Mapping Golarion: Putting what we know to latitude and longitude


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion

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A few years back there was an effort to take the Inner Sea map and put latitude and longitude boundaries on it so that we could have a rough idea of where cities lay on the globe. There was some rough guidance from James Jacobs to help place key features: Absalom should be at longitude 0, Magnimar roughly at Seattle's latitude, and the Tropic of Cancer above the Mana Wastes.

That effort was mostly successful, but...the maps that were put online are now gone, and we've had some additional regions of the world join the party since then.

I've tackled this problem, starting from scratch and using a GIS application to georeference the maps of the Inner Sea, Tian Xia and the Crown of the World. Interested in what the globe looks like? Check out my Golarion Geography page.

OK, so far it's just Golarion topography, but there's no need to be pedantic, right?

It's not all perfect. To maintain the scale on the Inner Sea map it wasn't possible to satisfy all the constraints, and there's some funniness up where Tian Xia meets the Crown of the World, but it's all darn close. "Darn close" is good enough, I think, considering that the cartographers at Paizo are artists and illustrators, not GIS, geography, or map projection experts.

Note that the maps I am putting up are really small. I don't want to be infringing on Paizo's IP here, so I've made them large enough to let you identify features, but small enough to prevent them from being useful in a game without buying the content yourself. Hopefully that flies.

If someone at Paizo is listening and objects to this use, please contact me so we can work out an alternative.


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Knowing the rough latitude of various regions generally pretty useful. If you know the latitude, then:

1. You have a good idea what the temperatures are like. You can find a country on earth with a suitable location and surrounding geography to serve as a model.

2. Add the day of the year and you can use charts to look up the approximate sunrise and sunset times, as well as its position in the sky.

3. Add the phase of the moon and you also get lunar rise and set times, too.


John Mechalas wrote:
considering that the cartographers at Paizo are artists and illustrators, not GIS, geography, or map projection experts.

It drives me NUTS when they drop some random clip art scale bar on the maps...

Theology and Geometry! :P


voodoo chili wrote:
It drives me NUTS when they drop some random clip art scale bar on the maps...

It is a pretty tough challenge to do a scale bar when your continent spans 80 degrees of latitude. :)

At least with the Inner Sea it was reasonable to assume a Mercator projection and that the region covered is small enough that scale bar stays true. With the small scale maps? No such luck! Until Golarion gets satellite mapping, I figure all these are cartographer's license and best effort guesses. After all, it must be a challenge to get all the coastlines surveyed when your ship keeps getting attacked by sea monsters. :)


I made some tweaks to the assumed map projection for Tian Xia. This shifted the continent south by about 10° of latitude but I think this is a better fit overall.


As a surveyor, I find this to be awesome. Now we just need the rest of the globe, haha.


John Mechalas wrote:
voodoo chili wrote:
It drives me NUTS when they drop some random clip art scale bar on the maps...
It is a pretty tough challenge to do a scale bar when your continent spans 80 degrees of latitude. :)

I was referring to the fact that they always use a bar broken into eighths which gets weird when say you're looking at the Shackles map with a 50 mile bar broken into increments of 6.25 miles? The big map has a 420 mile bar (shall we assume this is to honor WA marijuana laws?) with 52.5 mile increments shown? Huh? A peccadillo, sure.

This is an interesting project. I've put a little thought into it as well. I'm not sure about the math given the goofy scales, but the Tropic of Cancer would not run through the Mana Wastes. It runs just south of Cairo in the real world and should run near Sothis. This would explain the deserts of northern Garund since global climate patterns place deserts around 30 deg lat.

I'd put Kalsgard around 60 deg lat and the equator just off the south end of the map. The distances don't quite work out, but I mark that up to the North being over emphasized as usual ; )


voodoo chili wrote:
I was referring to the fact that they always use a bar broken into eighths which gets weird when say you're looking at the Shackles map with a 50 mile bar broken into increments of 6.25 miles? The big map has a 420 mile bar

Ah, I understand. Yes. That. I agree. Dividing things by 8 is not at all helpful. Especially when the thing you are dividing is 500 or 1000.

