Battle under Farthen Dur Ib

I'm sorry that I am late in updating my blog but Real Life is getting in the way. This will have to be a short update...

Last time I just gave my conclusion on the numbers at Farthen Dur without giving upper and lower ranges. At the lowest range, if there are 2500 Varden there are twice as many dwarves and thus 7,500 overall. At the upper edge with 3,000 Varden there can be as many as 6 or 7 dwarves for every one of them giving as many as 21,000 dwarves, something not very likely since it wouldn't be realistic to have Jormundur commanding the third line.

What do the numbers of the dwarven army tell us about the population of Farthen Dur? Very little because simply we do not have demographic ratios for the dwarves. At Plataea most southern Greek city states sent something like 30% of their total population, that is every able bodied male between 18 and 50. We do not know even if that happened, because many could have fled to other cities and in any case we do not know what is the maximum age at which a dwarf can hold arms. Hrothgar is over 100, but how much older than that we never know. We are unaware at the average life expectancy of the dwarves in any case. If it was 30% of the Farthen Dur dwarves forming the army and they numbered 9,000 men then the total population of the city is 30,000 people and, assuming fove dwarven cities of similar size, the entire people numbers 150,000 individuals. This seems rather small, and is nothing but a half-educated guess. Next time, we will advance on the battle