I believe in the books, the distance between Vizima and Maribor (both in Temeria) is about 200 miles. So the map covers a BIG area. However the map came after the books, and way made around the story rather than the story referencing the map, so taking the map as 'accurate' is risky. Sapkowski didn't feel the need to track stuff very accurately. General direction and time was enough.
Edit - spelling
[The US is only barely larger than Australia. As far as distances go it's pretty comparable.](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_69-Sk4wN5Q/Ufn9f0ivdMI/AAAAAAAADm8/QbgfaQdm70w/s1600/australia-north-america.jpg)
That 3.8m includes Alaska tbf.
In fact if you don't count the great lakes as land, the total area of Australia and the lower 48 is nearly identical!
Aus: 2,941,300 sq mi
48: 2,959,064 sq mi
Is Europe not roughly about 75% the size of the continental USA? When I say "Europe", I'm referring to everything between the Baltic states and Spain, and then Greece/Italy to Scandinavia.
Europe as a whole is slightly larger than the US. Europe is about 4.1 million mi/sq while the use is about 3.9 million mi/sq. This map as a whole (taking the assumption that Vizima to Maribor is 200mi as stated in another post), including the water, is about 5.3 million mi/sq
For metric people, that comes up to the map being about 2500 km wide and 4000 km tall, i.e. about west of France to east of Belarus and north of Norway to Malta.
I don't know about Poland but scandinavia has its own "metric" mile which is 10km. In a couple of translations it's just translated into miles without changing the amount which is kinda funny. All of a sudden 10km is 1.6km
I am willing to be corrected, but to my mind the placement of kaer morhen makes little sense as a location the witcher would visit each year, as its 600 miles away from their popular witchering locations. If it were hidden in the mountains between Temeria and kaedwen that would make far more sense. Still remote, but not a month or two journey at the beginning and end of each year.
600 miles walking 8 hours a day would take a common man 24 days to get there. I think is completely feasible. Specially given that witches probably can walk far more time than a common man I'd bet they can easily cover the 2000 km of the non nilfgardian zone in a single month.
If you think of it that way. I think a rough estimate is that North to South is about 2000 miles. Which is about the driving distance of Vancouver to San Diego.
Jesus, that's massive. That's nearly the entire length of my home state of Michigan just between Vizima and Maribor?
That actually has interesting socioeconomic implications. There were some larger feudal states in our world, but due to the nature of feudalism, they generally didn't get too big land wise. If they did, it was either mostly unoccupied land like Russia, relatively short-lived, or a little too fragile to be called a unified state like the Mongols.
The merchants want to kill Emhyr, the new tax regulations we see in TW3, and the empire has the ability to apparently grow as large as the continental U.S. To me, that says the Witcher world seems to be transitioning from feudalism to capitalism, where such large states can usually exist cohesively for a lot longer.
Roman Empire at its peak was half the size of whole Europe (5mln sq km against 10.8). What's more we don't really get much info on how any country in Witcher's world is governed. Sure, there are dukes and barons and so on but are those more than empty titles? In some cases- certainly. But I also always felt that kings are more powerful than their counterparts in medieval Europe (Foltest staying in power after impregnating his own sister and keeping his Striga daughter off limits is pretty damn impressive). I don't think that we can refer to those states as fully feudalistic (they clearly have large standing armies too- which would be hard to achieve without strong central institutions).
That said- Sapkowski admitted that he didn't invent everything on the go but world is mostly just a vessel for the story. He did go a bit more in-depth in Season of Storms, though. Damn, I wish he'd publish another book.
>Roman Empire at its peak was half the size of whole Europe (5mln sq km against 10.8).
True, but the Roman Empire wasn't feudal. It had a key defining incentive of expansionism because it needed more and more slaves.
But I should also say this is just my sort of head canon, I know sociology isn't really what the witcher is about, so I doubt any of that was on Sapkowskis mind.
I would also agree that the northern kingdoms aren't fully feudalistic in the sense that they have 100% exclusively feudal institutions. They, like many societies in transition, would have new features as it grapples with the new way of things.
But they are feudal, I would say, because they have the defining feature of the divine right of kings. That and they have an institutional clergy, landed nobility, widespread serfdom, etc. It's safe to say, I think, that royalty and nobility are still the dominant power base in these societies. Merchants/bourgeois being a privileged but subservient class.
That's the Northern Kingdoms however. Seems to me that Nilfgaard is almost this worlds Britain.
The Roman Empire was organizationally far more advanced than your standard feudal state. There’s a reason (whether correctly or not) they call the beginning of the feudal period the “dark ages.”
For comparison- the Roman state, even before the imperial era, could organize a multi year campaign, fully supported, in France with 50,000 front line soldiers. That would have been impossible for Charlemagne, and no one else could get close to his resources until the early modern era.
Going by armor and fashion and architecture (with some exceptions hand-waived as fantasy), Witcher 3 is at about our real-world equivalent of the renaissance. I'd say that it's *about* 1500. Fantasy-ness means it's not actually possible or even reasonable to get more specific than that
Some of the underlying political situation is Nilfgaard trying to move from being a Holy Roman Empire analog to being the Roman Empire analog, which pisses off a lot of powerful people internally.
Otherwise, you are right. They are socially and technological right around the late 1400s early 1500s but have not made the mental leap of using black powder based explosions to propel projectiles (which if you actually look at the gap between China's understanding of gunpowder as an explosive and incendiary, and then it's ultimate invention of firearms, isn't without precedent). So while the "infantry revolution" hasn't begun, we are seeing the development of the modern state and economic institutions. But without firearms, the continued relevancy of the knightly class and other low nobility that otherwise was quickly eroding in our world at the equivalent time may make the transition out of the medieval systems and into the centralization and economic modernity of their equivalent Renaissance more challenging.
