I've been thinking about the further development of the Map, and aside from all the discussion about what should be where, i think we need to look at the scale of the Map.
For Example: Calderon Valley.
In FoC i get the impression that the holders of calderon expected to get word to Riva in a manner of days by sending out riders.
That leads to me picturing Calderon Valley as being somewhere between 100 and 200 miles long.
The relative Dimensions we have right now would then put the width of Alera as a whole at about three times that distance, but we've seen plenty of indication that it is much bigger (i.e. Antillus being thousands of miles from the sea)
Yet, we cannot simply make the scale of the Map bigger, because that would lead to Calderon being more than a thousand miles long, and thats far to big for my taste. Especially when you take into consideration that most people in FoC traveled without the use of Furycraft for the better part of the time.
Sadly, distances are usualy only vaguely described in the Books, off the top of my head i can only think of a few instances:
- Founderport being about 20 miles from the Elinarch.
- The First Aleran being the only Legion in a 800 mile Radius, wich leads me to believe that Ceres should be about that far away from the Elinarch, since i see it as the closest big city.
- Gaius/Amara/Bernard starting their trek at about 300 miles southwest of Kalare.
I bet there are more, but i don't remember them right now.most other times Distance is referenced as Time-Travelled, wich is a bit difficult to put into a map.
Ok, whats the point of all this?
I guess to show that we need to take a look at distances in general in this World, and that i think that Calderon is to big right now :-)
