Mapping Golarion: Putting what we know to latitude and longitude


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion

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Zaister wrote:
You're right, I mismeasurements, 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.

I think the key word is "analog". It doesn't have to be the same size as the Pacific on Earth, but relatively speaking it should be the larger of the two oceans on Golarion.


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New map, new globe! (interactive, gif)


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

And possibly hires a qualified and competent member of the community to help them produce such a map... :p


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Garrett Guillotte wrote:
New map, new globe! (interactive, gif)

This thread is really cool. :)


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Map to Globe has a distance finder tucked in the options menu, so here are some fun inferred distances from the v4 map:

  • As the crow flies, it is about 760 (statute) miles from Absalom to Niswan, 1,100 miles from Absalom to Corentyn, 1,170 miles from Sandpoint to Absalom, and about 2,560 miles from Corentyn to Segada.
  • The northern tip of Arcadia is about 500-600 miles from the nearest part of the Crown of the World.
  • The Eye of Abendego is about 325 miles across.
  • The deserts that span northern Garund stretch more than 1,200 miles across the continent.
  • The land route from Sandpoint to Minkai is at least 7,500 miles long.

Liberty's Edge

I am enjoying what I am seeing and appreciate the hard work. I do like the thought of Magnimar being at a comparable latitude to Seattle being a major baseline. I am curious where the northern tropic now falls.

Is there an official name of it. If not, maybe name it after one of the constellations associated with Golarion's version of the zodiac. Thus, it would be the Tropic of the Rider or the Patriarch. The equivalent of the Tropic of Capricorn would appear to be the Tropic of the Follower or the Tropic of the Thrush. Personally, I would prefer the Tropic of the Rider for the northern tropic and the Tropic of the Thrush for the southern tropic.

Based on my knowledge of real world geography, having the northernmost tropic going through the Mana Wastes would put it too far south. Having it go through the desert areas of the map nearer Osirion would make more sense.

Sovereign Court

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Garrett Guillotte wrote:
New map, new globe! (interactive, gif)

Shrinking the ocean between Casmaron and Tian Xia creates a nice interlocking plate-techtonics look in the northern part of the ocean. Also gives the whole ocean a good basin look; I could imagine a couple of island chains rounding out the shape in the south, between Casmaron/Vundra and Sarusan.

I also like the sea between Garund and Vundra (with Ibydos kinda' in the middle) that creates a nice classical-world sea, kinda' Mediterranean/Arabian Gulf/Indian Ocean mash up. And the tips of southern Garund and Vundra being in proximity could lead to some interesting Afica/India cross-polination that didn't really happen on Earth, but...

If you want the Tian Xia/Acadia ocean to be bigger, you could always shrink Acadia a little, end it a little closer to the equator. The Aztlan archipelago has always looked really big and too close to Avistan to me. Shrinking that a little, or moving it a little closer to Acadia, like nearer to that wide gulf in the northern part of the Acadian continent.

That all starts to get a little too revisiony, but I don't think Paizo or anyone else should feel bound by that original world map. It great, but think of how many different versions of the RW world map we had before we got it right. It's totally easy and realistic for early world maps to be off (by a lot) and corrected by later explorers. Need to adjust the sizes of oceans and continents a little, move them a little to the east? No problem.


Mosaic wrote:
think of how many different versions of the RW world map we had before we got it right. It's totally easy and realistic for early world maps to be off (by a lot) and corrected by later explorers.

This. So very much this.


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.

There doesn't seem to be an Antarctica.


Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
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.
There doesn't seem to be an Antarctica.

The Crown is an Antarctica-sized landmass on the opposite pole. There's no real equivalent to the arctic ice cap, though, at least not specified yet in canon.