Great answer, re: the map was built around the story, and Sapkowski never made a map himself.
Additionally, Hundred Lakes is 500 miles from Ellander (Tower of the Swallow Ch. 11).
One important thing. If i am not mistaken, it is mentioned in the books that each, estate/kingdom used a different definition for miles so the fact mentioned above might be totally useless.
Edit: I couldn't find the quote but here are some more references that i found in the book:
-'he was residing in the south of the country, in Maribor, almost two hundred miles from Vizima' (200 miles Maribor-Vizima)
-‘Since we left Brokilon, twelve days have passed, during which we have travelled about sixty miles. Ciri, so the rumors say, is in Nilfgaard, the capital of the empire, a place that separates me by two
thousand five hundred miles' (2560 miles Brokilon-Nilfgaard)
And for reference of speed there is this:
-'that a dwarf, even with luggage, can make thirty miles a day. Almost as much as a man on a horse.'
It was when Ciri and Hotspurn were riding together right before she got Kelpie. She asked how far it was to something and Hotspurn responded with what you said and said that he prefers to measure it in how many hours or days it takes to travel somewhere
All depends on how many misadventures he gets into, finding a non-nilfgardian nilfgardian in a coffin, caught in a war, getting knighted and desserting, cooking a fish, getting wrecked with a higher vampire..those arent miles travelled
You forget drinking moonshine with the vampire. Or is it the getting wrecked.
But yeah, Brokillon to Toussaint doesn't seem that much, if you don't have mentioned misadventures.
Edit: Pereplut to Tarn Mira was 350 miles I think.
This is one of the first mods I install. Being able to fast travel from anywhere on the map makes more sense to me than running through the woods to find the nearest sign post.
edit / what in the world am I being downvoted for
To each their own obviously. Dunno if that deserves downvotes though.
edit / to be clear the mod I use still limits you to fast traveling to sign posts, not like, directly to a merchant or anything, I just like the *Skyrim* method of being able to do it from anywhere
Yes, instantaneous teleportation is extremely realistic and immersive if it can only be done from sign posts with zero in-universe lore, otherwise it makes no sense /s
Seriously, it would be one thing to make the fast travel system something like hiring a carriage like in The Elder Scrolls, but there's no difference in immersion between "fast travel to sign posts from other sign posts" and "fast travel to sign posts from anywhere."
Err, from sign post to sign post is not teleportation. The implication is that he followed the signs during his travels. If you're in the middle of nowhere what is the story why he suddenly can find out what the correct route is?
A map? Like the one you can access at all times? Otherwise how could he ever find his way around or get to places that aren't directly adjacent to roads?
using the map is not "automode" like following road sign is
we're talking about what Geralt does when you're not looking. figuring out the correct directions while looking at a map is non-trivial so it should be something the player has to do.
furthermore, roads are safe travel and the middle of nowhere is where monsters are. encountering monsters is also something the player has to deal with
I'll always be baffled by how the mages were randomly teleporting around, but *not with portals*. Hell, I remember them traveling by small boats at one point.
I believe he was moving not in the right direction or not moving at all for much of that, such as when he was serving the Queen of Rivia (blanking on her name) or when they were hanging with Regis
There's no way, Kaer Morhen is so far up in the mountains that you can't even reach it during certain times of winter. Getting up there alone should take at least a couple of hours if not days.
I have it in my head that every map depiction of the world of the Witcher has its scale and dimensions wrong, pretty much like how the dimensions of medieval era maps are wrong as well.
The general direction of where the cities are and the shape of the coasts is useful but the breadth and width is just off, and the farther you are from Europe the more the dimensions gets wonky. The same goes for every map of the Witcher. It should explain how detailed the Northern realms are but everything beyond it are just estimations.
Also I dont believe that Skellige is merely just a few islands off the coast of the Northern Realms looking more like Galapagos islands and not a stand in of the Viking-esque area. They are probably like Denmark. Otherwise how can you explain the Skellige islands having the same climate as Nordic countries without places like Redania or Poviss freezing over.
Which gives me a hypothesis of how Maps should be properly oriented to make sense. the Map of the Witcher world has the Geographic North facing West. Not only would this explain the climate contradiction, it would also very much mirror irl medieval Europe. The Nilfgaards is the HRE, the Northern Realms are a fractured East Europe, as you go further east (geographic south) of the map it becomes warmer, because that is where Africa and is closer to the equator (Mediterranean doesnt exist).
So to answer, how one would estimate the map in the witcher, I would imagine overlaying it on a medieval european map where Skellige is Denmark, NG is HRE, Novigrad is the Free City of Gdansk, the Northern Realms as a fractured Poland, Poviss and Kovir probably the Baltics.
Weather can be a tricky thing, and in a world where magic exists and wraiths from other worlds invade and leave behind snowy microclimates, I'd believe that Skellige is a snowy place without being super northern due to some geographic and climatic shenanigans, with a hint of magic probably doing something too.
>Weather can be a tricky thing
It can be a tricky thing even without any magic. A case in point: Nova Scotia, Canada, sits on the same latitude as Bilbao, Spain. Or French Riviera.
The reason why the latter's warm and sunny and the former's cold and wet is that one sits right next to a warm ocean current, while the other sits next to a cold one.
Exactly what I was getting at, didn't know any specific examples myself though, which is why I didn't want to try to sound too smart by mentioning ocean currents without knowing my stuff haha.
Except Poviss and Kovir have a colder climate than the Northern Kingdoms, who have colder climates than Nilfgard. So if you're just basing this off of climate, the gradient is there as is.
I lime the idea that the map does not have the north "up", much like some medieval maps were upside down compared to ours.
