D&D General Forgotten Realms geographic changes.

[pukunui]

Don't forget how much Kara Tur shrunk between Oriental Adventures and Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms. Basically it had to be resized to connect to Faerun.

The biggest issue for me is how huge and cut-off Zakhara is. If you're going to have a fantasy-Arabia it needs to be heavily tied in to your fantasy-Europe and fantasy-Asia - it was literally the thing connecting the two!

The real issue with Zakhara is that Faerûn already has a mini fantasy Arabia in the form of Calimshan.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

The real issue with Zakhara is that Faerûn already has a mini fantasy Arabia in the form of Calimshan.

It's certainly much better located, in that it interacts with the outside world.

 

[pukunui]

It's certainly much better located, in that it interacts with the outside world.

I guess it might work to think of Calimshan as being more like Morocco while Zakhara is like the Middle East.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I guess it might work to think of Calimshan as being more like Morocco while Zakhara is like the Middle East.

It would certainly work better with Amn being sort of Spanish. In that case, swapping Zakhara and Chult's positions would be aesthetically more pleasing.

 

[Voadam]

Don't forget how much Kara Tur shrunk between Oriental Adventures and Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms. Basically it had to be resized to connect to Faerun.

All I can really find on Kara Tur in 1e Oriental Adventures is that it is basically a fantasy Asia continent, it does not really measure specifics that I can tell.

"Kara-Tur is the name of a vast continental area, encompassing within it a tremendous range of climates, terrains, governments, societies, cultures, and beliefs."

Despite being continent wide it still mostly focuses on what are fantasy China and Japan.

"In Kara-Tur the majority of the population is concentrated within the Three-River Basin, its surrounding foothills, and on the islands of Wa and Kozakura."

So the majority of the population is concentrated in the fantasy Chinese empires and the two Fantasy Japan islands.

I have not gone through the 1e Kara Tur boxed set, how does it differ?

My sense of Kara Tur in FR from the empires novels was that Kara Tur was basically fantasy far east Asia separated from the mysterious Eastern part of the Realms (Thay, Rasheman) by the fantasy Mongol Tuigan steppes.

 

[Voadam]

Reading the 1e Kara Tur commentary it appears that the geographic change was between the 1e FR Kara Tur and the 2e Horde boxed set:

Exploring the Realms. Kara-Tur is placed to the far east of the Forgotten Realms. The map included here doesn't yet connect to the maps of the west; that would await the Empire event. When that connection appeared, The Horde Barbarian Campaign Setting (1990) would reveal another problem: Kara-Tur is just too big when compared to the rest of the Realms. To accommodate this, The Horde would reduce the scale of Kara-Tur's maps by one-third to better link up the west and the east.

And from the Horde commentary:

Kara-Tur. Kara-Tur had one large problem: it was too big. This required resolution now that The Horde was linking Kara-Tar to the western Realms. Cook explains, saying "Because of the immense distances involved in Kara-Tur, the overall size of Kara-Tur has been reduced by one-third to improve play. The 90-mile scale maps provided in the Kara-Tur set should be revised to 60 miles to the inch. The 30-mile scale maps are reduced to 20 miles to the inch. On the plastic grid, one small hex equals 12 miles on the larger maps and 4 miles on the smaller maps."

It looks like this is just metagame rescaling the maps and not a physical in-world change of the size of the world through a contraction of the planet during the Time of Troubles or whatever.

 

[Alzrius]

I guess it might work to think of Calimshan as being more like Morocco while Zakhara is like the Middle East.

I always thought Calimshan was more like Turkey.

 

[schneeland]

I always thought Calimshan was more like Turkey.

I took it as being close to a fantasy version of Al-Andalus, blending Southern European, North African and Arabic influences.
But in any case, I'd argue that the ambiguity we see in associations here is actually its actually an advantage Calimshan has, since it becomes more of its own thing and not just "fantasy X".

 

[aco175]

My problem is when the new artist changes the layout and position of landforms and where settlements lay. Take the town of Leilon for example. In the original maps it was on the ocean and the 2e books talked about its harbor and such. Then a new artist somehow thinks it is more inland and now it show on maps like 5 miles off the coast. Same with the positions of the Sword Mountains and the Mere of Dead Men, where they have changed places in relation to each other.

I guess it is not a big deal and I can play with whatever, but I would think someone checks this stuff.

 

[Demetrios1453]

My problem is when the new artist changes the layout and position of landforms and where settlements lay. Take the town of Leilon for example. In the original maps it was on the ocean and the 2e books talked about its harbor and such. Then a new artist somehow thinks it is more inland and now it show on maps like 5 miles off the coast. Same with the positions of the Sword Mountains and the Mere of Dead Men, where they have changed places in relation to each other.

I guess it is not a big deal and I can play with whatever, but I would think someone checks this stuff.

Leilon is on a mudflat though, so, depending on the tide, it can be on the coast, or several miles from it (other than the presumably dredged-out channel for the harbor), like the real-life Mont St Michel. Differing interpretations on where the coastline should be drawn on maps (low tide or high tide?) would result in the final maps looking different.