Mark’s Empire of Thonia, 24 miles per hex
Thonia is a dying Empire, the citizens cowering in fortified towns and cities. The lands between are rife with humanoid tribes, lycanthropes, undead, entropic cultists, unseelie fey and other worse creatures. But these lands also hide ancient tombs from the glory days of Thonia, hidden wizard towers, ancient Blackmoor technomagic, that may still be running.
What there is of a central government is corrupt, and the remaining ten Dukes are more interested in jockeying for power in the capital than actually ruling their domains.
I couldn’t do better than Mark’s own introduction to Thonia from his blog — what better way to introduce his first overview map of the region. He stated at the start of his post that he had been “thinking recently about Thonia, and its place in modern Mystara.” As previously hinted at by his Forest Jen map, this would point to a new direction for his mapping, detailing this region of northwestern Skothar, little touched upon by previous mappers.
As such, most of the detail in this map is Mark’s own invention. It’s wonderful to see another mostly-blank area of the world getting some attention at last.
Cartography-wise, Mark came up with a few new symbols to detail the region, including hilly mires as well as various kinds of tundra and sub-arctic terrain.
He also firmly based his map on the emerging Atlas of Mystara model of the world. After I produced a map of Brun with the 24 mile hex grid expanded to cover the whole continent, Mark requested that I further expand the grid to cover the whole world. This I gladly did, and the resulting map is a great resource for anyone wishing to produce hex maps of any part of the world while keeping them in sync with the hex grid in any other part. Mark used it to make sure that his Thonia map could be joined up with his other maps.
Fan-made Map by Mark Howard (May 2021)
Fan-made Map by Mark Howard (May 2021)
maps by Thorfinn Tait, arranged by Mark Howard, May 2021
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
- Master Rules Set (1985) (PDF at DriveThruRPG)
- Dawn of the Emperors (1989) (PDF at DriveThruRPG)
Fan Sources
- Atlas of Mystara (2005-present)
- Skothar, 72 miles per hex (April 2018)
- Brun, 24 miles per hex (1985) (May 2019)
- New Map: Brun 1985 with Hex Grid at Patreon (February 2021)
- Custom Map: Outer World with Hex Grid at Patreon (April 2021)
- The Empire of Thonia at Mark’s web site (May 2021)
References
- All of Mark’s maps at the Atlas of Mystara
- Mark’s entry in Appendix M: Mappers of Mystara (upcoming)
- Mark’s author page at the Vaults of Pandius
Chronological Analysis
This is a fan-made map. It was published in May 2021. 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 2021.
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.
Under Construction! Please check back again soon for updates.