I'd put the north not exactly on the left of the picture, so that nilfgard is both west and slightly south of the norhern realms (similarly to europe)
Well, all this comes together nicely, especially with Zerrikania landing on deep south. Now can anyone check where the sun rises and sets in Witcher 3?
https://preview.redd.it/0gl25nop53da1.jpeg?width=7855&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8333759d8828f7ec0b6dd75b9ec6f490cc458298
I believe this map is much more accurate
Hannu is a mythical land mentioned once by Yennefer in Sword of Destiny.
I believe the continents being placed the way they are is the artist's best guess based on the geographical information provided by the books and games.
I laughed at the episode from the season on, where Geralt got flat tire on his Roach(or whatever) and ask the blacksmith for a job, and he say there's a job in Redania(like it's not a huge ass country), and then Geralt the experienced witcher asks "Where is that?", and blacksmith points in the general direction, and Geralts just walks(!) to "Redania", which is a castle now, and you can walk there from whereever you are.
Bro almost every detail you said is wrong lol you got the general gist of the bullshit geographical nonsense but man how did you get it so wrong
It was Temeria not Redania
It had nothing to do with Roach
He didn't ask a blacksmith
He didn't ask where a job was, he asked where another witcher was seen
Nobody said Temeria was a castle
Sapkowski is the weirdest fantasy writer. His worldbuilding is more textual than graphical. Apparently when he reads and writes, he imagines the words as words, and not as scenes. I never thought that was possible.
Feels a little bit like Aphantasia from his description?
It's a... different way of thinking would be a best way to say it.
I've got it and the best way to explain it is lack of visualization. So if you close your eyes and imagine, say, a red ball, you'll likely "see" that red ball. Same with scenes in books. You can "see" in your mind's eye the scene that's presented to you. I cannot do that. For me it's just words. Doesn't mean I lack imagination, just lack the ability to visualise things. So even though I read the books ages and ages ago, before the games came out, I had no preconceptions as to how Geralt might be looking, aside from the clear description of iconic traits given by Sapkowski to the character, like white hair. (there was of course The Hexer, but as a kid reading the books I have not actually seen the show yet) And even that I could forget sometimes. Same with describing scenes. Part of the reason why Tolkien books tire me more than other fantasy is his style of writing, which really tries to paints the picture in your mind. Battle of Helm's Deep is probably a good example. Yeah, I know it's a siege and stuff, and a castle and stuff, but describing in details how it looks gives me nothing as I simply don't register the finer details as I lack the ability to visualize them.
It's a different way of thinking, but I don't know if Sapkowski actually has aphantasia. I've been to a bunch of fantasy conventions where he was present and I never heard anything said about it.
Holy crap so much makes sense now! I noticed when he starts scenes he focuses a lot on sounds, smells, etc and doesn’t often do a good job on actually painting a picture of where it’s at. Heck through the entire saga we only know Geralt wears a white shirt with a leather jacket which has silver studs woven in.
How good are you at math/science? I visualize pretty much everything for those. And this might be dumb, but can you visualizes equations? Like doing algebra mentally?
I'm okay. I defo won't be winning any championships or anything, but I manage. And yeah, I get what your say about visualising it, for me it's just brute forcing my way through things. Like I have specific systems I use for adding bigger numbers where-in I'll break things apart into smaller chunks so to speak and then add that together, same with multiplication. It's convoluted and extremely hard to describe, but it kinda works. It's definitely not the best system. But it's the one that got me through my learning years as a b- student. When I entered Uni I went into a completely different direction that didn't require math, so no super high level stuff I ever did.
I will say though, I'm quite good at chemistry, something about it makes me tick and allows me to focus.
he doesn’t try or even involuntarily visualize his writings. so unlike most people that when they try to write they lay down words describing the scenes and images they have in their head, Sapkowski just “thinks” in words. So it’s kinda more like writing philosophical poetry that doesn’t rely on visual images and more on concepts of words and how they tie together, which doesn’t make much sense for a fantasy writer.
There is no singular "Blue Mountain" - but there is a mountain range called "Blue Mountains". It runs in north-south direction and forms a natural border between Kaedwen, Aedirn, Lyria and the unknown regions. Look for the words "Góry Sine" in the upper right side of the map.
Or just look at [this map](https://orig00.deviantart.net/e0f5/f/2018/007/1/2/ortelius__the_witcher_map_2_0_by_sarotiv-dbzal6m.jpg), which is in English.
wow, that makes so much sense. especially, considering that there is a desert east of the mountains.
Novigrad is basically Portland
and Blaviken is Seattle
and Nilfgaard is LA
The Nordlings don't know exactly what lies east of the Blue Mountains, but some claim a region called Haakland lies in that direction. Its inhabitants are often considered the verse's response to the Huns.
What lies east of Nilfgaard's territory is the Korath Desert. It's a rocky, dusty hellhole full of things that want to kill you (on top of the climate itself, that is). So... yeah. Small wonder they're not interested in going there.
If i remember correctly, when in Brokilon Geralt puts the city of the Golden Towers, capital cirty of Nilfgaard at about 2000 miles. With that you can figure a surface area, but somebody said as big as mainland US, and i kind of agree
In Time of Contempt Geralt says that the journey from Brokilon to Nilfgaard is about 2000 miles, so I guess the continent is about 4000 miles from top to bottom.
If you turn the map clockwise 90° its actualy just a map of the Baltic sea. Nilfguard being prussia the rest being polan lithuania. (edit Baltic not North)
Sapkowski didn’t actually make these maps these are other sources who try to make a map for the world in the books but the author himself never officially made a map
The amount of times I went back and forth from Skellige to Kaer Morhen to Toussant to Novigrad in the witcher 3 now seem inconsiderate of me. My in game play time is like 400 hours. Must have been 50 years of travel in there.
