The lands of fiction and fairy tale aren’t usually created all at once—they accumulate. A setting will be introduced in one novel, and each subsequent novel in the series will add more to the setting until it’s as detailed and important as the characters and events of the stories.
The same thing has happened to the D&D® game world. Starting with the Dungeons & Dragons® Expert Set, TSR introduced a game-world—little more than a few maps and a few pages of text on one patch of territory.
Subsequent adventure releases have often taken place in the specific locations in the D&D® game world. One adventure might take place in Specularum, capital of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos, or in a lost northern valley of the same duchy. A series of adventures might take place in the exciting mercantile world of the Minrothad Guilds or the intriguing magocracy of the Principalities of Glantri. One epic scenario might bring war to all the known countries of the continent. And with each release, more is revealed about these settings … and the D&D® game audience wants to know even more than that.
Aaron Allston, GAZ1 The Grand Duchy of Karameikos (1987)
The world of Mystara has a complex design history. It developed in a highly organic fashion, nurtured by many different hands along the way. Each new designer added to the whole, while tweaking (and sometimes overlooking or ignoring) previous elements. This process continued even after official publication had come to an end, as the fans took up the torch and continued development. And it’s still ongoing, all these years later.
The resulting body of works is the Mystara that we know and love today. Complex, nuanced, wonderful — and full of contradictions, many of which have become infamous among Mystara’s cartographers.
This Appendix presents the Atlas of Mystara’s solutions to these mapping issues.
The main body of the Atlas — the updated map series — already incorporates everything written here, as does the chronological map series; these articles stem from their development. This section is therefore mainly for reference purposes, and will be of most interest to other cartographers working on maps of Mystara.
Mapping Issues & Solutions
Under Construction! Please check back again soon for updates.
Articles without hyperlinks have not yet been written. They are listed here to keep track of the issues, and to remind me to write them up when I have the chance.
1981-1996: Mystara’s Years in Publication
- The Isle of Dread Scale Problem — Reconciling X1’s Known World, Isle of Dread, and Central Plateau maps (1981)
- The Great Waste Connection — Lining Up X1’s Known World with X4’s Great Waste (1983)
- The Hulean Candidate — Lining Up X4’s Great Waste with X5’s Hule (1983)
- Where the Wild Lands Are — Lining Up X4/X5 with X6’s Wild Lands (1984)
- The Norwold Conundrum, Part I — Lining Up CM1’s Norwold with X1’s Known World (1984)
- The Found Continent — Lining Up Companion Set Brun with X1/X4/X5/X6 (1984)
- Discovering Mystara’s Projection — the Master Set world map and Dr. Scotese’s Jurassic Earth (1985)
- A Tale of Two Coastlines — Lining Up Master Set world map with Companion Set Brun (1985)
- The Savage Dilemma — Lining Up X9’s Savage Coast with Companion Set Brun (1985)
- The Woes of B10 — Reconciling B10’s Karameikos maps (1986)
- The Never-ending Story — Lining Up B10’s Karameikos with Expert Set Karameikos (1986)
- The Norwold Conundrum, Part II — Reconciling X11’s Wendar and Denagoth with X1/CM1 Heldann and Norwold (1986)
- The Karameikan Revolution — Reconciling GAZ1’s Karameikos with Expert Set/B10 Karameikos (1987)
- The Isle of Dawn Scale Problem — M5 vs. CM1 (1987)
- The Isle of Dawn Scale Problem Revisited — M5/CM1 vs. Dawn of the Emperors (1989)
- Alphatia: to rescale or not to rescale, that is the question (1989)
- The Alatians, Ochalea and the Pearl Islands — Reconciling them with the rescaled Isle of Dawn (1989)
- The Wanderings of Bellissaria (1989)
- Lining Up Esterhold and Skothar with the rest of the world (1989)
- Foothold on Davania — Reconciling the Hinterlands with the Master Set world map (1989)
- Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!!! — Examining Haldemar’s bias (1990)
- Danger will Robinson accrue so (groan) — Reconciling the Hollow World Set and Master Set Outer World maps (1990)
- The Rediscovered Country — Dragon 169 Sind vs. X4 Sind (1991)
- The Amazing Shrinking Plateau — Amending Atruaghin’s Plateau (1991)
- Voyage of the Princess Ark’s Savage Coast vs. X9’s Savage Coast (1991-1993)
- The Gulf of Hule Problem — Reconciling X9’s proper placement with the Savage Baronies (1992)
- The Mysterious Arm of the Immortals (1993)
- Champions of Mystara’s Great Waste and Serpent Peninsula vs. X4/6’s (1993)
- Red Steel vs. Voyage of the Princess Ark (1994)
1996-Today: Mystara’s Fan-made Developments
- Coming soon(ish)
Related Projects
Since the Atlas project began, I have carried out numerous discussions as well as a few major projects aimed at dealing with Mystara’s mapping issues. Consequently, the shape of the discourse has become a little confusing and hard to keep track of. To compound this, major developments along the way have repeatedly transformed my understanding of the issues, and some concepts have changed radically over time. What follows is a short outline of the major related projects, including their dates and a summary of their contents.
