GAZ1 Legend
1987’s GAZ1 heralded a new era for Mystaran cartography, bringing in the 8 mile Gazetteer series standard for hex maps, along with a new set of hex art, the distinctive castle border, and the change of font to Feinen Bold. These hexes were largely based on those previewed but unused in 1981’s Expert Rulebook, but with many additions and refinements.
However, not all of the symbols included in this legend were used immediately. For example, despite the fact that Karameikos was described as being mostly forested, the forested hex symbol was not actually implemented in its maps until 1994’s Karameikos: Kingdom of Adventure.
Replica Legend (March 2025)
Sources
- GAZ1 The Grand Duchy of Karameikos (1987) (PDF at DriveThruRPG)
- Poster map
Chronological Analysis
This was the legend for Map 54 and all of the other GAZ1 maps. It was published in May 1987. See also Appendix C for more information on the hex art in circulation at that time. For the full context of this legend in Mystara’s publication history, see Let’s Map Mystara 1987.
The following lists are from the Let’s Map Mystara project. Additions are new features, introduced in this map. Revisions are changes to previously-introduced features. Hex Art & Fonts track design elements. Finally, Textual Additions are potential features found in the related text. In most cases, the Atlas adopts these textual additions into updated and chronological maps.
Hex Art & Fonts
- Fonts — Feinen.
- New Symbols (Large Scale) — Palace, Castle, Fort, Tower or Keep, Village, Camp, Lighthouse, Light Forest, Heavy Forest, Hills with Forest, Moor or Bog, Desert, Rocky Desert, Oasis, Badlands, Waterfall, Greater/Medium/Lesser Cataracts, Canal, Bridge, Snow Fields, Glacier, Battlefield. Some of these were revisions of previous symbols (Light Forest from the previous Forest, and Desert with a new texture), but most were brand new. It’s amazing that the Village symbol only appeared here, but less so when you realise that although these symbols had existed since 1981, they were never used until 1987.
- New Symbols (Small Scale) — Palace, Castle, Fort, Tower or Keep, Ruins, Camp, Lighthouse, Light Forest, Heavy Forest, Hills with Forest, Moor or Bog, Rocky Desert, Oasis, Badlands, Waterfall, Greater/Medium/Lesser Cataracts, Canal, Snow Fields, Glacier, Battlefield. The symbols for Castle/Fort/Tower were at last brought into line with those for City/Town/Village, with the former using squares while the latter used circles. Some symbols were identical to the Large Scale symbols: Light & Heavy Forest, Waterfall, the Cataracts, Battlefield. Whereas up until now the Small Scale set had been used exclusively, from this point on it was almost completely displaced by the Large Scale symbols — even when it would have made sense to keep using them, such as on 24 mile per hex maps.