Quote:

This is an interesting project. I've put a little thought into it as well. I'm not sure about the math given the goofy scales, but the Tropic of Cancer would not run through the Mana Wastes. It runs just south of Cairo in the real world and should run near Sothis. This would explain the deserts of northern Garund since global climate patterns place deserts around 30 deg lat.

I'd put Kalsgard around 60 deg lat and the equator just off the south end of the map. The distances don't quite work out, but I mark that up to the North being over emphasized as usual ; )

This is an interesting idea. It would mean that the vertical scale doesn't match the horizontal scale, as you point out.

James did suggest at one point trying the arctic circle just above the edge of the Inner Sea map, instead of setting Magnimar at the same latitude as Seattle. This would closely line up with placing Kalsgard at 60° N.

I am not married to either approach. I could pretty easily work up maps for both cases, and let people choose the ones they like.


Do we know the size of the planet? Golarion very well could be bigger or smaller than Earth, which by my understanding of latitude/longitude could make the measurements worthless, or nearly so, on that planet.


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James explicitly said that Golarion is basically the same as Earth (the same size, has one moon, etc.). This simplified their world design since they could just use Earth as a model.


Dank Grimwolf wrote:
As a surveyor, I find this to be awesome. Now we just need the rest of the globe, haha.

I am putting my GIS degree to work. ;)

This is actually a good question. Is there any content that provides regional maps beyond the Inner Sea and Tian Xia?


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It might be too rough (and possibly quite inaccurate!), for your purposes. Note it is specifically "not to scale". However, this is the closest we have to a world map so far, I think.

It might help resolve where the equator should be relative to tian xia and the inner sea.

Good job, by the way. :)


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Steve Geddes wrote:

It might be too rough (and possibly quite inaccurate!), for your purposes. Note it is specifically "not to scale". However, this is the closest we have to a world map so far, I think.

I have fiddled with that and am trying to find a way to make it work. It kind of resembles a Robinson projection, so that has been my starting point.

While it's a rough map it would still be interesting to get it on the globe.


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This is my new favorite post on the messageboards. Great work, John.

I poked at this a couple of weeks ago when implementing the Inner Sea region map on PathfinderWiki city articles, and was able to (very roughly and unscientifically) compare the distance between Eleder and Port Ice with Nouakchott, Mauritania, and Stockholm, Sweden, assuming Paizo's map scale is accurate across the entire map and the projection was roughly equivalent to web Mercator. Your more rigorous analysis puts Port Ice relatively south, closer in latitude to London, but I'm generally closer than I figured I'd be.

What I'm saying is that I would pay an obscene amount of money for a canon-accurate globe of Golarion. *cough*hey Erik Mona*cough*


John Mechalas wrote:
Is there any content that provides regional maps beyond the Inner Sea and Tian Xia?

And to speak to this in particular, there's a map that goes deeper into Iobaria in The Varnhold Vanishing. The world map in Distant Shores, which uses the same base as the one Steve posted, includes markers for cities outside of the Inner Sea region that might help with proportions (though again, the lack of scale makes it less useful).

Some of the planetary maps in Distant Worlds appear to have longitudinal lines on them, though they might be more decorative than functional. It also includes the only map of Golarion's moon that I'm aware of.

A fan attempted a non-canon Mercator world map back in 2012.


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Garrett Guillotte wrote:
The world map in Distant Shores, which uses the same base as the one Steve posted, includes markers for cities outside of the Inner Sea region that might help with proportions (though again, the lack of scale makes it less useful).

I spent a lot of time with that rough Golarion map from Distant Shores this morning and was unable to find a projection that would make it work. When they say "not to scale" they are not kidding. Anything that would get Tian Xia in the right place would also put Arcadia on top of Tian Xia as well.

What this tells me is that there's a lot of ocean between Avistan/Casmaron and Tian Xia. Like, a lot of ocean. Much more than the map would suggest. It seems to be the equivalent of the Pacific Ocean on earth.

This makes a lot of sense when you look at the Crown of the World map from the Jade Regent AP. It has Avistan and Tian Xia literally at opposite sides of the globe, a full 180 degrees apart. For that to work, there has to be a whole lot of water between them.

