So, I've recently been trying to create a map of Dragaera using references
>from the novels (Paarfi, especially, likes to describe the geography of
specific scenes)...
Has anyone else tried this with any luck? I admit to being stumped for the
most part... there just doesn't appear to be enough information to figure
out where places relate to one another...
However, I have made some progress.
If I accept the following as my postulates:
1. Mr. Brust hasn't made any mistakes in geography (ie, this isn't a Crack)
2. Neither Vlad or Paarfi is lying or _completely_ wrong (I'm betting
Dragaerans (or at least Vlad) don't know geometry very well, see below).
Then I can "work out" a map of at least the relationship between Adrilankha,
Castle Black and Dzur Mountain, which I think is a good starting point.
1. Book of Jhereg, pg 56 - "By then I'd be at Castle Black, some two hundred
miles to the Northeast [from Adrilankha]"
2. Book of Taltos, pg 3 - "Some two hundred miles to the north and east of
Adrilankha there lies a mountain, shaped as if by the hand of a
megalomaniacal sculptor into the form of a crouching grey dzur [Dzur
Mountain]"
3. Book of Taltos, pg 8 - "[Morrolan] Lives about a hundred and fity miles
inland, in a floating castle [Castle Black]"
4. Book of Taltos, pg 8 - "...Dzur Mountain is part of his fief. It's about
fifty miles from where his castle usually is."
Ignore #3 for a moment.
Let's first try accepting #1, #2, and #4 at face value. We can then make a
triangle, with Adrilankha at one point, Castle Black at the 2nd, and Dzur
Mountain at the 3rd. I'll refer to these points from now on as A, B, and D,
respectively.
A to B = "some two hundred miles" per #1
A to D = "some two hundred miles" per #2
B to D = "about fifty miles" from #4
Figure 1 - literal triangle
D
| \
/ \
| B
/ /
| /
/ /
| /
/ /
| /
//
A
(pardon my ASCII graphics here)
The first thing you'll note is that if you draw it such that B is northeast
of A (again, from #1), D is West of B.... No matter where you put it, so
long as you keep B even 1 mile North and East of A, D is always West of B:
Which is wrong, I think, since in LOCB, Kana sends two armies, one
approaches from the north, the other from the west, and the one from the
west gets to B (or rather, it's future home) _on the way to_ D...
Unless they went around to the South, and overshot, which isn't supported by
Paarfi.
Then again, Piro and friends are returning from the NE, and veer around the
northern Kana army, and end up running into Morrolan, and that makes a
little more sense if Morrolan was east of Castle Black, but I don't know,
Figure 1 just doesn't quite feel right.
Maybe #2 means "go 200 miles to the north, then 200 miles to the east" and
you're at D. Note that he says "north and east" and not "northeast". So,
if you make a 200 x 200 mile box, and put A in the SW corner, and D in the
NE corner, maybe we can find a spot for B such that it is 200 miles from A
and 50 miles from D.
You can't... The shortest path from A to D is ~284 miles, along the 45
degree diagonal... There's absolutely no place you can put B where it is
200 miles from A and 50 miles from D. And besides, that would mean B is
WEST of D, and then we have Piro's band to consider. Why would they veer
east around D, go south, then go back west of D on their way around Kana's
northern army?
Once again, trying not to give up and declare this a Crack, if #2 means "200
north, THEN 200 east", and Dragaeran's haven't learned Geometry very well
(remember, in the Paarfi novels knowing your Arithmetic is pretty rare and
amazing), maybe #1 is Vlad's best stab at "200 miles to the east [and then
go north an unspecified distance that puts you northeast of Adrilankha]".
If you place B 200 miles East of A and 50 miles south of D (and thus 150
miles north of A) the actual distance between A and B becomes
sqrt(200*200+150*150) = 250 miles. So Vlad uses the shorthand that Castle
Black is "200 miles" to the east and "150 miles" to the north (the two
right-angle legs of the triangle), and so he uses the bigger number, 200
miles, then indicates its true direction, northeast.
Any Cartographers or Historians out there? I wonder if any recorded ancient
geography descriptions used this type of logic before Pythagoras.
I don't know, maybe that's stretching it a bit, but it does very neatly have
#3 on its side:
If the Coast runs DUE EAST of Adrilankha (ie, it doesn't curve north or
south, and nothing indicates it does), and B is 150 miles north of the Coast
(which I'll call C), that matches up with the above exactly:
Figure 2 - the + and letters represent 50 mile markers
+----+----+----+----D
| |
+ B
| |
+ +
| |
+ +
| |
A----+----+----+----C
So #3 seems to support Figure 2. Of course, #3 can also apply to Figure 1,
but forces D to be closer to North of A than Northeast... or else the coast
DOES curve to the south the further east you get of Adrilankha, which,
again, is not supported in the text.
This also makes a little more sense for Kana's army, but still doesn't feel
quite right. If they were headed for D from the west, why go through B on
the way? Maybe it was to attack D from the north and SOUTH, and not the
north and WEST. Another alternative is that they veered more out of their
way than Paarfi seems to indicate when Kana's scouts reported a sighting of
Morrolan's army.
Same thing with Piro's returning band. Having B due south of D makes more
sense than having B west of D... Piro's band going around to the east could
meet up with Kana's western army "due south" of D.
So I'm leaning towards Figure 2.
Anyone else have any explanations or ideas that don't violate my postulates
above? While I haven't quoted them, there are more references (mostly from
Paarfi) that agree with Vlad's figures; I can provide them if anyone wants
to see them...
Bryan