whole concept is amazingly boring, nerdy, and pointless, or by telling me that my made-up statistics are completely wrong and that you have bettter made-up statistics! UPDATES (1-17-09): -Changed "children / woman" to "live births / woman." -Changed the literacy rates: former rates for Aundair, Breland, Karrnath, Riedra, and Thrane were 93%, 90%, 71%, 14%, and 73% respectively. -Added stipulation that life expectancies are actually 1 + e1 -- excluding infant mortality, and looking at life expectency at one year. UPDATE 2 (5-5-09): Change literacy rates back to first estimate for 5 nations, kept revised estimate for Riedra. In between first and second updates, literacy rates for Aundair, Breland, Karrnath, Riedra, and Thrane were 73%, 70%, 51%, 8%, and 58%, respectively. UPDATE 3 (6-2-09): Changed Riedran literacy rate from 8% to 1%.
#2 skrapsan Jan 15, 2009 15:59:20	Where and how do you get ahold of this info. Don't get me wrong, its helpefull, in its own way... but still how!!? I'm convinced that somehow you either work with this type of data, or you have a twisted sett of hobbies...
#3 julescarv Jan 15, 2009 16:19:07	Well, the statistics are, as I said, completely made up in terms of their specific values. I suppose that these sorts of statistical measurements are just interesting to me. When I'm thinking about fictional societies and states, I often wish I could look at an almanac entry or CIA World Factbook page on them. Yes, yes, I'm probably eccentric in this respect. For most purposes of fantasy gaming, there are more important things, like, say, conflicts between different factions of the Privy Council, or cultural oddities, or malicious secret societies that could be fought, but comparing and contrasting obscure little numbers can be enjoyable to me. Also, I do work in the social sciences, I suppose.
#4 superdeadsmurf Jan 15, 2009 18:12:45	Literacy rates seem way way way too high. by about 20-30% or more in the five nations and by about 10% in Reirdra. Since by and large most of the populations are agrarian, most would never have any need of literacy, only one or two children in any family would be able to go to primary school, even if it is provided by the state (which I believe it is If I remember correctly). Urban numbers would be much better. Your numbers seem ok, but I think Thrane would actually be higher than Aundaire due to the number of religious scholars, priests and other lay worshipers wishing to read religious texts. The only readers Rierdra would produce are the empty vessels and the inspired, both of which are tiny percentages of the population. I'd tear 3-5 years off all of the life expectancies, possibly more in the five nations. Infant and child Mortality would be quite high despite the house of healing, and that would bring the numbers way down.
#5 julescarv Jan 15, 2009 18:31:42	I suppose I ought to have mentioned that I was thinking more along the lines of life expectancy at one year (1 + e1) rather than life expectancy at birth, with all of the infant mortality influence that implies. Good point on literacy. I had assumed that the Galifarian education system (which, IIRC, is mostly intact in Aundair and Breland, and is rather delapidated in Karrnath and Thrane) was free and compulsory, but if it's merely free but not compulsory, then my literacy rates are probably way too high. I assume that Riedra probably has some literacy-requiring clerical positions which are too insignificant to be given to a chosen/empty vessel/inspired, but which do require someone to be able to read and write.
#6 julescarv Jan 17, 2009 18:20:54	One could also come up with statistics that only exist in a magical world. For instance, one could measure the number of speaking stones per 100,000 people.
