Travel Times and World Scale

Out of curiosity, is there an established idea of just how big the world is? For instance... how many days travel for a human on foot would it be from, say, Negav to Safe Harbor, or north to Ur-Sagol's ruins? How far is the Great Tree from the Chordoni Waterfall at that scale?

I ask because a large part of the next few Ibrahim stories will involve him moving around the world quite a bit, and-- while I imagine Felarya is immense, I don't want to underestimate or overestimate how far major locations are from one another.

MukatKiKaarn wrote:

Out of curiosity, is there an established idea of just how big the world is? For instance... how many days travel for a human on foot would it be from, say, Negav to Safe Harbor, or north to Ur-Sagol's ruins? How far is the Great Tree from the Chordoni Waterfall at that scale?

I ask because a large part of the next few Ibrahim stories will involve him moving around the world quite a bit, and-- while I imagine Felarya is immense, I don't want to underestimate or overestimate how far major locations are from one another.

Oh hey, this topic again.

Yeah, there is no real definative scale. Karbo has said before that the map is not to scale and is mainly to show locations. The general consensus, even from Karbo himself is that it is "Really, really big". I imagine that the travel times to get anywhere deep into the jungle is days for humans. Preds move considerably faster, but the distances to neighbors are still fairly vast even for them.

Kind of like a scale for the relative damage of weapons, I can see a relative travel scale for key locations as something that will need to be implemented at some point, at least for consistancy.

In the second manga, it appears that it takes from dawn (I got the impression that the Isolon Fist attacked Anna in the early morning, and Crisis and Lea set off a short while after that to give Anna time to cool off) to nightfall for Crisis to travel from the Giant Tree, to Vivian's waterfall. Assuming they only hung around there for a couple hours, then there was quite a bit of time where Crisis was continually on the move. Assuming that, at a slow leisurely pace, a naga would be going well over 40mph, you can kind of get an idea of how vast these distances are.

Of course, this is all just guesstimation at best.

Well, consider that the "average" walking speed of a person is about 4.8km / hour. This is on flat terrain, with casual walking no less: No extensive loads, accounting for moments when they have to slow down / speed up to avoid confrontation, uphill / downhill, intervening foliage, etcetera. Even assuming you put Negav's gate as close to Ur-Sagol about 100km away, it'd probably take a good two day's travel on foot to reach the place. 100km is small, too: about the distance between Edinburgh and Glascow. It would also, if you applied anything approaching scale to the Felarya Map, mean the bridge to Negav is several kilometers wide. Kilometers!

If we assume Crisis was moving for about eight hours in Chris' example, at the 40mph suggested, that's still 320 miles. Using scale there would put the width of the bridge (not length from land to city, width) into several miles now.

Scale isn't a good thing to use, first, and second distances are still very large. A good round number might be two to four weeks from Negav to Ur-Sagol, if you went the shortest and "fastest" routes. Considering you have to skirt around the Grove of Carnivorous Plants and Fairy pond that way, a safer route probably doubles if not quadruples that (still being in jungle, avoiding the river so ride downstream, skirting along very hostile places and a mountainous range, etcetera).

This is, of course, assuming Felarya takes place in an area larger than Wyoming.

A note on cities like Negav on the map:
I always considered those to be like a magnified inset to show more detail on the city, and as such are to a different scale to the map itself.

rcs619 wrote:

Oh hey, this topic again.

Whoops. Didn't realize it'd come up before...searching for it didn't turn up any posts. Guess I just used the wrong terms.

rcs619 wrote:

In the second manga, it appears that it takes from dawn (I got the impression that the Isolon Fist attacked Anna in the early morning, and Crisis and Lea set off a short while after that to give Anna time to cool off) to nightfall for Crisis to travel from the Giant Tree, to Vivian's waterfall. Assuming they only hung around there for a couple hours, then there was quite a bit of time where Crisis was continually on the move. Assuming that, at a slow leisurely pace, a naga would be going well over 40mph, you can kind of get an idea of how vast these distances are.

That's about what I figured, which would make that... eh... about a week's travel for a human being on foot. That's about what I figured. A matter that's made even worse when you lack any sort of navigational aids and are just walking blindly. The canopy would obscure a view of the sun or stars most of the time. Plus, as often as the night sky changes, I imagine it would be useless to navigate by.Would a compass function properly at all in Felarya, or would you need one that read direction based on something other than a magnetic field.

Malahite wrote:

Scale isn't a good thing to use, first, and second distances are still very large. A good round number might be two to four weeks from Negav to Ur-Sagol, if you went the shortest and "fastest" routes. Considering you have to skirt around the Grove of Carnivorous Plants and Fairy pond that way, a safer route probably doubles if not quadruples that (still being in jungle, avoiding the river so ride downstream, skirting along very hostile places and a mountainous range, etcetera).

This is, of course, assuming Felarya takes place in an area larger than Wyoming.

I sort of imagined that the landmass we're most familiar with-- the swath of land from the Fairy Kingdom, across the Tolmeshal Forest and points further east, spanned an area roughly the size of Europe. Given how big everything is, that could be plenty of breathing room for everyone. But going by average travel time works well enough for my purposes. I just needed a rough idea of how long he'd be moving through the wilderness moving from point A to B.