For more specific details, I will link to all the relevant prior discussions in each of the articles above.
Discussions on the Mystara Mailing List (1995-2001)
The MML was the original all-inclusive platform for the Mystara community, and it saw much discussion of all sorts of issues. While most of these were not directly related to mapping, some were very relevant. However, as attachments were not allowed due to the cost of bandwidth at that time, maps were never directly posted to the MML. (Before the MML, there was also an AOL Mystara board, but it was limited to AOL users.)
- Coming soon
Discussions at the Mystara Message Board (2004-2008)
The Wizards of the Coast Old Worlds message board included a section for Mystara, which the community used extensively in the mid 2000s. Thanks to the more visual nature of the medium, mapping discussions flourished in this environment. The Atlas of Mystara debuted in February 2005 on the MMB. However this era came to an abrupt end when Wizards decided to conglomerate all of their Old Worlds boards into a single forum. This caused an exodus to a new, fan-run forum: The Piazza.
Links lead either to restored versions of archived threads in Appendix A, or to archived threads at the Vaults of Pandius.
- Atruaghin Map (December 2004 – February 2005) — Cthulhudrew presented his solution for an amended Atruaghin Plateau
- Preview of Thorf’s Secret Project (TM) (February 2005) — previewing early hex art and discussing early mapping problems
- Thorf’s Secret Project: Stage One (February 2005 – June 2008) — all sorts of issues were brought up in the course of this megathread
- Atruaghin Clans — looking for new tribe names!! (March-November 2005) — generating new tribes to add to the amended map
- A Question of Colour (June 2005) — early revisions to the Atlas of Mystara mapping palette
- Wendar (June-December 2005) — developing Wendar at 8 miles per hex
- Darokin Provinces (January-March 2006) — adding provinces to the 8 mile per hex map and giving them names
- Western Herath (February 2006) — examining Herath’s least detailed province
- Sind (February 2006) — developing Sind at 8 miles per hex
- Adri Varma plateau (February 2006) — LoZompatore adding Gulluvia to the Adri Varma
- Thanegioth Archipelago Project (March-April 2006) — examining the Isle of Dread scale problem
- Kal’s Map of Mystara (November-December 2006) — introducing Kal’s solution to creating a hexed world map
- And many more Coming Soon (TM)
Discussions at The Piazza (2008 – Today)
From 2008 onwards, there have been ongoing discussions primarily in the Geographical Mapping sub-forum over at The Piazza, the longtime home of the Mystara community. Most of these discussions took place between 2008 and 2014, although some are more recent, while others are still ongoing even today.
Links lead directly to threads at The Piazza.