#7 superdeadsmurf Jan 17, 2009 23:03:20	I can see where you are coming from on both those ideas. And those clerical jobs (keeping track of harvests, births etc) in Reirdra would only be one or two people out of a community of 100 or so; a few more might only know bare minimum things like numbers and a couple words to write down, so they can do things like measure a crop yield, and send it to their record keeper for transcription. Not something I would call literacy at any rate. As for Khorvaire's education being mandatory...(checks books) ah here we go... Definitely not mandatory, and is available to even most rural residents... at the closest Noble's manor. The way I see it, most kids would try to get some schooling, learn their letters and arithmetic, important words and things, and that would be it. Each (rural) family would do their best to ensure one or two of their kids would make it through the entire primary schooling. But if you're a day's ride from your local lord, there isn't going to be a lot of time for classes. The rural agrarians would be semi-literate, and I'd venture to say about 30 percent of the peasants would have a good working level of literacy, and about 50% more with some basic skills. Does that seem reasonable to you? Another way to go about that would be go by the population percentages in the EcS for each nation and figure out which percentage of them would be literate. I would figure most elves and gnomes are literate, but almost none of the orcs and goblinoids are. The speaking stone rates do seem like an interesting idea. hmm lets make an estimate... starting with Breland. Sharn itself (in my guess) would have about 20-25 stations. Wroat around 10 (3 or 4 for governmental use), Starilaskur like 3 and each town larger than say 2000 people would have 1 or so... with a population of 3,700,000; I have it somewhere around 30 per 100,000. That seems pretty reasonable... though actually makes the number of stones in Sharn seem low... but who knows. Breland, of the 4 remaining 4 nations would have the most in my opinion would have the highest number of stones per capita, due to it's longstanding alliance with Zilargo and proximity. Audair would likely be second, 28/100 000 or so; and Thrane and Karrnath would be like 25/100 000.
#8 Montonius1 Jan 18, 2009 3:27:09	Actually if you read the Eberron Campaign Setting and the Grand History of Eberron's sections on daily life in the former Galifaran sections of Khorvaire, you will see that on education, it is customary across the Five Nations to continue Galifar's extensive public schooling in basic literacy and numeracy. Now this is admitedly very vague and does not give any hint of whether schools were built a spart of a kingdom-wide mandatory project or whether this is just a custom of educating your kids as much as possible within the given constraints of distance, cost, etc. We also do not know the agricultural organization of each of the Five Nations beyond being told that it is generally feudal or "pseudo-medieval." Unfortunately, since the real European middle ages were times where upwards of 80% of a given state's population could be illiterate, the idea of having an educated Galifaran peasantry is definitely a fantasy ideal. But for argument's sake let's say it is more or less honored. And since literacy in Khorvaire is probably more prevalent than not because of Galifar's efforts, this would create strong social pressure for even the poorest or most inconvenienced peasants to get some levels of schooling according to whatever the Galifaran minimums were. By this standard, your literacy rates are actually far too LOW based on the admittedly unempirical description given in the canon. Also, the impression I got from the ECS was that rates of literacy were much higher in the Five Nations than you might otherwise expect in our own history at an analagous technological level (say the mid-eighteenth century). I would say literacy rates would be upwards of 75%, though I think there is a reason that statistics of this kind are left more for the imagination. Also, don't forget that this is a civilization in which everyone who crosses national borders is required to carry the equivalent of a passport--literacy is assumed even by border guards, who in a society with levels of literacy as low as you are postulating in Karrnath and Thrane would most likely NOT be literate. Also, in the case of Thrane particularly, there would also be some religious pressure for every person to be literate so that they could read the Church of the Silver Flame's scriptures, which is as important for that Church as it was for the Protestant reformers of the Reformation. I think it is clear that the people of the Five Nations have literacy rates much closer to our times than would otherwise be the case in a pre-industrial, pseudo-medieval society. With that said, your Riedran numbers do make sense, as when you are trying to keep an entire society stabilized, stagnant and docile, keeping them as illiterate as possible would definitely be advantageous. Also, in a society like Riedra where there is constant brain-washing and unconscious instruction through telepathic means as broadcast through the hanbalani, there would be less actual need for literacy to make the gears of commerce and industry go round.
