Hollow World Set Hollow World Diagram

This diagram from the Hollow World Campaign Set quickly became a Mystara icon, appearing repeatedly in future publications — most notably the Poor Wizard’s Almanac series. It presents a cutaway view of Mystara’s dual worlds, the Outer World and the Hollow World, complete with the red inner sun. It also shows that there is a “world shield” layer between the two worlds, as well as polar openings allowing travel between them.

It was never intended as a scale diagram, but rather as an illustration. As well as the usual replica, I have recreated it to scale, using the dimensions provided in the Hollow World Set, which are included at the bottom of the image for easy reference.

Replica (November 2020)

Scaled Adaptation (November 2020)

Sources

• The Hollow World Set (1990) (PDF at DriveThruRPG)
  • Poster map B (Cartography supervised by Dave Sutherland; executed by Dave Sutherland, Diesel, Dennis Kauth, and Frey Graphics)

Map Types

The Atlas of Mystara includes a few fundamentally different types of maps. The colour of the castle wall border on each map shows which category it belongs to.

• Replica maps (white castle border) are exact replicas of primary source maps. They present the world of Mystara as the original source materials depict it, warts and all. No attempt has been made to fix errors of any kind — even typos. As far as possible, replica maps use the same art as the original maps, though in many cases they are colourised. These maps are the main source material of the Atlas of Mystara, forming the base of all of the updated maps.
• Updated maps (green castle border) present the Atlas of Mystara’s consistent view of the world, with all errors, alignment issues, and so on fixed. They use standardised hex art and fonts. Anything not marked as a replica map is an updated map.
• Chronological maps (yellow castle border) provide snapshots of Mystara at the end of a certain year in its publication history. In effect, they are updated maps created from a limited list of sources. The years in question appear in the title of each map.
• Fan-made maps are unofficial maps created by other fan cartographers. As such, they do not follow the Atlas’s castle border colour scheme. The Atlas presents these maps in their original form, with the permission of the cartographers. The Atlas considers these maps secondary sources, and updated maps of areas not covered by official maps make extensive use of them. In a few cases, the Atlas also presents Replica fan-made maps (red castle border).