D&D 5E New Map for Sword Coast

[Snoring Rock]

Ok, I am new to Forgotten Realms so I am late to the table. I just receive my Sword Coast Adventurers Guide via Amazon. I also downloaded the Mike Schley map. There are a lot of towns missing for the map as you move south. Comparing to older maps from the 3.5 maps in the setting book, the roads in the new map are incomplete and the dots for towns and cities are missing. Not only is this true in the download, but in the book as well. I see no reason to believe that this was nothing more than a huge oversight. Am I missing something? Besides dots and roads on my maps?

 

[Ancalagon]

...maybe they don't exist anymore?

You might be saying *sacrilege!* but I can tell you that between 2nd and 3rd edition there was this "warp" of the map. Basically the left side and right side were kocked out of alignment (I forget which way), so two features that used to be exactly aligned on a horizontal level were now a few hundred miles north and south of each other (abeilt still separated by over a thousand miles east to west, as they always were).

So if they are willing to make these drastic changes .... maybe in 5e those roads and cities disappeared? Perhaps they felt the area was too civilized?

 

[Charles Rampant]

Some roads are said to be merely paths for parts of their length, at this stage, and paths are not listed on the map.

 

[Snoring Rock]

Ok, I can go with that but I am not finding that in the book. The map still has the name of the towns listed and shown, but with no dot. It appears more like a mistake. I understand not showing a path on a map of this scale. I would however expect more information on such a cataclysmic event. The second sundering does not discuss that.

 

[Queer Venger]

The way I see it the maps by Schley are DM/player campaign maps, meaning that its free for me to add towns to my liking, or remove them if I want. 5e is about putting DM's back in control, and this includes the FR. Is there a town specifically you want to add to the map? Which cities/towns are you not finding?

Remember, this book/map is circa 1489-90 DR, ALOT has changed, the Cult of the Dragon alone is responsible for the destruction of towns like Greenest.

 

[designbot]

Ok, I can go with that but I am not finding that in the book. The map still has the name of the towns listed and shown, but with no dot. It appears more like a mistake. I understand not showing a path on a map of this scale. I would however expect more information on such a cataclysmic event. The second sundering does not discuss that.

The free version of the map released by WotC is missing dots for many towns. So was the the first version released by Mike Schley.

However, Mike Schley updated the map, and the current version available for sale has those missing dots.

The positions of towns and roads appears to be largely based on the 2e edition of the map.

 

[Snoring Rock]

The free version of the map released by WotC is missing dots for many towns. So was the the first version released by Mike Schley.

However, Mike Schley updated the map, and the current version available for sale has those missing dots.

The positions of towns and roads appears to be largely based on the 2e edition of the map.

The missing dots also do not appear in the maps in the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide. That is why I decided to post this. Every town south of a specific line, are missing dots and, the roads south of that line are incomplete. If there was some kind of "event" it all happened south of some kind of Mason-Dixon line on the map. So, in that case, why have the names of the towns on the map, but no dots? Smells like the map went to print/book before it was done.

 

[designbot]

As I mentioned, the dots have been fixed in the latest version of the map. It does look like a mistake.

 

[Demetrios1453]

The missing dots also do not appear in the maps in the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide. That is why I decided to post this. Every town south of a specific line, are missing dots and, the roads south of that line are incomplete. If there was some kind of "event" it all happened south of some kind of Mason-Dixon line on the map. So, in that case, why have the names of the towns on the map, but no dots? Smells like the map went to print/book before it was done.

As was mentioned before, the roads aren't incomplete, they are merely paths in the "missing" areas. Compare these to the 1e/2e maps of the same region - the small-scale overview maps in the original Gray Box FR setting show gaps in the roads in the exact same places as Schley's maps, while the large-scale close-up versions show paths filling those gaps. Schley's maps are simply reverting to the older conventions, while the 3e/4e maps simply ignored the old road/path division of earlier editions and considered even paths as roads in that area.

Go to http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Faer%C3%BBn and look at the 1e/2e maps at the bottom and you'll see those exact same road gaps on the older maps of the setting.