Silver Crusade

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This is all very cool :D


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I've been meaning to break in my new copy of Affinity Designer, so I drew a rough vector version of the v4 map as an equirectangular projection from scratch based on John's Robinson projection. (interactive globe, JPG)


Garrett Guillotte wrote:
I've been meaning to break in my new copy of Affinity Designer, so I drew a rough vector version of the v4 map as an equirectangular projection from scratch based on John's Robinson projection. (interactive globe, JPG)

Edit: Added missing bodies of water.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I'd like to thank y'all mapmakers for this. It's easy to see writers, artists, and game designers put work into a thing like Pathfinder, but I always love when people from more esoteric (but no less interesting) professions/hobbies come out with gems like this. Bravo. Much kudos, such support.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

This is awesome.

I know almost nothing about maps. Have you considered a non Mercator projection on the inner sea map? I think area preserving ones might be a cool alternative.

I was playing around with this website projectionwizard.org and for a map about the size of the inner sea, it proposed using things such as oblique Lambert azimuthal equal area and others.

Paizo Employee Developer

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I just wanted to pop in and say that I've been following this thread since it started and wanted to thank John and Garrett for the work they've done on this. Looks great!


BobTheCoward wrote:

This is awesome.

I know almost nothing about maps. Have you considered a non Mercator projection on the inner sea map? I think area preserving ones might be a cool alternative.

I was playing around with this website projectionwizard.org and for a map about the size of the inner sea, it proposed using things such as oblique Lambert azimuthal equal area and others.

If you check the interactive map-to-globe links I post (John's map with overlaid region maps, my bare vector map), you can use the map projections tab to transform the map into lots of other projections. You can also grab the equirectangular map from there to plug into something like NASA's G.Projector and transform into even more projection types.

(Edit: Naturally as soon as I post this, map-to-globe starts to glitch. Here are direct links to John's map and mine in equirectangular projections.)


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Garrett Guillotte wrote:
BobTheCoward wrote:

This is awesome.

I know almost nothing about maps. Have you considered a non Mercator projection on the inner sea map? I think area preserving ones might be a cool alternative.

I was playing around with this website projectionwizard.org and for a map about the size of the inner sea, it proposed using things such as oblique Lambert azimuthal equal area and others.

If you check the interactive map-to-globe links I post (John's map with overlaid region maps, my bare vector map), you can use the map projections tab to transform the map into lots of other projections. You can also grab the equirectangular map from there to plug into something like NASA's G.Projector and transform into even more projection types.

(Edit: Naturally as soon as I post this, map-to-globe starts to glitch. Here are direct links to John's map and mine in equirectangular projections.)

What I meant was instead of assuming the inner sea poster map is a Mercator projection from the globe and attaching it based on that, interpret the map as a different projection from the globe and attaching based on that.

So, it would "stretch" the top of the inner sea map. We think of the longitude lines on the inner sea map as being parallel. If we draw them more "conical" and converging near the top, we preserve the area of each nation relative to eachother.

If we are compromising between size, shape, and location, I would say cutting g up my inner sea map, placing irrisen right next to osirion, and having size and shape be correct is more important than saying the inner sea map correctly captures that brinewall is due north of the arch of aroden.


BobTheCoward wrote:
What I meant was instead of assuming the inner sea poster map is a Mercator projection from the globe and attaching it based on that, interpret the map as a different projection from the globe and attaching based on that.

Oh! OK. Sorry for misreading.


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BobTheCoward wrote:


I know almost nothing about maps. Have you considered a non Mercator projection on the inner sea map? I think area preserving ones might be a cool alternative.

I was playing around with this website projectionwizard.org and for a map about the size of the inner sea, it proposed using things such as oblique Lambert azimuthal equal area and others.

I am working on two things right now:

1. Something along the lines of what you describe, which is considering an alternate projection for Inner Sea map. Azimuthal would be the right choice for creating a map covering this much distance, but the distortion in the drawn map as-is really does resemble the distortion common to cylindrical projections. But, assuming it's a conic projection, such as a Lambert Conformal Conic, could be a good middle ground between the two. It might let us get closer to the vision James has of putting the Tropic of Cancer a little further north. EDIT: Scratch that. Conic would not be right. The stretching is on the wrong axis. So azimuthal would be more sensible.

