Colourised replica of X1 (1981)’s Isle of Dread map, 6 miles per hex
Including Map 2a, the player’s map of the Isle of Dread, which is a variant of this map.
From the Atlas of Mystara:
X1 contains not one but two iconic Mystara maps. This is the original Isle of Dread map.
The map itself used horizontal rather than vertical columns of hexes, but since nothing around it was ever mapped, this doesn’t really pose a great problem. Much more problematic is the scale, and it has become common knowledge in the Mystara community that the map needs to be interpreted as 4 miles per hex in order to get it to match with the size of the Isle as shown on the 24 mile per hex map. The alternative — rescaling the 24 mile per hex map’s Isle to match the 6 mile per hex scale — would put the Isle of Dread out of scale with the other islands in the Thanegioth Archipelago, although it’s an equally valid solution.
In this project, we’re going to start from the very beginning and work through Mystara’s entire canon of official maps, in the order they were published. We will examine each map and its associated text in the context of its time, extracting details from the text to add to the map wherever possible. Then we will incorporate all of this into our body of maps, building a picture of the world as it existed in that snapshot of time. As we add more and more maps, we will watch its gradual expansion and evolution, eventually resulting in a complete journey from its beginnings in the 70s and 80s right up until the end of its official line in the late 90s… and perhaps even beyond.
Principles
Since this is the very beginning of the project, I’d like to lay out some ground rules for us to follow, to define the process and keep us on track.
The Time Directive: The nature of the project dictates that we limit our considerations to things published up until the point of time we have reached in our journey. So let’s try not to refer to “future” maps and texts.
The Hindsight Directive: Except, that is, where arbitrary decisions must be made. In these cases, it’s worth checking what the official decision was, even if it happened far in the future. This is to prevent needlessly introducing incompatibility when it can be avoided.
Stay Positive: Let’s keep things positive as much as possible, and avoid making value judgements. This isn’t about what the “best” Mystara is; it’s about looking at how the world’s myriad designers conceived it at each point in time. It’s all about looking at change, not about evaluating the relative worth of that change. Everyone has their own favourite time period, so let’s treat them all with respect.
Document Sources: It’s crucial that we keep track of which map element came from where as we move forward. I will do most of this by tagging things in each map’s GIS database. If you find something to add to the map, please try to provide the page reference.
I may well add to these principles later on.
How will this work? And what can I do to help?
This is a question that has come up often wherever I’ve posted about this project. So let’s deal with it right up front.
As each map is posted, I will open the floor to research things to add to the map. The main source will be the text associated with that map, but anything introduced previously is also always open for discussion.
If you want to chip in, just get out the book in question and start reading — or more likely, start scanning. The object is to find things to add to the map. I can do this myself, but it will be faster (and more fun) if we crowdsource the research.
Things that we can add to the map include:
Terrain and terrain labels (mountains, rivers, beaches, bays, valleys, hills, etc. and their names)
Settlements and their names (cities, towns, villages, castles, forts, towers, etc.)
Ruins, landmarks, and other points of interest
Geopolitical information (population figures and other demographics, names of important NPCs, and anything else that can be tied to a geographical location)
Things to look out for:
Changes of spelling between map and text, and from map to map
Things in the text that are absent from the map, or vice versa
Capitalised words in the text (which are often names that can be added to the map)
That’s about it. How much we want to add before moving on to the next map is entirely up to how much research we want to do.
I’m sure you’ve heard of “Let’s Read” — a Mystara-themed one over at RPG.net has been on the go since 2014. The idea there was to read everything Mystara, in chronological order. Of course this was a massive undertaking, and it’s still not quite finished even now, almost four years later.
What I’m proposing is to do a “Let’s Map”, where we start at the very beginning, with the 1981 X1 map, and slowly work through the whole published canon in chronological order, gradually adding each new thing to the body of maps as we go. Not only would we get a very clear view of how Mystara evolved through its publication, but we would also of course build up the complete body of maps in the process.
Of course, I’ve already done this in numerous areas, and I’ve already reproduced the vast majority of these maps. So there would be some repetition, but most of the legwork is already done.
Moreover, this is something I’ve always had planned for the Atlas of Mystara — it’s in my earliest plans, and I made reference to it in my project announcement and overview back in 2008. At that stage I envisioned an article on “The History of Mystara’s Maps”, but it’s so wide-ranging that I’ve never worked out how to present it — until now.
So what does this involve?
Here’s how this will work:
First, I post a replica of a Mystara map.
Next, this is where you come in: we all raid the relevant text for details to add to the map.
I add the map and all the info we have come up with to our master maps.
Rinse and repeat.
Details to add to the map include the obvious stuff such as settlements, landmarks, and terrain labels, but also less obvious things, such as those implied but not explicitly spelled out, as well as geographic and/or geopolitical data that can be added to the map’s GIS database: population figures, important NPCs — anything that can be linked to a geographical location.
You may be wondering how this data will be used in the map. The answer ties directly into another part of the Atlas project, also long planned but not yet publicly released: a Mystara web map.
As the project progresses, we will build a series of master maps, one for each scale level, splitting them again when they become too unwieldy to work with. At the same time, we will be building a web map.
