A sense of scale

[Jeff]

Dragon Pass and California

Colin Driver recently did a lovely map for my benefit overlaying Northern California over Kethaela and Dragon Pass, which really gives me a good feel for these distances. Although I've lived in continental Europe for the last decade, I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. Northern and Central California is where I did most of my backpacking, canoeing, and horse-riding as a kid - one gets an instinctive feel for such distances, in a way that abstract measurements of miles, kilometres, or even highway distances between cities does not give.

 

So in this map, Nochet is placed at about San Francisco. Sacramento is somewhere around in the Stygian Marshes north of the Shadow Plateau (which seems right to me). Heortland is out in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. Stormwalk Mountain is somewhere in Yosemite National Park.

Kero Fin is somewhere in rugged Plumas County. and it looks like the Shaker Temple is somewhere near Mount Lassen (also seems appropriate). Furthest is somewhere around Mount Shasta, and Mirin's Cross is at Grant's Pass. 

Whitewall is at Lake Tahoe - which is a world away from San Francisco. Clearwine is somewhere in the Sierra Valley, and Boldhome itself would be east of Reno. Dagori Inkarth is out in the Black Rock Desert (also seems right to me).   Pavis County is somewhere out in the wastes of central Nevada. 

And Arcata is deep in upland Aggar!

Below I am reprinting an old post I put up on Glorantha.com to give a more European sense to some of these distances.

Distances

As the following two charts demonstrate, distances in South Peloria are comparable to Roman Gaul and Germany. These charts measure the approximate distance between cities “as the Orlanthi flies” and do not measure the actual travel distance, but provide a rough scale.

ROMAN CITIES	DISTANCE
Marseille to Lyon	173 miles (277 kilometers)
Lyon to Trier	289 miles (465 kilometers)
Reims to Trier	107 miles (174 kilometers)
Trier to Cologne	84 miles (135 kilometers)
Trier to Mainz	74 miles (119 kilometers)
Marseille to Trier	462 miles (739 kilometers)

 

Gloranthan Cities	Distance
Glamour to Jillaro	174 miles (278 kilometers)
Alkoth to Jillaro	50 miles (80 kilometers)
Jillaro to Mirin’s Cross	126 miles (202 kilometers)
Mirin’s Cross to Furthest	132 miles (211 kilometers)
Glamour to Furthest	432 miles (691 kilometers)

By means of a final comparison, the distance between Baghdad and Tehran is 431 miles (almost exactly the same as from Glamour to Furthest).

These distances suggest the Bronze Age, early-Iron Age nature of Glorantha. The Lunar Empire is not comparable in size to the Roman Empire, but to the Assyrian Empire or the Babylonian Empire of Hammurabi or Nebuchadnezzar – or to a Roman Empire that conquered Gaul and Spain, but never the Greek East.

To those who might say that is too small – the Assyrians ruled many different cultures, with many different religions and languages. And Roman Gaul and Germania was far more diverse than you might think – Greeks, Ligurians, Gauls, Germans, Roman Italians, and even some Phoenicians and Syrians.

An additional observation: the peoples of southern Peloria have been in contact for many centuries. They have influenced each other and been influenced by each other. The Orlanthi of South Peloria likely look to Dara Happa for the trappings of status and prestige – even as they reject Dara Happan social mores and religion.

Similarly, the Dara Happan and Lunar settlements of South Peloria (Henjarl, Dara-Ni, Terarir, Mirin’s Cross, and Furthest) also have been influenced by their Orlanthi neighbors. They have “adopted” some Orlanthi cults (particularly Ernalda and Barntar), even as they reject Orlanth himself. They may look to the Orlanthi for the trappings of heroism and martial prowess – even as they reject Orlanthi social mores and religion.

[Martin]

2 hours ago, Jeff said:

An additional observation: the peoples of southern Peloria have been in contact for many centuries. They have influenced each other and been influenced by each other. The Orlanthi of South Peloria likely look to Dara Happa for the trappings of status and prestige – even as they reject Dara Happan social mores and religion.

