No, no, I get that...

I guess, probably because I just went through this whole long thing about populations, I was really thinking about what the addition of a life form that comes into being based on the social/moral obligations of another life form would have on the population AND on the geography.

You'd then need people to agree (or get a majority to agree, because it's a cooperative project) on all the little things an individual mapper could simply decide for themselves.

Examples:

1) do the ghosts/demons/spirits have physical bodies?

If so:

1a) do they use resources? Build homes? have their own villages/dens/whatever? Those would need to be mapped, yes?
1b) Do they eat? Drink? Regular food? You'd need more farms in the areas where they congregate, regardless of who is mapping that area

If not:

1c) Can other people see your demon, or only you? If you alone, would anyone really talk about it enough to create theories on the concept, in a medieval time period? People tended to push things like that into the water closet...? If other people could see them, they must be made of something? Does that chemical or substance affect the air? The atmosphere? Those changes could affect temperature, growth of plant life, anything!

1d) If they have a physical presence (or if other people could see them, cause who wants to walk through an evil spirit?) how would that affect the amount of *space* available/needed per capita for your cities/towns?

1e) If it DOES affect your population, people would obvs try to stop committing any major deeds "good or bad" to control it, yes? So people would be less likely to do *anything* extreme. That includes exploration, founding new cities, creation of weapons, tools, machines... what counts as a major deed anyway? If no one ever does anything extraordinary, then mundane accomplishments/mistakes become great... do these call demons/spirits as well?

All of these things affect your *people* who, in turn, affect the *land*.

I have tons more question/examples, but I don't think it matters at the moment. My point was simply that first, if you go too far beyond "generic", you have to get the majority to agree on how much of this information is necessary, and then you have to get them to agree, seperately, on each relevant point.

And in the growth/development of an entire world, pretty much everything is relevant.

Now, that's fine if that's what everyone wants to do... but each and every one of those decisions takes time, and discussion, and polls.

I think the reason so many people are bent on what you called "generic" is because they'd prefer to get things decided, and start mapping.


Then again, that's all my opinion, and as you said, I'm just one voice.