<Joerg>

Using a GIS for Glorantha Mapping

One of my perhaps most visible contributions to the Whitewall project so far was the badly drawn sketch map for the surrounding lands of Whitewall, produced on MS Pain(t) and then deteriorated as jpg files.

By a strange coincidence, my boss told me just five days ago to investigate geographical information systems (for environmental applications, but I need to get the basics, too), especially Open Source ones like GRASS or Thuban.

So here I am, some 60 work hours later and richer by a strange mix of experiences like running UNIX windows under Win-XP, compiling Python files I couldn't parse with a dictionary, and learning about geographical projections. I'm starting to see the potential of a Gloranthan GIS.

Which takes me to Gloranthan mapping, which - thanks to Greg - can do without all that projections overhead.

Still, quite a few of the concepts I have encountered so far apply to mapping Glorantha, too.

Current map info is two-dimensional. Scale is often arbitrary. Several maps of a single area don't agree about specific positions, and can show perspective widening.

In short, a situation not too dissimilar from real world mapping, if for different reasons.

This means there are tools that allow "bad" maps to be aligned along a couple of fixed locations.

Vertical information

Checking the sources, we have a few hints for the heights of places - mostly for cliff-sides and extraordinary peaks. River courses help to indicate the general sloping of the valley bottoms. There is a map of Balazar and the Elder Wilds which even gives elevation lines, placing the Elf Sea just below 900 metres above sea level.

For Whitewall this means that Destor's Hills? are a range of hills with a rocky core but sufficient soil on the slopes that rise from the Backwind Marsh in the southwest to the Charandar Ridge in the northeast.

We know that the Shadow Plateau rises about a kilometre above Choralinthor Bay, which I use to define average sea level. (Note that the sea is sloping towards Magasta's Pool...). Suchara Vale? is the former river bed of the ]Creek-Stream River], and cannot be much higher than 80 metres above sea at the Vingaford - according to the map scale some 15 miles from the river mouth. Given that the LoT description has much of the vale as former river ground for the Creek-Stream River, I picture the Marzeel River as meandering through the former broad river bed as a less steep/high recreation of the Rhine near Castle Stahleck, in turn within another, steeper valley which to the east (Heortland Plateau) is as high as the mountains around Castle Stahleck, while to the west the Shadow Plateau rises thrice as high.

The Pharaoh's Dammed Marsh? could be as high as 250 metres above sea level. (For comparison, the Danube is at 400 metres elevation in Bavaria, with most of its distance to the sea still to go.)

The Backwind Marsh? has to be somewhere in between, say 160 metres. From here start Destor's Hills. The southwesternmost peaks of the range should be well below the Shadow Plateau, but 800 metres elevation is what most peaks in Wales would be happy to have, and still gets very picturesque.

Both Marzeel River? and Dreven River? are likely to descend quite steeply.

Following the road from Karse, Whitewall is a mere 60 miles from the Sea:

From Whitewall Junction the map has some 2 to 3 miles in a straight line to the city of Whitewall - the climb across the ravines etc. up Sestarto's Leap, across Tarkalor's Bridge?. Following the road, the distance will be greater, say another 5 miles. A similar stretching factor ought to apply to the other numbers, too - I arrived a these numbers by marking a strip of paper I overlayed with the road as shown.

Same list again, this time with elevation (in metres) before the distances.

How convenient: I drew the lower two height lines in a lighter grey: these could be at 800 and 900 metres?

The Plateau outline would be at 900 metres then, barely below the level of the Shadow Plateau. Works for me. The Tor would rise another 100 metres at least from the Plateau, with the citadel on King's Rock? and the High Altar? at about 1200 metres elevation total.

Now let's have a look at Matt's 3D rendering of the data:

whitewall-mountains-3D.jpg

Keeping in mind that Matt only used the lowest outline of the Tor (because the rest was obscured by the citadel overlay, I suppose, the whole thing still is quite steep. If the Tor is roughly a kilometre long, then High Altar and King's Rock ought to be half as high above the valley, with the rest of Whitewall somewhat lower.

Fellmoor needs to be a bit higher - say 1400 metres. I envision it as a rounded ridge, with a sheer cliff above Falling Wind Drop.

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