Canonfire! Forums-viewtopic-Greetings! Could you spare a little advice?

Wed Dec 03, 2008 10:34 pm Map of Oerth

From another thread I was reading about http://www.sodabob.com/roleplay/dnd/Maps/files/tsroerth.gif. I couldn't tell before where/how the map of Greyhawk fits into it, but tonight I see (it's in the upper-right, unmarked). There goes my flipped Earth-map idea somewhat.

There seems to be an awful lot of land on this planet since a flat map of a planet will distort at the polar regions in a way that makes it look like there is more land there than there is. So this map of Oerth must have huge land masses to the point that the water to land ratio looks different than Earth's which would make Earth much like a desert...see where I'm going...unless there is some magic fudge factor, logically either we're missing a whole bunch of ocean or the map is distorting the amount of land there ought to be. In any case, I'll see if I can wrap a piece of paper around my toy globe and take a picture of it!

Wed Dec 03, 2008 11:45 pm Map of Oerth Taped to Globe

How's this for yucks?

http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/52/l_ad14a9bc4f854576803c451c87b13064.jpg

I used Paint to print out the tsroerth.gif on four sheets of paper. I cut out the white margins and taped it onto a globe-ball my wife got for our infant son. Interestingly enough, the north-south distances seem to fit kinda close while the equalator distance is too short by a quarter of the distance.

So if the map were printed bigger to get around the equator, then the maps would be too tall for the polar areas. Even if I should be shrinking it down a little bit to make Polaria bigger and the same at the north pole, then I'd be missing even more than a quarter of mapped area around the equator. Maybe that's where all the water would go to support an Earth-like ratio of 3:1 land to water ratio.

Go to:
http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/52/l_ad14a9bc4f854576803c451c87b13064.jpg
for a picture of my global monstrosity.

I did a search for images of "Abeir-Toril" (or should I call it Toril?) and those maps are basically distorted maps of Earth. Africa looks like it was probably moved to the side to make room for a bunch of islands. Anyway, that map should contain what I would think would be enough water.

Krynn by comparison is found at:

http://www.freewebs.com/tohs/Krynn.jpg

Gotta run for now...

Fri Dec 05, 2008 1:30 pm The Distance of a Day's Travel

Regarding how far people go in a day when walking, I did a search about the California missions and found:

missions were placed a day's walk from each other. The entire span of missions along the El Camino Real is 650 miles.

There are 21 missions in this range.

650/21=54.166666666666666666666666666667

Bam. Does that help?

Fri Dec 05, 2008 3:02 pm Gary Holian

Is Gary Holian posting here? I tried the feedback form and it didn't work for me. I didn't see an e-mail address to use for him. Wikipedia says that he runs this site.

Gary Holian did some work already on mapping Oerth as a globe from the Oerth Journal (#3 & #4).

Fri Dec 05, 2008 6:15 pm

Hmmm, that map you're using isn't looking quite right comparing to the one I used for referencing some time ago... I will look right now if I can find it again in the net.

EDIT: Hmmmm, I can't seem to find it... Maybe I just imagined seeing it, and was actually thinking of the small map at the lower left of the big Flanaess map from LGG (found here). Anyways, it looked just like that. As you can see, it's very different from that one you're using. I found it to be really remarkable because the northern polar continent look just like Antarctica on a full Mercator projection map.

I did find the following maps in my search though. They are apparently fan made, but conform really nicely to the little map. I dunno about the southern polar continent, though. I've read about it, but it doesn't appear in the said little map. Maybe it was omitted because it is too far to the south, or just politically irrelevant (something analogous to Antarctica: it isn't shown in many maps). Anyways, it really does exist. The author could've left some references, though. They can be found here and here.

Sat Dec 06, 2008 1:23 am Re: Gary Holian

Sun Dec 07, 2008 2:46 pm

For you cartographers:
your computer can do that work for you: let it wrap your maps around the globe, it is better than wrapping paper on a globe :D

This is done using Celestia, an open source "galaxy" simulator.
If you download and install it, you can build a new solar system and, just by editing a text file, you can map your own planet.
It is a very simple thing, but i can help you if you want.
What you need is just a map of Oerth (mapping only a portion of a planet is a bit more complex, but feasible anyway).

