Canonfire! Forums-viewtopic-Map of Oerth

Mon Oct 29, 2018 3:29 pm Map of Oerth

I know there is a full map of the continent that the Flaness is connected to. I'm just wondering if it was official or not. It certainly looks fun. The Chinese are stuck in the middle, and the Egyptians are in the far west. There is a kingdom of Ishtar in the far west, Babylonian influence? So I was thinking, should these places be filled out?

Tue Oct 30, 2018 12:58 pm West...or Is It East

This is one of my favorite topics. Oerth is like a riddle because Gygax isn't around anymore to help us identify what he had in mind with a little more detail that we would use for a setting.

There's a whole thread about what we can guess should be there at:

http://www.greyhawkgrognard.com/tag/beyond-the-flanaess/

I don't think anyone else has noticed that the Black Moon Chronicles map looks like a continent-sized France.

Over time, my ideas on what Oerth was or was supposed to be has flipped-flopped as I found more information. My current notions are that Hyboria and Polaria are ice caps and there are four continents anolgous to Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America. I believe Oerth before publication was a variation of Earth where the City of Greyhawk was located in in the Chicago spot. I think the published version is and East-West flipped version of Earth that places Greyhawk in the Constantinople spot. For a time I was thinking that the North America position would contain the expanded continent which Mentzer started with as expanded by whoever expanded the Judge's Guild map (since Mentzer based part of his shoreline on it). But Mentzer has mentioned that his continent has an isthmus so I'm back to guessing it looks like a flipped North America or something he hasn't shared at all.

Gary has written that his original idea for Oerth looks much like what he made for AErth as published by GDW for Dangerous Journeys. I suspect that his intention to allow for the Black Moon Chronicles continent was after his initial concept and he intended it for publication before his departure from TSR. The Afrik outline in The Epic of AErth is different than the AEsheba setting he released with New Infinities. AEsheba has no Nile River and appears to be a much smaller continent.

Now I'm blabbing about more than Western Oerik which is more than you asked about. That link though should have all the details your looking for. I'm wondering how Joe determined the size of that continent. It seems a bit large compared to the https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-grgJVVN0zok/Ws1pT-FXmlI/AAAAAAAAUOo/in_LglDyhDMGwN3YYun6p5hUe1tBJB5AgCLcBGAs/s1600/Map01.png map or Gygax' reference to the Oerth-Asia being "a trifle smaller" than the Earth one ("The Dragon" #1). The AErth map doesn't seem to make the continents a trifle smaller or larger as per "The Dragon" #1 to me when I overlay the AErth map over the Earth in Google Earth Pro. Clip the top and bottom extra bits off and that map lines up real well with the real Earth.

Tue Oct 30, 2018 4:32 pm Whoa there tex . . .

You're right, that is a lot of information. Oerik is a large place, that's for sure. It's tropical in Zindia, and in Nippon. Filling it out (Oerik) should be easy, but we're left to speculate what the other continents actually looked like. Most adventures take place in the Flanaess, which is the most detailed piece of Oerik. But after I have seen the map of Oerik, I was intrigued.

If Gygax (Xagyg haha), were still around maybe we could get more information about Oerik. But yes, that is a lot of information to take in. I'll peruse the blog for a bit.
Shocked

Thu Nov 01, 2018 11:49 am Beyond

Yeah, Joe did an awesome job coming up with the map. I re-read some of the posts and see now that he based his dimensions on the Dragon Annual map.

Fri Nov 02, 2018 11:49 am Gygax vs. TSR/WotC

It also occurred to me that different people will want to branch out in different ways in determining what they think Oerth was/is and should be in their campaigns. Some people are interested in knowing Gygax' vision of what Oerth was to him. That's also challenging because it seems to have morphed at different times. Other people are interested in what the published definition of it is. In that case, the Living Greyhawk inset map provides a DM-style map and the Dragon Annual #1 map provides a player's-style map. I also think there are people trying to reconcile descriptions of each. So those people struggle to place Aquaria.

I think Oerth Jounral #1 is talks about this stuff in detail. I'm trying to figure out what would have been the world as it was during the OD&D era, what it was when Gygax left, and what it became after he left.

I looked at the dates for the Great Kingdom maps and only realized this week that they both represent a time before OD&D was released which means the Domesday 9 maps from 1971 was from the Chainmail era. Magarry's Great Kingdom map may be from the Chainmail and/or OD&D era.

Sun Nov 04, 2018 4:43 pm Re: Gygax vs. TSR/WotC

Tue Nov 06, 2018 4:24 pm Blushing

There are people that visit this site that have been looking at different angles of "beyond the Flaness" longer than I have that's for sure...and they may have different conclusions than me. But it's fun to compare notes for sure.