BogMod/DBSpreads

About a 3rd in military. A 3rd in the Bureaucracy. A third of what remains are monks/sorcerers. Another 3rd is Pure House interests. 500 or so students. 100 or so real retirees. 400 or so adventuring/private unafiliated businesses. Assuming 4000 married couples in the realm. 400 or so babies born to them a year assuming a bit more then 1 child in 12 years. Of that and including outcastes and surprise exaltations 110 or so exalts. 30 or so deaths a year. Means 80 new exalts a year. Seems too high a growth rate.

Just some ponderings.

Assuming that the 10k for the Realm is true the only way to accomodate the slow growth rate I find is it being an intentional effort by the Empress. The Shogunate infrastructure is gone and that huge world spanning empire of DBs isn't possible anymore. Rather then try it the Empress went for another route. Rather then a fast rebuilding of numbers she kept it slow through intentional sending of her people to places and dangers and the like. This limited potential trouble against her as fewer exalts are easier to handle and monitor. She did afterall have the Realm Defense Grid there wasn't any threat to seriously worry about aside from her own people moving against her. Furthermore the Sidereals likely were more or less happy with this. Less fate issues, easier to handle, and all their prophecies seemed to indicate she wasn't going anywhere.

Comments

I think the trick is the '30 or so deaths a year' section. If we assume around 100 exalts being added to the population each year, and we further assume that, since the numbers stay fairly stable, an equal amount are being removed, that means that 100 out of the Realm's 10,000 Exalts die each year - 1% of the population.

This, in turn, gives Dragon-Bloods an average effective lifespan of about a hundred years; given that certain houses, such as Cathak and Sesus, actually have average lifespans shorter than this due to the prevalence of Legion duty and assassination, seems more or less accurate.

In addition, you can keep the numbers down a bit if you assume that a certain percentage of retirees, having done their duty for a few decades, stop. If most Dragon-Bloods stick with 4-5 kids total, and 3 of them Exalt, you have almost perfect parity to account for those who have fewer or none. - FrivYeti

I agree that its either the exaltation rate needing to go down which with the breeding aspect in the Realm seems unlikely or that more die in a year then normal. These were just the rough notes of where the numbers are spread out and how. These birth numbers are based on the idea of 8 kids a century for married couple. That ignores bastards of course which have to be considered. That said a death rate of so many DBs a year I think wouldn't be normal aside from it fits quite well with how the Empress organized the Realm. The constant war at the fringe as well as infighting in politics kept the numbers from a swift growth which made them manageable and less of a threat to her.

You might be interested in a thread on the topic of DB population. - Wordman

A good read. Thanks for the post. I have my own thoughts though which I shall post...here! -BogMod