Mon Dec 08, 2008 6:10 am

OUCH! I have that program installed, didn't remember it could do that! Good one, Parduz!

Sat Dec 27, 2008 12:55 pm

Sorry, if I come late, but I want to present you my theory about the Flanaess continent.

This is it :

.

So, the Flanaess is North America inverted north-south and east-west.

Nyr-Dyv is still Lake Superior, in its actual orientation.

And Hepmonaland is like Greenland...

You can draw the rest of the world from that. Wink

Sun Dec 28, 2008 8:21 pm

Galliskinmaufrius,

First, I'd like to say that you used my all-time favorite RPG map for your comparison. I spent way too much time learning about ancient civilizations for my own Oerth by wondering why those movements went the way they did and not in other directions, or at least had arrows pointing away from the map.

Second, I'd like to share a smile and note that many DMs have, over the years, grabbed any available map of some place and said "This will do nicely". It would justify all of my faith in the creators of the game if Gary Gygax exactly that with the Flanaess.

In my DM'ing days, I've stolen many maps printed on diner placemats to serve as the map of some village or city in my games.

Colonial Williamsburg, for example, made a lovely town in Keoland.
http://www.planetware.com/i/map/US/williamsburg-map.jpg

Jamestown and Yorktown were also useful, and I procured maps from those places during the same trip.

Colonial Boston is another excellent map that had too neat of a layout to pass up. Though the example posted is nowhere near as nice as the tourist guide map I found.
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/guides/maps/boston.gif

Mon Dec 29, 2008 11:04 pm More Stuff

I flipped and flipped the map you posted but I don't see North or South America.

It looks like this is a topic that has been covered more than once. I stumbled on this link the other day:

http://www.canonfire.com/cf/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=849

It talks about the pros and cons with including Aquaria or Gonduria. It says, "we know that at the latitude of the central Flanaess it’s at least 1000 leagues wide, and it would be very difficult to fit in anything other than some islands between there and the west coast of Oerik." I'm not familiar with that software program so I think it would be cool to mess with the latitudes and see what effect it has on room for Aquaria between the Titanicum and Solnor oceans.

The page also brings up the difference between this map and the Living Greyhawk map which I didn't know about.

Gotta run...

Thu Jan 01, 2009 1:05 pm

Hey, Fenreer, - I like your avatar by the way, I play Warhammer FRPG 1st ed. too!

Well, I like the real world maps on barbarian invasions too. I hope you're right about the way DM draw their maps, and especially Gygax.

Raymond: don't you see the USA in the colored image of the upper side of my link? They are inverted north-south and mirrored east-west!

Well, I do not want to enter the debate about the oerth map. I say this is up to the discretionary judgement of each DM in their own campaign.

Fri Jan 02, 2009 8:40 pm USA

Parduz, my brain couldn't see it before but tonight I do. As soon as I saw recognized the flip-flopped Florida, the rest made sense.

I still think the Flaness is a flipped Europe with the City of Greyhawk about where Istanbul is. It'd be interesting to find out the map maker how she came up with her map. Was it from Gygax' input or her own creative initiative.

Is that Celestia easy to use? In a quick look up on-line, I didn't see anything in the Celestia docs that pointed to where I can put my own map in like you did. Did you use Earth or where you able to size your Oerth per the Glossography? Did you use the Dragon magazine's Oerth to build that picture? I'm wondering, if you did, how small would Polaria get? How small would Hyperboria get? Would there be Earth-like amounts of water like your picture implies? How did you deterimine the longitude?

Can you also change the system so Oerth is the middle and Oerth's sun orbits around Oerth?

...All of a sudden I sound like I'm playing Twenty Questions.

