Placing Thunder Rift in the Known World
by Kyle KnightHere is an optional way to place TR in Mystara:
Or screw with everyone's heads and make the Wizard Hector's ancestor and place all of the TR adventures in the past of whatever country you want as a lead up to the Goblin Wars. Hector's castle gets removed to the HW, TR is completely destroyed in the GW and whatever country's past you placed it in can now come into being atop TR's ruins.
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One of my reason for that remark has to do with the size of Thunder Rift. We all know that mileage on the "canon" map is a blatant lie. At 21 miles West to East and 32 miles North to South, its way too small for all the adventures: since many of then actually do give travel distances. Sword and Shield, for instance, lists Avenal as being "a week of travel" from the PC's hometown (see pg. 6). The Campaign Setting Book says to "assume" walking 20 miles a day or riding 40 miles a day (see pg. 5). In another post me and someone else calculated that the proper size for TR is roughly 216 North to South by 144 miles East to West; which as they pointed out: makes Thunder Rift larger than Karameikos. Unless you place TR in the past of an already existing country, there is no room in the Known World for it to fit.
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another possible reason to set TR adventures in the past: Most folks seems to set the Sword vs. Wand War as ending 30 years before the adventures take place, which would help account for the low population numbers; BUT it would also account for the events leading up to WotES. With the SvW War ending 30 years ago, human and demi-human populations are at an all time low. Goblinoids choose this oppurtunity to erupt from their scattered lairs to overwhelm the small groups of survivors of the SvW War. While some dwarves seal themselves in Hearth-Home to survive and some elves hide deep in their forest, the rest of the surface population is on the brink of being utterly wiped out, so Ka saves their final remnant and places it in the HW.
Now, none of that helps place TR in the Known World; but, Mystara canon "perhaps" does:
1700 BC: Elves find artifact of Blackmoor in the Broken Lands and trigger a cataclysm which buries the Horde. Loark dies, the remains of the horde break apart. Elves driven out of Glantri by local cataclysms.
What if "the Broken Lands" was just another name for Thunder Rift and the Riftian elves had been using the artifact as a clan relic; but, when the hordes (Goblinoids) overran the Rift, they unknowingly trigger the artifacts full power, wiping out TR and truly creating the Broken Lands?
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Those are my 3 posts, from the prior mentioned thread, that "could" help explain why TR "was" located in the Known World; but, no longer exists at the time of the Gazeteers.