Similarly, the Dara Happan and Lunar settlements of South Peloria (Henjarl, Dara-Ni, Terarir, Mirin’s Cross, and Furthest) also have been influenced by their Orlanthi neighbors. They have “adopted” some Orlanthi cults (particularly Ernalda and Barntar), even as they reject Orlanth himself. They may look to the Orlanthi for the trappings of heroism and martial prowess – even as they reject Orlanthi social mores and religion.

I would be very interested in speculating on both these issues:

#1. What trappings of status and prestige ? what dress, titles, foods,  accessories, hair styles, organisations etc?

#2. Which trappings of heroism and martial prowess?

[Akhôrahil]

I've always thought it seriously weird how small Genertela is. It feels as though it should be the size of the Eurasian land mass, supporting large swathes of different lands, room for a semi-Mongol steppes empire, an ersatz-China, and so on, while in fact it's only about the size of the continental U.S.

[GianniVacca]

Well, there are many magical and mythical obstacles to travelling across Genertela so I'd say size doesn't really matter...

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Martin said:

I would be very interested in speculating on both these issues:

#1. What trappings of status and prestige ? what dress, titles, foods,  accessories, hair styles, organisations etc?

Ok, let's speculate.

Taking a look at Sylila might help here. I have no idea whether the concept of "pants and tunics" has been edited out of canon, but for me this still works. The bear/storm worshippers of Sylila have accepted the role of their deity as the (non-chaotic) steed of the Goddess, and their upper crust has taken most of the Heartlands styles, but retains a few barbarian peculiarities.

I tend to think that the rest of the Provinces, except maybe Tarsh with its direct connections to Glamour, look no farther than Sylila to loan Imperial trappings.

I expect helmets to be imitated. The Roman legionary helmet and the standard Gaul helmet both inherited from the Etruscan design, so there is some potential here.

Only there are quite a few influences of helmet design in Peloria.

The Stonewall phalanxes originating in Daxdarian Pelanda possibly have slight variations to their helmet styles, or at least ornamental patterns, making them easily identifyable. (This means that the Lunar Dragoons also share that design, as they donned the hoplite armor of vanquished Carmanian units and took to horses, never mind that those cuirasses were made for foot soldiers.)

Fronelan designs came with Syranthir and his 10,000, and probably still dominate Carmanian cavalry helmet design. Given the warrior beast society totems, various beast features might be replicated in those helmets, but certainly lions and bulls.

Given the origin of the Lunar Empire in Rinliddi, I can see raptor-beak-shaped helmets featuring in some units.

Now, which of these designs would the Orlanthi wish to inherit?

Carmanian bull designs will do nicely for Storm Bull worshippers. The Yanafali ram design might be popular in the hills, too. Sun Domers will quite likely borrow from the phalanxes. Not sure about avian trappings other than feathers, though.

 

Footwear. Imperial sandals may be the mark of the person with status. Possibly plateaued ones (think Japanese Geta, rather than heels).

Military sandals are quite the high-tech product - Roman sandals had iron studs through the lower soles, offering similar grip to soccer boots. Gloranthan studded sandals probably use some bronze. The Sun Dome Templars are likely to use something like this, possibly mass-fabricated in the Empire.

 

Togas rather than cloaks probably should be reserved for the most Lunarized places, like the Tarshite court or Jillaro. Dara Happa has very strict rules who gets to wear togas.

But that doesn't mean that Orlanthi chieftais don't don their cloaks in imitation of Toga style on certain occasions.

 

Belt and cloak clasps: Looking at examples from the Visigoths, imperial workmanship style might be adapted to traditional designs, creating hybrid forms - possibly fabricated in Sylila or Jillaro. The Seven Mothers might provide promotional designs to a wider populace, sneaking Lunar depictions into the everyday dress.