Sun Jan 04, 2009 3:48 pm Obital Distance

Also, I got to thinking about orbits and that second moon that Oerth has. I haven't read if it is inside or outside the orbit of Luna but we should be able to figure it out since faster orbiting bodies are closer than slower orbiting bodies. There is a link which should allow someone to calculate the distance Celene is from Oerth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_speed#Earth_orbits

I was also thinking that if Oerth has a geosystem (instead of a solar system) then Oerth's sun would have to be smaller than ours. If so, then wouldn't it give less light, unless it was brighter...so in the sky it would appear smaller than ours does even if it cast the same amount of light.

I'm assuming that Luna orbits the same distance from Oerth as our Moon does from Earth. I'm also still assuming that Oerth's sun will be the same distance from Oerth as our Sun and Earth. Are those the only planets in the geosystem?

I read that Frank Mentzer made his Oerth be Ceti Tau...the links is:

http://forums.gleemax.com/wotc_archive/index.php/t-696315.html

and if someone were to put Oerth and the rest of its geosytem in Celestia, then the following link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceti

implies you would want to place it somewhere in that program in the Tau Ceti system, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau_Ceti

Sun Jan 04, 2009 4:11 pm Re-Thinking Relative Size and Orbits

Nah, Oerth's sun wouldn't have to be smaller. I don't know why I started to think that it would have to be. Astronomical scale is neat:

http://www.noao.edu/education/peppercorn/pcmain.html

Mon Jan 05, 2009 12:01 am

Hey Raymond,

This is Gary H....I saw your post, decided to pop in on the topic (best way to reach me is psmedger@canonfire.com).

What question did you have about Measuring up the Oerth?

You can see a couple of small versions of my geographically "correct" Oerth here, with latitude and longitude:

http://www.canonfire.com/oerthlat1.jpg
http://www.canonfire.com/oglobe.jpg

-PSmedger

Mon Jan 05, 2009 7:44 pm Re: USA

Wed Jan 07, 2009 8:58 pm Whoa

PSmedger, that's pretty much what I was looking for. Those land masses look massive on your flat map.

grodog, I haven't read that article. Does EGG mention how he came up with his map for Oerth or maybe it was just one continent with Greyhawk in it? I remember reading how EGG scoffed at the Dragon magazine's Oerth but so far that's all we've had to go by if we didn't want to make up our own Oerth continents.

Thu Jan 08, 2009 1:03 am

Fascinating discussion. I am looking to get back into D&D and was thinking about Greyhawk.

I'm looking at a world with a slightly earlier technological level say equivalent to circa 1000AD and looking at how the various cultures compare with medieval earth cultures.

This leads me to one question:

Does anyone have any idea how large the Flanaess is in sq miles? How does that compare to Europe?

Thu Jan 08, 2009 10:56 am

OJ3 and 4 talk about the size of Oerik and OJ3 compares that to RW continents.

Specifically the Flaneass, I don't know.
_________________
My campaigns are multilayered tapestries upon which I texture themes and subject matter which, quite frankly, would simply be too strong for your hobbyist gamer.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Mp7Ikko8SI

Fri Jan 09, 2009 7:36 am Size

Roughly, I've thought about the Flannaess as being about the size as Europe, probably a bit larger because the Oerth is a little larger than the Earth. If you like the map with the longetude, you should be able to calculate for yourself...to me it looks like the Azure sea takes up about 40 degrees of longetude and you know how much latitude it takes up from the Glossography...which I don't have in front of me because my wife and I are painting in this room...but from the same map PSmedger provided it looks about 45 to 50 degrees of latitude. How does that compare with Earth?

Fri Jan 09, 2009 7:38 am Earth Longetudes and Latitudes

http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/imageg.htm

Thu Aug 19, 2010 7:28 pm

Anyone still have the flipped map from page 1? I emailed Remainaery about it, but it doesn't look like they're around regularly....
_________________
Allan Grohe (grodog@gmail.com)
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html

Fri Jan 21, 2011 11:44 am