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Where in FR do you want the next big adventure book to go?
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<blockquote data-quote="squibbles" data-source="post: 8122685" data-attributes="member: 6937590"><p>/commence to tar pit myself in a pedantic and unnecessary internet argument about how European history informs the verisimilitude of a fictional place</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You guys are right about the maps; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cartography#Medieval_Europe" target="_blank">Medieval maps generally don't display clear borders</a>. But that's not [USER=93670]@tetrasodium[/USER] 's main point.</p><p></p><p>That point:</p><p></p><p>And the point is fundamentally correct.</p><p></p><p>People in other times were no less intelligent than we are (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect" target="_blank">Flynn Effect</a> notwithstanding) and they were pretty good at knowing the things that they needed to know to live. A villager in rural France might never have seen a map, but she would know who the local lord was, who the ruler of the nearest city was, and who the king was--because these would have been important things for her to know. Similarly, the king--even if his maps were rubbish--would know which cities, towns, and productive regions were under his control, what geographical features demarcated the borders of those places, whether control of them was contested (and by whom), and what the neighboring polities were--again, because it would have been important for him to know those things for dynastic security, tax collection, and/or levying soldiers.</p><p></p><p>There are, in principle, borders that could be drawn on a Sword Coast map, depicting which areas each polity de jure or de facto controls and understands itself to control.</p><p></p><p></p><p>"How far does City Lord's writ reach?" is also fluid in 2020 Afghanistan, Syria, Morocco, Yemen, DRC, Sudan, Myanmar, Ukraine, etc. We are still able to draw borders that demarcate the nominal territorial control of those countries.</p><p></p><p></p><p>But at bottom, the Sword Coast isn't supposed to be a plausible quasi-historical place. It's FR's Middle Earth pastiche, just as Cormyr is the Medieval France pastiche, Mulhorand is the ancient Egypt pastiche, and so on.</p><p></p><p>/end pedantry</p><p></p><p>I'd personally like to see an adventure set in and around the Moonsea or the Unapproachable East.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="squibbles, post: 8122685, member: 6937590"] /commence to tar pit myself in a pedantic and unnecessary internet argument about how European history informs the verisimilitude of a fictional place You guys are right about the maps; [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cartography#Medieval_Europe']Medieval maps generally don't display clear borders[/URL]. But that's not [USER=93670]@tetrasodium[/USER] 's main point. That point: And the point is fundamentally correct. People in other times were no less intelligent than we are ([URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect']Flynn Effect[/URL] notwithstanding) and they were pretty good at knowing the things that they needed to know to live. A villager in rural France might never have seen a map, but she would know who the local lord was, who the ruler of the nearest city was, and who the king was--because these would have been important things for her to know. Similarly, the king--even if his maps were rubbish--would know which cities, towns, and productive regions were under his control, what geographical features demarcated the borders of those places, whether control of them was contested (and by whom), and what the neighboring polities were--again, because it would have been important for him to know those things for dynastic security, tax collection, and/or levying soldiers. There are, in principle, borders that could be drawn on a Sword Coast map, depicting which areas each polity de jure or de facto controls and understands itself to control. "How far does City Lord's writ reach?" is also fluid in 2020 Afghanistan, Syria, Morocco, Yemen, DRC, Sudan, Myanmar, Ukraine, etc. We are still able to draw borders that demarcate the nominal territorial control of those countries. But at bottom, the Sword Coast isn't supposed to be a plausible quasi-historical place. It's FR's Middle Earth pastiche, just as Cormyr is the Medieval France pastiche, Mulhorand is the ancient Egypt pastiche, and so on. /end pedantry I'd personally like to see an adventure set in and around the Moonsea or the Unapproachable East. [/QUOTE]
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