2. Right now, to get the distance between Tian Xia and Arcadia widened I had to move Tian Xia 30 degrees closer to Avistan. I did this entirely on the Tian Xia side which created a nasty gap between the Tian Xia and the Crown of the World maps. That assumes, though, that Avistan and the Crown of the world are perfectly aligned. There's no reason that the Crown can't be 15 degrees off of the prime meridian. That would let me shift Tian Xia 15 degrees east to close that gap. Avistan and Tian Xia would still be 150 degrees apart, but that 30 degree gap would be split between the two continents rather than entirely on the Tian Xia side.

Edited to add: In fact, because we don't have a map covering that space between the Inner Sea and the Crown of the World, it would make a lot more sense to put the offset entirely on the Avistan side. There's much more room for artistic license that way. It would essentially mean that the "neck" between Avistan and the Crown is more of an elbow, but it wouldn't contradict any maps that are currently published.

What I need now is time to finish all this. :)


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Garrett Guillotte wrote:
New map, new globe! (interactive, gif)

When we reach a steady-state here, I'd love to include one of these globes you've been making on my web site (and credit you, of course), if you don't mind.


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Well, we just got something like 10" of snow here in Portland, which is about 8" more than predicted, so I spent some time this morning on the map. Because I am not going anywhere and also it's still coming down and expected to continue through noon. So, you know, eff that.

Here's a map of the north pole showing the new alignment of everything that I think makes the most sense. As you can (hopefully) see, the center longitude line for the Crown of the World map is now 15° W (the thick blue line down the center is the Prime Meridian and 180° W).

Avistan and Tian Xia are still 150° apart, giving the ocean separation James Jacobs envisions, but by rotating Avistan and Tian Xia 15° relative to the Crown, there's not a nasty gap where the latter two maps meet. The gap in published maps between Avistan and the Crown of the World allows for lots of artistic freedom in future maps without breaking anything that is already published.


Awesome work! (dot)


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OK, gang, this may be the final map update/tweak.

I have found a way to satisfy nearly all of James Jacobs's constraints by assuming the Inner Sea map uses a Miller cylindrical projection.

What's a Miller cylindrical projection? I am glad you asked:
So you want to be a cartography geek, eh? This is a cylindrical projection much like the classic Mercator projection, only it scales latitudes by 4/5 before projecting as a Mercator, and then rescales the mercator by 5/4 to restore the scale along the equator. The effect is to compress the northern latitudes of a classic Mercator map, so a map with a Miller projection looks squashed at the north and south poles and covers more latitude at the same scale. Compare between Mercator and Miller at Wikipedia.

The Miller projection assumption actually makes a lot of sense because the upper end of the Inner Sea map does look somewhat squished at the top end. This allows the Inner Sea map to cover a bit more latitude for its scale, and my new placement puts the Tropic line over the Mana Wasts per James's vision, while keeping Magnimar reasonable close to Seattle. Magnimar is a little lower now at 46.8° N (which is somewhere between Centralia, WA and Olympia, WA). This is only a 50 mile shift, and James said a shift south towards Portland is acceptable.

The final maps are all up at my Golarion Geography site (do a shift+reload there if needed to refresh your cache). I've updated everything: Inner Sea, Crown of the World, Tian Xia, and all the other world maps. I've also updated the table of city latitudes and longitudes, though I still list only cities on the Inner Sea map. Tian Xia and Crown of the World cities and settlements are coming.

Garret, I'll PM you re: making a globe. I want to give you a higher resolution image to work with.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

So the top of the inner sea map is only 62% of the bottom in terms of width? Those poor ulfen.


BobTheCoward wrote:
So the top of the inner sea map is only 62% of the bottom in terms of width? Those poor ulfen.

That and their fabulous climate.


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BobTheCoward wrote:
So the top of the inner sea map is only 62% of the bottom in terms of width? Those poor ulfen.

Honestly, being from Scandinavia I've always felt the Linnorm Lands has a bit much non-coastal land for a sea raider culture.

#WhereAreTheFjords


John Mechalas wrote:
Garret, I'll PM you re: making...

Thanks! I'll get cracking on it.