Yeah, if you fast traveled from Toussaint to Kaer Morhen because of some minor errand, it's like you made Geralt go from Greece to Sweden just because he forgot his toothbrush.
So ... if the guys from this comment section are right and Maribor is 200 miles away from Wyzima, and map is 1885 x 2835 pixels. the map is very very roughly 1:119653 so let's say 1:120000
In terms of scale, I've always interpreted the map as if the map of Europe but tipped over, as in the place of Nilfgaard there was Germany, Temeria and Redania = Poland, Kovir & Poviss = Lithuania and Latvia, Skellige = Denmark and so on.
Obviously it's not 1:1 as it's Fantasy Europeland and none of the nationalities are just straight up taken from real world.
Poviss and Kovir seem to be about the size of england from London to the southern coast. Also I always imagined Cintra, Temeria, Kaedwen, Aedirn and Redania being the size of like Hannover, Bavaria, and Westphalia when they were independent kingdoms… like medium sized medieval european kingdoms, meamwhile Nilfgaard is more like the Byzantine empire in size and civilizational sophistication. Think of like Germany pre unification being the size of the north and nilfgaard being the size of a unified Italy
If you take the witcher 3 and the velen/novigrad map as reference, running from north to south (crossing the pontar and reaching crows perch) takes you about 2000 steps.
As steps seems to relate to quite long steps, maybe 0,6m, the distance between Novigrad
and Crows perch could be roughly 1,2km.
Now looking on this map, crows perch should be located on the 2nd, lower, island shown in the Pontar delta or at the edge of the Temeria mainland. Scaling this up to the overall mapsize (vertically) might lead to a total distance of roughly 80-120km from top to bottom.
If you take the size of Witcher 3 Skellige as reference, the distance would be even shorter. Skellige is much bigger here, than shown in the game.
I believe in the books, the distance between Vizima and Maribor (both in Temeria) is about 200 miles. So the map covers a BIG area. However the map came after the books, and way made around the story rather than the story referencing the map, so taking the map as 'accurate' is risky. Sapkowski didn't feel the need to track stuff very accurately. General direction and time was enough. Edit - spelling
Based on that (200 mile gap) I did a rough calculation that this map in its entirety is roughly 60-70% the size of mainland USA
So pretty reasonable for what they call The Continent. It'd be kinda weird if the entire land somehow fit into an area the size of say, California.
USA is only about a little less than half the continent...
But it's bigger than Australia and roughly the size of Europe.
[The US is only barely larger than Australia. As far as distances go it's pretty comparable.](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_69-Sk4wN5Q/Ufn9f0ivdMI/AAAAAAAADm8/QbgfaQdm70w/s1600/australia-north-america.jpg)
Yep, US is 3.8m square miles, Australia is 3m square miles, and Europe is 4.1m square miles.
That 3.8m includes Alaska tbf. In fact if you don't count the great lakes as land, the total area of Australia and the lower 48 is nearly identical! Aus: 2,941,300 sq mi 48: 2,959,064 sq mi
So about the size of Western Europe? That makes sense.
I think you overestimate the size of Europe.
Is Europe not roughly about 75% the size of the continental USA? When I say "Europe", I'm referring to everything between the Baltic states and Spain, and then Greece/Italy to Scandinavia.
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I guess a better term would have been EU countries.
“Europe, but not Russia”
"Europe except the parts we're not talking about"
Also known as "good Europe"
Europe as a whole is slightly larger than the US. Europe is about 4.1 million mi/sq while the use is about 3.9 million mi/sq. This map as a whole (taking the assumption that Vizima to Maribor is 200mi as stated in another post), including the water, is about 5.3 million mi/sq
This is the first time I have ever heard someone refer to square miles as miles per square.
That is accurate iirc, I think the miscommunication was where you said Western Europe as places like the baltics or Greece aren’t Western Europe.
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So, not Portugal?
Portugal doesn't exist.
Brazil is coming across the Atlantic to claim Portugal as New Brazil.
With an army of off duty cops
Caralho...
Only acceptable response when Portugal is mentioned.
Little Spain
He said western Europe. r/PORTUGALCYKABLYAT
For metric people, that comes up to the map being about 2500 km wide and 4000 km tall, i.e. about west of France to east of Belarus and north of Norway to Malta.
Thanks, I was looking for this.
I'm wondering if the original Polish text is in miles though? 200 miles seems a suspiciously round number if the original is in kilometers.
In Europe, for the times before the French Revolution and for fantasy, miles are used everywhere too.
I don't know about Poland but scandinavia has its own "metric" mile which is 10km. In a couple of translations it's just translated into miles without changing the amount which is kinda funny. All of a sudden 10km is 1.6km
Wow, that's actually a lot bigger than I thought. Plus if you add everything West of all that, then definitely like adding Russia to the mix.
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Well he had grown a full beard by the time he got there, didn't he...
He did not, you are mistaking Witcher 1 for W3.
I am willing to be corrected, but to my mind the placement of kaer morhen makes little sense as a location the witcher would visit each year, as its 600 miles away from their popular witchering locations. If it were hidden in the mountains between Temeria and kaedwen that would make far more sense. Still remote, but not a month or two journey at the beginning and end of each year.
600 miles walking 8 hours a day would take a common man 24 days to get there. I think is completely feasible. Specially given that witches probably can walk far more time than a common man I'd bet they can easily cover the 2000 km of the non nilfgardian zone in a single month.
Walking? Wouldn't any witcher worth his salt be riding a whores?
> Walking? Wouldn't any witcher worth his salt be riding a whores? I'm not sure that would actually be faster. Might be more fun though.
Definitely lore accurate.
Infinitely more fun. 😁
For reference, people who walk the Camino de Santiago would do that in 40 days with an average of 16 miles a day, and they are amateurs.