#9 PJammaGod Jan 18, 2009 7:15:10	If we're looking for actual quotes in the Galifarian Educations system check out Five Nations. Pg 50 has details on Breland in regard to the way they handle their education system. Apparently due to "Breland's relative isoloation from the horrors of the Last War allowed it to maintain the high education standards inherited from the kingdom of Galifar". We can split hairs on sophistic ways to interpret that passage. But I'll go out on a limb and assume it means that when the Kingdom of Galifar was still around education standards were quite high (i.e. better than pre renaissance Europe). Jumping to pg 132 of ECS, specifically the Education sub-section, we're given a much better picture: "Throughout the Five Nations (or at least what's left of them, (goodbye Cyre)) formal schooling is considered a right and necessary part of every child's training. Rural manors maintain schools for the son's and daughters of the peasants and laborers. Private tutors provide an education for the children of royal and economic nobility." So your assertion about literacy levels is somewhat incorrect Deadsmurf. The Kingdom of Galifar promoted education in all forms and this tradition continues with the remaining nations. Aundair has a long history of scholalarly persuit (the Arcanix), Breland embrances knowledge and diversity, Karrnath is more focussed on analytical and military education while Thrane rounds out their studies with Liturgical instruction. It's rather neato to have lay people able to read the Silver Flames equivalent of the bible. Hope that helps clarify things. BTW nice post JulesCARV!
#10 yakman Jan 21, 2009 15:01:40	My take, completely made up on the spot, looking at the "big ones" of the Four Nations + Riedra (the most populous five areas): Literacy: Aundair: 73% Breland: 70% Karrnath: 51% Riedra: 8% Thrane: 58% I would probably put Riedra significantly lower than this. From my reading of SoS, only the Inspired can read--and they are probably a far lower proportion of the population than 8%. As far as the other figures go, I would actually place Breland above Aundair, and Thrane above Karrnath, but those numbers generally make some sense. (Human) Life Expectancy: Aundair: 45 Breland: 42 Karrnath: 40 Riedra: 51 Thrane: 48 To be honest, after reaching the age of 5, these numbers are all probably much higher. Widespread artificer magic has made most people's lives a lot easier, done much to combat non-magical disease, etc.. I would even guess that elementally powered water filters are pretty common, particularly in urban centers, further reducing disease. I would push all those numbers up by 15 - 20 years, making the average life expectancy of a 5N person be around 63. Fertility (live births / woman) Aundair: 3.9 Breland: 4.1 Karrnath: 4.0 Riedra: 2.5 Thrane: 4.9 I just don't see this. Riedra's fertility is probably closer to 2.2--purely the replacement rate to account for accidents and the dead in the Eternal War with Adar. With casualties in that war probably amounting to no more than a few hundred a year and accidents minimal in a low-tech society with no disease or famine, 2.2 is probably accurate. As far as the 5N goes, I would push those numbers down substantially. As Hellcow commented once in this forum, and as I've long believed, the 5N emerged from the Last War with roughly the same population that it had going in (barring the Mourning). Given that the war was not exceptionally destructive (barring the Mourning)--most population centers were left fairly unscarred--the death rate was not sufficient to justify your kind of fertility figures. If women are having 4 children on average, the population would double every 30 years or so--leaving the 5N with three times the population after the Last War than it had going in. I suspect that Khorvaire's people are rather infertile--birth control is probably popular in most places. There may even be a severe gender imbalance--more men than women? that skews the growth. The Roman Empire, for instance, experienced almost no population growth as a result of their "family planning" methods (which involved some very nasty things)--could Galifar be similar? After all, Galifar ruled the continent for almost a thousand years--given that level of peace and a fecund population and the technology levels involved, we'd expect the whole continent of Khorvaire to be brimming with humanity and it is not. So we should also reason that the 5N have perhaps slightly higher, but no more, than the rate of replacement as their fertility level. We can set it at 2.4 or 2.5. I would guess that Thrane is likely higher, and Karrnath lower, but it's really anyone's guess.
