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Hidden Things in Map of Roshar?


RShara

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This may seem off topic, but the boarder around the colored Roshar map reminds me of architecture decorations, like you would find around frescos or mosaics in classical style buildings (brought to mind decor in the US capitol building). I wonder if the map is a sketch of one from a fancy building, like the gallery of maps, but with more than the shattered plains, obviously.

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The full-color map seems to be the same basic projection as the sepia map -- except painted on a vaulted ceiling.

e.g.:SuperStock_1566-065504.jpg

 

The level of shared precision makes me wonder if the artists have a full-on Rosharan GIS behind the scenes... One of these days, I'd like to throw the high-res images into ArcMap and see how they look when georectified. That southern hemisphere map's been bugging me for a while -- it's reminiscent of the Robinson pseudocylindrical projection -- except I think that would make Roshar weirdly hourglass-shaped. Which I suppose would support Confused's Greatshell Hypothesis...  ;)

 

Wow I have no idea what you said but it sounds awesome!

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The full-color map seems to be the same basic projection as the sepia map -- except painted on a vaulted ceiling.

e.g.:SuperStock_1566-065504.jpg

The level of shared precision makes me wonder if the artists have a full-on Rosharan GIS behind the scenes... One of these days, I'd like to throw the high-res images into ArcMap and see how they look when georectified. That southern hemisphere map's been bugging me for a while -- it's reminiscent of the Robinson pseudocylindrical projection -- except I think that would make Roshar weirdly hourglass-shaped. Which I suppose would support Confused's Greatshell Hypothesis... ;)

The vaulted ceiling thing I was trying to say a few pages ago, but you illustrated what I was getting at much more clearly!

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Eyeballed latitude/longitude on the WoK map. Plotted as many points from the Frostlands map as I could, reflected to the other side of the map, then connected the curves and added the northern latitudes connecting equivalent markers on the left/right border. Longitudes are NOT to scale, I'm sure, but are as close as I could get to 10 degrees per line judging by the three we have on the Frostlands and assuming the map is centered on an even longitudinal line. So not mathematically accurate but should be a good enough approximation for most purposes until we get a better reference. (Any cartographers out there are more than welcome to correct my placement.)

 

Map 1 (With markers from the Frostlands map. You can see that these lines are close, but not exact.)

 

Map 2 (No markers, for clarity.)

tumblr_n2o23yspsf1ttvln6o1_1280.jpg

 

One thing that I really like about this is that it shows that the central mountains are noticeably farther south than any other mountain range on Roshar (thus explaining how the scholars were able to determine the location of Urithiru from the position of the sun.)

 

Also, if I'm even close to accurate on my lines, Roshar is set mostly below the equator and roughly between longitudes 0 and ~140W, or roughly proportional to Asia in terms of portion of the planet's surface.

 

Edit: Well, my longitudes aren't far off from RShara's, so that's a good sign. :)

Edited by Veil
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:D

 

I overlaid the frostlands map, got it as close as I could, then drew the lines, and copied and repositioned them across the map, matching the last line of the last set I copied to the first line of the next set, so they should be within a pixel or 5 of being accurate...I didn't curve them though, which is important on a globe!

 

You know, something's been eating at me.  The KR decided to build Urithiru further west, "in the place closest to Honor."  With it being roughly in the center of the continent, the closest distinctive thing I notice is that it's awfully close to the Valley where the Nightwatcher is.  But Nightwatcher is supposedly something of Cultivation's?

 

Or she's Honor and Cultivation's lovechild...

Edited by RShara
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Is Roshar roughly supposed to be earth sized?

Also, incredible work guys!! I'm amazingly impressed.

 

I have no idea how big Roshar is relative to Earth. But the maps we have only show ~1/4 of the planet. If the rest of the world is mostly ocean, that's a LOT of open sea. (Also, all that area in Shadesmar is mountains/plains/Spren cities/who knows what. I'm beginning to see how Jasnah could have spent months in Shadesmar. SInce I'm assuming she didn't want to spend all that time in the sea of spheres. lol)

 

Though this does bring me back to my earlier question. The continent Roshar covers slightly less than half the planet, in terms of longitude. It takes a highstorm a day or so to cover that distance, but then more than a week to go the rest of the way around (judging by comments in chapters 88/89 of WoR--p. 1054 and 1066 in the hardcover.) If highstorms really do just circle the planet, why does it take them so long to cross the ocean, compared to their overland speed? Do they slow down that much? Or does it take a few days for them to "recharge"?

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Here's a crude overlay of a couple various maps. The map of Alethkar seems to use the same projection as the Southern Hemisphere map -- which isn't surprising, since both were commissioned by King Gavilar. The Frostlands map seems to use a slightly different projection.

 

Note that the map of Alethkar has a line running through the middle (parallel to the "KAR" in Alethkar) that denotes North.

 

p24IspX.jpg

Warning!  Not for navigation purposes!

