Great Continent Map

[revansurik]

Hi folks! I've been giving another look at this ap which shows more of the Great Continent, and I've been wondering, where do all those places and cities (such as Flamecloud Peak, Ssyuris Fen, Demonrun, Noct and Diurna) come from? Did they feature in any UMC? Because I'm basing much of a planned campaign of mine on this map, and I've thought some things about those places, but I don't want to invent something about them if there's already something on other campaign.
BTW, all i know is that Mhregost should appear in a campaign Kanzil was planning, but he hasn't logged on since August 2013, so he probably won't answer any message I sent him so soon. And yes, I know that some places depicted on the map are inconsistent with canonical maps (specially the regions to the south of Wesnoth)

[Eagle_11]

Holy [censored], that continent is HUGE. I always thought it ends a lot sooner towards east, maybe somehow merging with the old continent maps found in Imperial era campaigns. The plot twist would be since no one is in ability to cross the whole continent in a life time, not even with strongest teleport spell, people would assume its 2 different land masses since they never gone from one end to another.
Now that you ask about umc, i have seen Aethenport at mouth of river aethen in knights of the silver spire, and another city inside the mini-lake just left to R. aethen text in another campaign, there is mention of an Obsidian Citadel, possibly related with drakes. Which oddly all dont show up on this map, so it seems to be an reflection of creators selfishness or he simply didnt want bother himself with playing through a boatload of umc to know all the locations added. With the assumption the latter is more probable, why dont we make something like a list of non-canonical places added with a brief description of their location.
Least i forget there is the question coursing in my mind since SotB: The Castelfranc in far north and its people, are they of wesnothian origin or humans native to the continent ? In either case are they an independent land, a colony of wesnoth, under protectorate of dwarves or what ?

[revansurik]

Holy [censored], that continent is HUGE. I always thought it ends a lot sooner towards east, maybe somehow merging with the old continent maps found in Imperial era campaigns. The plot twist would be since no one is in ability to cross the whole continent in a life time, not even with strongest teleport spell, people would assume its 2 different land masses since they never gone from one end to another.

I imagine the Great Continent and the Old Continent as being a bit like Asia and the Americas: the first is huge, but is still separated from the second by two vast oceans.

there is mention of an Obsidian Citadel, possibly related with drakes. Which oddly all dont show up on this map

You mean the obsidian tower mentioned in UtBS? I hadn't thought of that, and that's interesting... the drakes could have settled somewhere in the Great Continent after Morogor; I'd place them in the Shakaar/Kehshakaar mountains to the northeast of the Lins-Elens, for some reason these names sound drake-ish to me... Though the obsidian citadel obviously can't be that far away, since Kaleh presumably found the obsidian tower south of the Heart Mountains.

Least i forget there is the question coursing in my mind since SotB: The Castelfranc in far north and its people, are they of wesnothian origin or humans native to the continent ? In either case are they an independent land, a colony of wesnoth, under protectorate of dwarves or what ?

I don't think there's any official lore on it, but judging by the name I'd say it's human. Maybe that's even the city of Earl Lan'bech (not sure if that's how you write his name), the final villain in SotBE

[johndh]

are they of wesnothian origin or humans native to the continent ?

Canonically, no human is known to have settled on the Great Continent before Haldric's exodus in The Rise of Wesnoth, so all humans on the continent came from Wesnothian origins. That doesn't mean that they are still under Wesnothian rule, but that's where they came from.

[revansurik]

I've just discovered that Thriththa, Lake Aoir, Noct, Diurna and Firecloud Peak came from the Era of Strife, but I still don't know about other places (like Hammermounts, Fort Bayn, Kehshakaar, etc)

[Eagle_11]

Canonically, no human is known to have settled on the Great Continent before Haldric's exodus

That renders the immense spread and cultural diversion of humankind all over the continent even more strange, considering this spread has started out of only but a single point of origin.

In description of minotaurs in AoS there is also mention of a 'Silver Lands'. Hammermounts do sound dwarven yet a human given name, Fort Bayn probably an frontier outpost-stronghold, founded in golden age of wesnoth similar to those already present in canon. Kehshakaar maybe drake tongue or orcish.
One thing to keep in mind that elves were once overall the place, in fact long before first men arrive. Many of those locations may be not actually the original name but how the elves called it and translated roughly to men's tongue whilst presenting the map, again i say this with the assumption this map would be ancient and most certainly not originally man made if it goes in accordance with the canon.