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Garrett Guillotte wrote:
John Mechalas wrote:
Garret, I'll PM you re: making...
Thanks! I'll get cracking on it.

New map, new globe! (interactive globe, GIF)


So in the spirit of entitled-internet-user-wanting-everything-now... How long will it take for you guys to add the new Qadira map into the equation. :)


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

Awesome work!

I'm still a bit confused on how there is such a huge stretch of land between the Avistan map and the Crown of the World map that you traveling through in Jade Regent, but which is completely unmapped.

Also, I'm wondering if it is realistic to have nothing but water on the south pole. Wouldn't it freeze over somehow, even without a continent?


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Zaister wrote:

Awesome work!

I'm still a bit confused on how there is such a huge stretch of land between the Avistan map and the Crown of the World map that you traveling through in Jade Regent, but which is completely unmapped.

Also, I'm wondering if it is realistic to have nothing but water on the south pole. Wouldn't it freeze over somehow, even without a continent?

In the section that describes the crown of the world in the book it actually says the mountains at the top of the inner sea map, and the mountains on the crown map are not the same. There is a stretch of land between the two that is a taiga biome.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiga


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Steve Geddes wrote:
So in the spirit of entitled-internet-user-wanting-everything-now... How long will it take for you guys to add the new Qadira map into the equation. :)

I have not seen it. How far east Des it go?


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Zaister wrote:
Also, I'm wondering if it is realistic to have nothing but water on the south pole. Wouldn't it freeze over somehow, even without a continent?

Good question! Golarion's south pole, like our north pole, is probably an ice cap but I don't know earth science so I don't know what's realistic and what's not. Voodoo Chili and Willian Ronald may have the right kind of knowledge here.

BobTheCoward wrote:
Zaister wrote:
I'm still a bit confused on how there is such a huge stretch of land between the Avistan map and the Crown of the World map that you traveling through in Jade Regent, but which is completely unmapped.
In the section that describes the crown of the world in the book it actually says the mountains at the top of the inner sea map, and the mountains on the crown map are not the same. There is a stretch of land between the two that is a taiga biome.

The fact that it is unmapped probably explains why absolutely nothing happens during that 1100-mile, 30-day journey. Monsters et. al. can't find it. ;)


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Steve Geddes wrote:
So in the spirit of entitled-internet-user-wanting-everything-now... How long will it take for you guys to add the new Qadira map into the equation. :)

It should be done around January 25th. :)


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
John Mechalas wrote:
Zaister wrote:
Also, I'm wondering if it is realistic to have nothing but water on the south pole. Wouldn't it freeze over somehow, even without a continent?
Good question! Golarion's south pole, like our north pole, is probably an ice cap but I don't know earth science so I don't know what's realistic and what's not. Voodoo Chili and Willian Ronald seem to have a lot more knowledge here.

An ice cap floating on the water with no land surrounding it sounds somewhat unstable. I am certainly no geologist, but I think the planet's spin would likely prevent it from floating away.I can imagine it might actually rotate at a slower speed than the planet itself, which would mean that from a planet-bound observer's viewpoint the ice would be spinning. Weird.


Zaister wrote:
John Mechalas wrote:
Zaister wrote:
Also, I'm wondering if it is realistic to have nothing but water on the south pole. Wouldn't it freeze over somehow, even without a continent?
Good question! Golarion's south pole, like our north pole, is probably an ice cap but I don't know earth science so I don't know what's realistic and what's not. Voodoo Chili and Willian Ronald seem to have a lot more knowledge here.
An ice cap floating on the water with no land surrounding it sounds somewhat unstable. I am certainly no geologist, but I think the planet's spin would likely prevent it from floating away.I can imagine it might actually rotate at a slower speed than the planet itself, which would mean that from a planet-bound observer's viewpoint the ice would be spinning. Weird.

You mean like our Northern Polar ice cap?


Zaister wrote:
An ice cap floating on the water with no land surrounding it sounds somewhat unstable. I am certainly no geologist, but I think the planet's spin would likely prevent it from floating away.

Ah. I see what you mean. We don't really know much about the southern hemisphere. It could be that Garund, Arcadia, etc. stretch a lot farther south.

