Originally Posted by
Cosi
D&Dland is medieval. People are always starving everywhere because they live at a subsistence level on land being farmed with premodern techniques in a feudal relationship with the local lord (who, incidentally, is not exactly in favor of them having whatever lifestyle they want). Medieval Europe was at a level of growth we would have called depression or recession for hundreds of years. The infant mortality rate was somewhere between a third and a half. D&D is like that, but there are manticores and apocalypse cultists.