 |
| Revised climate map of Titan by Steve Luxton |
Althought the title says 'Geography of Allansia' I wanted to briefly talk about Steve Luxton's revised climate map of the Fighting Fantasy world of Titan, as shown above. Are there any more changes we need to make to this? Off hand, I can think of only three small alterations:
- The X that marks the sunken ruins of the city of Atlantis needs to be moved down to perhaps just above the Warm Temperate dotted line.
- Below this, the Bird Islands, Fish Island, Skull Island and the Blood Islands need to resemble their counterparts on the original Titan map.
- As Simon Osborne mentioned previously in the comments, where is Bone Island from Bloodbones? Does anybody have any idea?
 |
| Rough map of Allansia by Steve Luxton |
Moving on to the classic Fighting Fantasy continent of Allansia, Steve has created and kindly shared this map based on the original from Titan. How can we improve it and what needs to be added to or changed?
A few of my suggestions:
- Do we need to include the northern portion of the continent, which is quite large and basically frozen wasteland?
- Do we include details for Bjorngrim's Sea based on Simon Osborne's revised map for Jonathan Green's unpublished Saga of the Stormchaser?
- I think the Flatlands label needs to be spread out over the grasslands that stretch to the Sea of Pearls coastline, to better indicate the extent of this vast steppes region.
- Agra, the top city on the left-hand coast of the Glimmering Sea, needs to be moved downwards in line with the map from The Riddling Reaver, which was published first and has precedence.
- We could probably add detail from Battleblade Warrior, as that is a relatively blank area of the above map.
- Likewise, we could add some of the settlements from Night Dragon to the Dragon Reaches region.
Another fine blog, Andy. This project is going really well.
ReplyDeleteAtlantis will be moved further south on the next map. This means that we'll need two more maps for the island groups east and west of Khul with more detailed views.
The Allansia map will show the whole coastline, and possibly part of the Frozen Sea as well. I'll be using Simon's atlas for reference and updating the map from that to start with. The next versions will have a grid reference and index system.
You can follow the progress of these new maps, discuss relevant issues and submit ideas at:
http://mrnibbsnewmaps.blogspot.com/
Well, to be fair, Jon Green posted his map to a fan-site many years ago, which is where I got it from. It would probably be courteous to ask him if it would be OK to include the material in the official Map of Allansia, though I imagine he would be happy to give his blessing for it. Andy, you would probably be the best "point of contact" for this.
ReplyDelete@Steve: Thanks for your comments! With the islands, just look at the original Titan map, and then the Titan map above and you'll see some of them have morphed into slightly different shapes and numbers.
ReplyDelete@Simon: Thanks, I'll maybe run it by him then and see what he says. BTW Any clue or preference for Bone Island (since you spotted it first!)
@Mr Nibbs:
ReplyDeleteThanks both for the answer and the blank maps. Naturally you'll be credited for your work. As for the translation, the actual work is more like collecting the names from already translated books and adding them onto the maps you're so kindly creating.
We're not looking for any kind of financial advantage here. As for publishing it, the most we'll likely do (or plan to do, at least) is to create about a dozen or so A3 prints and give them away for free for a couple of friends, if it's all right with you. Other than this, it'll only be displayed on a website for everyone to see and download.
The sketches already look great, so even if all the maps that will be released into the public domain remains like this, I'll be more than happy with it.
I like the climate map. And your comments are spot on.
ReplyDeleteThe rough map is exactly that: rough. Hard to comment about it, but you did it anyway! Very nice.
Regards,
Tiago
I am not concerned with the precise shapes of the islands at this stage because to draw them all properly takes hours. When all the information on the world map is decided, it gets drawn again using the gamebook maps for detailed references, so everything matches.
ReplyDeleteIt's also me playing games, and you can find faces and things in the outlines. Tura is a fluffy bouncing dog.
Hmm...Is Fish Island so named because it looks like a fish from sea-level, or from the air?
The location of Bone Island is given in Simon's atlas and is measured in leagues. Because we now have an accurate map grid it was easy to plot. It's about 200 miles south of Blood Island.
I think the Giant's Teeth info should go on. It would really good if Jon Green could give us names for all the islands and some of the harbours.
Heisenberg, I really appreciate the translation work and we should discuss this in more detail.
I'd rather you didn't use any of the maps so far, as they have all had some work done on them and are now moving beyond sketches and becoming working drawings. The latest maps are at http://mrnibbsnewmaps.blogspot.com/ - you should use those instead.
If you think that map's rough you should see the earlier versions. This was an experiment to see how the first gridded map would fit onto an A4 page. It's also to look at text size and placement. It shows that first grid wasn't quite right and needed tightening up.