Sarusan may also be much bigger than shown. We know from James that it sits farther south than Australia does. Maybe it's even farther south than shown, enough to serve as an anchor for an ice cap?


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Zaister wrote:
John Mechalas wrote:
Zaister wrote:
Also, I'm wondering if it is realistic to have nothing but water on the south pole. Wouldn't it freeze over somehow, even without a continent?
Good question! Golarion's south pole, like our north pole, is probably an ice cap but I don't know earth science so I don't know what's realistic and what's not. Voodoo Chili and Willian Ronald seem to have a lot more knowledge here.
An ice cap floating on the water with no land surrounding it sounds somewhat unstable. I am certainly no geologist, but I think the planet's spin would likely prevent it from floating away.I can imagine it might actually rotate at a slower speed than the planet itself, which would mean that from a planet-bound observer's viewpoint the ice would be spinning. Weird.

The problem is that we only have our own planet to go on, with one pole in the middle of a relatively small ocean surrounded by two large continents and the other pole in the middle of a smallish continent. But our world's Arctic region is probably close enough since in summer the polar ice caps do melt enough to become effectively unanchored -- and they do not seem to move around in any sort of weird way then. Does anyone recall reading about the north polar ice cap colliding with any island(s) in the Arctic ocean? Me neither.


Kajehase wrote:
BobTheCoward wrote:
So the top of the inner sea map is only 62% of the bottom in terms of width? Those poor ulfen.

Honestly, being from Scandinavia I've always felt the Linnorm Lands has a bit much non-coastal land for a sea raider culture.

#WhereAreTheFjords

I'm sorry you're pining for them.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Plausible Pseudonym wrote:
Kajehase wrote:
BobTheCoward wrote:
So the top of the inner sea map is only 62% of the bottom in terms of width? Those poor ulfen.

Honestly, being from Scandinavia I've always felt the Linnorm Lands has a bit much non-coastal land for a sea raider culture.

#WhereAreTheFjords

I'm sorry you're pining for them.

My thinking is they just didn't want to draw them. On the map you can see the elevated coast.

Liberty's Edge

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Zaister wrote:
Also, I'm wondering if it is realistic to have nothing but water on the south pole. Wouldn't it freeze over somehow, even without a continent?

It depends.

In addition to the land masses around the Arctic Ocean helping to prevent sea ice from drifting south and melting, they also block large ocean currents from bringing warmer southern waters up in to the region. Golarion would not have either of those effects.

Cold water sinks and thus 'pulls' surface water in over it. With completely open ocean at the south pole on Golarion this effect would almost certainly create multiple large surface currents heading south towards the pole, sinking as the water became colder, and then flowing back north at great depths. This warmer surface water would make it harder for ice to form / easier for it to melt... potentially resulting in seasonal sea ice at the south pole.

Of course, that all assumes that Golarion is otherwise a perfect match for Earth. Same size, distance from an equally bright star, average planetary albedo, et cetera. If Golarion's atmosphere is closer to 1850s Earth than 2017 Earth (due to lack of cars & power plants) then it would be colder overall and ice would persist longer.

Basically, given what we do and do not know, anything from small stretches of ice forming in the winter and quickly being lost up through year round ice, varying in extent by season, similar to our (current) Arctic is possible.


CBDunkerson wrote:
Of course, that all assumes that Golarion is otherwise a perfect match for Earth. Same size, distance from an equally bright star, average planetary albedo, et cetera.

I believe this is the intention. James has as much as said so because it made their job easier.


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William Ronald wrote:
Is there an official name of it. If not, maybe name it after one of the constellations associated with Golarion's version of the zodiac. Thus, it would be the Tropic of the Rider or the Patriarch. The equivalent of the Tropic of Capricorn would appear to be the Tropic of the Follower or the Tropic of the Thrush. Personally, I would prefer the Tropic of the Rider for the northern tropic and the Tropic of the Thrush for the southern tropic.

