How many people live in Rokugan, would you say?

How many of them are from the Samurai-class?

As a reference, by 1200, 16 million people lived in France, 3.5 Million in England, 50 Million in China. By 1600, 20 Million in France, 4 Million in England, 90 million in China.

In Edo Japan, 7-8% of the population was samurai.

The Emerald Lands, or “Rokugan” in the tongue of its people, comprise a vast, majestic countryside that stretches nine hundred miles from the pine valleys and snow-capped peaks of the Great Wall of the North mountains at one end, to the austere Carpenter Wall standing vigil along the country’s desolate southern border.

That's a quote out of Emerald Empire, and can be treated as about as accurate as anything cartography-related in Rokugani. So it's about the size of France.

Population has never been said explicitly in this edition, but if I remember correctly, 1st edition gave the population of Rokugan at about 33 million, with 10% of that being samurai.

That's a bit excessive - and excessively top-heavy - for medieval agriculture, but then rice is a lot more productive than occidental wheat, and the Empire is quite urbanised for its nominal technology level.

The nature of the Empire and it's relationship with the Kami means that on average its fields, etc, should be much more productive - not because there's a shujenga praying over every single rice paddy, but because the blessings and entreaties of shujenga do work, so on average summers are milder and longer, rain more predictable, lands more fertile, and so on, than a truly 'natural' climate would give you.

On 1/29/2020 at 7:57 AM, Magnus Grendel said:

The Emerald Lands, or “Rokugan” in the tongue of its people, comprise a vast, majestic countryside that stretches nine hundred miles from the pine valleys and snow-capped peaks of the Great Wall of the North mountains at one end, to the austere Carpenter Wall standing vigil along the country’s desolate southern border.

That's a quote out of Emerald Empire, and can be treated as about as accurate as anything cartography-related in Rokugani. So it's about the size of France.

Which is Interesting considering that the distance from the Northern Tip of Hokkaido to the southern most point in Japan, Hateruma is 1,798 miles. And that does not count the greatest extent of Japan before the Meiji Restoration and the modernization of the country under that Emperor.

As a comparison, if you are to assume the Yobanjin are suppose to be synonymous with either the Koreans or Manchu, then measuring from Huladao near the edge of Manchuria down to the Bailong Peninsula near the border with Vietnam, the distance is 1,523 miles. For another comparison, the distance from Shanghai Airport on the East Coast to Yumen Pass, aka "The Jade Gate to the West" is 1,682 miles.

These measurement beg some interesting questions. Biggest one would be "is the globe of Yume-do smaller than Earth's approximately 25,000 diameter at the Equator?" That is assuming of course that Yume-do is a globe.

Ningen-do, surely. Yume-do is likely not a globe at all, being the realm of dreams

More seriously: perhaps, but perhaps Rokugan is simply smaller in that extent than our Japan. It is certainly wider and less mountainous, however.

Hmm I remember earlier editions throwing army numbers of over 100,000 for the great clans - iirc the Dragon, who are known to be relatively low on population, were mentioned to be able to mobilize up to 200,000 people. Granted, that no doubt included ashigaru and all manner of supporting units. To me, Rokugan seemed closer to China than Japan in terms of geography.

This article argues for a population of roughly 26 million based on area, population density, and others. Mind you, this is somewhat lower than the population of Edo-period Japan, over a greater territory and a lot more of it suitable to irrigation.

1 hour ago, Myrion said:

Ningen-do, surely. Yume-do is likely not a globe at all, being the realm of dreams

Yes, thank you. I accidentally conflated the mortal realm and the realm of dreams. I suspect the dream realm is like a silvery nebulous cloud.

The_Shaman, I really like that article. One aspect comparing Rokugan and Japan that was not touched but is indicated is the farmable land. Ignoring the difference in square mileage, the 15% supporting a population just as large if not larger than Rokugan's 40% farmable land can be attributed to one major factor: Volcanos. The volcanic soils of Japan (and of Oregon and Washington as well as Italy) are extremely lush and productive. Unless someone can correct me, I don't know that Rokugan has much in the way of Volcanos except in the Islands of Spice and Silk.

There's definitely volcanic activity in the northern mountains, near Dragon and Phoenix, so the plains south of them could have more volcanic soils.

Earthquake Fish Bay has and underwater volcano, and IIRC Lookout Mountain was originally also a Volcano, before being retconned.

There is also Amaterasu's Furnace in the Shadowlands so it seems likely there could have been vulcanic activity in Crab Lands.

I use 33 Million as fact. I have a spreadsheet I created for my campaign that lists every family and population figures. I can share if anyone is interested.

Trevor L.

On 1/29/2020 at 6:46 AM, Harzerkatze said:

How many people live in Rokugan, would you say?

How many of them are from the Samurai-class?

As a reference, by 1200, 16 million people lived in France, 3.5 Million in England, 50 Million in China. By 1600, 20 Million in France, 4 Million in England, 90 million in China.

In Edo Japan, 7-8% of the population was samurai.

Here is my demographic Breakdown for Rokugan, including how I derive my numbers.

https://craneclan.weebly.com/demographics.html

Interestingly, my numbers did calculate out to have armies of around 100,000 bushi at any given time (on average).

The problem with the emergence numbers is that his ratio of courtiers to bushi is way off. In traditional Japan, the samurai only meant warriors, which, statistically speaking, meant pretty much only males. In Rokugan, women are also samurai. Samurai marry in caste. However, no matter the gender mix of the couple, society would not be able to keep running if both partners in those marriages were actually deployed bushi. One spouse in each relationship on average, would be assuming a non-combat role in order to raise children, maintain, lands, etc etc. Those people can be considered courtiers, even if they aren't all in a high court. That's why I tend to use a 50/50 ratio of courtiers to bushi, where the courtiers in this case are considered to be any samurai-caste adult of age in a non-combat, non-shugenja role.

I don't know if this helps or not, but FFG has told me that Rokugani armies are considerably smaller than they were in the past version of the setting. A typical army would probably be a few thousand to an upper end of about 10K soldiers, a large proportion of whom would be ashigaru. Armies larger than 10K or so would be rare, while smaller forces, of even a few hundred soldiers, wouldn't be uncommon, especially in things like border skirmishes.

I'm not sure if that helps regarding these musings about population, but if the armies are generally taken to be smaller, then it stands to reason that the overall population might be, too. For what it's worth, anyway!

12 hours ago, DGLaderoute said:

I don't know if this helps or not, but FFG has told me that Rokugani armies are considerably smaller than they were in the past version of the setting. A typical army would probably be a few thousand to an upper end of about 10K soldiers, a large proportion of whom would be ashigaru. Armies larger than 10K or so would be rare, while smaller forces, of even a few hundred soldiers, wouldn't be uncommon, especially in things like border skirmishes.

Thanks! That makes sense - and also means that the difference between vassal families and minor clans like the Tsume, where RPG adventures are likely to be set, aren't so catastrophically different to the main battles you see Doji Hotaru leading - which means that when players do get dropped into such settings, they don't have to be 3,456,124 levels of command structure away from 'named characters' in the setting.

On 2/2/2020 at 2:45 PM, Hida Katsu said:

I use 33 Million as fact. I have a spreadsheet I created for my campaign that lists every family and population figures. I can share if anyone is interested.

Trevor L.

I know this is an old thread and comment, but if you're still willing to share that spreadsheet, I would love it.