That being said, it doesn't make the map useless. I am working on a rough outline for Avistan, Casmaron and Garund and I think those could be placed roughly on the globe. Azlant and Arcadia are a bit tougher because we have no real reference points, but 60° W and 120° W seem like good placements for now.

Quote:
A fan attempted a non-canon Mercator world map back in 2012.

It's a nice attempt but there are some huge problems with it. The biggest one is the assumption that the Inner Sea and Crown of the World maps meet, which they don't.


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Oh, and thank you for the pointer to Iobaria. That is very helpful! I will have to get myself a copy of the book from the AP. I would not normally purchase an AP that I might go through as a player some day, but in this case I will make an exception. For science!


Interesting.

Casmaron must be really out of scale on that world map if Tian Xia is opposite the Inner Sea and the ocean between Casmaron/Tian Xia is the second smallest.

Silver Crusade

I heard a rumor a while ago, that there is a beach ball floating around somewhere in the Paizo offices. This beach ball supposedly has the outlines of the continents on it roughly done in sharpie.

But this is just a half remembered rumor.


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First off, thank you. You know who you are.

I played with Ioberia and it generally lines up and the scale holds, but there are some map features that can't be resolved between it and the Inner Sea map.

See: Ioberia / Inner Sea lineup image

Even just trying to line them up visually in Photoshop, using Skywatch and Restov as reference points, it all looks pretty good until you look closely at the shape of the Lake of Mists and Veils, and the size of the Gronzi Forest, and the placement of some of the rivers. These could be errors on the illustrator's parts, or just changes that were made after the Inner Sea map was created.

Still, I put it in the realm of "close enough".

ElyasRavenwood wrote:
I heard a rumor a while ago, that there is a beach ball floating around somewhere in the Paizo offices. This beach ball supposedly has the outlines of the continents on it roughly done in sharpie.

Sounds like it's time for a visit to the Paizo offices. ;)

Silver Crusade

Very fine work.

It does suggest the oceans are bigger than we accounted for and that there might be something between Tian Xia and Arcadia. Also, whither Sarusan, southern Garund?

More exploration is needed!


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I have created and posted a global map (<-- that's a direct link) with Arcadia, Azlant, Avistan, Casmaron, and Garund shown. No Sarusan yet as I am not sure what to do with that one. This shows from -80° to 80° latitude. Not that Tian Xia is split between sides of the map because it straddles 180° longitude.

I had to take some liberties with where Avistan meets the Crown, but otherwise these are straight traces off the rough Golarion map.

The ocean between Casmaron and Tian Xia really does seem to be that big, much like the Pacific: if you turn a globe of the Earth such that the Pacific is centered in your view, you pretty much see nothing but ocean. That is the case here, too.


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I know your calculations don't really account for it, but I think the Crown of the World map is intended to fit directly on top of the Inner Sea region map.

Great work!


Zaister wrote:
I know your calculations don't really account for it, but I think the Crown of the World map is intended to fit directly on top of the Inner Sea region map.

It's one of three possibilities suggested by James:


  • assume that the Mana Wastes line up with the tropic of cancer
  • assume the north edge lines up with the arctic circle
  • assume Magnimar is at the same Lattitude as Seattle, Washington

That would be the middle one. It would imply a lot of detail is missing from the Crown of the World Map at the Avistan (and Tian Xia) end, but I am willing to accept that as artistic license.

Shifting the Inner Sea up that high, though, does cause other problems. The big one is that it moves Magnimar almost to 60 N latitude. For comparison, Stockholm is at 59.3 and Anchorage is at 61.25. This seems awfully far up considering most of Varisia and all of the Linnorm Kingdoms are north of Magnimar. The smaller one is that the topography becomes difficult to resolve.


Zaister wrote:

I know your calculations don't really account for it, but I think the Crown of the World map is intended to fit directly on top of the Inner Sea region map.

Great work!

