At the same time, it should be noted that various different hex art has been used for volcanoes over the years. The first art was a simple white triangle, as opposed to the black triangle used for mountains. In the Gazetteer maps, this became a little picture of an erupting volcano. Later maps varied the colouration of the volcano from the original red to the brown used for normal mountain hexes. These brown volcano hexes still had the erupting cloud of ash, however.
In any case, from these it seems that it would be easy to create three icons for volcanoes:
- Active: the standard red erupting volcano
- Inactive: red volcano minus the ash cloud
- Dead: brown volcano minus the ash cloud
(For the sake of completeness, there is actually a fourth volcano hex, seen only on the Champions of Mystara Great Waste map, that has two volcanoes on the same hex.)
Using information from the relevant source texts for each country, which hex to use could probably be determined for most volcanoes quite easily. And where no information is found, either the Active or Inactive hex could be used as a default. Using the Active hex would be more traditional, but using the Inactive hex would better convey the unknown sense for that volcano.
I went ahead and made the hexes.
Any thoughts?
Using information from the relevant source texts for each country, which hex to use could probably be determined for most volcanoes quite easily. And where no information is found, either the Active or Inactive hex could be used as a default. Using the Active hex would be more traditional, but using the Inactive hex would better convey the unknown sense for that volcano.
I would suggest the Active Hex for the 8 mile and 24 mile hexes, and if you ever do any 48 mile, 72 mile hex maps then use the Inactive Hex, on the assumption that the nearer you are to the volcano the greater than chance you would know about it.
Gary
Any thoughts?
I think it's a good idea, and there is definitely a precedent for it- the PC3: Sea People map has two different hexes for volcanoes- active and inactive underwater volcanoes. So I think it's a good standard to adopt.
The biggest question will be when to use them. I would think an active volcano would have to be one that is in near-continuous eruption, i.e. something can be seen most of the time.
A quiesant active volcano (from the vulcanology sense) would be classed as inactive - this would probably do nicely for one that has not erupted this year (for example). The trick will be distinguishing inactive volcanos from dead volcanos - I would use a 100-year line for these - they probably are still active geologically speaking, but people will have forgotten that (of course it may depend on the local race's lifespan!)
Very few volcanos are truely dead - only those formed by the hotspots in the middle of a plate can really die - and that is because the plate moves them away from the magma-source - lots of the pacific island chains are like this, e.g. Hawaii where the older islands are now truely dead volcanos. A volcano near a plate subduction zone can be quite for centuries without action, or probably millennia if in a group. I remember the comments about Mount St Helens in the 80s being that one volcanoe in the range usually erupts each century - this implies that they can have a millenia or more of no activity before becoming active again. (Note active does not equal eruption - it could be earth tremors or gas releases.)
Having said all of that I won't quibble with any choices you make - I will leave that up to those who know their maps better - I just like the finished products.
Very few volcanos are truely dead - only those formed by the hotspots in the middle of a plate can really die - and that is because the plate moves them away from the magma-source - lots of the pacific island chains are like this, e.g. Hawaii where the older islands are now truely dead volcanos.
Bear in mind, though, that on Mystara, not all volcanoes are "natural." Mt. Kala on Honor Island, for example, is actually a gate to the Elemental Plane of Fire, as opposed to being a conduit to the magma at the core of the planet. (Although one would think its "gate" probably lay somewhere beneath the ocean, in order to facilitate the creation of the islands around it.)
As an aside, this is one that that has kind of disturbed me for a while about the Hollow World. With the revelation that there is a hollow center on Mystara, and the anti-magical World Shield throughout the core- where exactly does "natural" magma fit into the equation? Is all magma the byproduct of gates to the Elemental Plane of Fire?
As an aside, this is one that that has kind of disturbed me for a while about the Hollow World. With the revelation that there is a hollow center on Mystara, and the anti-magical World Shield throughout the core- where exactly does "natural" magma fit into the equation? Is all magma the byproduct of gates to the Elemental Plane of Fire?
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I would think most magma is liquid rock from around the world-shield. Presumably the nature of the world-shield heats the rock up to it's melting point and beyond. Remember that in the WotI adventures the hole drilled through to the hollow world had to pass through magma (iirc). This would make the shadow-elf lands the exception - perhaps it is the presence of the Chamber of the Spheres that keeps the caverns solid - quite possibly something not known to the shadow-elves.
Having said that it is also clear that there are supposed to be a number of tunnels through to the Hollow World (e.g. see HWA1) so it does look as if they completely forgot about it when adding the Hollow World. This makes your Plane of Fire theory much more attractive, with most of the gateways being deep in solid (well liquid at that point) rock and so not useable for travel. Oops I am now converting to your theory :surrender Anyway if you keep the view of the Plane of Fire presented in the D&D books - so you have entire worlds there (and space between) then an volcano would go inactive when the corresponding point on the plane of fire ceases to be occupied by anything hot (that could be fun - tunneling into an extinct volcano and falling into empty space on the plane of fire). When it re-aligns with another hot area the volcano goes active again, quite possibly with a very big bang!
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Gary
Perhaps the rotation of the planet causes friction and high pressures between the World Shield and the surrounding rock, thus creating a source of magma. But this is a fantasy campaign after all, so maybe this pseudo-scientific approach is inappropriate.
Maybe a combination of several sources of magma can be found deep in Mystara's mantle. Who can really say for certain?
Just a thought.