Edited by Harakeke
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You know, something's been eating at me.  The KR decided to build Urithiru further west, "in the place closest to Honor."  With it being roughly in the center of the continent, the closest distinctive thing I notice is that it's awfully close to the Valley where the Nightwatcher is.  But Nightwatcher is supposedly something of Cultivation's?

 

I figure 'closest to Honor' is satisfied by 'the highest tower in the world'.

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Just thought of something: the use of "Stormward" and "Leeward" on that map makes a lot more sense when you consider east/west to be curved lines rather than horizontal. (For example, by my estimation, the Shallow Crypts are nearly due east from Vedenar, not southeast like that map would suggest. So they use Stormward and Leeward to avoid confusion.)

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I have no idea how big Roshar is relative to Earth. But the maps we have only show ~1/4 of the planet. If the rest of the world is mostly ocean, that's a LOT of open sea. (Also, all that area in Shadesmar is mountains/plains/Spren cities/who knows what. I'm beginning to see how Jasnah could have spent months in Shadesmar. SInce I'm assuming she didn't want to spend all that time in the sea of spheres. lol)

Though this does bring me back to my earlier question. The continent Roshar covers slightly less than half the planet, in terms of longitude. It takes a highstorm a day or so to cover that distance, but then more than a week to go the rest of the way around (judging by comments in chapters 88/89 of WoR--p. 1054 and 1066 in the hardcover.) If highstorms really do just circle the planet, why does it take them so long to cross the ocean, compared to their overland speed? Do they slow down that much? Or does it take a few days for them to "recharge"?

Interesting question regarding the storms. Do they fully disappear before hitting Shonovar or do they go around the mountains into the sea? Does Aimia get hit by them? Was it established that it's one continual storm or is that conjecture.

The people of Roshar clearly have an expected origin point to the east. Do they know what that is? Thy are adept enough to know that there is half a planet northward based on their maps, maybe they have a knowledge of the origin point too.

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The legends say each one is new from the origin, but there's a quote near the end of WoR that says the scholars and stormwardens have suggested that it's all one storm continuously circling the globe.

 

Edit: Here's the quote. Chapter 87, page 1049-1050 in the hardcover:

 

 

Were the highstorms all one storm that rounded the planet, or did a new one start at the Origin each time, as mythology claimed?

 

Scholars and stormwardens thought the former, these days.

Edited by Veil
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This brings another interesting question - if we project Roshar (the planet) on Earth so that the Origin is somewhere in Australia (partially because that's where it would roughly land, and partially because I can't think of a better origin point for deadly and destructive things), would highstorms hit the Northern Hemisphere? In other words, are the highstorms "wide" enough to span the entire globe? Or, alternatively, do they expand, so that their diameter is pretty manageable at the Origin, but it grows wide enough as the storm travels farther away?

 

Man, do I not have the right words for this...

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Someone should take a sailing ship east and find out :)

I am still curious how rosharians are aware of their place on the globe, cartographically speaking.

 

Maybe there's an Oathgate on a lonely island out in the middle of nowhere, and the knowledge carried over in some form from the shadow days. ;)

 

And who needs a ship? Just sent Kaladin flying out into the ocean (with plenty of spheres, of course) and have him search out the Origin. Or send Jasnah to Shadesmar so she can go hiking through the Expanse of Vapors. Heck, that's where she was when she was "assassinated," so maybe she's already found the Origin. :P

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Re: the ever moving rosharShell

I don't know how one goes about espousing things, but that may be worth espousing.

To Veil:

Darn magic always ruining my dreams of sailing the open, stormridden seas. That being said, I bet Jasnah absolutely knows where the origin is.

Edited by Ryshadium
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This brings another interesting question - if we project Roshar (the planet) on Earth so that the Origin is somewhere in Australia (partially because that's where it would roughly land, and partially because I can't think of a better origin point for deadly and destructive things), would highstorms hit the Northern Hemisphere? In other words, are the highstorms "wide" enough to span the entire globe? Or, alternatively, do they expand, so that their diameter is pretty manageable at the Origin, but it grows wide enough as the storm travels farther away?

 

Man, do I not have the right words for this...

I love this ""I can't think of a better origin point for deadly and destructive things."

Also, if the Highstorm spreads out like a wave from the origin, it would spread - think a drop of water hitting a puddle - and get weaker - until it was half way around the world - at which point the high storm would start to get stronger again as it came back together - finally reaching  a point exactly opposite the origin and kind of exploding into itself - or that is how it would be if it didn't lose energy and wasn't affected by the rest of the planet's weather.

I'd say that both of those were true though, seems the high storm is stopped like a mountain before Shinovar - meaning you CAN take energy from it by land.

Of course, it is probably being fed energy as it goes - because we've never been told its weaker anywhere than anywhere else - other than Shinovar -  so I doubt we can really use any kind of semi-real-world-analogue to describe it.

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*Didn't read 10 pages of comments*

Absurd idea-

Maybe the sun thingy is Urithiru location, I mean on top of a small island or something.

Other than this I can't think of something atm.

 

It's been brought up, and discounted.  The text indicates Urithiru is in the mountains near Emul.

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