No, it's not. The Hungry Storm (Jade Regent 3) specifies otherwise. If you look on the map of the Inner Sea Region, the mountains north of the Linnorm Kingdoms are the Stormspear Mountains, but the mountains at the edge of the Crown of the World are the Rimethirst Mountains. There's a large space between the two mountain ranges (and thus the two maps). According to The Hungry Storm (page 8), it is a distance of 1160 miles from Kalsgard to the Rimethirst Mountains.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Excellent work, folks!

While we haven't done this officially (and alas, the map of the Inner Sea Region was never really synced up to latitudes and longitudes, which is part of the problem), the one thing that I've clung to as "ground zero" for all of this is that Magnimar is at about the same latitude as Seattle, Washington. I'm relatively sure this means the Mana Wastes line up with the tropic of cancer. The artic circle begins at some point north of the northern edge of the map.

The map of the Crown of the World has good stuff as well, and there is indeed an expanse of relatively barren, unsettled tundra and wilderness between that map and Avistan.

Avistan and Tian-Xia are indeed on opposite sides of the world. The ocean between Tian-Xia and Arcadia is the largest ocean in the world.

In theory, Casmaron is the largest continent, and Sarusan is the southernmost one. It's not QUITE at the south pole, but it's a bit further south than Australia.

In the "rest of the world" map, Casmaron is a lot wider (it got kinda squished in the map we did in Inner Sea World Guide) and the ocean between Tian Xia and Arcadia is quite a bit larger. I would make Casmaron twice as wide on that map, shrink the ocean between it and Tian Xia a bit, and move that extra ocean section to the ocean between Tian Xia and Arcadia.

(The ocean between Tian Xia and Arcadia is intended to be the Pacific Ocean analog, and the one between Casmaron and Tian Xia the Atlantic analog.)

Hope this info helps! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with next!


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James Jacobs wrote:
the one thing that I've clung to as "ground zero" for all of this is that Magnimar is at about the same latitude as Seattle, Washington. I'm relatively sure this means the Mana Wastes line up with the tropic of cancer.

Satisfying both of these means sacrificing some scale bar accuracy on the Inner Sea map. That's probably not a huge loss, but I think I can find a good compromise that puts the tropic of cancer over the Mana Wastes and Magnimar on par with the greater Seattle metro area without really breaking the scale bar. The map scale is going to vary across the map, anyway, in a Mercator projection (though the Inner Sea is small enough of a region and at a low enough latitude that the variation shouldn't be huge)

Quote:

In theory, Casmaron is the largest continent, and Sarusan is the southernmost one. It's not QUITE at the south pole, but it's a bit further south than Australia.

In the "rest of the world" map, Casmaron is a lot wider (it got kinda squished in the map we did in Inner Sea World Guide) and the ocean between Tian Xia and Arcadia is quite a bit larger. I would make Casmaron twice as wide on that map, shrink the ocean between it and Tian Xia a bit, and move that extra ocean section to the ocean between Tian Xia and Arcadia.

(The ocean between Tian Xia and Arcadia is intended to be the Pacific Ocean analog, and the one between Casmaron and Tian Xia the Atlantic analog.)

Hope this info helps! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with next!

This is all super helpful. I can "move" the oceans by tweaking how the Tian Xia map intersects the Crown of the World. Since they don't line up properly, anyway, the alignment I have is somewhat arbitrary. I can shift it by a few degrees longitude to the west.

Long term goal for me is to create shapefiles and KML of the main land masses.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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As long as Magnimar is Seattle-adjacent that should be fine—if it skews south toward a Portland zone that should work but it shouldn't skew much more north. And as long as the Mwangi Expanse is in a spot that can have tropical jungles too, it all works out!


Starfinder Superscriber

You totally rock on this! Thank you!


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James Jacobs wrote:
if (Magnimar) skews south toward a Portland zone that should work

Thanks for the official canon confirmation that the coffee in Magnimar is better than Riddleport's.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Garrett Guillotte wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
if (Magnimar) skews south toward a Portland zone that should work
Thanks for the official canon confirmation that the coffee in Magnimar is better than Riddleport's.

Absolute truth. Although the poutine in Riddleport is pretty good.


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James Jacobs wrote:
I'm relatively sure this means the Mana Wastes line up with the tropic of cancer.

