Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Setting: Map up!

[iwatt]

Chile isn't the only one. We have a Las Cruces in New Mexico as well. We also have a "Truth or Consequences", which has always made me wonder what they were thinking.

Heh. The best one down here in Chile is a town called "Peor es Nada" (roughly translated it means Better than Nothing)

 

[Angerland]

Bulgaria has a lake named, "Vampire Lake"

 

[helium3]

It looks like yet another Tolkienesque western shore of a continent to me.

It's a pretty looking map, but I agree with the above poster to an extent.

My first thought was, "wow, that looks like someone took the world map from the Wheel of Time series, smushed around the features a bit and added some islands."

In a sense, it's somehow MORE generic than the generic fantasy RPG map.

 

[Eridanis]

My thought exactly. The Yesmen from Yesland will play their Yessongs at their Yesshows. With a pun like that, I couldn't just Leave It, even if I had to get to it in a Roundabout kind of way.

Except that the stats for monsters will undergo Perpetual Change.

Can't wait to see what cartography Roger Dean comes up with for THAT sourcebook!

-- Yes-fan Spikey

 

[Erithtotl]

Once you start translating names, they are pretty much all stupid, or literal. One thing that was unique about Glenn Cook's Black Company books was that all the cities, at least in the first few books, had very literal, simple names (i.e. Charm, Horse, Spit, Rust). I'm sure his thinking was 'well, in the native language that the characters understand, thats what they mean'. Tolkein's names don't sound stupid, but that's because he was a linguist, and invested fully featured languages to base his names on. I mean, Orodriun, or Amon Amarth, sound like pretty cool names (not to mention the latter is an awesome band), but the translation, 'Mount Doom' only doesn't sound stupid because it's part of the canon of fantasy literature. But extract it's meaning from Tolkein and plop it on a fantasy map and people are going to be like "what a dumb name".

It gets better. The mountain in New Zealand used as a stand in for Mt. Doom is called Mount Ngauruhoe. Well, alright, nothing wrong with that. But what do they think that meant to the original Maori that named it?

Throwing Heated Stones

 

[Mystaros]

Reminded me more of "The Land" in SR Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever series of books.

That would be because of the very obvious "Landsdrop" terrain feature repeated above, which was rather unique to The Land.

What we are seeing above in the The Landsdrop terrain feature is not tectonics or erosion - that's the legacy of oooh scary magic in the world's past.

I'm expecting we'll be reading a lot more about that in months to come

Actually, it's hardly original to Chronicles. Robert E. Howard had a similar escarpment in the Hyborian Realms, the Kothian Escarpment, which ran for a thousand miles or more between Koth and Shem. It figured prominently in the story "Black Colossus," during which Conan and his army must defend Shamla Pass from the hordes of Natohk/Thugra Khotan.

Also, though it rarely was mentioned, there was also a similar geographical wonder in Beleriand, known as Andram "The Long Wall," which separated northern, settled Beleriand from southern, wild Beleriand. Though it is represented in maps as a long straight range of hills, as the land dropped steeply south of the line, it is essentially a rough escarpment.

 

[Mystaros]

Well, as far as stupid or boring names go, all place names derive from something common and perhaps boring, and eventually seem to be stupid many generations later.

"New York," for example, is of course derived from "York" in England. "York" is purportedly derived from "Eboracum," which in turn was derived from the native name "Ebor-Acon," which meant "Place of the Yew Trees." So really, "New York" should be called "New Place of the Yew Trees." Sounds pretty stupid, no?

"Chicago" is apparently derived from the local native word for the area, Shikaakwa or Checagou, or "Wild Leeks," which referred to the area being a stinky marshland filled with wild leeks. So on a fantasy map of America, "Chicago" might be named "Stink Marsh City."

"Milwaukee," also derived from the local tongue, was called "Millioke" which means either "Pleasant Place" or "Gathering Place by the Water." So that fantasy map of America would have the town named "Pleasant Gathering Place by the Water."

Look back at any older names of Europe, Asia, or Africa and they all have similar origins. "Rome," so it is believed, is simply the name of the mythical founder, Romulus, effectively "Romulus Town" (though the way myths work, it is probably the other way around). There are some who think it is derived from the root word for "teat" based on the suckling of Romulus and Remus by the she-wolf; this gives Rome a wholly different fantasy name!

"Athens" is derived from "Athenai" which is the name of the goddess Athena as a plural; "Athena" is believed to derive from an ancient word for "Mother," though some early Greeks derived it from "Mind of God." So "Athens" could be either "City of Mother Worshipers" or "Mind-of-God Town."

You can look up virtually any settlement name in Wikipedia or elsewhere and find similar common, boring, and seemingly stupid origins for virtually any place name...

 

[James Jacobs]

First off; thanks for all the comments on the map, everyone! We're still a few weeks off from pulling the print lever for the first Pathfinder, and as a result we're still tinkering with some names and stuff. The look of the map is done though; is it generic? In some ways, I suppose so, but that's sort of the point. With Pathfinder, we're not trying to forge new ground. (Not yet, at least.) By making the first Adventure Path (first few, in fact) easilly convertable to Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and most other standard D&D campaigns, there's going to be a certain level of familiarity. As the designer of the original map turnover, I can say that I drew more inspiration from Greyhawk and Robert E. Howard than from Tolkien when designing the look of the map, but the maps of Middle Earth ARE pretty cool. In any case, there are certainly regions in our still-developing campaign world that are pretty unique, and they'll be revealed in due time. But for now, we're staying pretty close to "classic D&D" with Pathfinder.

A few of the names are doubtless going to change as well; the Varisian Bay is turning into the Varisian Gulf, for example; it IS too big to be a bay, after all. Most of the names are pretty set, and my hope is that given time, those who think they're silly or boring will get used to them. I mean, we've gotten used to Wooly Bay or Geoff or Vast Swamp or Mount Doom, right?

As for the other geological features, yes, there is a reason for the cliff that separates the verdant lowlands from the rugged badlands (they're not quite deserts, but there's not an awful lot of grass and trees up there either). As for more details about the region... those'll be coming out in Pathfinder and on the blog over at paizo.com over the next several months.

ANYway... again, thanks for the comments! Keep them comming!

 

[Qualidar]

I think it looks great. I literally let out a "wow!"

~Qualidar~

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I like it, James.

However, anyone who says they're used to "Geoff" is fooling themselves.