Update on the Narnia Mapping Project

[gmtaslash]

Y'know how Narnia is titchy-small, my mapping-peeps? WELL. Ettinsmoor is HUGE and Calormen is EVEN HUGER. I had to give up on the idea of mapping Calormen all the way from Arsheesh's house to the border with Archenland, because at the 1cm = 5 miles scale, that would require my map to be 12 sheets of A4 (landscape way up) long. As it is, it's 8 sheets long and 1.5 sheets wide. Lewis sure likes long skinny countries.

Some Points; I think Ettinsmoor is peat over granite bedrock. I'm basing it on Dartmoor in England.

Mt. Pire and the Archenland and Western Mountains are mapped and have contour lines and all. It's looking all mountainous. I'm proud.

Lewis DID NOT THINK about how the river that Shasta, Aravis and the horses follow to the pass into Archenland; it has to have a confluence with the Winding Arrow, yes? It can't be a tributary because the topography is wrong (water has to flow *down*hill, yo) and because Our Heroes approach it heading northwest, but if it's a branch of the Winding Arrow, then it'll flow into the desert. Which, um. No. So I've had to be sneaky with both Winding Arrow and Unnamed Convenient-For-The-Plot stream.

I am really impressed with Eustace and Jill. They walk the moors and live off the land for TEN DAYS before hitting the river with the giant's bridge. That's seriously good work there.

Comments

[tea-fiend.livejournal.com]

Moors aren't that hard, you know. They tend to have springs and little streams for water, and there were plenty of birds for them to shoot. Although if it's like Dartmoor I have to wonder why they didn't just grab a few ponies and speed the whole trip up.

Also, Calormen's supposed to be huge. Remember how the Tisroc's always wanting to take over the teeny weeny little countries on Calormen's borders? Can't remember offhand whether Arsheesh's hut is meant to be in the north or the south of Calormen. What was the story behind Shasta's being kidnapped again?

[ansela-jonla.livejournal.com]

A centaur made a prophecy saying that Shasta would one day save Archenland from great danger. The former Lord Chancellor, one of the Tisroc's spies, heard about this and decided to get rid of him. He managed to get Shasta all the way down the Winding Arrow to the coast and onto a ship, but was pursued by King Lune and defeated, but not before sending one of his own knights off in the ship's boat before they were overhauled and boarded.

Aren't self fulfilling prophecies fun?

[tea-fiend.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I figured it was something like that. But from the sounds of it they didn't get all that far. So Arsheesh's place would be fairly northern, at least relative to the rest of Calormen. Trojie, did you work out actual measurements in miles?

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

I did, but you'll have to wait til I'm at home so that I can type them up. At 5 miles to a centimetre, though, I recall it was nearly a metre long.

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Arsheesh's hut is in the way south of Calormen; I worked out that Bree and Shasta ride for at least three weeks before they meet Aravis and Hwin. Even at a horse's walking pace (4mph) that's quite a distance.

I know moors aren't the hardest environment to survive in, but when you're a pair of twelve year olds? There aren't any ponies mentioned, although that would be entertaining.

[ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com]

They have a marsh-wiggle to help them...

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Very true, but it would be a steep learning curve, I expect.

[sedri.livejournal.com]

*pats shoulder* Would you like to use some of my sketchbook paper? Nice, big A1s...

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Narnia is taller than I am!

I can steal some of my sister's, I suppose. But thanks for the offer :D

[ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com]

how are you going to get all this onto a computer? Because I demand to seeeeeee!

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Lots of scanning and then stitching together using something like CorelDraw I suppose. Don't worry, you will all see it :) I'm doing it for the Narnia Community, remember?

[ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com]

Can you grow stuff on a moor? Farm sheep, maybe?

I'm thinking of sending Peter up there to bash some giants and conquer the place... make Golden Age Narnia a bit bigger...

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

As far as I know you can keep sheep on a moor. Not sure about cattle. But it's a productive sort of environment if you're thinking purely profit-wise. You can also dig up the peat and sell it, or look for neat fossils. Guess which option I like best? :P

[ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com]

ooh, peat-digging, you say...?

Pssht, fossils. Preserved burials ftw.

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Preserved burials = fossils. Sometimes subfossil, it depends, but yeah. If it's been in the ground and someone dug it up, it's MINE :P

Who's up for a peat-digging expedition across Ettinsmoor? And a fossil-collecting mission on the coast near Cair Paravel?

[ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com]

*rolls eyes* sacrificial victims are not fossils, they haven't been buried long enough. If it's in the gound and it's human and/or human-made, it's MINE. Or it's some archeologists who can then tell me about it.

I'm all for a peat-digging expedition across Ettinsmoor. I think we'll find that the nastier elemets of Narnian society do live sacrificial burials... *glees*

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Peat burials are subfossil. We can share, I'm sure.

I think the live sacrificial burials were perpetrated by Centaurs. I don't trust them. All that stargazing .. they're all Druidy...

[ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com]

*bounces* if we go fossil-picking on the beaches, can we go post Prince-Caspian and look for washed up or buried artefacts from Paravel Town?

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Yes, of course we can!

Let's dock the Ship and have an expedition! We can take on supplies at the same time!

[ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com]

Oh, gosh. Depending on what happened to Paravel town- did it get destroyed? How?- you could have an awful lot of human and animal subfossils on your hands. Not pretty.

I could go looking for weapons and stuff. And then we could get the skelletons and see what weapons killed them!

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

I sense fun in the offing!

If there were still people living there while the isthmus became an island, which it would probably have done by becoming an arch, then when the arch finally caved in there would have been chaos and panic ...

[ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com]

Look, you and I work mundane jobs and sit here and talk about Narnia. There's ALWAYS fun in the offing :P

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Point. It's amazing how much random fandom discussion happens because of mundane jobs ...