Just saying that that looks awfully weird to a real geographer. The Tropic of Cancer runs through North Africa on Earth. That's desert territory because the descending cool, dry air from the tropics absorbs moisture. I'd expect arid Osirion, Thuvia and Rahadoum to be on the Tropic of Cancer, not the Mwangi Expanse.

Honestly, the ISR seems way too squished to me. Seems like it oughta at least cover a whole 60 degrees latitude.

Sczarni

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Garrett Guillotte wrote:


What I'm saying is that I would pay an obscene amount of money for a canon-accurate globe of Golarion. *cough*hey Erik Mona*cough*

I've been asking for this since the gazeteer


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OK. --> Globe map v2 <--, using the feedback from James to:

  • Widen Casmaron (I also widened the Castrovin Sea a little)
  • Shuffle Tian Xia to the west a little
  • Place Sarusan on the map, farther south than Australia sits on Earth

The graticule lines are 15° apart.

This isn't "officially" posted to my web site yet since we are still tweaking things and I haven't yet adjusted the Inner Sea.

Some figures on the new layout:

  • Tian Xia is now centered around 170° E longitude instead of 180°
  • Sarusan has been placed between 40 and 60° S latitude. By comparison, Australia sits between 20 and 40° S.
  • The ocean between Tian Xia and Arcadia varies from 30 to 45° wide. In contrast, the Atlantic varies from 40 to 60° but is generally 40°.
  • The ocean between Casmaron and Tia Xia is about 45 to 60°. The Pacific is much bigger at 80 to 120° but our land masses are all together, too. Still, Casmaron may be too wide or sticking out too far to the east. I did a simple horizontal scaling on the east shoreline and that may have exaggerated it too much?

What do you think, James?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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John Mechalas wrote:

OK. --> Globe map v2 <--, using the feedback from James to:

  • Widen Casmaron (I also widened the Castrovin Sea a little)
  • Shuffle Tian Xia to the west a little
  • Place Sarusan on the map, farther south than Australia sits on Earth

The graticule lines are 15° apart.

This isn't "officially" posted to my web site yet since we are still tweaking things and I haven't yet adjusted the Inner Sea.

Some figures on the new layout:

  • Tian Xia is now centered around 170° E longitude instead of 180°
  • Sarusan has been placed between 40 and 60° S latitude. By comparison, Australia sits between 20 and 40° S.
  • The ocean between Tian Xia and Arcadia varies from 30 to 45° wide. In contrast, the Atlantic varies from 40 to 60° but is generally 40°.
  • The ocean between Casmaron and Tia Xia is about 45 to 60°. The Pacific is much bigger at 80 to 120° but our land masses are all together, too. Still, Casmaron may be too wide or sticking out too far to the east. I did a simple horizontal scaling on the east shoreline and that may have exaggerated it too much?

What do you think, James?

Looks pretty good; the main thing I'd change would be to "squeeze" Vudra (the large peninsula on the south side of Casmaron) back down to its original shape and size, and shift the mass that squeezed out of Vudra into southwestern and eastern Casmaron, if that makes sense? And the continental landmasses of Arcadia through Casmaron could probably shift a whole block west to expand the ocean between Tian Xian and Arcadia a bit more.

In fact, the actual shape of Casmaron is still quite a bit weird/off from the final intended shape. It should look a bit more like Asia plus an exaggerated India type peninsula overall, with the inland sea in the middle taking up the heart of the continent.

BUT thanks again for doing this! Very very interesting!


James Jacobs wrote:

And the continental landmasses of Arcadia through Casmaron could probably shift a whole block west to expand the ocean between Tian Xian and Arcadia a bit more.

...

In fact, the actual shape of Casmaron is still quite a bit weird/off from the final intended shape. It should look a bit more like Asia plus an exaggerated India type peninsula overall, with the inland sea in the middle taking up the heart of the continent.

Aha. This makes sense. I am not even a lousy artist so we are at the limits of my ability here, but I think I can do this.


John Mechalas wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:

And the continental landmasses of Arcadia through Casmaron could probably shift a whole block west to expand the ocean between Tian Xian and Arcadia a bit more.