 

Fabrics: Native hill folk textiles are wool or linen. Contact with Dara Happa might provide cotton. Kralori silk hand-me-downs would be rather rare, as silk would be highly coveted by the Heartlanders, but the most affluent Provincials (again the Tarshite court) might get them just so they could show those snot-nosed Heartlanders that they aren't that elevated.

 

A lot of exotic dyes might come across Dragon Pass, giving the Provincials an advantage over the Heartlanders.

 

We know that Moirades and probably Phargentes before him paid good money for Heartland artists to help create Furthest as a modern Lunar city. Those styles will have spread to the wealthy in Tarsh, too, and possibly even aped by people like Kangharl of the Colymar.

 

 

1 hour ago, Martin said:

#2. Which trappings of heroism and martial prowess?

First of all Orlanthi long swords. IIRC, Orlanthi bronze working has a secret to make their blades almost as durable as iron blades. For those who dont like Lunar curved blades, at least.

Runic tattoos, or at least face- and bodypaint or henna.

Chariots are ancient traditions for both Dara Happans (though maintained by their Horse warlord oppressors), and of the Orlanthi. That image of Jar-eel and Beat-Pot in the Guide may be such a case.

Gladiatorial gear and getup.

Denim pants for rebellious youth...

[Jon Hunter]

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

I've always thought it seriously weird how small Genertela is. It feels as though it should be the size of the Eurasian land mass, supporting large swathes of different lands, room for a semi-Mongol steppes empire, an ersatz-China, and so on, while in fact it's only about the size of the continental U.S.

Well Continental USA isn't small, and historically Europe had significant cultural diversity at many points in history.

Look at the 9th century AD you have Byzantines, holy roman empire, the moors in Spain, Anglo Saxon cultures, some remnant celtic cultures,viking culture, the slavic peoples and whatever the steps culture to the east was at that point.

Also looking at the early roman period around the Mediterranean you had

Rome, Carthage and the Greek states. The successor kingdoms  of Egypt , and the Secluids. Numerous Celtic Variants eg the iberians, thracians, dacians, Gauls and Britons. large amounts of variation in societies a continent the size of Glorantha isn't odd.

[Joerg]

18 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

Well Continental USA isn't small, and historically Europe had significant cultural diversity at many points in history.

Looking at central European Bronze Age, at least the differences in material culture weren't that great. The Unetice culture which produced the Nebra Disk spread over an area from central Germany into the Ukraine. Hallstatt culture and its successor La Tene covered the entire region around the Alps and then some, and Urnfield before sat somewhat further to the east but with a similarly large area.

Those small scale differences between rivaling cities is found mainly in Greece and in Mesopotamia. Anatolia had fairly large units, with the Hittites taking the biggest chunks, but Lydia and Phrygia similar unison as far as material culture went.

But then we have a hard time discerning the different rider tribes that entered ancient Persia or the Danubian plains from their material cultures. We know about there being different ones from cuneiform and later Greek texts. There are no such textual references for central Europe, and so we don't have the slightest idea who could have gathered warriors from the Rhineland to Moravia (from memory, details may vary) for the battle at the Tollense crossing. (We do know that those folk came from there, using isotope analysis of their teeth.) Peloria with its mainly Dara Happan ordered, Pelandan (re-) built cities among a huge variety of rural folk pursuing quite different forms of agriculture or horticulture. Between Glorious ReAscent and the Perfect Sky several varieties of "rice" and food grasses are mentioned, and likewise e.g. the grass seed tribute upgraded to barley by that offensive Kitori tax collector that resulted in Double Tribute.

 

 

18 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

Look at the 9th century AD you have Byzantines, holy roman empire, the moors in Spain, Anglo Saxon cultures, some remnant celtic cultures,viking culture, the slavic peoples and whatever the steps culture to the east was at that point.

All this hodgepodge is the result of various migrations, especially up and down the Danube. WIthout different tribal kingdoms by Germanic tribes adopting the Latin culture and those infamous Frankish inheritance splits, the previous Roman culture would have assured a fairly continuous culture. Those tribes that lost their autonomy to any incarnation of Imperial Rome - like the Vandals after conquest by Belisar - were undistingishable from their Roman neighbors.

