Monday, February 1, 2010

Ansalon: Terra Incognita?

My son is starting to read the "Gold Dragon Codex" from Mirrorstone books.  These are YA titles that are connected to the "Complete Guide to Dragons" the Mirrorstone/Wizards of the Coast has produced.  Basically they are YA D&D novels, but not overtly so.   Well I was flipping through it and I noticed that the map of area they were set in was Ansalon. I thought this was very cool to be honest.
It got me thinking about Mystoerth.  There is a area on the map that I have always wanted to put a Terra Incognita/a lost missing land.  I have roughly 2,000 miles east west and the same north south to play with.  Well that sounds perfect to fit Ansalon in.



Like many in my age group I read the Dragonlance novels and enjoyed them.  I read the second trilogy and enjoyed that one too.  I had some of the Dragonlance game books but it was never a world I spent much time in, but gladly used all sorts of things from it (like their elves, ideas on dragons, gods, having three moons).  When 3.x came around I looked at the Dragonlance stuff again and liked it in a whole different way.

Now the nice thing is Ansalon can fit in my little used southern region of my map.  It's not too big so I am not worried about it fitting.  It's far enough away that I can say that there has been no contact between the other continents for long enough to make it work for me.  A quick edit with Photoshop and I am sure it will fit nice.

But here is the question.  Am I giving up on the uniqueness of the land by just making it another continent?  Can the stories I want to tell still be done if for example I am missing Taladas?

So now my world has Blackmoor, Mystara, Greyhawk and  now Dragonlance.  Not too bad really.

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