> RR. Accepted. Points are more important than the lines on the
map. But you draw your
> map to encompass those points. Again, some small sense of where
people think the
> border is (or who they belong to) would be useful even if it is
incomplete, unfixed, and
> contradictory. (As we would expect it to be, methinks.)
It seems to me that there are two intermingled arguments that have been bounced around here. First, we have the request "wouldn't it be nifty if Wes's maps had political boundaries drawn on them?" Second, we have the train of thought on "how important are political boundaries in Glorantha?"
I think Wes made the right choice in not emphasizing political boundaries in his maps - I think terrain and settlements are more important than where to draw the political lines. More importantly, I think that the maps are more useful without political boundaries.
During the time period of most Dragon Pass campaigns (roughly 1600- 1630), the political boundaries of tribes and confederations change quite a lot. This raises the question - what year should the maps reflect? 1621 - the assumed date of the source material? 1613 - Starbrow's Rebellion? 1602 - showing the traditional tribes of Sartar? Or when? The same problem applies to the Lunars. I doubt satrapy boundaries are static, presumably the emperor changes them around at whim (like the time the emperor briefly assigned Alkoth to the satrap of Darjiin). The current maps accomodate my campaign set in the 1610s, Martin Laurie's campaigns set in the 1620s, and Jane William's campaigns set in the 1590s.
The second question is more abstract - how important are political maps in Glorantha? Personally, I don't think that they are a common aspect of Gloranthan cartography, just as they weren't something that was common in pre-modern maps. Take a look at just about any medieval or classical map. There is a nice on-line collection is at:
http://historymedren.about.com/library/atlas/blatperdex.htm
You will find something very different from out "view from space" maps - which frankly are not necessarily any more useful to a Gloranthan scholar or traveler than a symbolic map.
Jeff
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