File:PolMapIzril.png

Description[edit | edit source]

The file shown above is a variation/update to File:PolMapIzril-.png.

Each pixel in this map is believed to represent roughly an area of 25 square miles (5 x 5 miles). (Note: A map of the Americas laid behind Izril would be a bit longer from North to South, but much more narrow in the East-West direction. All of Izril is supposedly in habitable climates.)

This map is intended to show "political divisions" in Izril. None of those "borders" are canon.
Note that per canon, approximately 80-90% of Izril is unsettled wilderness, but this map here assumes that the wilderness widely around a settled area is "claimed" (the areas that aren't grey).

The basic facts from the storyline are:

• Veltras owns a huge portion of land from the "tail" of Izril right into the Vail Forest.
• Reinhart "owns" Invrisil and lots of the surrounding land, but has more holdings all over the north.
• There are three more "big" families, and then dozens of smaller noble families, and then hundreds of local nobility (like Byres, or Laken, for example). Showing them all would turn the map into a patchwork pattern like this one. So the large blob labeled "human lands" is actually divided into noble lands and free cities, with only some El/Terland/Wellfar splots. They are not a unified political entity.
• The Walled cities are the most important polities in the drake half of the continent. More speculative is that they dominate smaller towns and villages for hundreds of miles around (spheres of influence in their color, in the map). Quite likely the Walled cities wouldn't actually control those territories directly.
• There are "lesser cities" among the drakes - more than 15 have been mentioned in the story, but they don't play a big role so far - except Liscor of course. There was never established how many exist, and how populous they are, but they are certainly individually weaker than the Walled Cities. (Guess is that they are as fractured into small political entities, like the humans in the north. Maybe some city confederations around a bigger city as administrative center.) Liscor alone has 85k+ inhabitants. My speculation (below) is that Liscor is in the top 20 or top 30 of the "non-Walled" Drake cities. So, quite important just far from all others.
• Large areas are just steppe/plains, I assume unsettled in both parts of the continent. Grasslands? Deserts? There are the gnoll heartlands in the Center of southern Izril, but we don't know how far the gnolls stray from their traditional areas.
• Lots of areas even in the "claimed" parts of Izril are probably wilderness. On the other hand, there may be wilderness where there are some individuals or tribes or whatever, but no political entity.

Speculative Population statistics and the basis for each guesstimate:

• 10-40 million Drakes in total (one plausible estimate could be 18-20 million drakes: 6x1M (Walled cities), 10 cities x 100k population, 20x50k, 50x20k, 200x10k, 500x5k, 1000x1k, 5000x0.5k, 10.000 hamlets/outlying farming communities with 100 drakes) If there are vastly more drakes living in really large cities, then the superiority of the Walled Cities becomes a farce. But the curve could be vastly different, so here is is the full possible span.
  • 5-12 million Drakes in Walled Cities and dependent settlements
  • 5-28 million Drakes in non-walled cities
• 10-60 million Humans in total (at least as many as Drakes, and possibly up to twice their number). 30 million humans would be plausible with the above detail-guess on the Drakes: Drake number +50%. However, there is newer information about the North being largely unsettled, which would speak towards the humans being less than Drakes+Gnolls. However large the human population: it still means that the north is sparsely populated. Newer information about the humans being "new" in the north of Izril speaks towards a low number. But Sovvex with 40'000 inhabitants is a small town?
• 5-20 million Gnolls in total. We already know of 7 tribes, and that is for a tiny part of the gnoll plains. According to Selys, a third of all inhabitants of the South are Gnolls, while two thirds are Drakes. If we assume (numbers out of thin air) that there are 60% "city gnolls" (i.e. living in drake communities) and 40% "plains gnolls", the plausible calculation about the Drakes means that 4 million gnolls are roaming in the huge gnoll plains (orange in the map) and 6 more millions distributed over the drake cities (green in the map). In the 1st Ant War, the gnolls were able to amass an army of over 100k Gnolls to fight the incursion - that number supports the guesstimate, but on the lower end. Also, Krshia once insinuated that the Gnolls still have ambitions to become powerful again.
   

--> The "plausible guesstimate" is now: 20+30+10 = 60 million Izrilians, plus-minus 10 million. The lowest guesstimate I think supportable is 10+15+5 = 30 million Izrilians (even lower numbers and civilization will fall apart); the largest guesstimate is 40+60+20 = 120 million Izrilians (and actually, that kind of number indicates a blooming Izril that should be overcoming the "medieval stasis").

Assuming that Izril has the size of Asia (the above map calculates an area of 25.5 million square miles; on Pirateaba's version it's slightly more), the "plausible guesstimate" of 60M would calculate as a population density of ~2-3 inhabitants (of the above three races in total) per square mile in Izril. (Comparison: modern Russia with the largely unsettled Siberia has a population density of 22 persons per square mile; Canada has 10/sqmi, the USA have 87/sqmi. Other more densely populated areas in modern nations for comparison: 1000+/sqmi in Netherlands or India; the densest megacities can range between 15'000 to 30'000 people per sqmi. Clearly that's not the case, Izril is even more rural than today's Mongolia that boasts 5 persons/sqmi. Alaska has 1.26/sqmi - so if we use the 60M-number, Izril's population density is twice that of Alaska. And if we assume the "unsettled" areas are half the area of Izril, the population density in the settled ones would be like that of Mongolia. Sounds about right.

• between to 1 or 5 million Antinium? The Liscor Hive is negligible with only 33k Antinium (6.49 estimate); but the other queens have neither a restriction by treaty, nor such a fierce opposition from monsters. The lowest estimate would be 100k Antinium per hive, but if there were 400k Antinium per Hive (on average) then the worries of Magnolia would have a foundation of 2 million possible hostile ants. Naturally, the numbers could be even higher, and if there were 5 million ants, then they would probably be able to force all other races off the continent in the next war. Most of the Antinium will be mobilized in a war, unlike human armies, and only in such a vast number they are they a danger to armies of the other races.

• 50-200 million Goblins - hey, there are huge "unsettled" areas, and Izril is comparable in size to Asia, and a lot more fertile and habitable in average. That big number for the goblin population is simply counting up what we know about tribes: There are small and totally weak goblin families around, fending for themselves. There are the average tribes like the Flooded Waters (originally) and not counting for much. And there are the rare bigger tribes of more than 1000 goblins who are pushing the smaller ones around.
  2 goblins in every square-mile would be a very low density, and small tribes like the Original Flooded Waters with 40 fight-capable adults (which means, the extended families are at least 200?) control (statistically) an area of 100 square miles. Very probably, there fit several tribes in such a territory, but let's calculate with 2/sqmile. Multiplied with Izril's uninhabitated area, that means already ~40 million goblins. If there are on average 4 goblins/sqmile, we get 80 M. If only the fiercest warriors willing to assemble under a Goblin Lord/King are drawn towards those Lords, we have an explanation how Velan assembled an army of a million goblins and how the goblins still thrived as a race after Velan was crushed in Izril.