A town in the alpine meadow, on the coast
With what grows here (barley and dredge, rye and maslin, oats), this land can feed a town of about 6,600 people from farms less than a day's cart from its walls, about the size of Winchester around 1300.
Build a town in the alpine meadow, on the coast
A town of 10,000 here
Its grain comes from 31 km around, 1.5 days by cart (strained). About 1,000 villages and 79,000 country people farm it, and the town keeps about 40 scholars. Grown to 40,000 people, its grain comes from 62 km around, 2.5 days by cart (fragile). A city of 150,000 cannot live off this land alone.
In history
The Irish monk Dicuil wrote of islands north of Scotland where Irish hermits had lived for nearly a hundred years until Norse pirates drove them out, leaving islands "filled with countless sheep and very many diverse kinds of sea-birds". He gives no name, but they were very like the Faroes. Yet burnt barley and peat ash date from between the 4th and 8th centuries, and sheep DNA in lake mud to around 500, before the settlers of the early 9th century. The few trees vanished, apparently grazed out. Islanders lived on mutton wind-dried in a shed called the hjallur, on seafood and puffins, and from at least 1584 on pilot whales driven ashore.
St Kilda, far out in the Atlantic, was inhabited for perhaps two thousand years, until 1930. When Martin Martin visited in 1697, it had 180 people. They kept sheep and a few cattle and grew barley on the better ground, but seabirds were their wealth. Men climbed the cliffs and sea stacks for birds and eggs, buried the eggs in peat ash to eat through the winter, and sold fulmar and gannet feathers to pay the rent. In 1727 so many died that too few men were left to crew the boats, and families were brought in from Harris.
How large a city?
| People | Grain from | By cart | Villages | Scholars | By ship to fit in a day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3,000 | 17 km around | 1 day (comfortable) | 310 | 12 | – |
| 10,000 | 31 km around | 1.5 days (strained) | 1,000 | 40 | 35% |
| 40,000 | 62 km around | 2.5 days (fragile) | 4,200 | 160 | 85% |
| 150,000 | 120 km around | 5 days (not by land alone) | 16,000 | 600 | more than ships can bring |
| 1,000,000 | 310 km around | 12.5 days (not by land alone) | 100,000 | 4,000 | more than ships can bring |
Living there
Its woods spare enough to burn: about 18,000 tonnes of wood a year for its hearths and workshops. Provisional figure.
Its market sells grain, flax, herbs, potato and wool, and buys timber and iron. About 250 market towns stand in its countryside.
About 50% of what its people eat does not come from the fields. Of that share: herds 45%, fish 50%, gardens 5%. That is some 5,000 livestock units on 75 km² of pasture, and about 1,200 fishers in 300 boats. Hearth estimate.
What makes it hard
- Isolation: in 1697 the only way to St Kilda was an open boat, several days and nights at sea, and the crossing was next to impossible in autumn and winter.
- Every boat can bring sickness: St Kildans suffered from influenza-like illnesses they called the boat-cold, and visiting ships brought smallpox and cholera.
- Raiders come by sea for food: in 1615 Coll MacDonald of Colonsay raided Hirta and carried off 30 sheep and a store of barley.
- A distant crown may own the trade: from the 17th century Denmark held a trade monopoly over the Faroes that limited their dealings with other nations, until it was lifted in 1856.
- Food hangs on the cliffs: birds and eggs are taken by men climbing sheer sea stacks or letting themselves down the rock on ropes.
Hard years
About one year in 8, the harvest falls below four fifths of a normal one: the town is short of some 460 of the 1,600 tonnes of grain its land gives it, and the water lets it bring the gap in. A plague that kills 39% of the town, as the Black Death did in Europe's towns, would leave about 7,400 km² of its fields idle.
What it can make
Grain (at a cost), Flax, Orchards (at a cost), Herbs, Potato, Wool, Horses (at a cost), Cattle and hides, Cheese, Pigs and bacon (at a cost), Goats, Honey and wax (at a cost), Furs, Fish, Salt fish (at a cost), Whale oil, Shipyards (at a cost)
What its land cannot give, a town here must buy: timber.
What it lives on
Barley and dredge, Rye and maslin, Oats
Underground
What a city digs depends on the rock under it: Granite, Volcanic rock, Ultramafic rock (peridotite, serpentinite), Schist and gneiss, Marble, Limestone and chalk, Sandstone, shale and clay, Salt beds, River gravels and sands
Found here
Gathered (Rerum): Bistort Bulbils, Bistort Root, Alpine Marmot Fat, Alpine Marmot Tooth, Black Bear Fat, Black Bear Hide, Black Bear Meat, Beeswax Block
Hear it
- The town: Fantasy Medieval City (album RPG Ambiences Vol. 6)
- The market: Medieval Village Marketplace (on Patreon, Guardian tier)
- The quays: Medieval Harbor District (on Patreon, Guardian tier)
- The countryside: Walking in the Grasslands (on Patreon, Guardian tier)
Alpine Meadow in Biomes: plants, animals, hazards and sounds
The same climate
A town in the alpine meadow, A town in the alpine meadow, on a river
By city size
1,000, 3,000, 10,000, 30,000, 100,000, 300,000, 1,000,000
Sources
- Wikipedia contributors, Faroe Islands, Wikipedia, 2026. en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia contributors, St Kilda, Scotland, Wikipedia, 2026. en.wikipedia.org
Open the city builder — MGS Toolbox