Total Population of the Multiverse?

[ezkajii]

Does anyone, anywhere have even a rough estimate for this? Not just the material plane but all planes in the standard D&D cosmology. I assume infinite, because of the Infinite Planes of the Abyss, but if we take that out of the equation, is it 10 billion? 100 billion? 100 trillion?

[Allanimal]

Population of what -
All creatures?
All creatures with INT>3?
All playable races?
Humans only?

[ezkajii]

Ah, whoops, yeah, sentient (Int 3+) creatures only, I suppose.

[dascarletm]

Other planes besides the abyss have infinite size, and even if they are very sparsely populated it would still bring the pop value to infinity as well.

Additionally by standard do you mean Gray-hawk specifically, or do you mean the material plane for the PHB/DMG. If the latter, it has an undetermined amount of cities.

[Mehangel]

If i was required to give an actual number I would say there are Googolplexian^42 of living creatures of INT 3+..

[Allanimal]

If i was required to give an actual number I would say there are Googolplexian^42 of living creatures of INT 3+..

That's about the order of magnitude I was thinking.
Of course you left out all the undead by saying "living".
We might have to invent new numbers for this.

[ezkajii]

Hm. My point in asking this is to determine the highest theoretical total number of worshippers any god could hope to have. Does that help narrow anything down at all?

[Mehangel]

In which case I would respond with that a god could hope to have all of them...

[Tvtyrant]

There are math problems with the concept of an infinite universe and an infinite population. IE any percentile of infinite is infinite and so the average population density is also infinite.

[Gandariel]

Numerical help: in the middle ages, the total population of the earth was measured in tens of Millions.

so maybe 30 millions humanoids, per one billion habitable planets, 30 million billion possible worshippers

[Bad Wolf]

Well you'd have to take out a lot of planes, because most of them are infinite. And also the Plane of Faerie, because fey dont tend to worship gods. You'd just have the Material, and maybe one or two others.

[OldTrees1]

There are math problems with the concept of an infinite universe and an infinite population. IE any percentile of infinite is infinite and so the average population density is also infinite.

Eh. Not true. A ratio of 2 infinities is not necessarily infinity.
The limit as X goes infinite of (2X^2+3X+2)/(4X^2+7X-20) is 1/2 not infinite.

[Psyren]

My understanding is that only Material Plane worshipers truly "count." If the gods could get enough "sustaining prayer" from the Outer Planes, they wouldn't need to worry about what's going on on the material at all, due to all the infinite-sized ones out there.

[afroakuma]

You know I do have a thread for this sort of thing...


Hm. My point in asking this is to determine the highest theoretical total number of worshippers any god could hope to have. Does that help narrow anything down at all?

Number isn't tremendously meaningful in the grand scheme of things; divine power from worship isn't simply additive (i.e. 2000 worshipers does not make you twice as powerful as a god with only 1000). However, a god can only derive worship from beings of the Prime Material Plane. Furthermore, a god cannot establish worship in a new sphere without his or her faith being brought into that sphere (i.e. Bane can't just kick in the door on Oerth and set up shop, Banite clerics need to arrive there and spread his faith manually). Since the native gods of a sphere will likely have a problem with this, there's a reasonable upper limit to how much worship you can reasonably attain.

In any event, worship caps out at divine rank 20. A god can't get so worshipped that it pops from greater deity to overdeity status.

[ezkajii]

It makes sense to restrict worship benefit to mortals. I think I'll just stick to that. Thanks everyone!

@Afroakuma - I didn't know! What thread is that?

[ExLibrisMortis]

Deities & Demigods has some vague indication of how many worshippers it takes to be a god of a certain rank.


Demigod: a few hundred to a few thousand
Lesser deity: a few thousand to tens of thousands
Intermediate deity: hundreds of thousands
Greater deity: millions

Based on the number of gods, the population of the material plane doesn't have to exceed a hundred million. I think the numbers are far too small. I'd rather use 10divine rank worshipers as a guideline.

[afroakuma]

@Afroakuma - I didn't know! What thread is that?

That would be this one. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?372289-afroakuma-s-Planar-And-Other-Oddities-Questions-Thread-5!)


Deities & Demigods has some vague indication of how many worshippers it takes to be a god of a certain rank.


Demigod: a few hundred to a few thousand
Lesser deity: a few thousand to tens of thousands
Intermediate deity: hundreds of thousands
Greater deity: millions

Based on the number of gods, the population of the material plane doesn't have to exceed a hundred million. I think the numbers are far too small. I'd rather use 10divine rank worshipers as a guideline.

Ten credulous people later, I'm enjoying some sweet sweet immortality. I feel like that formula has a problem. :smallwink:

I've been working on my own tool for assessing divine rank vs. worship, but it's not quite done yet. Suffice it to say that it does operate more as a logarithm than as a simple additive measure.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Ten credulous people later, I'm enjoying some sweet sweet immortality. I feel like that formula has a problem. :smallwink:
Err, no, it does not. I didn't say anywhere that having a certain number of worshipers gives you a divine rank. If it worked like that, the Thrallherd prestige class makes you a god, according to the guidelines in Deities & Demigods. A thrallherd can easily get the 'hundreds' of worshipers that a demigod supposedly has, so are we supposed to read: free divine rank at thrallherd 1? No.

Personally, I favour a system where you need to become a god first, then grow based on worshipers. That is, acquiring DVR 0 is the quest to becoming a god, which is probably a 20-level epic prestige class, if it's at all available. Then, once you got your rank, you can get a portfolio and start recruiting clerics. Yes, most gods would probably rush through the early ranks, because it's very easy to get a thousand followers, and that's as true for my formula as it is for the DD guidelines. At higher ranks, I find my formula more satisfying.

[afroakuma]

Err, no, it does not. I didn't say anywhere that having a certain number of worshipers gives you a divine rank.

You did not, however, lacking qualification, this:


I'd rather use 10divine rank worshipers as a guideline.

...would appear to state just that. Sufficient grounds for a friendly jibe, at the very least. :smallcool:

[Krobar]

If i was required to give an actual number I would say there are Googolplexian^42 of living creatures of INT 3+..

I would put the number, given how my players and I tend to get, at closer to 7.