We all love us some maps. Maps are ubiquitous to roleplaying games. W have dungeon maps, battle maps, area maps, regional maps, house maps, continent maps, map, maps maps... So many maps.
And so accurate are these maps!
Many are beautiful, nigh unto works of art themselves.
But, did you know before the advent of modern map making, maps simply conveyed information in a form most of us are not accustomed to. Maps basically conveyed information to those who needed to know specific information. They seem less accurate and in many aspects are less accurate from our perspective but never-the-less conveyed the necessary information to merchants, pilgrims, armies, etc.
They also conveyed (sometimes) epistemological information.
Try a map like this for the characters. It is something they would not be accustomed to seeing and interpreting. Perhaps!
Tabula Peutingeriana (Latin for "The Peutinger Map"), also referred to as Peutinger's Tabula[1] or Peutinger Table, is an illustrated itinerarium (ancient Roman road map) showing the layout of the cursus publicus, the road network of the Roman Empire.
The map is a 13th-century parchment copy of a possible Roman original. It covers Europe (without the Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles), North Africa, and parts of Asia, including the Middle East, Persia, and India. According to one hypothesis, the existing map is based on a document of the 4th or 5th century that contained a copy of the world map originally prepared by Agrippa during the reign of the emperor Augustus (27 BC – AD 14). However, Emily Albu has suggested that the existing map could instead be based on an original from the Carolingian period.[2]
Named after the 16th-century German antiquarian Konrad Peutinger, the map is now conserved at the Austrian National Library in Vienna.
Go to the wiki site for a close up and scrolling
This may just be fodder for a big blog entry...
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