Thyatis map additions
by Simone NeriI've just a couple of canon additions for Thyatis:
* Village of Acestes (from Joshuan's Almanac)
At Klarmont 15 entry (left column), the text says: "Triumphant, a young stallion owned by Priam Iphisius of Acestes Village, wins the Kerendan Derby by 10 lengths (at 30 to 1 odds). Priam refuses an offer of 100,000 gp for the horse."
Apart from the fact that Priam is clearly a fool, from the text we gather that a village Acestes is probably located in the Duchy of Kerendas (the boy seems to be quite in touch with his horse, so I assume he's of Kerendan ancestry). Myself, I'd put the village in the plains north of Bridleton.
BTW, did you realise that mainland Thyatis entirely lacks known villages?
Source: "Joshuan's Almanac & Book of Facts" by Ann Dupuis and Elizabeth Tornabene (TSR 2517, 1995), page 222.
* Shillabeer Gap & Tresayle River (from IM3)
This one comes from the highly-controversial IM3 adventure. Those of you which have read or run the adventure will remember that within it a battle between Thyatians and a troll army is featured; well, that battle site is located in Thyatis. I cite:
"The conflict is set in northwestern Thyatis, in the foothills of the Altan Tepes, 50 miles north-west of Biazzan (hex 4722 of X10 map). A troop of Thyatian reserves, reinforced by the Biazzan militia, and led by a group of Thyatian heroes and their companions, have taken up a defensive position in a narrow mountain gorge at Shillabeer Gap. They propose to hold this position against an army of trolls proceeding down the Tresayle River valley from the northwest toward the city of Biazzin [misspelling of Biazzan there]." [From page 35, "Approaching the Battle" paragraph.]
On page 30 there's also a map of the battle site, where the name of the ford (Garrette Ford) is also indicated. I think that the map should be rotated a little counter-clockwise to match the direction of the river's flow with that of DotE map.
From this information, we gather that the uppermost part of River Kerenda is also called Tresayle (perhaps it's the river's elven name?), and that the valley which it passes thought is called Shillabeer Gap. Unfortunately from X10 map we see that Tresayle River is undoubtedly the same which later DotE will call River Kerenda, so I guess there's no other solution than to go with a double-named river. Indeed, it could be interesting to see that this river had another (elven?) name before the Thyatians' arrival.
Nevertheless, I doubt there is room enough to indicate Shillabeer Gap in 8-m per hex map (certainly there's not for Garrette Ford).
Source: Immortal Game Adventure "The Best of Intentions" by Ken Rolston (TSR 9207, 1987), pages 30 and 35.
LASTLY, a personal petition: Why don't we assign a name to the two "Imperial Territories" areas of mainland Thyatis? I think that they should be considered a sort of "minor" provinces (they're not ruled by feudal aristocrats), they should include some settlements (after all the Thyatians have been there since 1600 years ago!), and therefore they should also have a name. In my campaign, I used Altenia for the western one, and Tarsia for the central one.
Ah, just a final note: I'm not so sure it'd be good to use "Central Thyatis" as a label for the central part of the mainland. After all, you'll not find, say, "Central Spain" or "Central Germany" on geographic and political maps.
Some of the titles used in "Player's Guide to Thyatis" (in DotE) IMO shouldn't be used: i.e. I suppose you won't put the "Surrounding Islands" label on the lower part of the map, will you?
Thus, IMO "Surrounding Islands" and "Central Thyatis" aren't of any use; "Peninsula of Tel Akbir", "Kerendan Plains", and "Island of Hattias" can be used instead, and perhaps also "Northlands" could.