[revansurik]

Canonically, no human is known to have settled on the Great Continent before Haldric's exodus

I think this should be changed now that the Khalifa have returned to mainline; they're human, live on the Great Continent and are way too different from Wesnothians (both culturally and ethnically) to be, let's say, another group of Wesnothians who migrated settled more southwards than the others.

In description of minotaurs in AoS there is also mention of a 'Silver Lands'. Hammermounts do sound dwarven yet a human given name, Fort Bayn probably an frontier outpost-stronghold, founded in golden age of wesnoth similar to those already present in canon. Kehshakaar maybe drake tongue or orcish.
One thing to keep in mind that elves were once overall the place, in fact long before first men arrive. Many of those locations may be not actually the original name but how the elves called it and translated roughly to men's tongue whilst presenting the map, again i say this with the assumption this map would be ancient and most certainly not originally man made if it goes in accordance with the canon.

I imagined Fort Bayn as being Aragwaithi; that could even be the land from where they came when they met the Wesnothians. Also, I imagine that, in the central/eastern regions of the Great Continent, there should be a predominance of elves; there could even be different kinds of elves - such as cave elves (who would be the dark elves) - after all they have strong adaptation skills; and, since not all of the continent is covered by forests, some of them could have learned to live on different environments when their original forests became too crowded. Though too great a variety of elves would kind of spoil them, after all elves are traditionally a forest people...

[Groggy_Dice]

Holy [censored], that continent is HUGE. I always thought it ends a lot sooner towards east, maybe somehow merging with the old continent maps found in Imperial era campaigns.

Of course, the Imperial Era has been moved from a pre-Wesnothian ancient era to its own setting, Orbivm.

Least i forget there is the question coursing in my mind since SotB: The Castelfranc in far north and its people, are they of wesnothian origin or humans native to the continent ?

I don't know if you've been following the thread about redrawing the canon maps, but Castelfranc is no longer on them. The idea is to remove place names that are not used in any mainline campaigns, to give UMC authors flexibility to do what they want in those regions. For the same reason, Glamdrol and Rumyr were also removed, but Glamdrol was brought back by popular demand.

Canonically, no human is known to have settled on the Great Continent before Haldric's exodus in The Rise of Wesnoth, so all humans on the continent came from Wesnothian origins. That doesn't mean that they are still under Wesnothian rule, but that's where they came from.

Of course, we will have to see what backstory is developed for the Khalifate, per revansurik.

In description of minotaurs in AoS there is also mention of a 'Silver Lands'.

Are you aware of the UMC "The Silver Lands"? There's still an old version up at UMC-Dev.

I imagined Fort Bayn as being Aragwaithi;

This is an example of how the break between Wesnoth and Orbivm has not been clean, as both Orbivm (Feudal Era?) and some Wesnoth UMC have the Aragwaithi.

[zookeeper]

Canonically, no human is known to have settled on the Great Continent before Haldric's exodus

I think this should be changed now that the Khalifa have returned to mainline; they're human, live on the Great Continent and are way too different from Wesnothians (both culturally and ethnically) to be, let's say, another group of Wesnothians who migrated settled more southwards than the others.

Actually, that is the intended backstory for them; they're a group that splintered off from the early Wesnothians.

Whether it makes any sense or not is not my problem, but in any case, I do disagree with ideas of non-negligible pre-Haldric human populations on the Great Continent. It would rather water down the whole point of the Green Isle refugees being the first sizable human presence on the continent.

Least i forget there is the question coursing in my mind since SotB: The Castelfranc in far north and its people, are they of wesnothian origin or humans native to the continent ?

I don't know if you've been following the thread about redrawing the canon maps, but Castelfranc is no longer on them. The idea is to remove place names that are not used in any mainline campaigns, to give UMC authors flexibility to do what they want in those regions. For the same reason, Glamdrol and Rumyr were also removed, but Glamdrol was brought back by popular demand.

For that reason, and also because for example Castelfranc just didn't make sense; it's presumably a human city, but having a human city up there just didn't make any sense given the established timeline, so it was removed.

And indeed, I think that the more cities the canon maps have, the more they constrain UMC. If someone wants to have Castelfranc in their campaign, then it's pretty easy to add. However, if it's there in the canon SotBE map and you want to create UMC taking place around that area, then it might very well simply get in the way of your story, in which case you need to explain it away somehow (for example by establishing that it hasn't been founded yet, or that it was razed in the past, or whatever).

[Eagle_11]

And indeed, I think that the more cities the canon maps have, the more they constrain UMC.

