Child Sacrifice, Reachman, Population Viability

Faugaun

Reading - http://www.imperial-library.info/content/life-barbaric-and-brutal

Voanche's clan was ruled by a hagraven named Kloavdra, a claw-fingered crone who was a witch-shaman of considerable power. She was a priestess of Namira the Spirit Daedra, the lady of ancient darkness who commands repulsive vermin such as spiders, insects, slugs, and serpents. Because Namira is the mistress of small pests, the Reachmen call her "the Children's God" (they are not without humor, though their jests are always malicious). At every two-moons'-dark Kloavdra would draw lots at random from the children of the clan, both Reach and slave, to select a sacrifice to the Goddess of the Dark. The chosen child would end up on the Ever-Oozing Altar where Kloavdra would cut out its heart as an offering to Namira. Every time I was sure it would be me, but the name-feather drawn was always of another.

Reading about Mongols (who the reachman are lightly based on????) It seems that "clan" is defined as equivolent to a tribe or a sub group of tribe:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribe

And

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan

A clan is typically derived from a single common (typically paternal) ancestor a tribe can link multiple clans together and a town can have multiple clans.

According to:
http://historymedren.about.com/od/medievalchildren/a/child_survival_2.htm

Infant mortality rates (defined as the number of babies per 1000 to die between birth and 1 year of age) in medieval times were:

The highest estimated percentage I have encountered is a 50% death rate, although 30% is the more common figure. These figures include the high number of infants who died within days after birth from little-understood and wholly unpreventable illnesses that modern science has thankfully overcome.

This seems reasonable when examining mortality rates in humans on earth from 1950 to present (152, 40 respectively):

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_mortality_rates

And

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate

Further if we examine miscarriage rates:

http://spacefem.com/pregnant/mc.php?m=08&d=10&y=12

We find that in 2012 about 33% of all pregnancies that reach 3 weeks end in miscarriage....this is probably lower than earlier times when the adverse effects of diet, smoking, and alcohol (among other things) were unknown.

Finally, time spent trying to concieve is successful at about 15% per month of trying:

http://chooseagender.com/Conception-Rates.aspx

This is probably higher now with our medical knowledge than previously.

Thus if you include all miscarriages and delays in Conception then the average time between healthy 1 year old children (if females focused solely on reproduction and staying pregnant at all times) it should come out to be something greater than (9 months pregnancy lengthened by miscarriage rates (a little more than 4 months) and time to concieve 7 additional months...the total is 4+9+7 = 20 months , 50% don't make it to 1 year so 20 months becomes 40 months (because it takes two births to get 1 to one year) ....this totals to 3 years and 4 months of trying to make babies by a reach couple to get a single 1 year old who could die before reaching sexual maturity and being able to reproduCe.

Let's discuss fertility rates:

http://www.m.webmd.com/baby/features/fertility-101

According to Webmd a woman stops being fertile at 41 (on average).

I couldn't find a list of reach consummation ages but the physical limits are about 13 years old (some examples lower exist in real life but very uncommon). I also couldn't find numbers on reach women trying to get pregnant or their life expectancy. But using physical limits you're probably looking at about 25 years of total fertility time (assuming all females want babies and never leave the bedroom). This also ignores childhood mortality, tribal war mortality, tribal disease, and other population slicing factors. The maximum possible babies the average reach woman could have was about 8, 1 year olds....how many of these actually made it to reproduce after all other factors are combined? How many actually produced this number? Remember it takes 1 male and 1 female (we will say couple because of children both males and females appear to be sacrificed). So if all of these numbers combine and the average survival of 1 year olds to complete reproduction is less than 1 in 4 (assuming all those that reproduce do so 8 times successfully). Then you have a balanced (non growing population) add in sacrificed children...and you quickly need a large population to sacrifice children at a bimonthly rate. A ballpark estimate is a "clan" population greater than 3,000 (lots more math to get an exact rate...and many unknown factors)...but clan indicates a large family unit....in my vision this is like 40-300 ish people (young old and reproduction capable).

This doesn't seem viable when examining the numbers.

Kragorn

/em scratches head and wonder WTF that was all about

Unoriginality

So.... Respawn rates for humanoids is too high?

Faugaun

No the lore needs to be modified....

o_0

One answer to rule them all....Magic.

Terminus1

I would like to propose a new forums tool that will hide a post based on votes.....

Faugaun

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh not the all powerful magic!

Takhistis

Someone had too much time in their ahnds during server down time?

Joy_Division

For most of human history, the problem faced by clans, societies, tribes, communities - whatever you want to call them - were too little resources and too many children, not too few. Thus some sort of infanticide was common in many many cultures and was often tied in some sort of ritualistic fashion as described in the Reachman text you quoted.

The Neolithic Revolution dramatically increased the numbers of people that could be sustained in a given area, but that did not solve the fundamental problem of too many people, too few resources (indeed it tended to create additional problems as there were more people - and thus more children - and the resources were typically not distributed equally) and infanticide / some sort of population control was still quite common.

It was not until the Industrial Revolution and the discoveries of modern medicine did the population limits described by the English philosopher Thomas Mathus disappear

Faugaun

Joy_Division wrote: »

For most of human history, the problem faced by clans, societies, tribes, communities - whatever you want to call them - were too little resources and too many children, not too few. Thus some sort of infanticide was common in many many cultures and was often tied in some sort of ritualistic fashion as described in the Reachman text you quoted.

The Neolithic Revolution dramatically increased the numbers of people that could be sustained in a given area, but that did not solve the fundamental problem of too many people, too few resources (indeed it tended to create additional problems as there were more people - and thus more children - and the resources were typically not distributed equally) and infanticide / some sort of population control was still quite common.

It was not until the Industrial Revolution and the discoveries of modern medicine did the population limits described by the English philosopher Thomas Mathus disappear

But the new limit is set by peak oil, both for medicine and for agriculture

Anvos

Human biology in the real world isn't equal to biology in magic influenced world, just think about how in a pre industrial society humanity in Tamriel can already reach the 100-200 range in their average life span.

Also you need to keep in mind reachmen numbers are supplemented by those who are turned into briar hearts and beasts controlled by hagravens.

Majic

Well, I guess that explains why necromancy is so popular with Reachmen, then.

Faugaun

Anvos wrote: »

Human biology in the real world isn't equal to biology in magic influenced world, just think about how in a pre industrial society humanity in Tamriel can already reach the 100-200 range in their average life span.

Also you need to keep in mind reachmen numbers are supplemented by those who are turned into briar hearts and beasts controlled by hagravens.

The humans reach 100-200? I knew the elves were long lived....but I didnt realize pure human was long lived as well. Go to any of the more civilized cities..there is a distinct lack of children this indicates a lower reproductive rate than would be necessary....I mean you would kill all the children in Stonefall in a matter of a few years.

I mean if the entire zone of stonefall doesn't have enough reproduction to make this viable then how is a single clan supposed to be viable? It's hard to imagine this one clan has wildly different reproductive rates from other clans.

Majic wrote: »

Well, I guess that explains why necromancy is so popular with Reachmen, then.

This does support that idea...