Nah, you're fine. This particular issue has come up here and there in various discussions, but I actually don't think it's had its own thread yet. About time, if it hasn't. I mean the "WILL THIS GUN KILL A PRED?!" debate has had like 4 different threads to itself. =P

Yeah, there are definately some issues. The canopy thickness would depend on location. Certain areas, like Bulvon Wood are mentioned to have an exceedingly overgrown canopy. I imagine there are thin patches here and there in the jungle, and the occaisional clearing. While its unsure if the sun would set East-to-West, its path could still be used to tell direction and time. Yeah, nighttime navigation in Felarya would really depend on luck. Keep in mind, the sky doesn't change constantly. It could keep the same for days, weeks, maybe even months before it shifts again. But yeah, I wouldn't rely on the stars or even the moons, myself.

As for compasses, I don't know if they'd work. They lock onto the largest magnetic field around, and trying to explain if or how Felarya could have a magnetic field (since it doesn't actually have a nickel-iron core to generate one), or how it would work is a whole other psuedo-scientific debate. Although, given that Felarya's typical response is to mimic natural phenomena of a real planet...it wouldn't suprise me if compasses DO point towards magnetic North. Wierder things have happened.

Now, given the magical nature of Felarya, it is possible there are devices and methods to use that to tell direction.

I think that landmarks and maps would be the most useful tools, to be honest. While there are vanishing lands and such, nearly all do not stay, so the actual landmass of known-Felarya doesn't change all that much. I imagine it has been mapped out through the centuries and thousands of expeditions (real expeditions with Isolon Fist support, not the red-tent people =P), especially if the Magiocrats and Vishmitals use unmanned drones or other off-world technology occaisionally like was suggested in another thread.

Yeah, its all still very much in flux. Personally, I think we need a couple referrence tables. Nothing too complicated, just a simple chart for consistancy. We need one for the travel times (Human speed and Pred speed) to a couple landmarks, so that overall travel times can be guesstimated. I also think a simple chart showing the effectiveness of various weapon types would be handy as well, to help with overall consistancy.

About the magnetism... Pyrale Mountains?

I always assumed that the fact Felarya wasn't "technically" a world and the sheer amount of magic in the ambient made exploring pretty much impossible and dangerous to try. Unless you had devices that used magic to lead the way, and those i assume must be rare, you could spend days going in circles or with no flipping idea of where you're going, that is if you haven't been eaten already

Lack of proper equipment would be probably an even bigger cause of explorers gone missing than the deadly inhabitants themslves

Quote :

About the magnetism... Pyrale Mountains?

If it does in fact produce enough magnetism to influence compasses, then an adventurer would have to know ahead of time that the compass does not point North. Otherwise, it's only gonna screw 'em over pretty badly.

As for the scale... Iunno, my characters took a week to go from the Elifga Valley to Ur-Sagol. That's me, though, and I'm only a moderate-to-okayish writer >__>;

Slimetoad wrote:

I always assumed that the fact Felarya wasn't "technically" a world and the sheer amount of magic in the ambient made exploring pretty much impossible and dangerous to try. Unless you had devices that used magic to lead the way, and those i assume must be rare, you could spend days going in circles or with no flipping idea of where you're going, that is if you haven't been eaten alreadys

Actually Guide orbs (for larger parties) and various other Guide equipment (watches, armour pieces, etc) are available from MUST for a not too heavy price.

Oh. Must be a very profitable business

That's very right, it's time to try and determine once and for all what those distances are ^^;

The same goes for the rate of currency and so. I'll be on those right after I'm finally finished with that tome

Anime-Junkie: Remember the "heavy" draw back of carrying a guide orb it's not for the feint of heart (was that the right "feint/faint"?)

Karbo: Didn't we have a thread on manga idea discussion a while back? We should rez that. At least I think we should rez it

Archmage_Bael wrote:

Anime-Junkie: Remember the "heavy" draw back of carrying a guide orb it's not for the feint of heart (was that the right "feint/faint"?)

yeah yeah, if you turn it on it's magic so it can attract preds with the predator sense. Thing is, guide orb is meant for large groups of people so stealth isn't really a huge thing anyway.

I really need to redo a lot of the MUST products and develop them more.

I wonder if the guide orb has a taste to it...

Karbo wrote:

That's very right, it's time to try and determine once and for all what those distances are ^^;

The same goes for the rate of currency and so. I'll be on those right after I'm finally finished with that tome

Neato.... and it helps that if the distances are off, you can always claim that it's caused by a "dimensional disturbance", "warping of the dimension Felarya is in", or even "well, going over hills and through valleys adds/subtracts distance."

Yeah XD

Oldman40k2003 wrote:

Neato.... and it helps that if the distances are off, you can always claim that it's caused by a "dimensional disturbance", "warping of the dimension Felarya is in"

Given that I am terrible at determining distance, or even relative traveling speeds, that is one of my favorite things about doing stories set in Felarya.

There's no way they could have gotten from Negav to the Jewel River so fast, you say? Dimensional Warp Ex Machina, baby!

Oldman40k2003 wrote:

Karbo wrote:

That's very right, it's time to try and determine once and for all what those distances are ^^;

The same goes for the rate of currency and so. I'll be on those right after I'm finally finished with that tome

Neato.... and it helps that if the distances are off, you can always claim that it's caused by a "dimensional disturbance", "warping of the dimension Felarya is in", or even "well, going over hills and through valleys adds/subtracts distance."

Gah, I had completely forgotten about things like that. XD Yeah, I suppose that would muddle any sort of attempt to navigate, wouldn't it?

Or you could just revise the map, I wouldn't object and I think at least the majority of us would be fine with it. In fact I'd prefer a "to-scale" version because I too noticed when I looked over it that that bridge and some other features appeared disproportionate to varying degrees.