I overlooked this portion of your post earlier. It would really depend on when the tropics got named, wouldn't it? Once we knew that, one could, say, fire up Stellarium and work backwards to the right point in history. Assuming of course that 0 AR on Golarion corresponds to 0 AD on Earth for calculating star charts.

Which it should. I mean, if the point was to model after Earth to keep things easier on the designers, that would absolutely make sense.


John Mechalas wrote:
William Ronald wrote:
Is there an official name of it. If not, maybe name it after one of the constellations associated with Golarion's version of the zodiac. Thus, it would be the Tropic of the Rider or the Patriarch. The equivalent of the Tropic of Capricorn would appear to be the Tropic of the Follower or the Tropic of the Thrush. Personally, I would prefer the Tropic of the Rider for the northern tropic and the Tropic of the Thrush for the southern tropic.

I overlooked this portion of your post earlier. It would really depend on when the tropics got named, wouldn't it? Once we knew that, one could, say, fire up Stellarium and work backwards to the right point in history. Assuming of course that 0 AR on Golarion corresponds to 0 AD on Earth for calculating star charts.

Which it should. I mean, if the point was to model after Earth to keep things easier on the designers, that would absolutely make sense.

It doesn't, I believe. We know that 4713 AR=1918 AD from Reign of Winter.

You could still back calculate, of course.


thejeff wrote:

It doesn't, I believe. We know that 4713 AR=1918 AD from Reign of Winter.

You could still back calculate, of course.

OK. I don't know that AP but a fixed reference point is good enough. I assume time flows at the same rate between the two (e.g., they are both on the material plane in the same universe)?


John Mechalas wrote:
thejeff wrote:

It doesn't, I believe. We know that 4713 AR=1918 AD from Reign of Winter.

You could still back calculate, of course.
OK. I don't know that AP but a fixed reference point is good enough. I assume time flows at the same rate between the two (e.g., they are both on the material plane in the same universe)?

Yep, that's the suggestion from Reign of Winter. Earth is canon, on the Material Plane, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, and as a bonus it sounds like Worldscape is also canon(!?), so in 1918 AD Mars is also Barsoom.

Liberty's Edge

thejeff wrote:
John Mechalas wrote:
William Ronald wrote:
Is there an official name of it. If not, maybe name it after one of the constellations associated with Golarion's version of the zodiac. Thus, it would be the Tropic of the Rider or the Patriarch. The equivalent of the Tropic of Capricorn would appear to be the Tropic of the Follower or the Tropic of the Thrush. Personally, I would prefer the Tropic of the Rider for the northern tropic and the Tropic of the Thrush for the southern tropic.

I overlooked this portion of your post earlier. It would really depend on when the tropics got named, wouldn't it? Once we knew that, one could, say, fire up Stellarium and work backwards to the right point in history. Assuming of course that 0 AR on Golarion corresponds to 0 AD on Earth for calculating star charts.

Which it should. I mean, if the point was to model after Earth to keep things easier on the designers, that would absolutely make sense.

It doesn't, I believe. We know that 4713 AR=1918 AD from Reign of Winter.

You could still back calculate, of course.

As the civilizations of Garund and Avistan predate the founding of Absalom (and the raising of the Isle of Kortos from the floor of the fairly young Inner Sea), one of those civilizations likely named the northern tropic (Tropic of Capricorn on Earth) and possibly the southern. Perhaps the honor should go to the Mwangi as Old Mage Jatembe and his Ten Magic Warriors were active before Osirion was founded. Maybe one of them was the equivalent of Erastothenes and came up with a close estimate of the size of Golarion. Or the Jistka Imperium or another great civilization that arose in the Age of Anguish may have given names that have stuck through history.

I am somewhat concerned about the Mwangi Expanse being so far north if the deserts of our own world can be found between about 20 and 30 degrees latitude. The Sahara transitions into the Sahel (dry steppes that are beginning to be lost to the Sahara) at about 20 degrees latitude. By contrast, the northernmost parts of the Mwangi Expanse are very close to 30 degrees north on this map. The southern edge of the Mwangi Expanse is at about 20 degrees north. A look at a map of the African continent on Earth will show that the great rainforests and savannahs are further south.