But doesnt that undermine the whole point of using a map for storytelling ? especially when it only shows locations relevant to the story and all the rest of the land as bland, as consisting of pristine green pastures awaiting to be settled.
Going by the same logic might as well remove all geography irrevelant to gameplay of campaign since that would hinder UMC authors too.
Besides an UMC-author will do whatever he/she wants anyways, cause its his/her fiction, doesnt even really necessary have to explain why a location appearing on any canon map isnt present in own story taking around roughly the same places.

It would rather water down the whole point of the Green Isle refugees being the first sizable human presence on the continent.

Yourself said it: "first sizeable human presence". The pre-Islander exodus humans would be small enclaves that have either:
A- Live far away enough from the elves to have remaint obscured and, therefore, are undocumented. (In the case of Khalifa would be fitting, as if in 'they came across a desert in far south.')
B- They have been spotted by the elves, but got mistaken for being offshot of another race. (only with the arrival of Haldric it has been fully understood that they are indeed an unique and seperate from any other type species)
C- There were humans normally, just the forest elves around the area where Wesnoth stands have been decadent, to such extent to having nearly forgotten lore about other races, as shown in an Orcish incursion campaign. And since the elvish history-keeping in canon is presented from their viewpoint, may have been victim of this. Considering there aint any other type of elf around, even the future desert elves are descendants of those(wood-)elves, with even the high elves being presented as culturally indifferent.

[revansurik]

Actually, that is the intended backstory for them; they're a group that splintered off from the early Wesnothians.

Yourself said it: "first sizeable human presence". The pre-Islander exodus humans would be small enclaves that have either:
A- Live far away enough from the elves to have remaint obscured and, therefore, are undocumented. (In the case of Khalifa would be fitting, as if in 'they came across a desert in far south.')
B- They have been spotted by the elves, but got mistaken for being offshot of another race. (only with the arrival of Haldric it has been fully understood that they are indeed an unique and seperate from any other type species)
C- There were humans normally, just the forest elves around the area where Wesnoth stands have been decadent, to such extent to having nearly forgotten lore about other races, as shown in an Orcish incursion campaign. And since the elvish history-keeping in canon is presented from their viewpoint, may have been victim of this. Considering there aint any other type of elf around, even the future desert elves are descendants of those(wood-)elves, with even the high elves being presented as culturally indifferent.

Imho, making the Khalifa as an 'offshoot' of early Wesnothians is extremely lame; Eagle_11's explanation sounds more reasonable, specially the part of the elves having forgotten parts of their most ancient history - if I'm not mistaken, it's mentioned (in either AOI or LoW) that they fought a war ages before. This war could have been so catastrophic that caused some of the elves' lore to disappear - but anyway, this is not the topic for that; returning to the topic's main subject, do the regions to the east of Lins-Elens and Lake Aoir have any lore on them (UMC lore, I mean)? The Hammermounts, Demonrun, Kehshakaar, that huge lake in the lower right corner of the map...

[zookeeper]

And indeed, I think that the more cities the canon maps have, the more they constrain UMC.

But doesnt that undermine the whole point of using a map for storytelling ? especially when it only shows locations relevant to the story and all the rest of the land as bland, as consisting of pristine green pastures awaiting to be settled.

You mean that if the campaign maps only show locations you're actually going to visit/see/discuss in the campaigns, it undermines the impression of everything being part of a larger world? I don't really agree, for various reasons.

[johndh]

But doesnt that undermine the whole point of using a map for storytelling ? especially when it only shows locations relevant to the story and all the rest of the land as bland, as consisting of pristine green pastures awaiting to be settled.

I actually kinda like the feeling of Wesnoth being mostly unsettled frontier, where even armed scouts don't like to venture too far past civilization lest they be beset by ogres or monsters. Of course, it would be that way for a while after TRoW, but I imagine it keeping some air of wilderness and mystery for a long time. That's where adventures happen!

Imho, making the Khalifa as an 'offshoot' of early Wesnothians is extremely lame

I wouldn't have a problem with their being a second/separate exodus, especially since we've got lore in the works for the southern continent as an explanation for diverse skin tones among the Islefolk. This would make the Khalifate related to the Washraha, the Chomi, or other such groups. This would also make them unknown to Wesnoth in the beginning, whereas an offshoot would likely be remembered. "Hey, remember that tribe that decided to wander south across the desert a few hundred years ago? What ever happened to them?" Additionally, assuming that the Khalifate's people are mostly supposed to be Arabic looking, I find it less plausable that they would evolve that noticeably in a few centuries from Germanic-like stock.

[Deki]

I thought that Khalifate was Persia orientated faction, not the Arab one, or I am mistaken?

[Velensk]

Kinda both, and others as well. I'd say more persian but it's not like the cultures are unconnected.