The dirty, smudged look is the first layer of graphite and wax (cheap colour pencils basically) going down for the shading, and doesn't scan well at this stage.
Sorry, just a quick note for now to say that although I've been meaning to respond in detail to this post (and Steve's) about these wonderful maps, work and family commitments have taken over for the past couple of weeks and I have had barely a moment to draw breath. As soon as I do, I'll hit this with a slew of comments no doubt!
ReplyDelete@Warren: Bank holidays usually aren't, are they?
ReplyDeleteArion's AFF2 is due from the printer this week...
Anyone plotting stuff on maps: it would be really useful if you make an index with map references.
The latest maps are at: http://mrnibbsnewmaps.blogspot.com/ - comments are appreciated.
Apologies for the delayed response to all this, but hopefully this will make up for it! I notice there have been more Blogspot shenanigans, with Steve's latest comment appearing, disappearing, then appearing quite some time later again...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, thoughts on the Allansia map. I'm sure there are other things I've missed:
1) As Andy pointed out, Agra isn't quite in the same location in the Titan map and the Riddling Reaver map. The same is true for Bei-Han, which should be in the next bay south in the Titan map according to the RR map.
2) Bakulan in Shabak isn't named.
3) Kulak Island shouldn't be joined to the mainland.
4) Halak and Rimon: these two cities are at the tips of their two peninsulas respectively, and are only separated by a narrow channel of water (see the illustration in 'Titan', and the description in 'Demonstealer').
5) Kaynlesh-Ma has been misplaced on Steve's map and should be on the coast near the mouth of the River Eltus.
6) All other maps show Stonebridge to be essentially directly north of Darkwood Forest, at the northern apex of the bend in the Red River.
7) The Snakelands should probably be marked.
8) As Andy says, it might be good to include some more info from the map in 'Battleblade Warrior'. The ruined city of Kharnek seems like a good one to me, as that wouldn't clutter the map too much.
9) One of the towns from Night Dragon should probably be put on the map - Rentarn seems like the best option, and it probably lies on the northern end of the inlet to the south of the Dragon Reaches peninsula - this inlet is probably Corpse Bay (ND: 304). The village of Marzail is just over half way between Blacksand and Rentarn (ND: 212), so probably not far north of the River Kok, where the Icefinger Mountains meet the coast.
10) Almost all other maps of northwest Allansia show that the coast stretches ever so slightly west of north as one travels north, unlike the Titan map (and Steve's new map), which show it trending ever so slightly east of north.
11) It would be good to add Vatos, in the Desert of Skulls. It should, according to the map of the desert in 'Titan', be at more of less the same latitude as Warpstone (see below), and the same longitude as the sharp turn in the Skull Coast just south of the mouth of the Whitewater River.
12) Which brings me on to Warpstone... Voloidon Carsak's map of the Desert of Skulls seems to indicate that it is on the southern edge of the Craggen Heights. The 'Titan' map of Allansia seems to put it on the eastern edge of the Craggen Heights, on the edge of the Flatlands. 'Allansia' (p. 138) Describes it as lying "on the northern edge of the Craggen Heights", which can hardly be right. So where should it be?!
13) The southern river in the Swamplands of Silur Cha probably shouldn't have a break in it.
14) Fang should lie on the northern shore of the River Kok, not float north of it by some distance. The precise location of Fang on the river seems to vary a bit from map to map, but only one canon map shows it in the crook of the two rivers (the one from 'Skullcrag'; this looks like an error), whilst most show it some way to the east of the junction of these two rivers. BUT: it should be roughly northwest of Stonebridge (according to all the other canon maps). This can easily be remedied by shifting the northward tributary to the west quite some way, and Fang with it, but not as far.
Great work by the way Steve. Thoughts?
@Warren. Thanks for spotting all those. I was finding similar discrepancies on other part of the world map.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to conflicting sources I usually give priority to the original continental maps and to Leo's maps. A few specific points:
#10 - yes, the orientation of the Allansian coastline has been altered very subtly. The outline was taken from the Allansia map in Titan, and the image of the continent has been slightly distorted and rotated as part of its placement on a globe.
#12 - The original Allansia map from Titan shows the best detail and places Warpstone in the NE area of a triangle of hills formed by peaks which include Craggen Heights.
#13 - I've always thought that looked wierd. Maybe it's where the river gets lost in open swampland. I imagine them as deeper underwater channels in shallow water.
Can you plot where these places should be on a gridded map and post it where I can download it? What's the best way to do that?