How Big is Rrr'lff?

[Aramis of Erak]

The DT&T Maps are missing one VERY important detail: Scale Bars or declarations!

I also cannot make sense of the Marginal notes...

So, how big is it?

[gaptooth]

The Fire Dungeon of Mt. Zing-Zak-Zaareil is 10 leagues from Zkaria (308). I can't tell by looking at the PDF right now—is that enough to set scale?

[gaptooth]

Okay, at 3 miles per league, by my calculation that would make Rrr'lff approximately 1015.46 miles from the tip of the "nose" to the bay opening just to the East of Skratz.

[Aramis of Erak]

Jul 30, 2017 16:13:21 GMT -5 gaptooth said:

The Fire Dungeon of Mt. Zing-Zak-Zaareil is 10 leagues from Zkaria (308). I can't tell by looking at the PDF right now—is that enough to set scale?

No, it' not.

1) The distance is a march along a wiggly path; the straight-line is dubious.
2) Only one of the two is actually marked on the world maps.
3) the other details imply a much smaller area than you can judge from the volcano vs city dot.

I did some more digging myself - I found a couple references from Ken, but they don't add up when compared to the map in DT&T 8500 mi E-W, 3500 N-S "Crown to toe"...

So I copied the map out, and checked some pixel counts:
On a map 1857x965, of just Rrr'llf... (the blown up continental grayscale copied at 300ppi from page labeled 243 (PDF p.260)
Crown to toe: 915 Px =3500 mi 3.8251366120218577 mi/p
Lip to tail spike: 1462 =8500 mi 5.813953488372093 mi/p
breast to rump: 1262 = 8500 mi 6.735340729001585 mi/p

[bigjackbrass]

Section 3.1 of the 5th edition states that "... Bear drew the dragon-shaped continent of Rhalph, almost as big as all Eurasia."

[Aramis of Erak]

Jul 31, 2017 1:00:43 GMT -5 bigjackbrass said:

Section 3.1 of the 5th edition states that "... Bear drew the dragon-shaped continent of Rhalph, almost as big as all Eurasia."

Too vague to be of much use. I sat down and measured on Google earth and got about 5500 miles 3 different ways from western Spain to Kamchatka.
I checked flight distance from Lisbo to Novosibersk ...

The distance from Lisboa to Novosibirsk is 6698 km or 4162 miles.

Doesn't match ken's statements (which do not match the map - a 3.8:5.8 (1:1.5) discrepancy horizontal to vertical. of 8500x3500 miles

[gaptooth]

At the scale of leagues, my judgement is that the difference between wiggly path and straight line still would not make Rrr'lff anywhere near as big as Eurasia. My hunch is that the creative team did not care about such consistencies. The Deluxe edition cartographer placed Phoron in a different part of the world than it had been on many maps previously (including the classic map of Phoron on 281).

One more note: There's no indication what projection was used on the Map of Trollworld. That would mean that the scale in one region would not necessarily indicate the scale elsewhere. I have not read the Trollworld section thoroughly—is it even a spheroid? Does our geometry apply?

Given those ambiguities, I'd say it's up to the referee to make a call. Isn't that the old-school spirit?

[Aramis of Erak]

Jul 31, 2017 10:22:04 GMT -5 gaptooth said:

At the scale of leagues, my judgement is that the difference between wiggly path and straight line still would not make Rrr'lff anywhere near as big as Eurasia. My hunch is that the creative team did not care about such consistencies. The Deluxe edition cartographer placed Phoron in a different part of the world than it had been on many maps previously (including the classic map of Phoron on 281).

One more note: There's no indication what projection was used on the Map of Trollworld. That would mean that the scale in one region would not necessarily indicate the scale elsewhere. I have not read the Trollworld section thoroughly—is it even a spheroid? Does our geometry apply?

Given those ambiguities, I'd say it's up to the referee to make a call. Isn't that the old-school spirit?

