17 November 2021

Thibault’s Isle of Dawn, 8 miles per hex v4

With all the pieces now in place, Thibault posted his final complete Isle of Dawn, 8 mile per hex map in September 2002. It had been close to five years in the making.

As usual, he produced multiple versions, starting off including not just the Alatians but also Ochalea and all of the Pearl Islands in the south of the map. There’s even a sliver of Bellissaria visible on the eastern edge. He was of course compositing many small pieces together, including other distinct maps — as evidenced by the leftover titling in the top left. (All of this is in the left-hand version.)

He then decided to crop it a little closer, getting rid of half of the Known World, most of Norwold, the edge of Bellissaria and the Pearl Islands, and much of Ochalea. The result is a tighter map that clearly focuses on the Isle of Dawn itself. The other change here is the addition of borders from TM2, though the rest of the isle’s borders are still missing. This may have been due to the difficulties inherent in the sources for the Isle of Dawn’s borders, which were left out of the Dawn of the Emperors map by mistake. Bruce Heard provided them in 72 mile per hex format in an episode of Voyage of the Princess Ark, but the black and white map was always very hard to read. In fact, many years later in 2018 I asked him to mark up his map to clarify the borders. With this in mind, I’m not surprised that Thibault didn’t complete them back in 2002.

These issues aside, this map is nothing short of a masterpiece — definitely among Thibault’s best achievements in his extensive Mystaran mapping. And like so many of his maps, it is still referred back to today. Subsequent cartographers have used Thibault’s base terrain and detailing to inform and inspire their own maps of the isle. It’s such an authoritative and indeed exquisite source that we will likely continue to do so for many years to come.

Fan-made Maps by Thibault Sarlat (September 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

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

Fan Sources

References

All of Thibault’s maps at the Atlas of Mystara
Thibault’s entry in Appendix M: Mappers of Mystara
Thibault’s author page at the Vaults of Pandius

Chronological Analysis

This is a fan-made map. It was published in 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; and 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.

Coming Soon