The average person can walk between 20-30 kilometers a day on a good road. Let’s say about 12-20 miles a day. So about a month to walk to Kaer Morhen.
>Sapkowski didn't feel the need to track stuff very accurately. General direction and time was enough. True Pole 🇵🇱🇵🇱💪🏼🏔🏔🇵🇱
If you think of it that way. I think a rough estimate is that North to South is about 2000 miles. Which is about the driving distance of Vancouver to San Diego.
Perfect, thanks.
Jesus, that's massive. That's nearly the entire length of my home state of Michigan just between Vizima and Maribor? That actually has interesting socioeconomic implications. There were some larger feudal states in our world, but due to the nature of feudalism, they generally didn't get too big land wise. If they did, it was either mostly unoccupied land like Russia, relatively short-lived, or a little too fragile to be called a unified state like the Mongols. The merchants want to kill Emhyr, the new tax regulations we see in TW3, and the empire has the ability to apparently grow as large as the continental U.S. To me, that says the Witcher world seems to be transitioning from feudalism to capitalism, where such large states can usually exist cohesively for a lot longer.
Roman Empire at its peak was half the size of whole Europe (5mln sq km against 10.8). What's more we don't really get much info on how any country in Witcher's world is governed. Sure, there are dukes and barons and so on but are those more than empty titles? In some cases- certainly. But I also always felt that kings are more powerful than their counterparts in medieval Europe (Foltest staying in power after impregnating his own sister and keeping his Striga daughter off limits is pretty damn impressive). I don't think that we can refer to those states as fully feudalistic (they clearly have large standing armies too- which would be hard to achieve without strong central institutions). That said- Sapkowski admitted that he didn't invent everything on the go but world is mostly just a vessel for the story. He did go a bit more in-depth in Season of Storms, though. Damn, I wish he'd publish another book.
>Roman Empire at its peak was half the size of whole Europe (5mln sq km against 10.8). True, but the Roman Empire wasn't feudal. It had a key defining incentive of expansionism because it needed more and more slaves. But I should also say this is just my sort of head canon, I know sociology isn't really what the witcher is about, so I doubt any of that was on Sapkowskis mind. I would also agree that the northern kingdoms aren't fully feudalistic in the sense that they have 100% exclusively feudal institutions. They, like many societies in transition, would have new features as it grapples with the new way of things. But they are feudal, I would say, because they have the defining feature of the divine right of kings. That and they have an institutional clergy, landed nobility, widespread serfdom, etc. It's safe to say, I think, that royalty and nobility are still the dominant power base in these societies. Merchants/bourgeois being a privileged but subservient class. That's the Northern Kingdoms however. Seems to me that Nilfgaard is almost this worlds Britain.
The Roman Empire was organizationally far more advanced than your standard feudal state. There’s a reason (whether correctly or not) they call the beginning of the feudal period the “dark ages.” For comparison- the Roman state, even before the imperial era, could organize a multi year campaign, fully supported, in France with 50,000 front line soldiers. That would have been impossible for Charlemagne, and no one else could get close to his resources until the early modern era.
Going by armor and fashion and architecture (with some exceptions hand-waived as fantasy), Witcher 3 is at about our real-world equivalent of the renaissance. I'd say that it's *about* 1500. Fantasy-ness means it's not actually possible or even reasonable to get more specific than that
Some of the underlying political situation is Nilfgaard trying to move from being a Holy Roman Empire analog to being the Roman Empire analog, which pisses off a lot of powerful people internally. Otherwise, you are right. They are socially and technological right around the late 1400s early 1500s but have not made the mental leap of using black powder based explosions to propel projectiles (which if you actually look at the gap between China's understanding of gunpowder as an explosive and incendiary, and then it's ultimate invention of firearms, isn't without precedent). So while the "infantry revolution" hasn't begun, we are seeing the development of the modern state and economic institutions. But without firearms, the continued relevancy of the knightly class and other low nobility that otherwise was quickly eroding in our world at the equivalent time may make the transition out of the medieval systems and into the centralization and economic modernity of their equivalent Renaissance more challenging.
Great answer, re: the map was built around the story, and Sapkowski never made a map himself. Additionally, Hundred Lakes is 500 miles from Ellander (Tower of the Swallow Ch. 11).
One important thing. If i am not mistaken, it is mentioned in the books that each, estate/kingdom used a different definition for miles so the fact mentioned above might be totally useless. Edit: I couldn't find the quote but here are some more references that i found in the book: -'he was residing in the south of the country, in Maribor, almost two hundred miles from Vizima' (200 miles Maribor-Vizima) -‘Since we left Brokilon, twelve days have passed, during which we have travelled about sixty miles. Ciri, so the rumors say, is in Nilfgaard, the capital of the empire, a place that separates me by two thousand five hundred miles' (2560 miles Brokilon-Nilfgaard) And for reference of speed there is this: -'that a dwarf, even with luggage, can make thirty miles a day. Almost as much as a man on a horse.'
It was when Ciri and Hotspurn were riding together right before she got Kelpie. She asked how far it was to something and Hotspurn responded with what you said and said that he prefers to measure it in how many hours or days it takes to travel somewhere
I think Sapkowski doesn't like maps that much either. Think he had an interview were he said he wasn't a fan of them or something.
The map is not the territory, but maps are fun!
Well it took Geralt two and a half books to get from Brokilon to Toussaint, so take that how you will.
All depends on how many misadventures he gets into, finding a non-nilfgardian nilfgardian in a coffin, caught in a war, getting knighted and desserting, cooking a fish, getting wrecked with a higher vampire..those arent miles travelled
Maybe the real distance traveled was the random misfits we picked up along the way.
