Era VII · SS 0–83

Age of Drift

Beginning with Pale Night; The contemporary era shaped by refugeeism, pockets of stagnation, slowing currents and simultaneous crises of succession.

SS 0 is the beginning of the Pale Night and the Great Drift. In SS 54 the Last Glow disappeared, in SS 66 Doran disappeared, in SS 78 the Crimson Hunt appeared, in SS 80 the currents slowed, in SS 81 Doran returned. SS 82 is the Year of Kings, SS 83 is the beginning of the campaign.

The Fey thread

The Pale Night did not make gates ordinary again; it made them irregular and more dependent on local signs. Some Echo-Root bonds appear for a single night, some answer in the wrong season, and some respond only when an old oath is spoken anew. Modern rumours therefore describe not one Fey assault, but strain in reciprocal rules that have held since the Closure.

Population record of the age

People, places, and the cost of survival

Record qualityMixed record quality

366 millionestimated settled population at the end of the age

Ordan, Lethar, Frost Palace, and several deep infrastructure networks hold regular series. Moving Odrakan polities, sea citizens, Yabanocak, and Stagnation edges remain bands rather than totals.

World scale

The long population curve

The curve measures sustainable settlement networks at each age’s end, not a one-day imperial headcount.

Regional composition

Where the world is held

III

VII

NarethAsteronOdrakaIlyr-KhazHollow CountriesSeas

Asteron’s share expands through road concentration; the Hollow Countries and seas remain populous but structurally harder to count.

People networks

Who grew, who endured, who vanished from record

The Veyran series deliberately begins only in IV: before the Seven Lines Refuge, Veyrans did not yet exist as a people. An absent line means not yet formed, not an uncounted population.

04 · Detailed ledger

SS 83 people-by-people estimates

Millions or thousands; figures are estimates by self-identified community network. A dash is not a claim of absence, only that no defensible separate estimate survives.

Human networks

Humans: 72 m
Halflings: 8 m
Tieflings: 5 m
Half-Elves / Khoravar: 5 m
Changelings / Verdan: 2 m
Aasimar: 1 m
Kalashtar, Vedalken, and Gith: 3 m
Other human-rooted networks: 6 m

Veyran networks · begins in IV

Veyrans: 61 m

Elf / Eladrin

Wood Elves: 14 m
High Elves: 7 m
Eladrin: 5 m
Drow: 5 m
Shadar-kai: 2 m
Astral Elves: 1 m
Other elf lineages: 3 m

Deep-people networks

Dwarves: 11 m
Duergar: 7 m
Svirfneblin: 5 m
Myconids: 4 m
Grimlocks: 3 m
Derro: 2 m
Other deep peoples: 4 m

Goblin–Kobold–Gnome

Goblins: 9 m
Kobolds: 8 m
Gnomes: 6 m
Warforged: 3 m
Autognomes / Ruinbound: 2 m

Odrakan people networks

Lizardfolk: 14 m
Dragonborn: 8 m
Orcs: 10 m
Grung: 2 m
Tortles: 3 m
Yuan-ti: 3 m
Nagas: 1 m
Other Odrakan peoples: 2 m

Sea peoples

Kuo-toa: 10 m
Sea Elves: 9 m
Sahuagin: 8 m
Locathah: 7 m
Tritons: 6 m
Kalamer: 3 m
Plasmoids: 1 m
Aboleth lineages: 1 m
Hadozee: 1 m
Other open-sea communities: 1 m

Other and smaller networks

Fairies: 2 m
Satyrs: 1 m
Firbolgs: 2 m
Minotaurs: 2 m
Centaurs: 1 m
Aetherborn: 1 m
Giff: 1 m
Goliaths: 1 m
Other small networks: 1 m

In SD 83 the world sits roughly 12 million below its Meridian peak. Pale Night, closed passages, slowing currents, and Stagnation pockets damage the ability to sustain life more than birth itself. Sea-peoples networks reach at least 47 million: the band includes not only coastal cities but open-ocean shoals, moving colonies, reef cities, and old communities on the dark sea floor.

Veyrans remain the dominant imperial people network at about 61 million, but their growth has stopped and some basins decline. They are affected not by low fertility but urban life, war service, later marriage, migration, and frontier families slipping out of records. Odrakan road networks and sea peoples are relatively resilient through mobile households and shared care even where official counts are weak.

Age of Drift ​

The Fey thread ​