22 February 2025

Arcanda’s Patera, 72 miles per hex

Giovanni was the first in the Mystara community to create a map of the second, invisible moon: Patera. Also known locally as Myoshima, the name of the most dominant empire on the moon, Patera is an Asian-themed setting filled with jungles, islands, and freshwater seas. Bruce Heard created it back in 1990 for the Princess Ark series, but there was never a map of either the Empire of Myoshima, nor the moon itself. A map of the second moon had therefore long been the dream of many a fan.

Although the scale was unmarked, the circumference of the moon is known from official sources to be “roughly 3,000 miles”, and Giovanni placed all of the civilisations given in the original article, so it seems likely he intended it to be 72 miles per hex. The map clearly doesn’t quite show the whole surface of the moon.

This was the first step to a full map of the moon, and later attempts would build on the foundations Giovanni had established — first Giampaolo Agosta in 2007, then later Michele Carpita in 2015.

Fan-made Map by Giovanni Paniccia (July 2002)

*Patera, 72 miles per hex by Giovanni Paniccia, July 2002*

This is an original map created by one of Mystara’s excellent fan cartographers. For more information on the cartographer, including a gallery of all their maps, see also Appendix M: Mappers of Mystara.

Sources

The Voyage of the Princess Ark Part 7: The Princess Ark aims for the stars, Dragon #160 (August 1990)

Fan Sources

None

References

All of Giovannia’s maps at the Atlas of Mystara
Giovanni’s author page at the Vaults of Pandius

Chronological Analysis

This is a fan-made map. It was published in July 2002. The updated Atlas version of this map is not yet available. See also Appendix C for annual chronological snapshots of the area. For the full context of this map in Mystara’s publication history, see the upcoming Let’s Map Mystara 2002. (Please note that it may be some time before the project reaches this point.)

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.

Additions

Nations — All of the nations given in Dragon 160 made their first appearance on a map here.
Settlements — Myoshiman capital Mara is new here, as is the capital of Kompor-Thap, Pacan.
Terrain — Guided by Dragon 160’s description, all of the terrain here is Giovanni’s invention.