The small states of the Holy Roman Empire did not provide separate cultures, only separate dynasties.

18 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

Also looking at the early roman period around the Mediterranean you had

Rome, Carthage and the Greek states. The successor kingdoms  of Egypt , and the Secluids. Numerous Celtic Variants eg the iberians, thracians, dacians, Gauls and Britons. large amounts of variation in societies a continent the size of Glorantha isn't odd.

In the Dara Happan river valley you have weeders (a culture with a material culture similar to the Basra reed swamp Arabs, or considerably less), rice farmers, upland dry farmers (still dependent on irrigation, though), Manimati swamp and hill dwellers with probably their own traditions of agriculture, Naverians, Jernotians, Spolites, Oronin/Poralistor folk, Sweet Sea Harangvats, and all manner of remnants of Orlanthi-like pastoral groups theyalanized in the Dawn Age. The Lodril/Turos worshippers have some things in common, but are divided by many other details to which they cling with tribal pride.

Pelandan city states come across as a fairly homogeneous culture but divided by favourite deities, then overlaid with Dara Happan and later Carmanian overseers. The rivers used to have their own populations, too.

It might be the fact that we have stories, local names and local myths, but the diversity in central Genertela beats everything I have seen in the Old World Bronze Age. Not to mention Elder Races...

Gloranthan diversity is a good thing, but I don't see it as a Bronze Age feature, more as a consequence of the living myths just on the Other Side, with meaningful interaction by the various populations.

 

[Jon Hunter]

54 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Looking at central European Bronze Age, at least the differences in material culture weren't that great. The Unetice culture which produced the Nebra Disk spread over an area from central Germany into the Ukraine. Hallstatt culture and its successor La Tene covered the entire region around the Alps and then some, and Urnfield before sat somewhat further to the east but with a similarly large area.

Those small scale differences between rivaling cities is found mainly in Greece and in Mesopotamia. Anatolia had fairly large units, with the Hittites taking the biggest chunks, but Lydia and Phrygia similar unison as far as material culture went.

But then we have a hard time discerning the different rider tribes that entered ancient Persia or the Danubian plains from their material cultures. We know about there being different ones from cuneiform and later Greek texts. There are no such textual references for central Europe, and so we don't have the slightest idea who could have gathered warriors from the Rhineland to Moravia (from memory, details may vary) for the battle at the Tollense crossing. (We do know that those folk came from there, using isotope analysis of their teeth.) Peloria with its mainly Dara Happan ordered, Pelandan (re-) built cities among a huge variety of rural folk pursuing quite different forms of agriculture or horticulture. Between Glorious ReAscent and the Perfect Sky several varieties of "rice" and food grasses are mentioned, and likewise e.g. the grass seed tribute upgraded to barley by that offensive Kitori tax collector that resulted in Double Tribute.

 

 

All this hodgepodge is the result of various migrations, especially up and down the Danube. WIthout different tribal kingdoms by Germanic tribes adopting the Latin culture and those infamous Frankish inheritance splits, the previous Roman culture would have assured a fairly continuous culture. Those tribes that lost their autonomy to any incarnation of Imperial Rome - like the Vandals after conquest by Belisar - were undistingishable from their Roman neighbors.

The small states of the Holy Roman Empire did not provide separate cultures, only separate dynasties.

In the Dara Happan river valley you have weeders (a culture with a material culture similar to the Basra reed swamp Arabs, or considerably less), rice farmers, upland dry farmers (still dependent on irrigation, though), Manimati swamp and hill dwellers with probably their own traditions of agriculture, Naverians, Jernotians, Spolites, Oronin/Poralistor folk, Sweet Sea Harangvats, and all manner of remnants of Orlanthi-like pastoral groups theyalanized in the Dawn Age. The Lodril/Turos worshippers have some things in common, but are divided by many other details to which they cling with tribal pride.

