X9 Brun
This simple update of the Companion Set‘s continental map appeared in X9 to show the location of the Savage Coast in relation to other regions. The map itself is nearly identical to the Companion map, but with an extra box for the Savage Coast. It also adopts labels for the regions, which were missing from the previous map. Interestingly, the label adopted for what would later become the “Known World” region is “Empire of Thyatis”, presumably drawn from the Master Set map, published just a few months previously.
Replica Map (March 2019)
Sources
- X9 The Savage Coast (1985) (PDF at DriveThruRPG)
- Pages 13 & 20 (Cartography by Dave “Diesel” LaForce)
Chronological Analysis
This is Map 35. It was published in October 1985. The updated version of this map has not yet been released. See also Appendix C for annual chronological snapshots of the area. For the full context of this map in Mystara’s publication history, see Let’s Map Mystara 1985.
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.
Additions
- Regions — The Savage Coast region is added to the continental map, alongside the previously established regions from CM1’s map. All of the regions are given names, mostly drawn from the map titles of their relevant module: X9 is “The Savage Coast”, X6 “The Wild Lands”, X5 “Hule”, X4 “Great Waste”, and CM1 “Norwold”. The most interesting is X1, which now becomes “Empire of Thyatis”.
Hex Art & Fonts
- Fonts — Baskerville.
- New Symbols — None.
Analysis
The Master Set was published four months before X9. With just four months in between, it seems likely that the world map was not available (or at least was not made available) to X9’s designers. This is the same situation that we saw with M1’s maps; X9 and M1 were both published in the same month.
In other words, Southold almost certainly wasn’t deliberately changed to Savage Coast; rather, both names probably arose in development around the same time. It’s also possible that someone noticed but by that point X9 The Savage Coast was already too far into development. After all, the concept of “Savage Coast” is pretty central to the module.
In the context of 1985, it might easily have been concluded that Southold was the name for the whole region, including the Yazak Steppes, the Orc’s Head Peninsula, the western Gulf of Hule, and yes the Savage Coast, with the latter term primarily referring to the coastal region.
On the other hand, X1’s region label, “Empire of Thyatis”, must surely derive from the Master Set world map. The label certainly can’t come from X1, because it clearly confined Thyatis to just the southeastern coast of the region. Moreover, X1 failed to name the central area of the setting, so it was lacking a geographical label.
We will likely never know for sure at this point. Regardless, it seems that there were two largely concurrent, separate evolutions of Mystara’s regions, one headed by Merle Rasmussen in X6 (1984), X9 (1985), and Dungeon #6-7 (1987); the other by Frank Mentzer in Companion (1984) and Master (1985). It seems likely that they were not able to (or for some reason did not) consult with each other — or perhaps only briefly, or indirectly. At the very least, there was no thorough continuity check.
Join in the Discussion at The Piazza
Come and join in the discussion about this map at The Piazza, where I am holding a “read through” of the Let’s Map Mystara project.