#11 superdeadsmurf Jan 22, 2009 19:03:45	If we're looking for actual quotes in the Galifarian Educations system check out Five Nations. Pg 50 has details on Breland in regard to the way they handle their education system. Apparently due to "Breland's relative isoloation from the horrors of the Last War allowed it to maintain the high education standards inherited from the kingdom of Galifar". We can split hairs on sophistic ways to interpret that passage. But I'll go out on a limb and assume it means that when the Kingdom of Galifar was still around education standards were quite high (i.e. better than pre renaissance Europe). Jumping to pg 132 of ECS, specifically the Education sub-section, we're given a much better picture: "Throughout the Five Nations (or at least what's left of them, (goodbye Cyre)) formal schooling is considered a right and necessary part of every child's training. Rural manors maintain schools for the son's and daughters of the peasants and laborers. Private tutors provide an education for the children of royal and economic nobility." That continues: "In towns and cities, schools cater to all who wish to attend. In no case is education mandatory; however, most people understand the advantages offered them by the remnants of the Galifar education system." So your assertion about literacy levels is somewhat incorrect Deadsmurf. The Kingdom of Galifar promoted education in all forms and this tradition continues with the remaining nations. Aundair has a long history of scholalarly persuit (the Arcanix), Breland embrances knowledge and diversity, Karrnath is more focussed on analytical and military education while Thrane rounds out their studies with Liturgical instruction. It's rather neato to have lay people able to read the Silver Flames equivalent of the bible. Hope that helps clarify things. BTW nice post JulesCARV! I have had a little bit of a change of heart on the literacy rates, especially after looking at Literacy among New England's Transient Poor 1750-1800 Now this is before mandatory schooling (1850s in Mass) and they were still reaching quite high levels of literacy. In my model, we're basically ignoring the difference between Women and men, as in Eberron there is no assumed difference in their socio-economic status, So using only the male rates about 67% of 'transient' (non-freeholders of land) were literate. If we assume the rates for White males correspond more or less to those of the common races of Galifar (Gnome, Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Khorvar, changlings etc) of both sexes and the non-white rates for the more generally 'downtrodden' races (goblinoids, shifters, kobolds, etc) It seems like a pretty decent model. Once you add a few other factors in - Nobility (with their near 100% literacy), Warforged (100% litereracy, at least in 4E [no illiterate barbarian classed 'forged bringing it down]) and Free schooling... that 67% could be anywhere from 77% to somewhere in the 80s within the five nations. If you wanted to spend a bunch of time on this, using the percentage rates in the ECS for racial population levels I think a relatively accurate literacy rate could be figured out. A single racial population in my opinion would be easier to gauge than an entire country at once, like goblinoids... likely somewhere around 6-10%; Elves 95% etc ok that's all I've got for tonight.
#12 PJammaGod Jan 22, 2009 21:56:30	Never said the schooling was mandatory, just pointing out that the people of Galifar (and now the remaining nations) believe that schooling is a right and that everyone should have access to it (and by extension embrace and make use of the system). That being said, nice find in regards to pre-mandatory literacy levels in New England. I wonder how numeracy would stack up in comparison? Learning basic number and letters is pretty essential to any tradesman's job (and especially in a quasi-magitech setting like Eberron).
#13 julescarv Jun 02, 2009 22:03:46	I've re-revised literacy rates. I restored the Four Nations literacy rates to my initial update, and knocked Riedran literacy down to 1% in light of all of the posts claiming 8% is too high.
#14 yakman Jun 04, 2009 14:47:26	If you wanted to spend a bunch of time on this, using the percentage rates in the ECS for racial population levels I think a relatively accurate literacy rate could be figured out. A single racial population in my opinion would be easier to gauge than an entire country at once, like goblinoids... likely somewhere around 6-10%; Elves 95% etc ok that's all I've got for tonight. just a few thoughts off the top of my head... Galifaran Elves might be 99%+, but they might be in the single digits in Aerenal and Valenar. After all, they have literally centuries to learn by word of mouth, with tradition passed down by storytellers and bards. I can't imagine the Valenar being so riled up by the Giant Wars because they read about it in high school... but learning their history around a bonfire from a skald who retells a story as it was told to him by his mentor, as it was handed down by generations... that's a little more likely to keep such anger alive, and is also (imho) "Eberron" than Aereni literacy. Conversely, the Aereni might have a written language (stolen from their Giant overlords), and they might all understand it, but they might not use it for decades at a time. Having a literacy discrepency would further differentiate the Aereni elves from Galifaran ones.