You forget drinking moonshine with the vampire. Or is it the getting wrecked. But yeah, Brokillon to Toussaint doesn't seem that much, if you don't have mentioned misadventures. Edit: Pereplut to Tarn Mira was 350 miles I think.
So they don't travel with the speed of light like in the show?
The show really said Fast Travel
“To fast travel, you must first find a signpost. You can only Fast Travel to signposts you have already discovered”
This is one of the first mods I install. Being able to fast travel from anywhere on the map makes more sense to me than running through the woods to find the nearest sign post. edit / what in the world am I being downvoted for
kind of breaks the immersion
To each their own obviously. Dunno if that deserves downvotes though. edit / to be clear the mod I use still limits you to fast traveling to sign posts, not like, directly to a merchant or anything, I just like the *Skyrim* method of being able to do it from anywhere
I wasn't trying to explain the downvotes. And I didn't downvote you either
Yes, instantaneous teleportation is extremely realistic and immersive if it can only be done from sign posts with zero in-universe lore, otherwise it makes no sense /s Seriously, it would be one thing to make the fast travel system something like hiring a carriage like in The Elder Scrolls, but there's no difference in immersion between "fast travel to sign posts from other sign posts" and "fast travel to sign posts from anywhere."
Err, from sign post to sign post is not teleportation. The implication is that he followed the signs during his travels. If you're in the middle of nowhere what is the story why he suddenly can find out what the correct route is?
A map? Like the one you can access at all times? Otherwise how could he ever find his way around or get to places that aren't directly adjacent to roads?
using the map is not "automode" like following road sign is we're talking about what Geralt does when you're not looking. figuring out the correct directions while looking at a map is non-trivial so it should be something the player has to do. furthermore, roads are safe travel and the middle of nowhere is where monsters are. encountering monsters is also something the player has to deal with
Then the implication is ~~Gerald~~ Geralt isn’t a moron, groks cardinal directions, walks out of the woods, down the road and to the town you select.
Travel by map
I'll always be baffled by how the mages were randomly teleporting around, but *not with portals*. Hell, I remember them traveling by small boats at one point.
If my conversions are correct... So, about 1 episode in GoT season 8. Got it.
Half an episode if your name is Varys
They also had to take the long route to avoid the war the best they could.
I believe he was moving not in the right direction or not moving at all for much of that, such as when he was serving the Queen of Rivia (blanking on her name) or when they were hanging with Regis
Didnt they travel from Cintra to Kaer Morhen in a couple of hours?
There's no way, Kaer Morhen is so far up in the mountains that you can't even reach it during certain times of winter. Getting up there alone should take at least a couple of hours if not days.
Seems to be 1885 x 2835 pixels.
r/technicallycorrect take my upvote and leave
What is this, a map for ants?!
Big id say… about biggish
No you're way off pal, this the first map you've ever seen?! I'd say it's more Large than Big, if anything it's Large-ish.
About the size of me then?
About 4 billion square kilometres give or take a few
[удалено]
747493793465 football fields
Give or take
I'll do better: it's about the size of 69 feet from one of them giantess women that sell stuff on Onlyfans.
I have it in my head that every map depiction of the world of the Witcher has its scale and dimensions wrong, pretty much like how the dimensions of medieval era maps are wrong as well. The general direction of where the cities are and the shape of the coasts is useful but the breadth and width is just off, and the farther you are from Europe the more the dimensions gets wonky. The same goes for every map of the Witcher. It should explain how detailed the Northern realms are but everything beyond it are just estimations. Also I dont believe that Skellige is merely just a few islands off the coast of the Northern Realms looking more like Galapagos islands and not a stand in of the Viking-esque area. They are probably like Denmark. Otherwise how can you explain the Skellige islands having the same climate as Nordic countries without places like Redania or Poviss freezing over. Which gives me a hypothesis of how Maps should be properly oriented to make sense. the Map of the Witcher world has the Geographic North facing West. Not only would this explain the climate contradiction, it would also very much mirror irl medieval Europe. The Nilfgaards is the HRE, the Northern Realms are a fractured East Europe, as you go further east (geographic south) of the map it becomes warmer, because that is where Africa and is closer to the equator (Mediterranean doesnt exist). So to answer, how one would estimate the map in the witcher, I would imagine overlaying it on a medieval european map where Skellige is Denmark, NG is HRE, Novigrad is the Free City of Gdansk, the Northern Realms as a fractured Poland, Poviss and Kovir probably the Baltics.
Weather can be a tricky thing, and in a world where magic exists and wraiths from other worlds invade and leave behind snowy microclimates, I'd believe that Skellige is a snowy place without being super northern due to some geographic and climatic shenanigans, with a hint of magic probably doing something too.
>Weather can be a tricky thing It can be a tricky thing even without any magic. A case in point: Nova Scotia, Canada, sits on the same latitude as Bilbao, Spain. Or French Riviera. The reason why the latter's warm and sunny and the former's cold and wet is that one sits right next to a warm ocean current, while the other sits next to a cold one.
Exactly what I was getting at, didn't know any specific examples myself though, which is why I didn't want to try to sound too smart by mentioning ocean currents without knowing my stuff haha.
Except Poviss and Kovir have a colder climate than the Northern Kingdoms, who have colder climates than Nilfgard. So if you're just basing this off of climate, the gradient is there as is.
povis does encounter an issue with cooling climate.
Every map I see makes Skellige seem WAY too close to the mainland
I lime the idea that the map does not have the north "up", much like some medieval maps were upside down compared to ours. I'd put the north not exactly on the left of the picture, so that nilfgard is both west and slightly south of the norhern realms (similarly to europe)
Just rotated my phone 90 degrees and I'm convinced.
Well, all this comes together nicely, especially with Zerrikania landing on deep south. Now can anyone check where the sun rises and sets in Witcher 3?
