Eight Official Mystara world configurations
by Travis HenryIn regard to the world configuration (size, shape, hollowness), several "Official Mystaras" can be mapped out, depending on various reasonable interpretations of designers' intent; along with which set of Official Sources are used as the baseline.
I'd like to summarize what I see as the main "Official Mystaras". All of these conceptions use different Official Sources as their baseline.
Though I realize that fans could easily retcon Urt/Mystara to be a "living hollow megalith," this was never Officially addressed or reconciled. So I'll use the name "Urt" for non-hollow early conceptions, and "Mystara" for the later hollow conceptions; and for the non-hollow conception which is implied in a very late source: Joshuan's Almanac.
1) Official Urt #1 (Hex Map-Normative, Non-Hollow, Big Mystara): The Official Hex Maps Are Right. As seen in the maps of The Continent in X1 and the Expert Set. The size of Urt is extrapolated from the Official hex maps; making for an Urt which is bigger than Earth. The statement in the Immortal Set that Urt is actually ancient Earth is ignored or explained away (e.g. Urt shrank later, or the statement is a myth). Urt is not hollow; it's a living Megalith.
2) Official Urt #2 (Equirectangular Master Set Map-Normative, Non-Hollow, Earth-Sized Mystara): The Official Master Set Map is the size of Earth, and the map is Equirectangular, since that's most straightforward interpretation of a rectangle-shaped world map. Resulting in the continents being stretched east to west relative to how they appear in the Master Set map. This is a reasonable interpretation of designer intent, since the "short Farend Ocean + East-West stretched continents" are approximately how the post-Mentzerian designers depicted the planet in their Robinson Projection for the HWCS. This conception imagines there was a thread of communication and continuity between the Mentzer (Master Set) and Bruce Heard (HWCS) eras in regard to whether the Farend Ocean is narrow or wide. Urt is not hollow; it's a living Megalith.
3) Official Urt #3 (Mollweide Master Set Map-Normative, Non-Hollow, Earth-Sized Mystara): The Official Master Set Map is the size of Earth, but the map is a snippet of the complete Jurrasic Mollweide map. The Farend Ocean is huge. Urt is not hollow; it's a a living Megalith.
4) Official Mystara #1 (Hex Map-Normative, Hollow, Big Mystara): The Official Hex Maps Are Right. The size of Mystara is extrapolated from the hex maps; making for a Mystara which is bigger than Earth. Mystara is hollow, but its shell is much thicker than depicted in other Official sources, and so the cross-section must be redrawn because the Official Hex Maps are the basis for this conception. It's my understanding that this is essentially the Atlas of Mystara conception.
5 & 6) Official Mystara #2 (Equirectangular Master Set Map-Normative, Hollow, Earth-Sized Mystara) and #3 (Mollweide Master Set Map-Normative, Hollow, Earth-Sized Mystara): Hollow versions of Urt#2 and Urt#3. These combos of Official Sources are unlikely, since they incongruously mix and match info from the Mentzer era with the HWCS/PWA era. But nevertheless, they're all composed of Official bits.
7) Official Mystara #4 (Robinson HWCS Map-Normative, Hollow, Small Mystara): Mystara is exactly the size and shape as depicted in the HWCS Robinson Projection. It's a "Small Mystara" -- its dimensions are exactly as stated in the HWCS and PWAs, and by Ann Dupuis: Dimensions of the Planet Mystara. All of the hex maps must be completely resized to fit this conception. Frankly, despite the practicality of keeping the hex maps unaltered, I would say, in my personal view, this is the "Most Official of Official Mystaras," given how this version was presented in several products, spanning from the HWCS to the very end of the Mystara product line.
8) Official Mystara #5 (Robinson HWCS Outer World Map-Normative, Non-Hollow, Small Mystara): Like Mystara#4, but the Hollow World is fictional in this continuity, as clearly implied in Joshuan's Almanac.
There are probably several more Official Mystaras, if you take into account slightly different rotations of Brun or the Savage Coast in various maps, or differing statements about which line of latitude a city is located, and things like that. But I think these are the main "Close-to-Official" world configurations, based on reasonable interpretations of designers intent, and which set of Official bits are used as the baseline.