While Joerg defends with his usual passion my own point concerning Secret Societies (enough said), I risk the ressrrection of the map thread.
A facsimile of a handwritten Route Book for the Spanish Indies Route (1592 AD) has fallen in my greedy hands. "Luz de Navegantes" (Navigator's Light) was a high secret book the British and the Dutch would have paid dearly to get. And it consists mainly in a series of sketches of how all the islands and certain continental masses look from a south eastern point of view, and several other views for important landmarks, and a written description of the reference points to follow to get from the Canary Islands to Cuba to Honduras and back.
Its main value is that you can find where you are just by standing to the south east of an unidentified Caribbean island, look for the sketch, confirm its identity, and then look what yo have to do to go to Cuba (or wherever).
The sketches are quite crude for our modern sensibilities, and are not scaled, but I feel confident even I can identify Antigua from the south east with one of these.
And if you get it, you know where to look for a returning galleon...
So the Gloranthan content is that, as some people already held, even the Westerners will not necessarily have overhead maps, when landmark views are more useful. And it saves you the trouble of getting too close to the shore, while keeping the charm of the misinterpretation.
Jose
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #471
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