- Any 8mph maps of the Isle of Dawn in Canon? (June-July 2013) — exploring problems with the Isle of Dawn maps
- Axial Tilt (March 2012) — leading to the arbitrary adoption 24º
- Curvature, Latitude and Global Projection (June 2008 – April 2009) — erroneously adopting Equirectangular projection
- Heldann (January – April 2019) — discussing Heldann’s mapping problems
- How Big is Mystara? (July 2008 – March 2010) — discussing Mystara’s dimensions
- How Big is Mystara/Hollow World? (Poll) (February 2009) — looking for consensus on size issues
- How to Mark Capitals (July 2008, February 2016) — about using red settlement symbols for different-sized capitals
- How to Measure Hexes (March-April 2009) — confirming side to side measurement
- Lining Up Mystara (March-June 2013, March 2014, October 2015 – February 2016, January 2018) — the original thread for my Lining Up projects, first in the thread itself and later in tandem with the blog articles
- 72 mile per hex maps (March 2013) — the first methodology I hit upon was working through in order of scale
- 24 mile per hex Known World maps (April 2013) — continuing with a subset of the larger scale maps
- Conclusions, Things to Do and Extant Issues (October 2015) — trying to get back on track after a long break
- First Inklings of the first Lining Up Mystara project (December 2015) — wherein I declare that it’s high time I solved the problems
- The Trident Bay Conundrum (December 2015) — kicking off the project informally, and setting myself an ultimatum
- Lining Up Mystara (December 2015) — from this point on the thread is in tandem with the bigger project; for links, see below
- Module Placement Labels (July 2008) — a rather out of date discussion about module placement
- Mystara and Climate… (March-June 2011) — touching on forest types and the climate issues
- Size of Mystara (October 2011) — the argument for 1º = 72 miles
- Sorting Out the Outer World (March-April 2012) — the precursor to the Lining Up thread, including converting the Hollow World Set map to match the Master Set map
- Towers, Keeps, Forts and Castles (March 2009, February 2016) — defining fortification symbols
- Underground Mapping (July 2008, May 2016) — touching on various subterranean mapping issues
- World Dimensions (March-April 2012) — another important discussion of Mystara’s size, including the Hollow World
Lining Up Mystara (December 2015 – February 2016)
My first Lining Up project began in late 2015, when I decided that after 10 years of working on the Atlas it was about time that I just sat down and fixed all the problems for good and all. Thus began a rollercoaster ride through the issues, in which I rapidly worked through most of the major points and tried to find satisfactory solutions — all while trying to build community consensus. The project was largely successful, ending with a model for Mystara that could be used to build a complete set of maps.
- Mystara Mapping Issues (December 2015) — wherein I declare that it’s high time I solved the problems
- Orc’s Head Peninsula and Trident Bay (December 2015) — including a finished map of my solution for the area
- Naga River’s Disappearing Act (December 2015) — examining the origins of its tunnel through the Mengul Mountains
- Lining Up Brun (December 2015) — a short prelude to the project looking at Companion vs. Master vs. hex map Brun
- Lining Up Mystara I (December 2015) — the official start of the project; outlining all the issues
- Lining Up Mystara II (December 2015) — sorting out the Great Waste and its connections to the east and west
- Lining Up Mystara III (December 2015) — tackling some of the easier issues, such as Yavdlom, Hule, and the area around the Isle of Dawn
- Lining Up Mystara IV (December 2015) — pinning down Bellissaria
- Lining Up Mystara V (December 2015) — revisiting Bellissaria and merging all the 72 mile per hex maps
- Lining Up Mystara VI (January 2016) — adding in the Savage Baronies poster map
- Lining Up Mystara VII (January 2016) — a first attempt at resolving the Norwold conundrum
- Lining Up Mystara VIII (January 2016) — compiling the project so far into a map; no Davania yet
- Lining Up Mystara IX (January 2016) — a first pass at applying the new world map to a model of the planet
- Lining Up Mystara X (January 2016) — more playing with the 3D model
- Lining Up Mystara XI (February 2016) — reconciling the Master world map with the compiled hex maps of Brun and the Alphatian region
- Lining Up Mystara XII (February 2016) — continuing with Skothar and Davania, and starting into latitudes and the equator
- Lining Up Mystara XIII (February 2016) — size problems and revising the model to fit
- Lining Up Mystara XIV (February 2016) — examining some more radical solutions to the size problem
- Lining Up Mystara XV (February 2016) — pulling apart the Hollow World Set outer world map
- Lining Up Mystara XVI (February 2016) — assembling the Hollow World itself
- Lining Up Mystara XVII (February 2016) — converting the Hollow World to equirectangular projection
- Lining Up Mystara XVIII (February 2016) — clearing up some loose ends
- Lining Up Mystara XIX (February 2016) — presenting the Atlas of Mystara 2016 model
Lining Up Mystara Revisited (February 2018)
Two years after completing the first Lining Up project, I was shocked to discover a critique of it in the work of fellow Mystara fan Lance Duncan. The ensuing discussions resulted in some earthshaking revelations, ultimately demonstrating to me that my model had been flawed. The most important development was the rediscovery of the Jurassic Earth map upon which Mystara’s world map was based. This led to a new project to revise my model using the Jurassic Earth map and its inherent Mollweide projection, ending with a properly georeferenced model of Mystara.
