Mystara

23 February 2018

Lining Up Mystara Revisited IV

3D, Atlas of Mystara, Mystara, planet renders, world maps 4

It’s time to solve the problems I brought up in my second article, and then move forward with Solution 1 from last time.

Lining Up Mystara with Jurassic Earth

After some discussion in the Mystara Cartographic Society on Facebook, I decided to keep my 2016 model’s hex map-based coastlines. The match with the Jurassic Earth map is really not tight enough to warrant changes. (Click here for the Facebook post if it is not appearing embedded below.)

At the same time, the consensus was that the 2.2º rotation of Brun to match CM1’s map with the Master Set outlines is a step too far, making life difficult for cartographers for minimal gain in accuracy.

To sum up:

Coastlines derive from the Master Set map, except
- where there are official hex maps showing
  - more precise relative locations
  - more detail
- Brun, which is instead taken from CM1, rotation and all
Placement is based on a best fit with the Jurassic Earth map
- It’s far from exact, but the Master Set map doesn’t fit much better
- Brun’s location slightly further north than on the Master Set map is not fixable without shifting or rescaling the Isle of Dawn

Here’s the final overlay that I’ve come up with:

*The inspirational Jurassic Earth map with my fit for Mystara’s coastlines overlaid.*

A preliminary test of Jurassic Mystara on the globe, using the 2016 model

21 February 2018

Lining Up Mystara Revisited III

Atlas of Mystara, Mystara, planet renders, world maps 5

I outlined three problems at the end of the first article:

Latitude
Size
Projection

Our challenge is to try to reconcile the various models into a single 2018 model that solves or at least minimises the effects of these problems while preserving the existing maps (and the text they’re based on) as much as possible.

As with the last Lining Up project, I’m going to do this by exploring the possibilities and soliciting feedback from the Mystara community.

Solution 1: Use Jurassic Mystara as is.

The Jurassic-based world shows the true shapes of the continents.

Fit our assembled coastlines to Jurassic Mystara, shifting land masses as necessary within the confines of the hex grid. As detailed in the last article, some displacement is necessary to fit Brun in its more southerly position while still fitting in the Isle of Dawn, Ochalea and the Pearl Islands, but hopefully it’s doable.

Pros:

20 February 2018

Lining Up Mystara Revisited II

Atlas of Mystara, Mystara, world maps 4

In the next article, I’m going to propose some solutions for your consideration, broken down into pros and cons. But first, there’s the issue of georegistration.

Georegistering Jurassic Mystara

Regardless of which solution we decide upon, Jurassic Mystara will need to be georegistered. This means matching up the coastlines of the Master Set world map — or indeed my 2016 model — to the Jurassic Earth map as closely as possible. With the coastlines in place, we can lock in Jurassic Mystara’s georegistration, and then apply that to all of the other maps.

This is not a precise science: the maps don’t fit perfectly, so exact locations are slightly arbitrary. Nevertheless, the closer the placement is to the Jurassic Earth map, the truer the shapes will be on the globe.

There are a number of decisions to make even with this. Let’s take a look at these now.

The Brun Rotation Conundrum

CM1’s continental map of Brun is slightly rotated when compared with the Master Set’s world map, by approximately 2.2º. (You can see this in the image above, where the red outlines are based on CM1 — look at the south coast of Brun and compare the red and black lines.)

The question is, which version is correct?

Notably, all hex maps were based on CM1’s model (to a reasonable degree of accuracy). At the least, they were closer to CM1 than the Master Set map. In my 2016 model I took this to mean that CM1’s version of Brun was more accurate, and adapted the two extremities not on CM1’s map (the tips of Hyperborea and the Arm of the Immortals) by rotating Master Set Brun to fit.

I also used the larger scale hex maps to revise the continental outlines of Brun.

With all of this in mind, I’m inclined to keep this updated version of Brun.

The real clincher for me is that the 2.2º rotation doesn’t seem to give either version of Brun an edge when compared with the Jurassic Earth map; in fact, Brun is a pretty loose fit regardless of which map is chosen.