Photos of Sartar landscapes?

[Rob Helm]

The Glorantha Sourcebook has some really nice, specific descriptions of Sartar's physical geography. I'd like to run down some photos of real-world locations that resemble it. I know the topic has come up before, but search failed me. Any suggestions where on Earth I should look for such photos?

Rob

[Jeff]

A few at stream of thought: the Vinschgau in Italy, the Coastal Range (especially Mount Diablo and the mountains above San Jose) of California, the Tirol. the Balkans, Mount Olympus and Parnassus in Greece, Slovenia, the Maritime Alps.

[Dan Z]

There's also this from Greg sometime in the 90's I believe.  There are some Sartar entries in there.

"I was challenged to give some illustrations to artists and seekers who need to visualize Glorantha more clearly. This document attempts to do so.

You will NEED a copy of Natural Wonders of the World, Readers Digest Association, 1980 ed. All page references herein are to that book."

http://www.glorantha.com/docs/postcards-from-glorantha/

[Ian Cooper]

When I worked on Dragon Pass, Land of Thunder I used the Carpathian Mountains, particularly Transylvania as the source for the flora and fauna etc. of the Pass. Romania, with its mountains and proximity to the Black Sea, is actually a pretty good analogy for Dragon Pass and the Holy Country IMO.

Their pre-history is also an interesting intersection of European cultures, much like the influeces we draw on for Sartar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistory_of_Transylvania

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottomány_culture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age_in_Romania

 

[styopa]

On 3/17/2018 at 12:55 PM, Septimus Kendaro said:

There's also this from Greg sometime in the 90's I believe.  There are some Sartar entries in there.

"I was challenged to give some illustrations to artists and seekers who need to visualize Glorantha more clearly. This document attempts to do so.

You will NEED a copy of Natural Wonders of the World, Readers Digest Association, 1980 ed. All page references herein are to that book."

http://www.glorantha.com/docs/postcards-from-glorantha/

Nah, this is 2018 and the internet.  Let's begin: (text is greg's from that link, pics from internet searches)

Feethos River

27, Abiod Valley;

aka Fever Trees. This is the borderlands between the Wastes and Teshnos. The river, deeply lush, flows from those distant Ti Shan mountains. Those cities of mud huts are populated and often raided by animals nommads.

 

Seshnelan Islands

36, Aland Isles

These tree-covered islands lie south of the Old Seshnela Penninsula. We can see that the land there just slowly sank, leaving these slightly higher places above water.

in the Wastes

54, Arak Gorges

desert gorges

The Vent

55, Mount Ararat

Here we see the largest volcano in the Holy country. Pencilled in are some slight changes to the photo to add other nearby landmarks.

 

Valind’s Glacier

58, Arctic Region

mountain tops sticking out identify this as Alustan Mts, sacred to Valind, Winter Storm God. (Edit: I used Ellsworth Mtns in Antarctica)

Vulture Country

65, Badlands

Typical of rugged, hostile lands between Prax and the Wastes. Please remember that Vultures Country is worse than either Prax or the Wastes.

Southern coast of Wastelands

70-71, Band-e Amir

This is typical of where the plateau meets the sea, showing why it is considered inaccessible to sailors.

Sartar Hills

73, Bateke Plateaus

These rolling green hillsides are pretty typical of the hills around Quivin Mts., and across most of eastern Dragon Pass (ie-Sartar.)

Sable Plateau

75, Benbulbin

We are looking here at the northern edge, which is nearly fifty miles wide. That shows that they are almost fifteen miles high (!)

 

Manirian Coast

78, Big Sur

shows typical occasional beach all along Caladraland and its chain of volcanic hills.

 

An Eastern Isle

84, Bora Bora

gee, pretty.

Skyreach Mts.

95, Caucasus Mountains

The Skyreach are the tall peaks which abruptly rise to reform the Rockwoods Range. One of these (arrow) is Orlanth’s sacred Mount Arrowmound. (KoS, p 74)

Dorastor Today

110, Craters of the moon

A portion of the desolated land as it appears today.

