Distances on Map of Glorantha?

[seanwalsh]

Does anyone know about scale and distances on that map?
I started looking at those lines which radiate from Magastra's Pool. They look like longitude and latitude. Now, my limited understanding of cartography, geometry, planes, and spheres tells me that lines radiating from a point on sphere cannot diverge at a constant angle. The angle of divergence must be greatest at the originating point, slowly changing until the lines are "parallel" at the "equator", and then the lines begin to converge, the angle of convergence increasing until the lines intersect at the opposite side of the sphere.
This means that on a flat map, the longitudinal lines should curve apart as they move away from the originating point, leaving gaps in the flat map. Example, take an orange, cut it into sections, eat the good part, and then lay the sections out as a "map" of the orange.
If Glorantha's planet is roughly the same size as Earth, 12,700 km diameter, by the scale on the map, the equator would be just about the edges of the map.
This is the long way around to my question, and I am probably reading WAY too much into this. Are the distances at the edge of the map accurate? Specifically, is Vithalash smaller than Teleos?

 

[frobisher]

The important thing to remember, is that very few people outside of the cartographic industries draw maps correctly...

 

[wartorn]

Does anyone know about scale and distances on that map?
I started looking at those lines which radiate from Magastra's Pool. They look like longitude and latitude. Now, my limited understanding of cartography, geometry, planes, and spheres tells me that lines radiating from a point on sphere cannot diverge at a constant angle. The angle of divergence must be greatest at the originating point, slowly changing until the lines are "parallel" at the "equator", and then the lines begin to converge, the angle of convergence increasing until the lines intersect at the opposite side of the sphere.
This means that on a flat map, the longitudinal lines should curve apart as they move away from the originating point, leaving gaps in the flat map. Example, take an orange, cut it into sections, eat the good part, and then lay the sections out as a "map" of the orange.
If Glorantha's planet is roughly the same size as Earth, 12,700 km diameter, by the scale on the map, the equator would be just about the edges of the map.
This is the long way around to my question, and I am probably reading WAY too much into this. Are the distances at the edge of the map accurate? Specifically, is Vithalash smaller than Teleos?

Glorantha isn't on a planet; its on a lozenge-shaped mass nested in an off-kilter celestial sphere. The radiating lines are mostly for decor I imagine.

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Does anyone know about scale and distances on that map?

Genertela, the northern continent, is generaly considered as big as North America (and vaguely the same shape...).

Remember, as stated already, Glorantha is not a sphere, it's the rough upper surface of a cube just floating on an infinite ocean, with the rough bits sticking up out of the water forming the continents and islands. So, essentialy, the 'world' is flat. The sky is a dome overhead. It used to be balanced evenly on the Spike, a tower of pure Truestone, solidified Law, rising up from the centre of the world, but that was shattered in the Great Darkness, and now the sky dome wobbles a bit, making some contellations of stars (which are holes in the dome) further north at one time of year than the other. The hole where the Spike used to be is now Magasta's Pool, a permanent country-sized whirlpool.

Wulf

 

[homerjsinnott]

I feel that the distances on the maps of Glorantha are too small, I think it's because early Runequest was USAcentric. North America is not one of the largest continents, most geopolitical maps overestimate its size by a sizable amount (and Europe's for that matter). A great way to see this is to get a Gall-Peters projection map (and help a worthwhile cause while you are at it).

If you convert Km to Miles on the map everything looks much more reasonable, and makes widely different cultures easier to explain.


To get a Gall-Peters projection map:
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/online

 

[Rurik]

Spherical World?

Really, where do people get such ridiculous ideas? It would never float right.

Spherical indeed.

 

[Archer]

Spherical World?

Really, where do people get such ridiculous ideas? It would never float right.

Spherical indeed.

A sphere always floats perfectly, as long as it is hollow.
But I would not want to live on a spherical floating world, too much shift of weight, and round you go....

As for distances, I hope the world is large. Because from the map, I get the distinct impression that it is very small indeed. Somewhat smaller than Warhammers Empire even, even though it is divided by a lot of water.

 

[seanwalsh]

I'm glad the world is flat. It is so much easier to map that way.
I wonder if those lines are actually visible from the sky above.

As for size, the map has a scale. It is roughly 10,000 km by 10,000 km (6,200+ miles square for us Yanks).
That seems pretty large to me.
For example, Pamaltela is roughly rectangular 6,000 km by 3,000 km. That is roughly the same area as some of the bigger countries: Brazil, China, Canada, or the United States (including Alaska).

 

[homerjsinnott]

I'm glad the world is flat. It is so much easier to map that way.
I wonder if those lines are actually visible from the sky above.

As for size, the map has a scale. It is roughly 10,000 km by 10,000 km (6,200+ miles square for us Yanks).
That seems pretty large to me.
For example, Pamaltela is roughly rectangular 6,000 km by 3,000 km. That is roughly the same area as some of the bigger countries: Brazil, China, Canada, or the United States (including Alaska).

Look at Africa for big, Pamaltela is the biggest continent, Brazil is only a big country.

 

[Rurik]

Spherical World?

Really, where do people get such ridiculous ideas? It would never float right.

Spherical indeed.

A sphere always floats perfectly, as long as it is hollow.
But I would not want to live on a spherical floating world, too much shift of weight, and round you go....

As for distances, I hope the world is large. Because from the map, I get the distinct impression that it is very small indeed. Somewhat smaller than Warhammers Empire even, even though it is divided by a lot of water.

It was the rolling that had me worried. I realize a sphere would float (assuming it has sufficient buoyancy), but really, spherical is not a realistic shape for a world.

Thankfully all educated people know the world is flat (duh!), so we don't have to worry about ending up on the bottom side one day.

 

[seanwalsh]

I'm glad the world is flat. It is so much easier to map that way.
I wonder if those lines are actually visible from the sky above.

As for size, the map has a scale. It is roughly 10,000 km by 10,000 km (6,200+ miles square for us Yanks).
That seems pretty large to me.
For example, Pamaltela is roughly rectangular 6,000 km by 3,000 km. That is roughly the same area as some of the bigger countries: Brazil, China, Canada, or the United States (including Alaska).

Look at Africa for big, Pamaltela is the biggest continent, Brazil is only a big country.

Africa is certainly big, much bigger than Brazil, but that does not mean that Brazil is small.
What is big for me may be too small for you. I was merely trying to give a relative framework with which others might understand the size of Glorantha.
As for bigness/smallness, I believe size does not matter, it is what you do with it that counts. :wink:
But seriously, on foot or even horseback, I think it could take a long time to explore Rhode Island, and many lifetimes for an area the size of Brazil or Africa.

 

[homerjsinnott]

I'm glad the world is flat. It is so much easier to map that way.
I wonder if those lines are actually visible from the sky above.

As for size, the map has a scale. It is roughly 10,000 km by 10,000 km (6,200+ miles square for us Yanks).
That seems pretty large to me.
For example, Pamaltela is roughly rectangular 6,000 km by 3,000 km. That is roughly the same area as some of the bigger countries: Brazil, China, Canada, or the United States (including Alaska).

Look at Africa for big, Pamaltela is the biggest continent, Brazil is only a big country.

Africa is certainly big, much bigger than Brazil, but that does not mean that Brazil is small.
What is big for me may be too small for you. I was merely trying to give a relative framework with which others might understand the size of Glorantha.
As for bigness/smallness, I believe size does not matter, it is what you do with it that counts. :wink:
But seriously, on foot or even horseback, I think it could take a long time to explore Rhode Island, and many lifetimes for an area the size of Brazil
or Africa.

Agreed, one of the things I love about the Big G is the diversity of cultures, but I find them hard to explain on such a small world. Thats why I convert Km to Miles on the map, my players don't know or care, there is more room for me to fill in the bits in between places if I want to, and when I want to do a "blankland" I will have enough elbow room. Also things like the Lunar Empire (APtCM :wink: ) seem more of a achievement to me and the players.

Still the world is big and and I can be a bit obssesive about that kind of thing (curse you archaeology degree! :evil.


The New edition has got me all goosebumpy and I'm sure I will love bits of it and hate some other little bits.

 

[DreadDomain]

I'm glad the world is flat. It is so much easier to map that way.
I wonder if those lines are actually visible from the sky above.

As for size, the map has a scale. It is roughly 10,000 km by 10,000 km (6,200+ miles square for us Yanks).
That seems pretty large to me.
For example, Pamaltela is roughly rectangular 6,000 km by 3,000 km. That is roughly the same area as some of the bigger countries: Brazil, China, Canada, or the United States (including Alaska).

Well, 6000x3000km = 18000000km which is about the size of Russia and roughly twice the size of Brazil, China, Canada, or the United States.

 

[seanwalsh]

I'm glad the world is flat. It is so much easier to map that way.
I wonder if those lines are actually visible from the sky above.

As for size, the map has a scale. It is roughly 10,000 km by 10,000 km (6,200+ miles square for us Yanks).
That seems pretty large to me.
For example, Pamaltela is roughly rectangular 6,000 km by 3,000 km. That is roughly the same area as some of the bigger countries: Brazil, China, Canada, or the United States (including Alaska).

Well, 6000x3000km = 18000000km which is about the size of Russia and roughly twice the size of Brazil, China, Canada, or the United States.

Whoops! Bad math.
For some reason I was adding 6 and 3 instead of multiplying.
Still, not as big as Africa.

 

[SteveMND]

Agreed, one of the things I love about the Big G is the diversity of cultures, but I find them hard to explain on such a small world.

I'm not so sure. After all, in the Real World (tm), early peoples, on average, tended to not travel very far at all, compared to our modern expectation. Heck, even just a hundred and fifty years ago or so, a journey to the next town was an all-day affair. With a bronze-age cultures, your typical commoner might never even see the next town.

Look at Western Europe, with a landmass far less than Genertela. They managed to create a wealth of different cultures and civilizations in a comparatively small area. Add in such 'fantasy' elements affecting cultures such as magic, spirits, gods, monsters and such, and you don't need a large landmass to achieve significant diversity.

 

[andakitty]

Good point. Have you ever seen a map showing the barbarian incursions in Europe as the Roman Empire collapsed? Around 500 AD? It looks like a swarm of wasps, all sorts of different tribes coming south to take up 'new' land. Goths, Visigoths, Saxons, Huns, etc. Many, many tribal cultures pouring out of northern Europe.

 

[Archer]

Well, you would think so that people pre-medieval times did not move around much. But in fact, they travelled much more than they did after the fall of the roman empire.
Trade was one of the greatest reasons to travel. And no matter what you did for a living, you had to travel to get what you needed. In fact, before iron was in wide spread use, the bronze caused a lot of trade. It takes much more effort and actual components to make bronze than to make iron, which you basically can just melt the ore to get iron with.
And for some reason, still unexplained, in the middle of the bronze age, there was a sort of large scale emigration, with a lot of very large groups of people moving about, before creating new communities.
The "classical" world was much more vibrant and had a lot of more people moving about, traveling, than we previously expected.
With the fall of the roman empire, we entered a sort of "dark age" where travel, trade, and education was really reduced compared to before.
It took basically to around the 1400's before we start seeing large groups of people moving around as before the fall of the roman empire.
But the history blabbering ends here... :wink:

 

[SteveMND]

No, I realize that preindustrial/pre-rennasiance peoples also traveled, I was just suggesting that the distances involved were less than we as modern folks deal with (after all, a 1/2 hour car drive was an all-day trip for most folks prior to automobiles), and as such, you don't need the same sort of large spans to seperate distinct cultures; a smaller 'continent' will suffice just fine.

 

[Wulf Corbett]

The "classical" world was much more vibrant and had a lot of more people moving about, traveling, than we previously expected.

While it's true that bronze-age graves in Britain contain artefacts from around the Black Sea and beyond, my apples come from Brazil...

It's a matter of degree.

Wulf

 

[homerjsinnott]

Look at Western Europe, with a landmass far less than Genertela. They managed to create a wealth of different cultures and civilizations in a comparatively small area

.
I'm not sure what you mean by Western Europe, could you clarify?

OK. The non-polar land mass of the Earth (tm) is about 120 Million Km, Glorantha is about 36 Million Km (please if someone has better figures I would really, really like them, I just looked in the Genertela Book and there was no info ) so it is less than a third the size, 30% to but exact. This should mean a very significant increase in cross cultural influences. But I conceed this is not a mini Earth so perhaps the effect would be diminished somewhat, But It would still be very large.

Also it is not just the distances that creat diversity it is the difference in environment, Man (or Uz) is a product of his environment, wether that be mountain, jungle or polar region. And vice versa, the environment is a product of man (or Mostali). Man (or Aldryarmi) cannot be separated from his landscape.

Add in such 'fantasy' elements affecting cultures such as magic, spirits, gods, monsters and such, and you don't need a large landmass to achieve significant diversity.

This is always a tricky area, so mostly I just ignore it. Let me explain why. Because magical effects act both for and against any element of a good fantasy world, (so we exclude All D&D worlds then :shock: :wink they would tend to neutralise each other (a good example of this would be destruction of a crop by war is counter balanced by crop growing spells). I know this is a imperfect example and the balance may shift massively backwards and forwards over time, I honestly believe the overall idea is a sound one and the best way to deal with the effects of magic in a well thought out world.

So, you may not need a large landmass to achieve significant diversity, but it would be near impossible (well, maybe just very very unlikely) without.

Sorry if I went on a bit.