Soldier of Od wrote:Also, I hate to say it and I wouldn't have brought it up if you weren't already talking about amending this map, but I think that Glen may have made a mistake when placing the Me'zfii Onh colony.
According to the Wolfen Empire sourcebook, the pirates' base in the Mindprancer adventure is located at the 'tip of the first toe of Dragon's Claw'. Me'zfii Onh to the base is three days journey to the sand forest (presumably on foot) and a further ten days on foot (or four days on horseback). I always assumed the 'first toe' meant the shortest, northernmost toe. But I guess it could be considered the longest, southermost one. Either way, it doesn't fit with a 13 day journey through dense forest from where Me'zfii Onh is placed on the map in the Byantium book.
The colony also mentions its dealings with the 'local' Ursa Rex wolfen tribe, whose lands are on the eastern side of Dragons Claw, not the west, and there is also a lodge for the Oak People Tribe, and some smaller tribes in the area, which would fit with Oak People territory, which is pretty wide reaching. The mention of both Ursa Rex and Oak People wolfen tribes may be just another mistake, or it may indicate that the colony lies close to both territories. The fact that the leader of the colony also acts as an ambassador from Byzantium to the Wolfen Empire also implies it should be in Wolfen Territory (how can she be a successful ambassador to the wolfen when located in the heart of the Kiridin lands? By sea only?).
Obviously, the original Mez'fii Onh adventure in Adventures in Northern Wilderness was written way before Northern Hinterlands, so there wouldn't be any mention of the Kiridin, but when it was reprinted in Wolfen Empire, Northern Hinterlands and the Kiridin had already been established. With no mention of the Kiridin around Mez'fii Onh it is difficult to imagine it is in Kiridin lands. Though this may be just because of lazy cut and paste from Palladium. Either way, with all the details included about the colony and the journey from it, it is hard to fit it in to what was written later on about the western side of the Claw.
Either way, it looks to me like Me'zfii Onh should be on the eastern side of Dragons Claw. If it were me I would do a straight swap with one of the two other colonies detailed in the Byzantium book, probably Lyrna, as it doesn't really matter so much where that colony is located, but that would involve rewites and reissues, which I honestly don't see happening. I guess it is up to you if you want to move Me'zfii Onh to a location supported by the Wolfen Empire book, or leave it where it is according to the Byzantium book. Or perhaps even talk to Glen about it.
Sorry if I have put another spanner in the works, but as you were looking to correct errors I thought I would mention it as you wouldn't want to do it again if someone else noticed this and pointed it out later. I know it is an almost impossible task for writers of new books to cover every little mention in all of the old ones without making a mistake - Glen's not infallible (like with this and the age of Wolvenar thing), and I wouldn't expect him to be! If Glen is happy to let the colony stay where he has put it we will just have to try our best to work with it how it is!
Soldier of Od, thank you so much for your thoughts on my maps. You make some excellent points about Mez'fii Onh's placement. I had several conversations on the subject of the placement of tiny colonies with Glen Evans and Wayne. I placed Mez'fii Onh (and all the tiny colony placements), according to specific guidance I got from Palladium. I'm not certain as to why they wanted it there, but they're the guys publishing the map, so I followed their guidance.
It's entirely possible that they (and I, by extension) placed Mez'fii Onh inconsistently with previous canon. There were several complicating factors involved. First, as you mention, Kiridin was written up by Bill Coffin for Northern Hinterlands, while Wolfen Empire's material on Mez'fii Onh was written by Thom Bartold and Kevin Siembieda. Second, both manuscripts were written and edited years apart. Third, Mez'fii Onh's location is vague.
Mez'fii Onh was not marked in Wolfen Empre or either of its first-edition counterparts, and thirteen days' foot travel isn't much to go on; that could be 200-300 miles. Even the location of Jason's cave isn't particularly precise: somewhere around the tip of the first toe of Dragon's Claw. How precise is "somewhere around", and which claw is the first? The other piece of information is that it lies where the tide rises and falls by the greatest margin; I don't know tide cycles enough to tell you where the biggest rise and fall in tides would be in Dragon's Claw. If the location of Jason's cave is somewhere on the western banks of Dragon's Claw, then an over-land journey from the currently-marked location seems reasonable. If it's down at the south end, or on the eastern banks (which was also my initial interpretation), then you're right.
Reading the description of Mez'fii Onh and the Oak People, it seems consistent that the Oak People would be on the western banks of Dragon's Claw, as the local tribes outnumber the Oak People. As for the Ursa Rex, their territory is defined as their capital and northward; there is no western limit that I saw. The territorial concerns of the Wolfen tribes don't seem to be so sharply defined as, say, the Western Empire.
Even a smaller Kiridin is still a large area, and the local barbarian nations might be willing to tolerate/ignore a tiny outpost like Mez'fii Onh, which has a population of "less than three hundred" according to Wolfen Empire p102. Certainly, the Kiridin lands overlap with many of the described territories of the Wolfen tribes in general, and the Oak People in particular. This likely comes down to issues of claimed territories vs actual controlled territories. It's a big world.
On the subject of claimed vs controlled territory, the "border" of Mez'fii Onh as I put it in the Bizantium map is a bit ambitious and large for such a small outpost(also true for the Shadow Colonies in general). It's probably more accurate to say that the true border is where the treeline starts, but colonies historically are chartered according to their intended growth area, not the limits of their control.
Eventually, Mez'fii Onh could be a flashpoint for a war involving Bizantium, Kiridin nations, and Wolfen tribes, but I don't see such a tiny settlement as significant enough to matter very much to any of them. Wolfen Empire mentions that its 2-story stone keep has withstood a few sieges.
I suspect you may be right, but since I got clear guidance from Palladium on this, I won't re-locate this colony unless they ask me to. I'll bring it up with them if I get a chance.
you some might think you're a 
but you're cool in book 
