Mapping Beyond the Flanaess: All Together Now!

Well here we are.

The final corrected versions of the maps are now all gathered into a .rar file (link to the right in the "Free Resources" section). It's pretty big-- took me four minutes to upload on a cable connection, but I think it makes more sense than keeping them all out there individually. These final versions of the maps have a few more tweaks than just correcting the colors of the oceans; a few other things here and there jumped out at me while I was putting this beast together, as a final "thank you" for all the support I've gotten over the last nine weeks or so:

That's in the .rar file, too. The seams between the maps aren't 100% perfect, owing to the cropping on the edges of the Hexographer files I did when transferring them to .png format. But hopefully you can get some idea of the scope of the thing; I also included scans of the original Darlene maps in the far upper-right corner, to give a sense of scale and to show how the Flanaess that we all know and love fits into the larger construct of Oerik.

Over the course of this project, a lot of possibilities came to mind as I was reconciling the various sources, some of which were contradictory (or even self-contradictory). Sure, we know that a chute in the bottom of the original Castle Greyhawk took players to China (Suhfang, above), whence they had to make their way back overland. But what I love are the implications that the various sources bring when put all together.

For example, the Empire of Lynn is apparently sitting out the mad scramble for the panoply of the former war god Stratis off in the northwestern corner of Oerik. Why? Surely a powerful city-state such as that wouldn't let such an opportunity go by without some reason. Does it have something to do with the religious situation in Lynn? Are the powers-that-be so squeamish about anything that smacks of polytheism that they choose not to have one of their own strive for apotheosis?

One also has to wonder how Suhfang, one of the largest empires on the planet, would react to the establishment of a gnoll-minotaur-demon realm on their northwestern border. I envision that Naresh has pretty much run out of petty warlords to take over, and that explains (in part, anyway), their turn back westward over the mountains. Perhaps they calculate that Ravilla would be a softer target than Suhfang; maybe they even had their snouts bloodied once or twice to convince them.

The placement of Zindia and Woguo (aka Nippon) actually makes a lot of sense when viewed in context. It gives a rationale for the existence of martial-arts-wielding monks in the Scarlet Brotherhood (within journeying distance of Woguo). I also envision a southern exodus of Suel refugees into Zindia, after the Rain of Colorless Fire, leading to their becoming established as the fair-skinned master caste (much like the Brahmins of historical India).

On a technical note, my original maps were made using Hexographer Pro, and I can't say enough good things about that program from Inkwell Ideas. It's well worth the modest price, very flexible, and intuitive to use. From there I transferred them to GIMP, where I cropped the edges (and also where I put everything together for the continent-wide map you see above). Perhaps someday soon I will go through the exact process for some of the tricks I used in Hexographer; sometimes the coastlines and islands could be tricky, and I think that half the job is finding the right fonts to use.

Anyway, it's been a load of fun, and quite interesting for me as a scholar of Greyhawk lore, to go through this exercise. I hope my fellow Greyhawk fans find the results of my labor useful. Nothing will ever compare to the hand-drawn maps by the incomparable Darlene, of course. Those gorgeous maps still adorn my office wall (the originals, which I had laminated, still looking great after 32 years) and still inspire me to venture to the Flanaess in my mind's eye whenever I cast my gaze upon them. Thank you, Darlene, for such inspiration, and thanks of course to Gary Gygax for creating the original World of Greyhawk. You are missed, Gary.

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Mapping Beyond the Flanaess: Ishtarland

The circuit of western Oerik is almost complete. My latest map covers the southwestern corner of the great continent; Ishtarland, half of the Barbarian Seameast, and the Red Kingdom. I've also made major revisions to the Drazen's Horde map (the one in the upper-right position, below), based on feedback regarding placement of some of the lands from the Chroniques de la Lune Noire. The Red Kingdom has a unique sort of terrain, to indicate the extent of the red rocks and sand that give the place its name; I don't feel like I'm straying too far from the original feel of the Darlene maps in this, given that the Bright Desert was also a unique terrain type.

The newest map is the one in the lower-right below; I'm including some of the surrounding maps so you can see how they all fit together (click to embiggen):

As always, links to the largest-scale files are off to the right in the "free resources" section. Four maps to go; next up is the rest of the Barbarian Seameast and the southern half of the Blazing Desert, whence came the humanoids of Drazen's Horde. Then finishing off the desert south of Erypt, two maps of Hepmonaland, and this baby is done!

