Introduction to Platea
by LoZompatoreThere are several underdeveloped areas on Mystara, many of them were more or less covered by fan authors in the last decade. I managed to find a nearly true virgin region, which is neither covered by canon (except for the two very general maps you see below) nor by fans (to the best of my knowledge, see below ***). The area I suggest to develop is here:
Just to give this region a name to start with, I'd call it "Platea", which is the latin word for "flatland" but it also has the secondary meaning of "piazza" (does it remind something to you?). Please note this name is provisional, it could be changed anytime if you do not like it.
In my opinion the area of Platea is pretty promising, as it is located at the same latitudes of the Known World (on the opposite hemisphere), so both maps can be compared without worrying about cartographic distortions. Moreover, Platea shows a pretty varied terrain in a limited area. In fact, from west to east we have: mountains, forests, plains (with a couple of big rivers flowing in them), arid terrains and then deserts.
*** About fan coverage of Platea and surroundings: actually there is a map on the Vaults showing an unnamed settlement/country in the eastern area of Platea - you can find the original picture here but no description were given in the related entry (which is here).
A couple of territories close to the borders of Platea were described by fans - mostly by Geoff Gander. I added the names of these areas to the map above just in case someone would like to make reference to them in its contribution (descriptions about these territories can be found here and here)
Going a step further, here is an hexed map of the region (72 miles/hex scale, I hope it is good enough for large-scale descriptions). I made it by merging all the available info from HW global map of Mystara and Mentzer's global map. I also made a copy with numbered hexes, I hope it could help to better define locations:
The map is rather sketchy: this is intentional, to give more freedom to future developments. As you see from the picture above, Platea is as large as about half of Known World mainland, so there is enough room for about half a dozen of medium-sized countries, or a maybe single medium size empire, or a lot of petty fiefdoms / city-states.
Let's see what the community is able to produce from these sketches (and let's keep our fingers crossed!)