- 2018 Mystara Project Updates (January 2018) — getting back to the project after a break, and looking at the Yalu Bay area
- Mystara Climate Maps (January 2018) — starting work on a compiled set of climate maps
- Jurassic Earth as Mystara (February 2018) — going back to Mystara’s world map’s origins, discovering the world map’s correct projection, and deciding not to change my model
- Lining Up Mystara Revisited (February 2018) — comparing my 2016 model to the Jurassic-based model and concluding that I was wrong, and my model needs to be completely revised
- Lining Up Mystara Revisited II (February 2018) — a first attempt at georegistering Mystara based on the Jurassic map
- Lining Up Mystara Revisited III (February 2018) — deciding how to proceed
- Lining Up Mystara Revisited IV (February 2018) — testing out the new Atlas of Mystara 2018 model
- Mystara Climate Maps II (March 2018) — adapting and expanding the climate maps to the new 2018 model
- Skothar Continental Hex Map (March 2018) — presenting a first pass at Skothar
- Lining Up Mystara Revisited V (April 2018) — revising and finalising the 2018 model to account for new size calculations
Let’s Map Mystara (April 2018 – present)
This project was born in the fallout of Lining Up Mystara Revisited, as I struggled to put together a complete map of Brun. It occurred to me that the best way to do this would be to work through the sources in chronological order of publication, dealing with each issue as it came up; previously my Lining Up projects had dealt with issues on the basis of “all available evidence”, but this project limited this to “all evidence available in the year of publication”. Moreover, with Mystara georegistered, it was now possible to include GIS information in all of the maps. Thus, I embarked on a Cartographic Chronology, amalgamating all of the maps while tagging each feature (icon, label, hex, line) with its source. The end goal would be a contiguous set of fully documented maps.
In many ways, this is my most ambitious project to date, but it’s made possible by all of my previous work creating replica maps. In short, it involves working through the Replica maps in order of publication, refining them into Chronological maps. These in turn will lead to new Updated maps, eventually merging with and replacing the present set.
- Let’s Map Mystara! (April 2018) — proposing the new project and outlining its rules and goals
- Let’s Map Mystara 1981 I (April 2018) — more details on the process, then delving into the first Known World maps
- Let’s Map Mystara 1981 II (April 2018) — adding X1’s maps
- Let’s Map Mystara 1981-1982 (April 2018) — finishing up 1981 with the Expert Rulebook and X2, then moving onto 1982’s X3
- Placing B3’s Gulluvia Map (April 2018) — a preliminary look at how to add B3
- Let’s Map Mystara 1983 (May 2018) — a new format tackling all of 1983’s maps in a single post
- Let’s Map Mystara 1984 (June 2018) — all of 1984’s maps in an even longer post
- Let’s Map Mystara 1985 (May 2019) — all of 1985’s maps in a truly mammoth post
- Let’s Map Mystara 1986 (February 2022) — getting ridiculous, but all of 1986’s maps in one huge post
- Let’s Map Mystara 1987 — currently in progress, with the stage moved from a long single post to individual map posts here at the Atlas site
You can see the current progress of this project in Appendix C: Cartographic Chronology.
Updates to this page
- 9th September 2023 — Added descriptions for both Lining Up projects and Let’s Map Mystara up to 1987.
- 7th December 2023 — Revised article titles for issues listed in 1981-1996.