...

In fact, the actual shape of Casmaron is still quite a bit weird/off from the final intended shape. It should look a bit more like Asia plus an exaggerated India type peninsula overall, with the inland sea in the middle taking up the heart of the continent.

Aha. This makes sense. I am not even a lousy artist so we are at the limits of my ability here, but I think I can do this.

Just yesterday I was looking for some kind of guidelines on the time difference between Bloodcove and the Shaguang Desert. This is EXTREMELY helpful.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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John Mechalas wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:

And the continental landmasses of Arcadia through Casmaron could probably shift a whole block west to expand the ocean between Tian Xian and Arcadia a bit more.

...

In fact, the actual shape of Casmaron is still quite a bit weird/off from the final intended shape. It should look a bit more like Asia plus an exaggerated India type peninsula overall, with the inland sea in the middle taking up the heart of the continent.

Aha. This makes sense. I am not even a lousy artist so we are at the limits of my ability here, but I think I can do this.

No worries!

One of these days I do fully intend to publish a full-on global map of Golarion. Not sure when though... but some day! SOME DAY.


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--> Globe map v3 <--

Making Casmaron more Asia-like with a giant India, but no other shifting. One change at a time is easier to process.

Obviously, my skills here are meager, and what I come up with will never match what is in your head even if they weren't. Regardless, giving people "close enough" to work with in their campaigns until canon comes along seems like a solid goal.

(edit: fixed the broken link)

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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John Mechalas wrote:

--> Globe map v3 <--

Making Casmaron more Asia-like with a giant India, but no other shifting. One change at a time is easier to process.

Obviously, my skills here are meager, and what I come up with will never match what is in your head even if they weren't. Regardless, giving people "close enough" to work with in their campaigns until canon comes along seems like a solid goal.

(edit: fixed the broken link)

I'd say that shape counts as close enough, especially once it all shifts left. Casmaron may well end up being larger if we end up sticking with our story that it's the largest of the continents—means it'd have to be bigger than Tian-Xia of course, but for now certainly close enough!


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Plugged it into Map-to-Globe and got a rough globe.


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Garrett Guillotte wrote:
Plugged it into Map-to-Globe and got a rough globe.

That is awesome!

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Wow, that's fantastic! I hadn't realized how much bigger Tian-Xia was than Avistan. And I'm really glad to hear that Casmaron is a little wider than some of the early maps suggested; I love the inland sea, but it doesn't leave much room for steepe or desert unless Casmaron gets a little bigger.


Over the next couple of days I'll get Casmaron scaled in size a bit more. Instead of shifting Arcadia through Casmaron to the west on this projection, I'll move the other masses to the east. Same effect, but it will keep the prime meridian centered.


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Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

What makes Golarion different from Earth is that Earth's continent all have their analogue: Europe => Avistan, Asia => Casmaron, Africa => Garund, the Americas => Arcadia, Australia => Sarusan. But then, Golarion still has another huge continent with Tian-Xia, and if the ocean between Casmaron and Tian-Xia is indeed supposed to be about as big as the Pacific Ocean, then, I guess, Tian-Xia needs to be rather close to Arcadia to fit in.


Navior wrote:
Zaister wrote:

I know your calculations don't really account for it, but I think the Crown of the World map is intended to fit directly on top of the Inner Sea region map.

Great work!

No, it's not. The Hungry Storm (Jade Regent 3) specifies otherwise. If you look on the map of the Inner Sea Region, the mountains north of the Linnorm Kingdoms are the Stormspear Mountains, but the mountains at the edge of the Crown of the World are the Rimethirst Mountains. There's a large space between the two mountain ranges (and thus the two maps). According to The Hungry Storm (page 8), it is a distance of 1160 miles from Kalsgard to the Rimethirst Mountains.

I am playing Jade Regent right now which is part of my motivation for putting these maps together.

This distance of 1200 miles more or less lines up with the assumption of Magnimar at Seattle's latitude and the gap I currently have between the Inner Sea and Crown of the World Maps. On my globe, the great circle distance from Kalsgard to the mountains is about 1081 miles. The actual route is obviously not as the crow flies and will probably work out to closer than 1300 miles, but that's all "close enough" I think.