A possible explanation might be that the deserts of Northern Garund are largely rain shadow deserts and the land that the Mwangi Expanse is on is relatively elevated and getting much more moisture than similar areas on Earth. (Tibet borders India but has a much cooler climate due to its elevation.) I am more of a history expert than a climatologist, but the location of the Mwangi Expanse is something that exists as canon in the maps. Perhaps the weather patterns,winds and currents in the area funnel moisture that is blocked by the mountains and the area is similar to what exists in Africa several degrees of latitude to the south. (The Eye of Abednego may have increased this greatly in the last century on Golarion.) Essentially, the Mwangi Expanse, Sargava and associated regions have to be more tropical than its equivalent latitude and longitude on Earth. (See this map for climate zones in Africa.)

Perhaps the geography of Garund has lead to a situation similar to the climate of North America, resulting in a situation in the area similar to [/url]Mexico's climate[/url].


William Ronald wrote:

As the civilizations of Garund and Avistan predate the founding of Absalom (and the raising of the Isle of Kortos from the floor of the fairly young Inner Sea), one of those civilizations likely named the northern tropic (Tropic of Cancer on Earth) and possibly the southern.

<snip>...

Just a little correction ^ from someone who is currently living in the Southern Hemisphere.

Otherwise some interesting points you've brought up! ^^

Carry on!

--C.

Liberty's Edge

Psiphyre wrote:
William Ronald wrote:

As the civilizations of Garund and Avistan predate the founding of Absalom (and the raising of the Isle of Kortos from the floor of the fairly young Inner Sea), one of those civilizations likely named the northern tropic (Tropic of Cancer on Earth) and possibly the southern.

<snip>...

Just a little correction ^ from someone who is currently living in the Southern Hemisphere.

Otherwise some interesting points you've brought up! ^^

Carry on!

--C.

Thanks for the correction. I live in the Chicago area, which is definitely not near either tropic.

In some ways, the Inner Sea map reminds me of North America. So, if Magnimar has a climate similar to Seattle, maybe the jungle areas of Garund on the map are similar to parts of Mexico and North America.

A question that I have is whether Western Avistan has the equivalent of a Gulf Stream impacting Western Avistan. Part of me says no or it does not reach as far north. (I confess to being unfamilar with how the currents in the Pacific impact the Seattle area.) The Lands of the Linnorm Kings, instead of having a climate similar to Scotland most likely have a climate similar to Alaska. Of course, the high mountains and the presence of a permanent winter in Irrisen would impact things.

Also, if we presume that the Inner Sea was formed with Earthfall and that Golarion like Earth was in an Ice Age at the time, what is now the basin of the Inner Sea may have been either a very narrow sea or a series of lakes like Ice Age Europe. There were likely land bridges between Garund and wnat is now Qadira (a key landbridge could have went from Katapesh to what is now Stonespire Island to Qadira with perhaps one connecting Nex, the Isle of Jalmeray and Qadira). Similar landbridges could have connected Avistan and Northern Garund, with one becoming the strait of Hesperus where the ruins of the Arch of Aroden stand. One could have connected northern Garund, the land that would become the Isle of Kortos and southern Avistan somewhere south of the Selen River's current estuary. These would likely have been flooded at the onset of Earthfall, risen again as the world cooled under something similar to a nuclear winter and then sank again as the world returned to a more normal state. Similar things likely would have happened elsewhere. The land bridges could have helped people move from Avistan and Garund, Casmaron to Tien Xia and between Tien Xia and Arcadia. (A lot of the movement of people could have occurred long before Earthfall, as landbridges and narrow straits helped human beings expand out of Africa on Earth to all continents save Antarctica.)

(We know little about the cultures of that era other than Azlant, Thassilon and the Horselords of what became Nidal. Perhaps some halflings had farms and fishing villages which were devastated by the flooding and fled to what is now Cheliax.)

I hope that I am not overly complicating things with my posts. I am enjoying the maps and I hope that I am contributing some good ideas to this thread.

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