Doma, Eorzea, Sharlayan, the Isle of Val, and the World at Large

[Jpec07]

So I'm trying to come up with an RP concept for an Au Ra alt of mine, and the question of location in the general world at large comes strongly to mind. Without getting too much into detail, I'll ask: do we yet have any kind of map for the world at large, beyond Eorzea? I'm mostly trying to get a sense for how large it would be, and how feasible it would be for my character to have moved between some of these places.

[Anonymoose]

I'll ask: do we yet have any kind of map for the world at large, beyond Eorzea?

Not exactly.

We know that it's not all that hard to create a mental map of Hydaelyn using Earth as a template - the two are not all that dissimilar.

Basic Rundown of the Earth-to-Hydaelyn Parallel if you're not familiar:

A bulk of the planet's landmasses are grouped into three massive continents and the islands in their vicinity - much like Earth. Eorzea is about Africa, Ilsabard is about Europe, and Othard is about Asia. Between Africa and Asia (aka the Far East - Othard), you have the Near East, an area roughly akin to the land once controlled by the Ottoman Empire. On Hydaelyn, this is focused on an island island - Thavnair. Many geographical and cultural themes line up even in-world using this metaphor, though Africa got kind of punched in half at the middle and the southern parts became the southern island of Meracydia. Keep going west, however, and you'll run into the Americas - The New World - that we don't know much about, but we know the have avocados so it seems like the metaphor continues to hold.

Here's a map traced from the view you get from space at the end of 3.0. Keep three things in mind:

[1] It's only about 50% of the planet's surface, lacking Othard, some of Ilsabard, and assuredly lots of ocean and islands.

[2] The game hasn't officially fleshed out these maps. Even the in-game view seems to be a basic estimate of where everything is and isn't 100% accurate. You can tell they traced the Ironheart map as a startering point, and if you look at the view from the moon, you can see that they accidentally included the shape of the smoke billowing off of Mt. O'Ghomoro on the Ironheart map as if it were land jutting out of the north of Vylbrand. Anyway, I digress.

[3] Even this trace of the in-game image is warped due to it no longer being wrapped around a sphere.

I'm mostly trying to get a sense for how large it would be, and how feasible it would be for my character to have moved between some of these places.

There's always an excuse to be fashioned, the art is in crafting the headcanon so that it doesn't make people roll their eyes, lol.

[Kaiser-Ace]

My RP is that I'm a Chartographer from the North who came to Eorzea pre-calamity inspired by the Ironheart Maps. And now since the fall of Dalamuld changed so much of the land My RP quest is to remap the Contenent of Eorzea to reflect the changes of the relm. Including making new Maps of areas (like Azys Lla and The Curning Mists) which haven't been seen. By mortals in thousands of years.

I've discussed it with RPers before and it seems to be relatively unique.

[CyberGoblin]

So if I understand that, Sharlayan is roughly Great Britian and the Isle of Val is/was Ireland?

[Kaiser-Ace]

So if I understand that, Sharlayan is roughly Great Britian and the Isle of Val is/was Ireland?

That's what I'm personally assuming. Though I had also always assumed Meracidia was more like Australia than South Africa while La Nosca was simmiler to Madagascar.

A good Question would be which RW Empire does Garlemauld relate to. While Based off of Rome it almost seems more like the Macidonian Empire that was led by Alaxander III. Since it almost seems like Ala MigoMigo's invation is a parallel to the Macidonian invation of Egypt. That being almost completly unopposed by a nation who was being led to ruin by a corrupt sovren.

[Anonymoose]

So if I understand that, Sharlayan is roughly Great Britian and the Isle of Val is/was Ireland?

Perhaps, yeah. I'm not 100% on Sharlayan's location, to be honest. Unless it's off all the maps we've seen so far, that little island off the northwest of Eorzea under the symbol there (wind rose? I think?) is my only suspect. Seems rather small to be "The Old World" and a safe distance from Garlemald if it overtook Eorzea, though.