Then I can get on with the gazetteers. ;-)

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Mapping Beyond the Flanaess: The Tharquish Empire

At long last, another in my series of Darlene-style maps covering western Oerik. This time, we cover the Tharquish Empire and the remainder of the Tharquish Dominions. I envision the region as a Greco-Roman type place (which is attested to in the Chroniques de la Lune Noire, which shows a decidedly Classical Tharquatis about to get taken out by a tidal wave; but that's okay, because it's no more canonical than Tharizdun destroying Oerth in the Gord the Rogue books), with lots of hilly terrain broken up by smallish woodlands.

I also made a few changes to the Free States map, which I'm posting here so you can see how they fit together. The one on the bottom is the new one. Click to embiggen.

As always, the latest largest-scale versions of the maps are available off to the right in the "Free Resources" section.

You'll also notice a corner of Gonduria off in the extreme southwest corner of the map; I deliberately didn't put anything there, because the focus of this series is Oerik itself, and I'm leaving Gonduria as a blank slate (for the nonce...). Next stop, Ishtarland, the Red Kingdom, and the Barbarian Seameast. Only four maps to go!

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Mapping Beyond the Flanaess: The Sundered Empire and Lynn

Apologies for not posting much in the last couple of days, and for not having any updates to my "Mapping Beyond the Flanaess" series lately. Hopefully today's post will make up for that with three, count 'em, three new maps. These cover Thalos, the Free States, and Drazen's Horde, finishing off the Sundered Empire region. This batch also includes the Empire of Lynn, detailed in François Marcela-Froideval's series of graphic novels Chroniques de la Lune Noire. Way down in the southwest corner, you can also see part of the Tarquis Dominions and Ishtarland from the DA #1 map. I'm including the previous map of Ravilla and Mordengard (in the upper-right, below), so you can see how everything lines up.

This was, in many ways, the trickiest batch of maps to do, not only because they all needed to be done together (because as you can see above, the way the grid lined up, several places such as Thalos and Lynn really need the adjoining map to give context), but also because I needed to fully integrate all three of the main sources for this region; the Sundered Empire (itself made up of several books, modules, and Dragon magazine articles), the Black Moon Chronicles region (mostly in French, but the graphic novels do give occasional snippets of geography), and the Dragon Annual #1 map. Sometimes these three sources flatly contradicted one another (as with the placement of the Empire of Lynn) or needed some slight nudging to make them work, but on the whole, I think things came out pretty neatly.

As always, click the above maps to embiggen, and the download for all the maps in largest size is off to the right in the Free Resources section. Up next; we go south again, and then back east, covering the Tharquish Empire, the rest of Ishtarland, and the Barbarian Seameast.

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Memphis, Capital of Mighty Erypt

"Surrounded by gigantic walls, mighty Memphis stood before us; no other city in Erypt was so beautiful, so great, so richly decorated. I could not believe my eyes."

The above image comes from François Marcela-Froideval's masterful series of graphic novels Chroniques de la Lune Noire. Specifically, Methraton 02 - Le Crâne (2003), written by Froideval and illustrated by Fabrice Druet. I don't speak a word of French, and only the first four books have been translated into English, but as you can see above, the art itself is worth the price. (As always, click to embiggen.)

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Gonduria, Aquaria, and Oerth's Four Continents

"Leda! Please don't quarrel with our friend. You are allowing the archfiend his way when you do that," Gord said gently. "His question was deserved. It was also practical." The three had been chivvied and chased across the whole of the world. From the distant south, through the Moving islands, up and across Gonduria's vast continent, and thence across the Agitoric Ocean to western Oerik's shore. No fastness or barren or mountain chain had served to conceal them from the hounding of Tharizdun and his yeth.

-- Gary Gygax, Dance of Demons, p. 402

The location of the continent of Gonduria and the Agitoric Ocean has been a question that has vexed Oerthophiles for quite some time. We are told in the Guide to the World of Greyhawk Fantasy Setting that "Oerth has four great continents and countless islands, and four great oceans and countless seas which surround these bodies of land." (Guide, p. 4) But the Guide only names one of them; Oerik, the continent on which the Flanaess can be found. The text accompanying the Dragon Annual #1 map clearly refers to Hyperborea (the icebound land at the north pole of the planet) as a continent. So that's two down.

The names (if not the locations) of the oceans are all accounted for. The Solnor and Dramij Oceans appear in the original folio maps. The Ocean of Storms and the Oceanum Titanicum are in the DA#1 map. And finally the Agitoric Ocean is mentioned above, but there's no indication of its location except that it is between Gonduria and the western shore of Oerik. Hey... wait a sec... that's five oceans! Obviously two of those named above are actually different names for the same body of water. But which two? Back to that question below.

