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| Septentrionalium Terrarum descriptio (A map of the North Pole); Gerardus Mercator, 1595 |
Submitted for your approval is the region of the North Pole as Mercator believed to be at the tail-end of the 16th century. (The above map is available in a greater resolution at Wikimedia Commons.) It is 'inaccurate' in many respects, but for purposes of gaming this is more of a virtue than a fault. Opportunities for exploration and adventure abound. Perhaps a party of player characters form an expedition for the Northwest Passage?
A mountain marks the position of the North Pole and a separate mountain placed at the magnetic pole. Pygmies evidently inhabit the lower right-hand Arctic 'quadrant.' The biblical Gog and Magog appear near Meractor's 'longitude' of 170 - 180°. Special attention is paid to Frisland (350°) with an inset in the upper left-hand corner.
A more detailed depiction of the fanciful Frisland is shown below from a map in the possession of the National and University Library of Iceland. It could be used as a remnant of Atlantis or a stronghold of anachronistic Vikings.
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| Frisland; Pietro de Nobili, 1590 |
Old maps are a great world-building resource.
ReplyDeleteBoo. Hiss. This is the most intolerable post you have ever done.
ReplyDelete(Actually, it is great, but people were starting to talk, so I had to give you a thumbs down.)
It would be nice to see you do a post on Charles Hapgood's Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings as a companion post to this one. His contention that Antarctica was ice-free almost 10,000 years ago and was mapped by a lost sea-faring nation, which became the basis for the Piri Reis (spelling) map is a bit silly, but entertaining.
Timothy
Good idea. Hapgood was a kook (not that there's anything wrong with that), but we can still exploit his ideas. Piri Reis drew some beautiful maps, but cartography was different in his day; it is fallacious to apply a modern cartography paradigm to his work.
ReplyDelete