shutsumon (shutsumon) wrote in specficwriters, @ 2008-09-13 21:31:00 |
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Entry tags: | genre: fantasy, olestria, worldbuilding |
Worldbuilding Project - Olestria -Part Three B
I'm never quite sure if rampant silence means a: no one is reading this, b: it's good so I'm not going to criticise, c: it's bad and I don't want to hurt your feelings.
In otherwords please give me feedback or tell me to shut up.
The (still unnamed) country that I’m planning to set this story in has a population of about 40 million people (it was higher before the events mentioned in part one of this world build). This is about 1% of the current world population. Definitions of small town, large town and city would compare very closely with modern European views on the matter.
The population is very diverse, consisting not only of people descended from all the main Olestrian races but also of immigrants from all over the world - who also bring their religions with them making the temple district of the capital city one of the largest in the world and it is jokingly called the holiest city in the world due to the fact almost every known god has at least a small shrine there.
The big population shift from rural to urban happened about 200 years ago during Olestria’s industrial revolution. There was a slight shift back to rural during the year of chaos but most people are still urbanised. Less than 2% of the population work in agriculture.
Obviously since magic can only be used by the priests of various gods magic is legal. The only reason a kind of magic might be outlawed is if the religion itself was outlawed and while its not impossible for this to happen in theory it never has (though a couple of immigrant religions that still favour human sacrifice (something Olestrian religions stopped a few centuries ago) are coming pretty close. It’s likely their gods will advise a halt before it gets that far however. This attitude to magic is pretty much prevalent throughout the world. A few regimes try to legislate for only one state religion but it rarely works well.
The primary imports are manufactured good, machinery, foodstuff and fuel (like modern Britain very import dependent but also like modern Britain it can produce 60% of it‘s own food needs and probably more if pushed though other areas of the economy would suffer.) Primary exports are industrial and electrical machinery, automatic data-processing equipment, motor vehicles, petroleum, chemicals, finished and semi-finished manufactured products, agricultural products and foodstuffs. Major maritime nation. Trade is very important as they are import dependent. Currency exchange is handled much as in the real world and the currency is a paper and cupronickel coin one printed/minted by a government owned mint.
About 25% of the land is suitable for arable farming and the highly industrialised and very efficient intensive farming system coupled with the fertile soils and temperate climate make for high yields. Primary agricultural products are grain crops, potatoes, flax, sugar beet, fruit, vegetables. The country is also famous for its cheeses.
Crops that cannot be grown here are ones that don’t like a wet temperate climate obviously.
Around 20% of the land is forested - mostly recent reforestation.
Around 10 - 15% of the land is urbanised (depending on if open spaces within urban areas are counted as urbanised or not).
Water is plentiful falling from the sky by the bucket load and forming numerous rivers and streams. (Gosh that sounds like somewhere I know *glances at sky suspiciously*)
The remaining land is mountains, moorland and grassland and much is used for grazing cows and sheep. These chickens and pigs are the most commonly domesticated animals in this country. Goats are not unknown. If an animal is domesticated on Earth it’s probably domesticated somewhere on this world.
Wild animals found in Olestria include numerous kinds of birds - including birds of prey - foxes, wild cats, lynx, several types of deer, various species of fish (freshwater and salt), crustaceans, insects of various kinds, otters, various rodentia (rats, mice, voles, squirrels, rabbits, hares etc), wolverines, a handful of lizard and snake species, frogs, toads, newts and other amphibians, wolves and bears are rare but not unknown… this is not an exhaustive list. As the climate is near European so is the flora and fauna. The economic value of the creatures is roughly the same as on Earth.
There are no caste restrictions on employment in Olestrian countries - though there were in the past in some countries including this one - the industrial revolution killed that by effectively removing many of the old roles. People may take up any job for which they are qualified in theory though the old high caste do seem to gain more high profile jobs than others (though this is mainly due to old money nepotism and the old boy network than prejudice against the ‘lower’ castes and the truly talented will generally get their due).