Mislari Mts

111, Crimean Peninsula

From Maniria, looking northward to mts. This is in the Arstola Forest, looking towards where Captain Ethilrist found his (now lost) pass.

The Zorian Gorge

115, Danube River

In Fronela, north of Zoria. Note how the gorge goes right to the river.

Stormwalk Mts.

131, Drakensberg

Looking westward, from Prax. The scattering of buildings barely visible below are the “town” of *. NB – tops of other mountains should be visible over that crest line.

Someone else can start from the New Fens, if people find this interesting.

[Yelm's Light]

Uh, considering that Everest is less than 6 miles high and Kero Fin, what, something like 8, I'm having trouble buying that Benbulbin is 15 miles high, no matter how far it starts above sea level.

[Steve]

7 hours ago, Yelm's Light said:

Uh, considering that Everest is less than 6 miles high and Kero Fin, what, something like 8, I'm having trouble buying that Benbulbin is 15 miles high, no matter how far it starts above sea level.

Trouble buying it for Benbulbin or the Sale Plateau? In the original image that Greg was referring to in the Reader's Digest book (I have a copy), it's a lot more buyable since the plateau is pictured as more distant. You'll find lots more images via Google.

Not criticising styopa's efforts, I think this is a great idea, but not sure if he has the book to refer to.

 

[Joerg]

Hungry Plateau has a canonical elevation of 5000ft,  which corresponds to 1.5 "key" miles rather than 15 miles. I guess that decimal point was lost in transcription.

Edited March 30, 2018 by Joerg
calculation below

[g33k]

17 hours ago, Joerg said:

... 5000ft,  which corresponds to 1.5 miles rather than 15 miles. I guess that decimal point was lost in transcription.

5000 ft is bout 1.5 km or 0.95 mile.

I suspect some early enthusiasm got curbed.   ;-)

 

[styopa]

On 3/29/2018 at 5:18 AM, Steve said:

Trouble buying it for Benbulbin or the Sale Plateau? In the original image that Greg was referring to in the Reader's Digest book (I have a copy), it's a lot more buyable since the plateau is pictured as more distant. You'll find lots more images via Google.

Not criticising styopa's efforts, I think this is a great idea, but not sure if he has the book to refer to.

 

Nope, not at all, but Greg fortunately provided the names of the places.

So I just googled them recognizing that, no, I  might not be getting the *precise* view that inspired Greg, but his features mentioned are fortunately unique enough that I hoped one view was more or less like-enough....

My pipe dream is if Chaosium employs the Google map API atop an online version of the full Gloranthan atlas, meaning people could contribute pictures (links to IRL pics) from specific viewpoints.  That would be an amazing resource.

[David Scott]

On 29/03/2018 at 4:01 AM, Yelm's Light said:

Uh, considering that Everest is less than 6 miles high and Kero Fin, what, something like 8, I'm having trouble buying that Benbulbin is 15 miles high, no matter how far it starts above sea level.

Ben Bulbin in that picture is about 520 metres tall, however the point where the photo was taken (likely from the road) is about 120 metres above sea level, so it's only a 400 metre elevation we're looking at. 

The northern edge of the Hungry Plateau is roughly 5000 feet above sea level (1520m) but it sits on the 2000 foot contour (please correct me if Im wrong) so it has an equivalent rise of 3000 feet (914m).

So it's a good scale comparison being that the real Hungry Plateau is roughly twice the height. Fortunately there is nothing in sight to affect the illusion of scale.

Ben Bulbin: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.3633137,-8.4743102,14.21z/data=!5m1!1e4

The scale for the Argan Argar Atlas is here: http://www.glorantha.com/legend-for-argan-argar-atlas/

It's in metric as that is what I was taught. I never got the hang of the weird Imperial measurements.