The wiggly line is also not along a direct path; direct (on a copied image) is 1107 px It's easily (does some very basic trig) 1296 Px, as it's two triangles some 330 px wide along the hypotenuses.
If we assume the general path is some 1296 px = 20 leagues, the straight-line is only 17.08 leagues; if we add the wiggles for about 1350 px overall = 20 Leagues, then the straight-line is a mere 16 leagues. Using the straight line at 16 - 1350 px giving 84 px per league on the detail map

The real issue is we need a reference between two places which are both labeled on the world map.

If I use Ken's horizontal, on the world map I get just shy of 2 leagues per pixel; if I use his horizontal, it's 1 league per pixel...
using 1 Px = 1 League the volcano is in the first mountain, and the city dot is 2 leagues from the river, and 5 leauges wide... cheking the detail, the center of the city is 1.5 leagues from the river-edge... but only 3.3 wide.

So, the potential "solutions" there are:

• The cartography is irreconcilable due to stylistic slop


• The scale of the world map is closer to 1 mile per pixel


• the detail map is on a side channel, not the main river

[bigjackbrass]

I doubt there was much desire for precision in the development of Rhalph/Rrr'lff: it's a fantasy setting, not a blueprint. There are likely to be all manner of contradictions in terms of distances and travel times across the various publications.

Clearly it's important to you to have everything fixed exactly in place, but I would suggest that comments such as "The cartography is irreconcilable due to stylistic slop" are rather insulting to the writers and fail to consider that your needs and prefences may be different to theirs. Not all maps show specific, accurate distances between locations, that's only one design option.

[dekh]

The world is spherical.
The maps are flat.
With all that that implies regarding projections - it's probably impossible to get accurate distances.

Does it matter?

[Aramis of Erak]

Aug 1, 2017 5:36:42 GMT -5 dekh said:

The world is spherical.
The maps are flat.
With all that that implies regarding projections - it's probably impossible to get accurate distances.

Does it matter?

Yes, it does.
Given that the map was drawn originally in isolation, the projection can be assumed centered on Rrr'llf, and thus the projection aberration minimal.

[peterpanda]

For me, it doesn't matter. Perhaps I'm too mired in my old school origins when such lack of precision was pretty much industry-wide. Then, as now, I simply make it up based on my needs and run with it.

Cheers -

PeterPanda

[tp]

Actually is Rrr'llf was 8500 miles x 3500 then even if the projection was centered on that continent it would likely have some significant distortion, especially if the sphere was smaller than our own earth.

But that's not really the point.

Trollworld was never intended as a complete setting about which we could have scholarly debates. In fact there never was one Trollworld. The setting detailed in DT&T is a hodge podge of Ken's Trollworld, Bear's Trollworld, Steve's Trollworld and Liz's Trollworld. There are bound to be contradictions in its amalgamated form. People who have been playing T&T for a long time will have developed there own Trollworlds which could be significantly different to the published one. The setting is intended as a framework for GMs and players to hang there own ideas off, or to change drastically as they see fit.

Personally I think fantasy worlds should always have some vagueness about distance. Would there have been the same sense of adventure if Gandalf had shown Bilbo the Middle-Earth A-Z and plotted there route down, 25 miles down the Shire New Road to junction 17... But if you want to plot exact distances that is not wrong. Just do what you are doing with the measuring and those distances are right for your Trollworld, they may well contradict information given by Ken, but then that is his Trollworld, which is a different beast entirely.

[mormonyoyoman]

Considering the number of unknown and unseen gateways to alternate Trollworlds that each trollworl seems to have, a case could be made that any map would be distorted due to surveyors and cartographers unknowingly crossing into other alternities.

[Aramis of Erak]

Aug 9, 2017 21:08:33 GMT -5 mormonyoyoman said:

Considering the number of unknown and unseen gateways to alternate Trollworlds that each trollworl seems to have, a case could be made that any map would be distorted due to surveyors and cartographers unknowingly crossing into other alternities.

Utterly irrelevant to the topic at hand.

My only real concern is figuring out what the correct scale is within about 10%, so I have a consistent use. I'm looking only for references to distances from sources in print. I neither need, want, nor give a rat's ass about variants, hose rules, etc.