29 March 2023

Alphatia, 8 miles per hex

To understand Alphatia, one must understand that the Empire is made up of scores of semi-independent kingdoms. Each obeys lmperial laws but may otherwise decide on laws of its own. Each is ruled by a great wizard … . Factors which would limit or benefit nations in less magical lands do not play a part here. … Ordinary rules simply do not apply in Alphatia.

Dawn of the Emperors, Book Three: Player’s Guide to Alphatia, by Aaron Allston

Trail Map (March 2023)

Full Resolution >>>>> Alphatia Trail Map (300 DPI) <<<<< Right Click, Save

Alphatia 1000 AC Trail Map, 8 miles per hex

One (or more) of the maps linked to above is a lower resolution version. You can download the full size version using the following link (right click and choose “Save Link As…”).
Mobile Users: Note that it may not be possible to view the full resolution image on your device.

Full Resolution >>>>> Alphatia Trail Map (300 DPI) <<<<< Right Click, Save

This Trail Map combines a number of other Atlas of Mystara Updated Maps. Consequently, the Sources and Notes sections below deal only with extra-national features not included in any of the component maps. For the original sources and notes of each nation, please refer to the article for that nation.

Component Maps

Sources

Dawn of the Emperors (1989) (PDF at DriveThruRPG)
- Alphatia, 24 miles per hex

Secondary Sources

See the individual component maps.

Comments

Since its introduction as a mysterious and distant empire in CM1 Test of the Warlords, Mainland Alphatia has always been a vast but little-detailed area of the world of Mystara. Few products dealt with it directly, although it was mentioned or somehow involved in various books over the years. Dawn of the Emperors was supposed to fix this, but it had too much to cover and ended up only scratching the surface.

And so it remained for many years, even into the era of fan productions. There were a few efforts to detail disparate areas of the island continent, but nothing on the scale of the Gazetteer series.

Bruce Heard’s Alphatia

This all changed in 2012, when Bruce Heard made his return to the Internet, and started his own website posting articles about Mystara. Over the course of the next year, he created an amazing series of posts that delved deep into Alphatia’s kingdoms — including an amazing series of hex maps, showing almost the whole island at 8 miles per hex.

But unfortunately in mid 2013 things changed, and Bruce decided to focus his attentions elsewhere. The last three sections of the map, Blackheart, the Imperial Territories, and Shiye-Lawr, remained unfinished.

Then in 2018 Jose Ignacio Ramos Lomelin stepped in, providing his own take on what Bruce’s maps of these areas may have looked like. Jose’s talent is with making maps that fit the style of others in a series, and his results speak for themselves.

With the maps all completed, the next stage was to assemble them. This I did, but I was determined to present them in some sort of special form — not just an assembled map of Alphatia, but a full Trail Map, in the vein of the wonderful TM1 and TM2 maps.

Which brings us to this map. I hope you enjoy it.

Notes

None so far.

References

Alphatia at the Vaults of Pandius

Thanks to:

Special thanks to Bruce Heard for making the wonderful maps at the base of this project. Special thanks also to Jose Ignacio Ramos Lomelin for providing the final two parts, and to Paul Dupuis for creating the Floating Ar Flight Distances chart.

Thanks to Michael Monagle and Hervé Musseau for providing corrections.

First posted 28th December 2021.SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave