D&D General Piecing together the official maps of the Mortal World of Nerath

[Yaarel]

One solution is, the Elsir Vale scale is wrong. Its distance is actually about twice its listed distance.

Then, the Mortal map is also twice the size. Its south edge is 20° latitude and its north edge is 60°. Thus the map is roughly 2800 miles from south to north. And planet Mortal is the same size as planet Earth.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

One solution is, the Elsir Vale scale is wrong. Its distance is actually about twice its listed distance.

Then, the Mortal map is also twice the size. Its south edge is 20° latitude and its north edge is 60°. Thus the map is roughly 2800 miles from south to north. And planet Mortal is the same size as planet Earth.

The Nentir Vale zoomed-in map has a scale too, as does the Stonehome Mountains map.

I try to refrain from outright retconning the sources. I'm trying to stick very close to Official.

 

[Yaarel]

The Nentir Vale zoomed-in map has a scale too, as does the Stonehome Mountains map.

I try to refrain from outright retconning the sources. I'm trying to stick very close to Official.

Perfect. We can see how the Nentir Vale closeup compares.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Eh...here's a very rough start in superimposing the three globes (Mortal, Shadowfell, and Feywild). Lined up at the two points which the diagram indicates are connections with the Mortal World: Gloomwrought and Avaellor. It's nearly illegible.

Would need to have someone with a cartographic program that can convert projections, and do rotations.

 

[Yaarel]

Eyeballing the Nentir Veil map, it is roughly about 175 miles east-west, and looks roughly half the size of Elsir Vale.

So the scales of both Nentir and Elsir seem to agree with each other.

Thus we do seem to be looking at a tiny planet.

As far as I know, a tiny planet this size should be able to sustain a biodiversity equivalent to Earth, but at a smaller regional scale. We should doublecheck with astrophysics, but it seems plausible.

 

[Yaarel]

Eh...here's a very rough start in superimposing the three globes (Mortal, Shadowfell, and Feywild). Lined up at the two points which the diagram indicates are connections with the Mortal World: Gloomwrought and Avaellor. It's nearly illegible.

Would need to have someone with a cartographic program that can convert projections.

I think we should ignore Feywild because of its distortions. And treat Shadowfell as centered somewhere else on the sphere.

If you can get Mortal and Shadow to match up some where, that is ideal.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

P.S. I'm not opposed to consider any or all of the three globes to have their poles in an unexpected place, including the Mortal World. Who knows how/if the Feywild and Shadowfell spin?--they might have reverse or sidewise pole orientations.

Because, I'm pretty sure that the artist(s) didn't make the effort of making sure that the continents of all three globes (+ the boardgame map) will line up. So might as well use whatever liberties will make it line up as well as feasible.

Still, I'd need someone with a cartographic projection program.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

I think we should ignore Feywild because of its distortions. And treat Shadowfell as centered somewhere else on the sphere.

If you can get Mortal and Shadow to match up some where, that is ideal.

But isn't the Shadowfell also distorted (but parallel) geographically?

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Eyeballing the Nentir Veil map, it is roughly about 175 miles east-west, and looks roughly half the size of Elsir Vale.

So the scales of both Nentir and Elsir seem to agree with each other.

I measured the scale bars exactly of all three maps and re-sized them accordingly, so they should all give the same answer as to planet size.

I'm personally still not 100% committed to the Arctic Circle-Tropic of Cancer option (or the 20-70N option), though they both have strengths. I still feel that the 80N-Equator is also a reasonable solution.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

As far as I know, a tiny planet this size should be able to sustain a biodiversity equivalent to Earth, but at a smaller regional scale. We should doublecheck with astrophysics, but it seems plausible.

I don't believe in RW physics-biology in regard to the D&D Multiverse. D&D isn't Traveller. Only a dash of it. In the D&D Multiverse, a planetoid the size of New Jersey, or only as big as a house, or the size of Jupiter, could have any sort of lifeforms, culture, gravity-level, and climates.