Crisis in Crowfield

As we established in previous posts, Crowfield is a large town that doesn’t grow its own food. It used to rely on the surrounding villages (the Baron’s fiefs) to supply the town with what it needed. But those villages are gone now, so Baron Crowfield needs to secure new sources of food for his people.

The question is: How much food do they need?

And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying: “Come, and see.” And behold a black horse, and he that sat on him had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard as it were a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying: “Two pounds of wheat for a penny, and thrice two pounds of barley for a penny...” [Apocalypse 6:5-6]

James mocks me (kindly) for the amount of math I use when I’m designing a world. James is going to mock me for this post.

I try not to be a slave to realism, but I do let it influence my game world. James probably has a point. I should ignore a lot of the realism stuff and concentrate on the fun stuff, but that’s not who I am. I think having these little facts in the background, out of the players' view, makes the world feel more realistic.

The Real World

A quote:

A prosperous English peasant in the 14th century would probably consume 2 - 3 pounds of bread, 8 ounces of meat or fish or other protein and 2 - 3 pints of ale per day. The bread was usually made of rye, oats, or barley. Meat was expensive and usually only available on special occasions. Often eggs, butter, or cheese were substituted for meat. Vegetables such as onions, leeks, cabbage, garlic, turnips, parsnips, peas and beans were staples.¹

What that means for Crowfield

That was for a “prosperous peasant.” Let’s then go on the low end of all the numbers for the average person in Crowfield:

Item	Quantity
Bread	2 pounds
Protein	8 ounces
Ale	2 pints
Fruits/Vegetables	“staple”

Bread

Basic bread is just flour, water, and a fungus (yeast). You mix it all together. The fungus then feeds on the carbohydrates in the flour and “farts” little bubbles of carbon dioxide into the loaf, making the bread nice and airy.

We only have to worry about the flour. Crowfield has plenty of water (that should be its own post someday), and the yeast will come from the bottom of the ale kegs. Making 2 pounds of bread requires 2 pounds of flour.² Making two pounds of flour requires 2 pounds of grain.³

Protein

There’s lots of options there, but it doesn’t matter. No matter the source of the protein, we’re looking for about 8 ounces a day. 8 ounces is 0.5 pounds.

Ale

Basic ale is just grain, water, and a fungus (yeast). Kind of sounds like a liquid bread. You mix it all together. The fungus feeds on the carbohydrates in the flour then:

• “farts” little bubbles of carbon dioxide, making the ale bubbly;
• “pees” alcohol into the ale, making the ale kinda gross if you ask me.⁴

According to Tofi Kerthjalfadsson’s recreation of medieval weak ale, it takes 4⅔ pounds of barley and 1½ pounds of oats to make 2½ gallons of ale. Let’s math:

• 4⅔ pounds of barley + 1 ½ pounds of oats = 6⅙ (or 6.17) pounds of grain

• 2½ gallons = 20 pints

• For 2 pints (the average person’s daily consumption) we need 2/20 × 6.17 = 0.617 pounds of grain. We’ll call it 0.62

Fruits/Vegetables

The source says that fruits and vegetables are a staple. I’m not sure how to translate that into a number. It almost implies that there would be more vegetables than grain, but that’s a lot of vegetables.

In the modern United States, the government recommends that adults eat 2.5 - 3 cups of vegetables per day. What they call a cup seems to about 84 grams regardless of the vegetable. 84 grams × 3 = 252 grams = 0.56 pounds. Let’s call it 0.6 pounds.

Putting it all together

So every day, every person in Crowfield needs about:

Item	Quantity
Grain for ale	0.62 pounds
Grain for bread	2 pounds
Protein	0.5 pounds
Fruits/Vegetables	0.6 pounds
TOTAL	3.72 pounds

It’s probably a little less because some people are children and elderly; but it’s also a little more because some people are rich and eat more while some extra food is needed for pets and such. This is good enough.

There are 7,500 people in Crowfield. 7,500 × 3.72 pounds = 27,900 pounds = 13.95 tons.

That’s right: Crowfield needs 14 tons of food every day or people will starve to death.

That’s 14 fully laden pack lizards (or whatever) coming through the gates every day carrying nothing but food. On top of that add things like clothes for the people to wear, wood/coal/other fuel to cook the food and provide heat in the freezing desert nights, and every other raw material you can imagine.

Right now there’s nothing coming in. There’s enough stores to feed everyone for a few months, but after that things get real bleak real fast.

Baron Crowfield isn’t a great warrior and leader just because he’s good with a sword. He’s a great warrior and leader because he understands logistics, and he is terrified.

---

Footnotes

Image:

Unknown artist, “The Opening of the Third Seal: The Third Horseman,” about 1255–1260.  From Dyson Perrins Apocalypse. The Third Horseman of the Apocalypse is Famine, and the prices given on the scripture are thought to represent food prices increasing beyond a person's ability to pay. Ironically for a post about famine, Dyson Perrin was the grandson of the Perrins part of Lee & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce. Digital image courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program.

1. Singman, J. L., & MacLean, W. (1995). Daily Life in Chaucer’s England (pp. 159-160). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.↩

2. Probably slightly less because there will be a little bit of water that doesn’t bake off adding a little mass, but close enough.↩

3. Actually, it requires a little more because some mass is lost and discarded in the milling process, but close enough.↩

4. I’m okay eating fungus farts baked into a yummy loaf of bread, but drinking fungus pee is crossing the line.↩