World of Greyhawk Folio - 30 years on

[Philosopher]

Good discussion, gang.

How about the Darlene map's use of hexes for travel and distances? Antiquated or still superior utility for gaming purposes?

In terms of utility, I prefer hexes all the way. As the Darlene map shows, aesthetics need not be sacrificed for this utility.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Sorry, the link should have been Cartographers' Guild - The Front Page - was going from memory.

Like I said, great map and certainly iconic. Gold standard though? Sorry, not even close.

Thanks for the link; I'll be sure to check that site out.

I can't agree with you about the Darlene map, though. I've never seen a better map in any gaming product.

 

[grodog]

Good stuff Merric---had I known you lacked a folio, that could have been fixed quite some time ago

WRT Darlene's cartography: it rocks, pure and simple

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I think a good real-world comparison for the Fler/Velverdyva is the Arkansas River which flows across the "plains" of Kansas and through the Ozark and Ouachita "Mountains" of Arkansas before merging with the Mississippi.

Or the Columbia River flowing out of the Rockies, across the plains of eastern Washington . . . towards the coastal mountain ranges of Oregon and Washington.

I once was bothered by it when I was younger. I had since come up with a rationale that works for me. In many millennia past an ice age buried many parts of the Flanaess where glaciers receding north left a glacial lake built up between the towering ice and the Yatil mountains, the glacial lake could only drain out to the south and accelerated the erosion through a mountain valley that was perviously carved out by the glaciers. Maybe the dammed up water burst out in a cataclysmic erosion event like happened in the Columbia valley long ago.

One river I still have trouble grasping is the Selintan river as a naturally occurring connection to the Nyr Dyv while the Nesser River was also a natural drainage. I know what was said about the Selintan after Gary left so I don't know his geologic explanation, the later authors wrote that there was a narrow gorge that was carved wider to carry barges. I still shake my head but handwave it.

 

[MerricB]

Good stuff Merric---had I known you lacked a folio, that could have been fixed quite some time ago

Thanks, Allan! I've never really felt the need to have the folio edition - except I was curious... and when I saw an Australian auction for it on ebay, I decided to go for it. Lost the auction, then won a (cheaper) auction for another copy the next week.

...and then I reviewed it!

Cheers!

 

[haakon1]

So, the river starts on flat plains to the north, flows south into a lake, then empties THROUGH the mountain range into the sea.

The Fler river starts in a high plains plateau, drains into a valley, specifically into Lake Quag.
>> Hussar thinks this doesn't exist in the real world. I point you to the Mississippi, Missouri, and Mohawk Rivers.

Lake Quag, like all fresh water lakes, has an outlet. In this case, it's the Velverdyva River, which flows through a canyon.
>> I point you to the Columbia River and Colorado River for examples of rivers with major canyon systems.

The Velverdyva River eventually spills into the Nyr Dyv, a great fresh water lake with many rivers flowing into it, and two outlets to the sea.
>> I point you to the Great Lakes and Lake Victoria for similar inland fresh water "seas" that are formed by many rivers spilling into a basin, and that stay fresh by draining to the ocean.
>> For a lake with two different outlets to the ocean, I point you to Lake Yellowstone.

Greyhawk has "interesting" but not impossible geography. A lot of the northern geography is explanable by glaciation in the past . . . that's my guess as to the origins of the Velverdyva Valley, for instance.

 

[Hussar]

"High plains plateau"? This is not obvious from the map. Is this in the text descriptions?

Sigh, look, I'll admit, I'm not a geographer, so, I could easily be wrong. I took a thirty second look at the map and those points jumped out. I mean, you've got the Att (sp - the one south of Chondl and the Vesve forest that starts out in the middle of nowhere and flows into Nyr Dyv. You've got the Foniv (sp) river north of Nyrond that also starts out in the middle of plains. You've got the Flanmi river that starts out in the middle of the plains, but instead of flowing parallel to the Frask River into the Solnor Ocean, it instead flows south to the much further Aerdi Sea. And for some reason, absolutely nothing flows west of the Crystalmist or Hellfurnace mountains.

It's not like it's only one example. I just posted one off hand.

Now, it's perfectly fine to ignore this. There are certainly more egregious examples of fantasy maps out there. Most definitely.

My sole issue was with the idea that this map represents the gold standard in fantasy mapping. It's a great map. Evocative, interesting. Lots of goodies. Too big for my tastes, but, that's a personal thing and has nothing to do with the quality of this map.

For me, I find the calligraphy difficult to read and a bit overdone. I also find that it ignores some basic geographic principles. That's why I hesitate to call it the gold standard.

It's an A in my book. Just not an A+.

 

[Beginning of the End]

Sigh, look, I'll admit, I'm not a geographer, so, I could easily be wrong.

I'll give you credit for going so far as to admit a possibility of error on your part. But the point at which multiple people have pointed out your errors and linked to refuting examples and evidence is the point where you either need to substantively dispute what they're telling you or admit that you actually did make the mistake.

Saying "don't look right to me, so it's not a good map" just ain't cuttin' it.

 

[Hussar]

No more, BOTE, than, "It looks good enough to me, so I guess it's great!"

The "counter arguments" require a considerable number of assumptions that are not supported in the material. Glaciation? What glaciation? Where are the glacial features?

And, how exactly do you explain that rivers ONLY run east of the mountains and not west of the Hellfurnaces and Crystalmist Mountains? What, there's some sort of bizarre tilting to the world that ensures that water never runs west?

I know, it's some form of superwind that blows all the rivers that way.

Oh, oh, oh, I know. A wizard did it. Guess that makes it all better then.

People refuted ONE off hand point that I made, and that refutation requires information (that the river starts on some sort of plateau not marked on the map) that only exists in people's imagination.

Hey, you love the map. And that's groovy. I like it too. It's a great map. But, it's not the gold standard, IMO. There are issues with this map that make it not the best map out there, IMO.

 

[billd91]

And, how exactly do you explain that rivers ONLY run east of the mountains and not west of the Hellfurnaces and Crystalmist Mountains? What, there's some sort of bizarre tilting to the world that ensures that water never runs west?

Well, those areas are listed as the Sea of Dust and the Dry Steppes. So one presumes that there isn't a heck of a lot of water on that side of the mountains. Not at a scale that would appear on the map anyway (not an insignificant consideration). It's not that unusual, particularly for high mountains like the Crystalmists, to prevent moisture from crossing with the prevailing winds, leaving the leeward side much dryer than the other side.

Face it, our appreciation of maps, fantasy societies, and all sorts of things we encounter in gamine is always going to involve many assumpions. It's one of the reasons we crave a certain amount of verisimilitude - to fit with our assumptions of the way things work.