Dragaera

Time and longitude

Thu Feb 17 17:04:33 PST 2005

> > > > The Intro to Dzurlord -
> > > > "The continent on which the Empire rests is roughly the 
> shape of 
> > > > Europe, but twice the size, and the Empire encompasses (at the
> > > > moment) more than half of it."
> > >
> > >Then The Empire is about the size of Europe, or roughly 4 million
> > square
> > >miles.   China is about 3.7 million square miles and is in one time
> > zone.
> > 
> > According to my map China is in about 3 time zones (tiny parts 
> > touching two more).
> > That they have a standardized time for the whole country is a very 
> > different matter.
> 
> But it's the matter under discussion.  China is proof that 
> you can run a country the size of the Empire as one time 
> zone.  The Empire might work the same way.  (Or, pace Bryan, 
> it might be a lot longer north-south than east-west, or 
> Dragaera might be a lot bigger than Earth, or the Empire 
> might have more time zones than
> Russia.)
> 
> Jerry Friedman

A number of people have said they thought the Empire should be wider
east-west, and I agreed with them.  However, the more I try to fit the
various parts together, the more convinced I become that the empire runs
more north-south (or perhaps southwest-northeast) than my first stab at the
map.

Sethra Lavode is a big reason why:  pg 13 - "Kana had pulled back so that he
could reasonably claim to exercise his influence over the western third of
the Empire, with the exception of the Fingers, which, except for its few
ports, was of little importance anyway."

Kana appears to control most everything west of Adrilankha...  If that
constitutes a third of the empire, then the empire is much narrower than
version .1 of my map.

Adrilankha to Dzur Mountain is around 200 miles, and Dzur Mountain is
roughly midway between the Adrilankha and Eastern rivers... And from the
Eastern river to the Eastern Mountains is probably even less than that.

As to the western half of the empire, Hartre is only 500km (311 miles) west
of Adrilankha, and while I believe it is on the southern coast of the
continent, I'm not sure how much further west you have to go before you can
begin sailing north.

The Paths of the Dead, pg 306 - "Early the next day, the caravan arrived
outside of Hartre ... It was Kana's plan to rebuild this city both as a
defensive bastion against Elde Island (he considered Rundeel too close, and
Adrilankha too far away) and ... to establish regular shipping between it
and Northport, the latter of which was well located for [Mount Kana]. His
intention was ... for a ship [to be] sent to Candletown [reload] and to sail
>from there "around the horn" (as sailors call it) to Northport. "

In version .1, I put the horn between Northport and Elde, but now I'm
thinking the horn is probably south of that (and thus the
"southwest-northeast" comment above).

Another teaser is in The Paths of the Dead, pg 132 - "a place very nearly on
the opposite side of the continent from Adrilankha, that being ... Kana"

"the opposite side" could mean a number of things; I ended up putting Mount
Kana as far west as I felt I could get away with, but now I'm leaning
towards Kana being more north than northwest of Adrilankha. 

Vlad says that there is no ocean within a thousand miles of Deathgate Falls
(Book of Taltos pg 161).  As to which coast is the closest, I haven't found
anything about the coast north or east of Deathgate, but south of Deathgate
could be 1000 miles--that's what I went with for version .1, putting
Deathgate and the North Pinewood Hold on roughly the same latitude, since
the NPH is also 1000 miles from the sea, and I felt it more likely that
Paarfi was talking about the Shallow Sea to the south than the Western
Ocean--although I don't really remember why at this point.  :)

If the western coast is only a thousand miles away, then I have to pull
Northport and Kana eastward, since Northport is only a few hundred miles
>from Kana, and Vlad says it should have been called Westport (which, I
think, puts it on the west coast).

Bryan