We are also told that Aquaria is one of the continents on Oerth, some 5,000 miles east of the Flanaess across the Solnor Ocean (which, we are told is only 3,000 miles wide!). Some sources state that Aquaria is on Aerth rather than Oerth, but there's no reason there can't be an Aquaria on both; the one on Aerth is 5,000 miles away, the one on Oerth is only 3,000 miles. Works for me. So that's four continents named. But where the heck is "vast" Gonduria?

For a while, I was inclined to label the westernmost portion of the vast landmass found in the DA#1 map as Gonduria. In the same way that Asia and Europe are deemed to be separate continents even though they share an enormous land border, so too it made sense to me that Gonduria and Oerik could be situated. That would put "the western shore of Oerik" as the western coast of the peninsula upon which the Nippon Dominion is found and would fit in nicely with the quote from Dance of Demons, above.

Unfortunately, the publication of 2001's Chainmail, with its "Sundered Empire" setting dashed this possibility. Although it is set in the northwest corner of that great landmass and thus adds some much-needed meat to an otherwise scant area of the campaign world, it is clearly stated in multiple sources that the Sundered Empire is situated in western Oerik. I don't share the misgivings of many of my fellow Greyhawk fans concerning the setting; I think it  has a lot of possibilities, and can be made to fit with the rest of what we know about the area.

We also know that François Marcela-Froideval's campaign, which includes the lands of Lynn (Lhynn), Erypt, etc. fills up the southwestern portion of Oerik. His Chroniques de la Lune Noire have a ton of information on this region, but that's a subject for another post...

There's also the inset map from the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer that shoves Fireland some 3,500 miles to the west and shifts the landmass seen in the lower-right corner of the DA#1 map over to connect with the landmass in the lower left corner, creating one continent-sized landmass southwest of the Tharquish Empire. Given the fact that the DA#1 map is presented as a sort of "adventurer's map" and is not necessarily 100% accurate, these sorts of changes pose no problem. (The map I found to the right is from the Dungeons and Dragons Gazeteer, and thus isn't exactly the same as the inset map from the LGG, but it's close enough to give you an idea of what it looks like. The one in the LGG has some more empty space off to the right and slightly different labels.)

That landmass, I think, fills the bill for Gonduria. It's in the right place (assuming the waterway between it and Oerik is in fact the Agitoric Ocean; we're still working on that superfluous fifth ocean). Is it "vast"? Well, it's about the same size as the Flanaess, so given the fact that "vast" isn't the most precise unit of measurement ever invented, I'd say it could apply. It's certainly in what would be called "the distant south" from a Flanaess-centric point of view. And, given its position, that would cinch the identification of the Agitoric Ocean as being one in the same as the Oceanum Titanicum. From our postulated Gonduria you cross it to get to the western shore of Oerik. Nice and neat, methinks.

We still need to place Aquaria, home of the Aqua-Oerdians and Frank Mentzer's campaign since 1976 or so. Time for an itsty bitsy bit of math. (I know, I know, I'm ignoring the implications of a spherical world and Mercator projections and that stuff. I'm a history major, not a geography major.)

Oerth has a circumference of 25,200 miles. Oerik is (very) roughly 10,000 miles across, including the Flanaess. The inset map from the Living Greyhawk Gazeteer is about 21,500 miles across from edge to edge. Coincidentally, from the eastern edge of the Flanaess on the LGG inset map is... 3,000 miles. Just the right amount of distance to cover the known width of the Solnor ocean before it hits the edge of the map. And that map also leaves us with roughly 3,700 miles to have another continent which would be... Aquaria. Not that Aquaria has to be 3,700 miles across; it could be significantly smaller. But it would be continent-sized, and therefore would serve to separate the Solnor Ocean from the Oceanum Titanicum/Agitoric Ocean.

So there it is. Gonduria is the continent southwest of Oerik. The Agitoric Ocean is the same as the Oceanum Titanicum, and is separated from the Solnor Ocean by Aquaria. Four continents, four oceans, lots of disparate canon sources, some of which are mutually exclusive, reconciled. Ta-da! If you put the pieces together, it looks something like this:

(Note that Aquaria is on there just to establish its position, not to indicate its actual shape. Continents and oceans are capitalized.)

I realize some of the above conclusions diverge from those of other Oerthophiles, some of whom name Hepmonaland as a continent, and who conflate the Agitoric Ocean with the Ocean of Storms, along with other differences. But given the sources, I think my solutions make a lot of sense, and of course since it's all "canon reconciliation" there is no single right answer. If I've overlooked anything, I'm sure my gentle readers will let me know.

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