A good Question would be which RW Empire does Garlemauld relate to.

Despite the characteristics of the army being obviously Roman in nature, the invasion itself is based on the Persian conquest of the Greek city-states. This was talked about once right before the game was launched, but didn't really come up again. You can still see a lot of Greek influence in Eorzea, though.

[WhiteArchmage]

Despite the characteristics of the army being obviously Roman in nature, the invasion itself is based on the Persian conquest of the Greek city-states. This was talked about once right before the game was launched, but didn't really come up again. You can still see a lot of Greek influence in Eorzea, though.

The twelve being roughly similar to the Dodekatheon, for example. Some time back I was trying to look up the similarities and tie them up with the greek twelve, some were easy (Menphina, the Lover to Aphrodite; Rhalgr, to Ares; Nophica to Demeter) while others a stretch (Halone to Athena; and Nald'Thal, very roughly, with Hades) but at the end, got stumped. Seeing as ancient greece is one of my favorite cultures, I'd love to see more elements around, architectural or otherwise.

[Enkidoh]

I think the Twelve are more closer to the classical Zodiac than the actual Greek pantheon, but even then it's a very lose association. I guess like a lot of the basic worldbuilding for 1.0 it was done in a very vague way that is still wrecking havoc years later in ARR as the current writing and lore teams struggle to expand the story without contradicting existing information (watching the lore panel video from the first Fanfest Ferne admitted that the original worldbuilding/lore creation for 1.0 was handled by a staff member who longer works for SE and thus they're basically having to go through and fill in the blanks so to speak).

Like the Garlean Empire being based more on ancient Persia than Ancient Rome, the Twelve being roughly analogous to Greek gods and goddesses might be on of those things that inadvertently changed in the long period between 1.0 and ARR's development.

[Anonymoose]

(watching the lore panel video from the first Fanfest Ferne admitted that the original worldbuilding/lore creation for 1.0 was handled by a staff member who longer works for SE and thus they're basically having to go through and fill in the blanks so to speak)

At the time the Eorzea-to-Greece / Garlemald-to-Persia analogy was made, I believe it was Kenichi Iwao who was overseeing World Concept.

Whether Iwao's beginnings were altered much as Oda-san's team fleshed them out, I have no idea, though.

[TinyRedLeaf]

I don't actually mind the apparent "confusion" over which is the better match for the Twelve, the Olympians or the classical zodiac. It feels much more "real" that way, because there are also multiple elements of real-life mythology that clearly share similar historical roots. They subsequently evolved over time into separate canons of their own.

Many real-life mythologies refer to a cataclysmic flood, for example, and scholars have theorised that this could have come from primordial memories of disastrous flooding in the Mesopotamian plains, where the first few civilisations were established. And then, there are far more obvious examples, like how an originally male Hindu deity became, over time, the goddess of mercy in many parts of East Asia.

I won't be surprised therefore that the "Twelve" of Eorzea evolved, over millennia, into the counterparts we hear about from other parts of Hydaelyn. We already have signs of this, such as the apparent parallels between the Twelve, the Archons and the Zodiac of Thavnarian myth.

Moreoever, all of this dovetails very nicely with the underlying theme from the storyline of ARR and Heavensward: It's belief that creates entities, and not the other way round. The actual entities that inspired religion have long been forgotten by time, and it's only now that we're beginning to uncover fragments of their exisitence. As it stands, we have no idea how closely reality corresponds with belief as it exists today in Eorzea.

And, on a broader point, I've always enjoyed how the city-states of Eorzea are defined not so much by their ethnicity, but by their political and philosophical ideologies instead. That's fairly unique in RPG worlds, and definitely an inspiration drawn from classical Greece.

More importantly, this ideological distinction ties in ultimately with the "Answer" that players have been invited to consider, over and over again. In a world where reality is malleable, it behooves the people of Hydaelyn to consider very carefully the values that matter to them, because what they believe will shape their future. And skewed belief will lead, ultimately, to an unsustainable future for all ("a cycle none can break").