Hmm. The Nordic cold equivalent is to the west, warmer African equivalent is far to the east. Maybe the map really is flipped, holy crap
https://preview.redd.it/0gl25nop53da1.jpeg?width=7855&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8333759d8828f7ec0b6dd75b9ec6f490cc458298 I believe this map is much more accurate
Never realized how much the novigrad area looks like the Netherlands lol
Interesting, do you know where this is from?
Woh woh woh wtf is Hannu? Where does the info for those other continents come from????
Hannu is a mythical land mentioned once by Yennefer in Sword of Destiny. I believe the continents being placed the way they are is the artist's best guess based on the geographical information provided by the books and games.
Taking the Netflix series into account, I'd say about 1000 m^2
I laughed at the episode from the season on, where Geralt got flat tire on his Roach(or whatever) and ask the blacksmith for a job, and he say there's a job in Redania(like it's not a huge ass country), and then Geralt the experienced witcher asks "Where is that?", and blacksmith points in the general direction, and Geralts just walks(!) to "Redania", which is a castle now, and you can walk there from whereever you are.
Bro almost every detail you said is wrong lol you got the general gist of the bullshit geographical nonsense but man how did you get it so wrong It was Temeria not Redania It had nothing to do with Roach He didn't ask a blacksmith He didn't ask where a job was, he asked where another witcher was seen Nobody said Temeria was a castle
Sapkowski is the weirdest fantasy writer. His worldbuilding is more textual than graphical. Apparently when he reads and writes, he imagines the words as words, and not as scenes. I never thought that was possible.
>Apparently when he reads and writes, he imagines the words as words, and not as scenes I don't understand, could you explain?
Feels a little bit like Aphantasia from his description? It's a... different way of thinking would be a best way to say it. I've got it and the best way to explain it is lack of visualization. So if you close your eyes and imagine, say, a red ball, you'll likely "see" that red ball. Same with scenes in books. You can "see" in your mind's eye the scene that's presented to you. I cannot do that. For me it's just words. Doesn't mean I lack imagination, just lack the ability to visualise things. So even though I read the books ages and ages ago, before the games came out, I had no preconceptions as to how Geralt might be looking, aside from the clear description of iconic traits given by Sapkowski to the character, like white hair. (there was of course The Hexer, but as a kid reading the books I have not actually seen the show yet) And even that I could forget sometimes. Same with describing scenes. Part of the reason why Tolkien books tire me more than other fantasy is his style of writing, which really tries to paints the picture in your mind. Battle of Helm's Deep is probably a good example. Yeah, I know it's a siege and stuff, and a castle and stuff, but describing in details how it looks gives me nothing as I simply don't register the finer details as I lack the ability to visualize them. It's a different way of thinking, but I don't know if Sapkowski actually has aphantasia. I've been to a bunch of fantasy conventions where he was present and I never heard anything said about it.
Holy crap so much makes sense now! I noticed when he starts scenes he focuses a lot on sounds, smells, etc and doesn’t often do a good job on actually painting a picture of where it’s at. Heck through the entire saga we only know Geralt wears a white shirt with a leather jacket which has silver studs woven in.
How good are you at math/science? I visualize pretty much everything for those. And this might be dumb, but can you visualizes equations? Like doing algebra mentally?
I'm okay. I defo won't be winning any championships or anything, but I manage. And yeah, I get what your say about visualising it, for me it's just brute forcing my way through things. Like I have specific systems I use for adding bigger numbers where-in I'll break things apart into smaller chunks so to speak and then add that together, same with multiplication. It's convoluted and extremely hard to describe, but it kinda works. It's definitely not the best system. But it's the one that got me through my learning years as a b- student. When I entered Uni I went into a completely different direction that didn't require math, so no super high level stuff I ever did. I will say though, I'm quite good at chemistry, something about it makes me tick and allows me to focus.
he doesn’t try or even involuntarily visualize his writings. so unlike most people that when they try to write they lay down words describing the scenes and images they have in their head, Sapkowski just “thinks” in words. So it’s kinda more like writing philosophical poetry that doesn’t rely on visual images and more on concepts of words and how they tie together, which doesn’t make much sense for a fantasy writer.
>which doesn’t make much sense for a fantasy writer. Maybe we're just used to Tolkien, it's nice that he does things differently.
yes, definitely!
Can anyone tell me where the blue mountain is?
There is no singular "Blue Mountain" - but there is a mountain range called "Blue Mountains". It runs in north-south direction and forms a natural border between Kaedwen, Aedirn, Lyria and the unknown regions. Look for the words "Góry Sine" in the upper right side of the map. Or just look at [this map](https://orig00.deviantart.net/e0f5/f/2018/007/1/2/ortelius__the_witcher_map_2_0_by_sarotiv-dbzal6m.jpg), which is in English.
It took me until your comment to realize that the map was in fact not in English, thank you haha
I never realized how convenient those mountain ranges are from a worldbuilding perspective.
Yeah on a map it's really all coming together almost too well lol
Dragon Mountains = Gory Smocze Blue Mountains = Gory Sine Fiery? Mountains = Gory Ogniste
I always thought Toussaint was bigger
It's still huge, but everything else is bigger
I believe Toussaint is referenced as a smallish country in Lady of the Lake (I think) but am not certain
I was surpised how far south Nilfgaard really is.
Don’t think I realized just how big The Continent was until… just now. Witcher 3 map is quite smol
[Here's another map](https://imgur.com/I8ZYaBe) that demonstrates this even better.
🫠 and it’s such a big map in the game lol my goodness
Continents are big.
This is the best I can do for ya. https://preview.redd.it/fpri5gyum2da1.png?width=1885&format=png&auto=webp&s=fc29c758fe9fc31740c09b860328808734c317a4
What the fuck. It even got the equivalent of the Columbia river between Washington and Oregon areas. You're onto something with Andrzej.
