(11-20-2016, 07:57 AM)Yian Kutku Wrote: What sort of population does each of the city-states have, and how many outlying settlements are significant enough to be potential origins? I ask because I'm thinking of having my character come from around Sharlayan, as opposed to the city itself. In-game the city-states are kind of deserted, which I assume to be a gameplay conceit.
Definitely a gameplay conceit. While we don't know exact or even relative populations of the city-states, we can guess Gridania has the smallest population and Ul'dah the largest. There is lore for the settlements and a brief summary of history in a post I made a while back.
-Eorzean Settlements Lore
Unfortunately, we don't know a ton about the Old World, even with the lore book. We do know that the city-state is on an archipelago and that the city is divided across many islands. For example, the Studium, home to Sharlayan's students of Baldesion, was situated on the Isle of Val, which was obliterated by unknown magicks. However, Sharlayan still exists. So it's likely that there are various settlements spread out across the Sharlayan Archipelago that house the city-state's population. Other than that, you'd likely have to look into Sharlayan's colonies, though the only one we know of with any certainty is the Dravanian colony, which was abandoned.
