Population: <1,000 people.
A village is the smallest viable permanent human settlement possible that could feasibly sustain itself with whatever food practices are available to its residents. Villages tend to be tight-knit, and locals have a great deal of knowledge about the dangers of and how to navigate the surrounding area. However, there are also very few services available, and what local professionals or merchants that do exist are eccentric or hard to contact.
Villages’ small size means they are less sheltered from the elements than larger settlements. There is usually a village square and a place to honor and bury the dead. There will also be a few professionals, such as a blacksmith, a tanner, a miller, and a baker, as well as a big house for any authority figures. What those authority figures look like largely depends on the town’s culture. In towns ruled over by a monarch or imperial power, it might house the landlord or assigned bureaucrat, while in more independent or democratic polities it could be the meetinghouse for the council of elders or even the manor of an elected mayor. In any case, much of a village’s structure will be built around food production, and the GM’s description of the village should reflect this. The smell of manure, the sound of rain and wind, and the texture of mud, dirt, and sand against the players’ boots, all of these emphasize the pastoral qualities that distinguish villages from their more populous counterparts.
When the GM decides a settlement should be a village, they should consider the following questions: