Hexmaping Brevoy / Stolen Lands is a nightmare


Kingmaker

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I've already played the Kingmaker campaign path - I made extensive use of the official Hex folios provided by Paizo to photoshop up a map of our Kingdom, but I was always dissatisfied by the limited nature of the official Hex map.

So I recently discovered Hexographer, and figured "Hey, this should be easy to copy down my old map in this and then expand from there!" So, I started gathering up source maps of the area, official maps, maps pasted onto each other, Hex maps OTHER people had done...(while this began as somewhat of a small experiment, I actually do want to run my own Kingmaker campaign someday, and I want it to heavily feature Brevoy and the River Kingdoms instead of Narissa).

I have come to one conclusion - The official Hex map is 1) Inaccurate and 2) Incompatible with the geographical maps not only made BEFORE Kingmaker but incompatible with the geographical map included in the module itself.

I have tried to measure the official hex map to the official geographicals, and there is always huge mile discrepancies (using the rulers provided by the maps) plus, the Stolen Lands are pointed north east. Trying to orient the Hex map so that it faces North (and thus aligns with Brevoy) causes huge distortions in locations. This also serves the dual benefit of actually warping the Hexes in photoshop and making it impossible to lay them on a Hex grid in Hexographer.

So, /rant complete. I really want to make this Hex map work (other Hex maps are inaccurate due to the reasons I listed above) but I'm at my wit's end trying to puzzle out how to mesh the Stolen Lands with Brevoy.


There's an edited picture floating around of the Stolen Lands integrated between the River Kingdoms and Brevoy. It seems to work pretty well.

ED: Sent you a PM.


I've seen it. Like I said it's very inaccurate.

Basically if I want to make a good map I need to do it from scratch using source material as...a vague guideline at best. I need to stick away from the official Hex map because it's only going to tempt me to conform to it - even though I know it's off.


I've been working on the same thing using Campaign Cartographer. Link

At the end of the day, I'll require a map showing The Stolen Lands, Pitax & Brevoy.


The stolen lands / Brevoy / Iobaria are some of the worst maps ever produced for a RPG and are the most glaring error in an otherwise awesome AP.

I've tried on numerous occasions to rectify the maps both regionally and globally. Regionally, you can shoehorn them in. Globally, you cannot.

First off, north is literally incorrect in the stolen lands. you can either have a map that is oriented north OR you can have a map that is oriented with the rest of the world. It is impossible to have both.

Secondly, the mountain ranges do not line up on the regional maps. Furthermore, the maps overlap one another.

Thirdly, there aren't any "hard locations" - that is, exact points that you can use to georeference these areas within the Stolen Lands. This means that the 12 mile hex map is particularly useless.

I think the concept is salvageable, if the maps are not. I'm actually working on a 12 mi hex map of Avistan at the moment. I had an older map of the Stolen Lands before here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hewhocaves/8737974231/in/set-7215763396127005 4

but I've come to realize that the hex issues with the stolen lands maps are too great to allow to dominate the rest of the continent. So I've decided to start from scratch.

Edited to add: When thought through completely, the mapping issues can be a useful part of the kingmaker campaign.

Liberty's Edge

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Check mine... They are good:
Maps


Respectfully, Corsario - its impossible to resolve both the north arrow, the Brevoy map and the River Kingdoms map into one unified map. You wind up either moving Restov or parts of Mivon.

My in-game answer is that the Stolen Lands maps are just plain wrong. Capricious fey have messed with earlier explorers and their measurements resulting in these inaccurate maps.

From a GMming point of view I'm working on more regional maps. When I have them completed, I'll add the hex information for all the hex-based encounters. Shouldn't take long!


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Corsairo-

With regards to those layered maps, they are not properly scaled. Each hex is a 12 miles across - if you change the map's scale to equal the 200 mile scale provided by the non-hex map you will find the Stolen Lands map does not fit anymore.

Hewhocaves-

Your hex map was one of the ones I consulted before starting myself. I found though that the stolen lands was (as you said) improperly oriented to Brevoy. Overall I also came to the conclusion that the Hex map was wrong (with regards to cardinal direction - although getting the plain hexes themselves to fit is a chore and might be better off doing my own thing)

I also came across this map which accurately scales its 12 mile hexes to the map legend. The problem is that I think the map legend is incorrect - Brevoy should simply not be that big (you can tell when you start mapping the stolen lands to the south and discover the Narlmarches have "grown" to 1.5x the size of the hex maps).

Overall - I would err that the geography (but not direction as listed) of the hex maps is more accurate, so Brevoy should be smaller. I did go ahead and map out the above link in Hexographer with planes to shrink my hexographer map and remap Brevoy again using proportionately larger hexes.


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CommandoDude -

One of the things I did last night was overlay the locations of the hex encounters from Book 1 onto my map. Not just what hex they were in, but where inside the hex.

I discovered to my delight that if we rotate the hexes so the flat end is up, the hex encounters plot nicely - one to each hex. This proof-of-concept suggests that it is possible, therefore, to just reorient the hexes so that the flat side is to the north!

In a related topic - i'm thinking of blogging the process of making these maps, in case people would like to follow along. Would that be of interest?

Sovereign Court

Yes. Dot!

Liberty's Edge

Yes, of course.


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Corsario wrote:
Yes, of course.

http://hexagonal-maps.blogspot.com/ Enjoy.


That is a pretty good map. Interested in seeing your further results.

One thing that I noticed is that the Hex where Brevoy is seems to be much further from the area around Bunderton than it aught to be. That might just be me though, as I was constantly wrestling with that area and how big it aught to be.


Did you mean New Stetven when you said Brevoy? Because Brevoy is many hexes in size.
Regardless, the focus of the next update is on the 3 maps in question. I'm kinda doing catch-up to get to where I currently am.


Whoops, no I meant Restov. Derp.


CommandoDude wrote:
Whoops, no I meant Restov. Derp.

Got it.

Yeah, Restov is quite a ways south. I also need to remember that Restov is an independent city state. Indeed, most of the River 'Kingdoms' are nothing more than city states that have simply claimed a large amount of countryside.

Liberty's Edge

Restov is a "quasi" independent city state. It is part of Brevoy (but trying to change that).


Restov isn't really independent at all - just because its leadership doesn't follow conventional lines of succession doesn't mean it's sovereign or even really all the autonomous. The Hansa for instance still owed fealty to the Holy Roman Emperor. Varnhold would be quasi independent, because it is a city state that hasn't declared fealty toward Brevoy, but its lands are claimed by Brevoy.

Aside from that, according to one map Restov should be 60ish miles from Bunderton, which is 5ish hexes. But that simply conflicts with the geometry of the combined maps.


My apologies - I scanned the Restov blurb too quickly and misunderstood the phrase "Free City State" to mean 'independent' rather than 'not beholden to any particular house :)


Corsario wrote:

Check mine... They are good:

Maps

Corsario, do you have a non-rotated version of the "Main Stolen Lands map"? It looks like you did a nice job stitching the individual maps together. I've tried to do that myself only to find that they weren't drawn to be a continuous whole.

Scarab Sages

I have to say, so far, OldManJim's CC3 map is by far the most comprehensive and cohesive. I had it blown up and laminated today at OfficeMax and we are going to use it for our game in place of the 4 panels set in poster frames we had been using. The fact that my players can calculate travel to a specific point in the Northern River Kingdoms or Brevoy from their capitol one a single map is game changing for us.

Liberty's Edge

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Spatula wrote:
Corsario, do you have a non-rotated version of the "Main Stolen Lands map"? It looks like you did a nice job stitching the individual maps together. I've tried to do that myself only to find that they weren't drawn to be a continuous whole.

Of course:


CommandoDude wrote:

That is a pretty good map. Interested in seeing your further results.

One thing that I noticed is that the Hex where Brevoy is seems to be much further from the area around Bunderton than it aught to be. That might just be me though, as I was constantly wrestling with that area and how big it aught to be.

So last night I was playing with the Kingmaker and River Kingdoms map. For the record, Restov is in a different spot on the Kingmaker and Brevoy maps.

Anyway, I tried to georeference the kingmaker map onto the river kingdoms map. It didn't work. You can see the results here:

Resolving the Kingmaker and River Kingdoms maps


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redcelt32 wrote:
I have to say, so far, OldManJim's CC3 map is by far the most comprehensive and cohesive. I had it blown up and laminated today at OfficeMax and we are going to use it for our game in place of the 4 panels set in poster frames we had been using. The fact that my players can calculate travel to a specific point in the Northern River Kingdoms or Brevoy from their capitol one a single map is game changing for us.

Here's a link to the map that redcelt is referring to. Be warned, it's a 16.5MB jpg file.

It shows what I think are the house borders in Brevoy, along with major towns & my best guestimate at major roads.

hewhocaves wrote:

So last night I was playing with the Kingmaker and River Kingdoms map. For the record, Restov is in a different spot on the Kingmaker and Brevoy maps.

Anyway, I tried to georeference the kingmaker map onto the river kingdoms map. It didn't work. You can see the results here:

Resolving the Kingmaker and River Kingdoms maps

I found similar issues when trying to overlay different versions of the map in Campaign Cartographer. For instance, one map had the eastern border of Mivon a full 2 hexes (24 miles) away from another map. In the end, I settled on the most eastern border as that's what redcelt needed for his game.

Lantern Lodge

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The guide to the River Kingdoms does mention that because the rivers are constantly shifting that maps drawn a decade ago may contain significant errors regarding wilderness areas (which the Stolen Lands are), and those from a century ago may be all but unrecognizable. (Lightly paraphrased pg. 3 and 4)

Other than the Tors there has likely been significant changes from when the Stolen Lands where last mapped. It being too large though is certainly an issue. In universe the cartographers are probably getting some faulty information from surveys. The hex map is likely the most recent survey, and definitely the most detailed, so likely the most correct. (for now)

Just for scaling purposes I decided to take the Brevoy cities and measure the distances from one another according to the 90 mile scale on the map. I don't have a ruler so these aren't precise.

Grayhaven to Port Ice is just under 90 miles.
Grayhaven to Silverhall is 120 miles.
Grayhaven to Eagle's Watch is 120 miles.
Grayhaven to Winterbreak is 180 miles.
Grayhaven to New Stetven is 210 miles.
Grayhaven to Stoneclimb is 300 miles.
Grayhaven to Restov is 380 miles.
Port Ice to Winterbreak is 120 miles.
Port Ice to Eagle's Watch is 120 miles.
Port Ice to Silverhall is 180 miles.
Port Ice to New Stetven is 270 Miles.
Port Ice to Stoneclimb is 300 miles.
Port Ice to Restov is 420 miles.
Silverhall to New Steven is 90 miles.
Silverhall to Eagle's Watch is 120 miles.
Silverhall to Winterbreak is 240 miles.
Silverhall to Stoneclimb is 250 miles.
Silverhall to Restov is 255 miles.
Winterbreak to Eagle's Watch is 110 miles.
Winterbreak to Stoneclimb is 225 miles.
Winterbreak to New Stetven is 270 miles.
Winterbreak to Restov is 435 miles.
Eagle's Watch to New Stetven is 180 miles.
Eagle's Watch to Stoneclimb is 210 miles.
Eagle's Watch to Restov is 315 miles.
New Stetven to Restov is 180 miles.
New Stetven to Stoneclimb is 240 miles.
Restov to Stoneclimb is 290 miles.

Lantern Lodge

Interestingly I found the Iobarian map has a scale as well, one that wasn't included in the book.

Map Here

If the distance to Restov works with what I did in the last post we can then rescale Iobaria to fit with Brevoy and then scale both to the hex level.

Lantern Lodge

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Again these are simplified numbers rounding to the nearest 30. These measurements are relying on me to draw a straight line as well, so they could be off a little. It's also relying on Restov as a reference point as it is the only point to appear on the Brevoy, Iobaria, Stolen Lands hex map and world map.

Restov to Katrivish is 180 miles. About 15 hexes.
Restov to Skywatch is between 210 and 240 miles.
Restov to Kirya is 270 miles.
Restov to Mishkar is 270 miles.
Restov to Volod is 270 miles.
Restov to Vladmir is 300 miles.
Restov to Kridorn is 330 miles.
Restov to Orlov is 360 miles.
Restov to Orost is 360 miles.
Restov to Mirnbay is 390 miles.
Restov to Okorimir is between 390 to 420 miles.

And so on and so forth until I edit later.

Sovereign Court

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Othniel Edden wrote:

Interestingly I found the Iobarian map has a scale as well, one that wasn't included in the book.

Map Here

The thing that gets me about the Iobaria map is that it shows the Castrovian Sea as being maybe 200 miles from the Dunsward and the Noman Highlands. When I look at the Kingmaker map, I think of the east side of the Tors of Levenies as being steppes or high plains, but with the Castrovian Sea so close, it's almost a coastal plain. The bottom of the Hills of Noman might break up the plain just before it gets to the coast, but not much. That makes the Dunsward a MUCH more desirable location as a trade route between Brevoy and the whole Castrovian Sea. I looked at Varnhold as isolated, but given it's location between Restov and the Castrovian Sea, it's got to be one of Restov's priorities and it's potential link to the sea.

In general, the Castrovian Sea is really close to the left side of the Inner Sea map and I'd love to know what that sliver on the far side of the World's Edge Mountains and just south of the Hills of Noman - basically, the Castrovian Sea's west shore - looks like. It seems like it ought to be much more linked to Inner Sea goings on than it has been presented.


Othniel Edden wrote:

Interestingly I found the Iobarian map has a scale as well, one that wasn't included in the book.

Map Here

If the distance to Restov works with what I did in the last post we can then rescale Iobaria to fit with Brevoy and then scale both to the hex level.

Theoretically you should be able to georeference Iobaria to Brevoy using the two cities in Iobaria as points.

addendum: just did it. The Iobaria map scale is off based on the Brevoy georeferencing points. 120 miles in Iobaria equals 125 miles in Brevoy. Now granted this assumes that Restov is in the correct place on the Brevoy map. If we argue that Restov is in the Kingmaker location, then we might have better agreement in our answer.

Oh, also Iobaria is tilted to the NE when you rectify those two points. That is to say N is pointing NE a few degrees.


Have you taken the curvature of the globe into consideration? Most of these maps seem to have been drawn using the Mercator projection, which would warp things considerably.

Lantern Lodge

The Iobaria map uses a different projection from what I can tell by the size of the Lake of Mists and Veils. But weird things also happen when maps have in universe elements to them. It gives room for artistic error. The reason I'm more keen on the hex map is because its least likely to have those errors, because of the need to scale exactly. One thing I'm trying to do is to make maps that go five hexes in every direction from a city. This would give me a sixty mile radius which I could then take a compass, draw a sixty mile circle and then replace those areas with hex maps. I was thinking of starting with Restov, but it might be easier to do Skywatch or Pitax. Ft. Drelev is already hexes and as said before Lake Hooktounge is fairly accurately drawn on each map so it may also be my reference.


Inneliese wrote:
Have you taken the curvature of the globe into consideration? Most of these maps seem to have been drawn using the Mercator projection, which would warp things considerably.

I have actually. And I've also placed the inner sea map about as close as i could to where it is supposed to be based on forum posts and brief conversations with the devs. As such absalom is on 0 longitude and the bottom of the map is only a few degrees above the equator.

Scarab Sages

Is there a map anywhere that shows the Castrovin sea and how it relates to Brevoy, Stolen Lands, Galt, etc, other than the one on Iobaria. I looked the other day and could not find one. Is it in some supplement or module somewhere?

Totally separate rant, I really wish they would publish at least the farthest west section of Casmaron so we could make trade routes connections, etc. It would be nice to know which cities connect to my Avistani cities via trade etc.


AFAIK there's no map that shows the Castrovin Sea or the continent of Casmaron. I could make some size inferences by adding in Tian-Xia and seeing the gap in between.

And while I agree having a bigger map would be cool, I know the devs are in no rush to fill in the gaps. Which is fine - one of the few misgivings about the Mystara setting I loved as a kid was that they jumped to new things before they fleshed out what they already had.

Edited to add: After looking at the Tian-Xia map, there's nothing to connect it to the crown of the world. which is probably why I didn't do that before.

Lantern Lodge

We do have this: world map

There is also a world crown map in Jade Regent.


Othniel Edden wrote:

We do have this: world map

There is also a world crown map in Jade Regent.

That is my ultimate goal, but without any actual data... shrug. It's already be said in some places that the map you've linked to is somewhat fanciful.

And I have the crown map already integrated. While it does not connect it has its own independently vertifable points... i.e. the geographic north pole


did u ever saw this contribution too.

http://www.cartographersguild.com/regional-world-mapping/21010-map-golarion -pathfinder-chronicles-setting.html


I have. It is a beautiful map. But it is also fanciful because of the aforementioned lack of data. I look forward to what the cartographer will produce once we know what is out there


Question - would there be interest down the road in a map of the stolen lands and surrounding area at the scale of 2 miles to a hex?

I can think of using it for tabletop or virtual army battles. Depending on terrain, you won't be able to see much more than a couple of miles. Overland movement for large units would be 8 hexes (with supply train) or 12 hexes (without) per day on roads in flat terrain or 4 hexes or less for moving across difficult country. There would also be a lot more opportunity for ambush, etc there and terrain would be much more important for mass combat.

Personally, I'd prefer three miles to a hex, but that's a bit more difficult and and doesn't maintain hex integrity as well.

Addendum: sorry, apparently you can divide it up by 4 leaving you with 3 miles to a hex. that would be ~5 hexes @20' movement, 8 hexes at 30' movement. If we could do 4 mi to a hex that would divide movement up more exactly. Decisions, decisions...

Lantern Lodge

hewhocaves wrote:
Othniel Edden wrote:

We do have this: world map

There is also a world crown map in Jade Regent.

That is my ultimate goal, but without any actual data... shrug. It's already be said in some places that the map you've linked to is somewhat fanciful.

And I have the crown map already integrated. While it does not connect it has its own independently vertifable points... i.e. the geographic north pole

It is a bit fantastical, but it is still data that can give a rough idea. Another source to check out, that also seems a bit guessy is People of the River. It was a nifty map of the Sellen River system. If nothing else it is beautiful.


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I've got a beta map of the Kingmaker area up. Thoughts?

Liberty's Edge

Very nice!


That does look very good. Why does the branch of the Sellen directly East of Mivon cross the Tors? it would seem that the water would flow towards the Castrovin or up towards the Shrike upstream of Restov.

EDIT: I understand why it flows towards Mivon on the Mivoni side but not why the otherside flows uphill?

Lantern Lodge

All of those Rivers flow towards the south. They are all tributaries of the Sellen River.


Yes, zagnabbit is correct, that really makes 0 geological sense, I don't see a river traveling up two different sides of a mountain range. I would also venture to say that the Tors of Levines aught to link up with the Icerim Peaks. There's a remarkably similar phenomena in southern California where the Seirra's link up with the coastal mountains that forms "The Valley" which I think would be analogous to the Dunsward.

By the way, the map looks like you made it in Hexographer but you said that the image was in illustrator file, how's that work?


re: that pesky Mivon River:

That river is annoying. One of the biggest problems I have is trying to make sense of a map not drawn by geologists or geomorphologists but that still makes geological sense without removing too many of their features. I have to include a major river along the Mivon - Stolen Kingdoms border because there was a river already there.

The map of the River Kingdoms in the Inner Sea World Guide (p164) has the most detail of all the recent RK maps. It clearly shows the Sellen forking and the south fork going through a mountain pass in the Tors. Whether this is intentional or a mistake by the artist isn't my place to decide. I just have to do my best with the data given.

Fortunately, the mountain pass saves us. I've always viewed the Dunsward as being higher than the Greenbelt. Its not hilly terrain, its just higher. You would expect this as it is bordered by a mountain chain on each side. Tectonic forces pushing from the E and W would fold the mountians up but also raise up the intervening valley. I won't say whether the mountains are anticlines or synclines - there's insufficient data (and it's pretty unimportant at this phase). The chains also act as a rain shield, increasing rain on either side (depending on the prevailing weather conditions) and sheltering the middle. This decreases the total erosion in the center and as such the Dunsward would erode less quickly than the Greenbelt.

As to whether the Tors meet up with the Icereme Peaks, yes if he had no data, that is certainly possible. However, we have two direct pieces of data. One, we are told that to the south and east are the start of the "Great Plains" that border the Castrovin sea. This suggests that everything east is plains. We also can look at the SW corner of the Iobaria map and get a sense that the Iceremes don't' thicken in width. By overlaying the two maps I noticed that the Tors and Iceremes are actually getting farther apart the more south you go.

That last point actually supports the previous conclusion about the Dunsward being higher than the Greenlands, because its at Restov and Brunderton that you have the thickening.

The two extinct volcanoes I put in solely for flavor. I can concoct a geological explanation for them. lol

So, to summarize the Dunsward is a raised plateau (without the cliffs) between two mountain chains. To the west, the decrease in elevation is around the Shrike cataracts, while to the southeast the decrease is very gradual towards the sea. The unnamed fork of the Sellen drains the center portion of the Dunsward and cuts through (a probably pre-existing) water gap in the Tors to connect up. Its possible that there's uplift surrounding the dual volcanoes which have redirected water west rather than southeast. One of the shortcomings of these hex maps is that you lose a lot of the subtlety in topography.

As to making my map in Illustrator rather than hexographer - I like hexographer, but this was just too complicated a work for that software. I've already needed to alter layers I've previously put down and illustrator does that so much better. Because everything in Illustrator is vector drawing or symbol, I can enlarge it to my heart's content without loss of resolution.

The drawing of borders and lines I find to be easier as curves or freehand drawing in illustrator (as it is a vector rather than a raster). The lines look much cleaner and I can fix them up later. Hexes are a bit of a problem as I have to manually place them. But thats less of a problem than you imagine and I can copy-n-paste a whole swath of hexes at once to fill out the center of a forest.

Hope that helps in explanation. One of the things to keep in mind is that we are dealing with an incomplete data set here and as such there is no one correct answer. Commandodude, your and zagnabbits answers also support the data given by the devs.

Note: i may add the explanation given to my blog ;)

Liberty's Edge

I always imagined the river "crossing" the mountains in a deep cannon.

Lantern Lodge

I actually interpreted Dunsward as a cold steppe given its geographical area and that Centaurs live there. I imagine the rivers being a lot like the Colorado or Green Rivers, working their ways to a low point. My problem is the Mountains of the Five Kings.

I'd love to see a take on a geographically accurate Golarion. Something tells me we'd have Lake Kingdoms or an Internal Sea instead of River Kingdoms.


Othniel Edden wrote:


I'd love to see a take on a geographically accurate Golarion. Something tells me we'd have Lake Kingdoms or an Internal Sea instead of River Kingdoms.

I'm not sure how to interpret that. Could you elaborate on the phrase "geographically accurate"?


Looking at a map of Oregon's rivers and comparing it to the rivers of Avistan shows that everything generally checks out. The Columbia River cuts through the Cascade mountains much the way the Sellen cuts through the gap between the Five Kings Mountains and the Fog Peaks. North of the Five Kings Mountains you have rivers flowing north into Lake Encarthan before flowing east to meet up with the Sellen, much the same as the Deschutes River does in Oregon.

The real question, with regard to the River Kingdoms, is how so many major rivers start there when there's no notable mountain ranges, no notable lakes, and it's too far inland to get a lot of rainfall. The mountain ranges of western Avistan should act much the same as the Cascades and Rockies of the western US, which means that the most likely source for rainfall in the River Kingdoms is probably the Castrovin Sea. If the Castrovin is large enough to form a strong current and influence weather patterns, then it would send warm fronts laden with moisture directly towards Brevoy and the River Kingdoms, where cold fronts sweeping down from the Crown of the World would push the weather up and generate rain despite the lack of a mountain range. But if that's the case... then it should be raining a fair bit on the east side of the Tors of Levenies, unless the Castrovin Sea is more than a few thousand feet above sea level for the Inner Sea.

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