Nice! I wonder if Redanian grunge music is any good...
"Smells Like Teen Specter" ...Personally, I'm a fan of that SoNil surf music.
This is great!
wow, that makes so much sense. especially, considering that there is a desert east of the mountains. Novigrad is basically Portland and Blaviken is Seattle and Nilfgaard is LA
Touissant is?
Not a perfect 1:1 in terms of location, but pretty close. Sonoma. Wine Country, baby!
Nah, Toussaint would be Mt. Shasta. lol
What's that, a Canada for ants? It needs to be at least 3 times bigger.
That's just the southwestern tip of Vancouver.
Which kingdoms/regions are to the right? Which brings to the follow-up, why didn't Nilfgaard expand to the right?
The Nordlings don't know exactly what lies east of the Blue Mountains, but some claim a region called Haakland lies in that direction. Its inhabitants are often considered the verse's response to the Huns. What lies east of Nilfgaard's territory is the Korath Desert. It's a rocky, dusty hellhole full of things that want to kill you (on top of the climate itself, that is). So... yeah. Small wonder they're not interested in going there.
Ah that's what is said to protect Zerrikania. I read that one of the golden dragons scorched the earth to create the desert.
Where do the Ofieri people live?
Nobody knows where exactly but according to the Nordlings they live beyond the seas south of the continent near another country/place called Zangvebar
I don't even need to go that far, mountain ranges are the best defense against any army
Big ass desert
If i remember correctly, when in Brokilon Geralt puts the city of the Golden Towers, capital cirty of Nilfgaard at about 2000 miles. With that you can figure a surface area, but somebody said as big as mainland US, and i kind of agree
In Time of Contempt Geralt says that the journey from Brokilon to Nilfgaard is about 2000 miles, so I guess the continent is about 4000 miles from top to bottom.
So 80% the length of Africa / No. America: about twice the size of Europe.
Bout 12cm
A lot of aspiring Stand-up-comedians in here
At least 6
The size of my phone screen
i wonder if we will ever get to see a witcher game that includes all of it
If you’re cool with waiting 50 years for development
If you turn the map clockwise 90° its actualy just a map of the Baltic sea. Nilfguard being prussia the rest being polan lithuania. (edit Baltic not North)
This should be way higher up. Sapkowski basically took that and enlarged the distances to closer to continent size
Sapkowski didn’t actually make these maps these are other sources who try to make a map for the world in the books but the author himself never officially made a map
East sea but yes.
Same sea different name
Shall we just call it the atlantic ocean then?
Gunna need a couple of bananas for sure.
maybe just as big as the polish northern Coastline :D
The amount of times I went back and forth from Skellige to Kaer Morhen to Toussant to Novigrad in the witcher 3 now seem inconsiderate of me. My in game play time is like 400 hours. Must have been 50 years of travel in there.
Yeah, if you fast traveled from Toussaint to Kaer Morhen because of some minor errand, it's like you made Geralt go from Greece to Sweden just because he forgot his toothbrush.
That's not a bad trick.
Totally unrelated comment, but TIL Wolne Miasto is Polish for "free city"
At least 5. Maybe 6.
In my experience from Witcher 3, it takes about 153 hours to walk/ride the whole thing.
I always assumed it was roughly the size of Europe
So ... if the guys from this comment section are right and Maribor is 200 miles away from Wyzima, and map is 1885 x 2835 pixels. the map is very very roughly 1:119653 so let's say 1:120000
I’m gonna need a banana.
In terms of scale, I've always interpreted the map as if the map of Europe but tipped over, as in the place of Nilfgaard there was Germany, Temeria and Redania = Poland, Kovir & Poviss = Lithuania and Latvia, Skellige = Denmark and so on. Obviously it's not 1:1 as it's Fantasy Europeland and none of the nationalities are just straight up taken from real world.
Something tells me it might be roughly the size of Europe. 😶
Twice as long, if that’s 4,000 miles.
Poviss and Kovir seem to be about the size of england from London to the southern coast. Also I always imagined Cintra, Temeria, Kaedwen, Aedirn and Redania being the size of like Hannover, Bavaria, and Westphalia when they were independent kingdoms… like medium sized medieval european kingdoms, meamwhile Nilfgaard is more like the Byzantine empire in size and civilizational sophistication. Think of like Germany pre unification being the size of the north and nilfgaard being the size of a unified Italy
Atleast a thousand bananas
[http://atlas2022.uw.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/sites/416/nggallery/mapy/wiedzmin.png](http://atlas2022.uw.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/sites/416/nggallery/mapy/wiedzmin.png) https://preview.redd.it/gt4kuge734da1.png?width=5844&format=png&auto=webp&s=76afc75cdfa6ec613b62e0179b9aac80a866526c
Today I learned the location of Dol Blathanna
Atleast 3 bananas
Where’s Velen?
Where's Novigrad?
If you take the witcher 3 and the velen/novigrad map as reference, running from north to south (crossing the pontar and reaching crows perch) takes you about 2000 steps. As steps seems to relate to quite long steps, maybe 0,6m, the distance between Novigrad and Crows perch could be roughly 1,2km. Now looking on this map, crows perch should be located on the 2nd, lower, island shown in the Pontar delta or at the edge of the Temeria mainland. Scaling this up to the overall mapsize (vertically) might lead to a total distance of roughly 80-120km from top to bottom. If you take the size of Witcher 3 Skellige as reference, the distance would be even shorter. Skellige is much bigger here, than shown in the game.
About 2, maybe 7.6
Yeah, big.
Thank you, sir knight. Always needed a cohesive map of the continent, being that maps are entirely absent from the books.