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Zaister wrote:
What makes Golarion different from Earth is that Earth's continent all have their analogue: Europe => Avistan, Asia => Casmaron, Africa => Garund, the Americas => Arcadia, Australia => Sarusan. But then, Golarion still has another huge continent with Tian-Xia, and if the ocean between Casmaron and Tian-Xia is indeed supposed to be about as big as the Pacific Ocean, then, I guess, Tian-Xia needs to be rather close to Arcadia to fit in.

Where is everyone getting the info that the ocean between Casmaron and Tian-Xia needs to be wider? According to James, that ocean needs to shrink and the one between Tian-Xia and Arcadia that needs to expand.

James Jacobs wrote:

Excellent work, folks!

While we haven't done this officially (and alas, the map of the Inner Sea Region was never really synced up to latitudes and longitudes, which is part of the problem), the one thing that I've clung to as "ground zero" for all of this is that Magnimar is at about the same latitude as Seattle, Washington. I'm relatively sure this means the Mana Wastes line up with the tropic of cancer. The artic circle begins at some point north of the northern edge of the map.

The map of the Crown of the World has good stuff as well, and there is indeed an expanse of relatively barren, unsettled tundra and wilderness between that map and Avistan.

Avistan and Tian-Xia are indeed on opposite sides of the world. The ocean between Tian-Xia and Arcadia is the largest ocean in the world.

In theory, Casmaron is the largest continent, and Sarusan is the southernmost one. It's not QUITE at the south pole, but it's a bit further south than Australia.

In the "rest of the world" map, Casmaron is a lot wider (it got kinda squished in the map we did in Inner Sea World Guide) and the ocean between Tian Xia and Arcadia is quite a bit larger. I would make Casmaron twice as wide on that map, shrink the ocean between it and Tian Xia a bit, and move that extra ocean section to the ocean between Tian Xia and Arcadia.

(The ocean between Tian Xia and Arcadia is intended to be the Pacific Ocean analog, and the one between Casmaron and Tian Xia the Atlantic analog.)

Hope this info helps! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with next!

Bolded section mine.


Green Giant wrote:

Where is everyone getting the info that the ocean between Casmaron and Tian-Xia needs to be wider? According to James, that ocean needs to shrink and the one between Tian-Xia and Arcadia that needs to expand.

James Jacobs wrote:
(The ocean between Tian Xia and Arcadia is intended to be the Pacific Ocean analog, and the one between Casmaron and Tian Xia the Atlantic analog.)

I am working on it, but it's a constraint that may not be geographically possible without giving up another constraint. We have one big, limiting factor: Tian Xia is directly opposite of Avistan. We can play with this a little and shrink the oceans by making them 170° or even 160° apart (and giving Tian Xia a "tilt"), but there is only so far that this can go.

I can get some breathing room from the Inner Sea map by assuming it's using a conic instead of Mercator, but I really don't want to do that because the whole look of the map screams a cylindrical projection.


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--> Globe Map v4 <--

Tian Xia is now centered around 150° E longitude. This is as much as I am comfortable rotating Tian Xia off of "directly opposite" Avistan. There's a gap forming between the Crown and Tian Xia maps where the Wall of Heaven Mountains are depicted that can't really be resolved. We can say this is just artistic license of course, and that's totally appropriate. But this is as much as we can really move Tian Xia towards Avistan.

The ocean between Casmaron and Tian Xia is now narrower than the one between Tian Xia and Arcadia, though only modestly so. Casmaron probably needs to be larger (I enlarged it about 20% here).

We may be nearing the point of diminishing returns until Paizo releases a final map as canon.


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Green Giant wrote:
Where is everyone getting the info that the ocean between Casmaron and Tian-Xia needs to be wider? According to James, that ocean needs to shrink and the one between Tian-Xia and Arcadia that needs to expand.

You're right, I misremembered, but the fact remains that if there is an ocean that is about as big as the Pacific Ocean, it becomes difficult to fit in an additional continent as huge as Tian-Xia.

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