Pelandan city states come across as a fairly homogeneous culture but divided by favourite deities, then overlaid with Dara Happan and later Carmanian overseers. The rivers used to have their own populations, too.

It might be the fact that we have stories, local names and local myths, but the diversity in central Genertela beats everything I have seen in the Old World Bronze Age. Not to mention Elder Races...

Gloranthan diversity is a good thing, but I don't see it as a Bronze Age feature, more as a consequence of the living myths just on the Other Side, with meaningful interaction by the various populations.

 

I don't know if your agreeing or disagreeing with me?

[Akhôrahil]

22 hours ago, Jon Hunter said:

Also looking at the early roman period around the Mediterranean you had

Rome, Carthage and the Greek states. The successor kingdoms  of Egypt , and the Secluids. Numerous Celtic Variants eg the iberians, thracians, dacians, Gauls and Britons. large amounts of variation in societies a continent the size of Glorantha isn't odd.

Sure, but you didn't have a China, an India and an entire Steppes empire in the same space as well.

Going by this map again, Kralorela is about California's size?

Edited April 20, 2018 by Akhôrahil

[jeffjerwin]

32 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Sure, but you didn't have a China, an India and an entire Steppes empire in the same space as well.

Going by this map again, Kralorela is about California's size?

California is plenty big... I think it's important to realize that before the size of our Earth was known - i.e., the later Iron Age, most geographers believed the world to be a to smaller than it is. Glorantha reflects ideas about the universe similar to those of Cosmas Indicopleustes (though he should have known better, and was an outler in his time, I think he based his notions on pre-scientific tradition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmas_Indicopleustes). Cosmas saw the world as a cube. The inhabitable part of the world in his map consisted of Europe, Africa north of the Gulf of Guinea, and Asia as far east as India. Thus his world map is rather approximately on the same scale as Glorantha as a whole, and his notions - shared with more orthodox geographers like Ptolemy - of the size of Europe shows a continent the same size as North America, or even smaller.

 

[Jon Hunter]

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

Sure, but you didn't have a China, an India and an entire Steppes empire in the same space as well.

Going by this map again, Kralorela is about California's size?

By ancient and European standard california is big, many empires neither covered the same area of would have had the population of California.

All that throws you is that Kralorea and Teshnos are nowhere near as large as there closest real world analogies, if that space was comprised of unique or civlization analogous with the egyptians or summarians you wouldn't bat an eyelid.

There is no reason for kralorea to be as large as china , or Teshnos as large as indian, for them to make sense in Glorantha.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Jon Hunter

[Jeff]

59 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Sure, but you didn't have a China, an India and an entire Steppes empire in the same space as well.

Going by this map again, Kralorela is about California's size?

More or less, if you include the Kingdom of Ignorance.

It is about 1000 km from Pavis to the Iron Forts, or something comparable to going from Bahrein across the Arabian Desert to Mecca. Except with the Krjalki Bogs, Raging Storm, Copper Sands, and worse.

 

[Joerg]

19 hours ago, Jon Hunter said:

I don't know if your agreeing or disagreeing with me?

More or less disagreeing. There were vast regions of not so densely settled but flowering agricultural communities with very little difference in material culture over distances that span half of Genertela. But then our archaeological record might be just enough to tell that these folk were Hill Barbarians.

2 hours ago, Jon Hunter said:

By ancient and European standard california is big, many empires neither covered the same area of would have had the population of California.

Not that using the current (or basically post gold-rush) population of California bears comparison with a world based on muscle power.

2 hours ago, Jon Hunter said:

All that throws you is that Kralorea and Teshnos are nowhere near as large as their closest real world analogies, if that space was comprised of unique or civlization analogous with the egyptians or summarians you wouldn't bat an eyelid.

Both these places have been drowned out of vastly bigger former lands (in case of Teshnos) or at least some of their best rice-growing land. The culture of Kralorela is ancient, that of Teshnos saw some longer foreign domination, but maintains a continuity similar to the claim that Ptolemaic Egypt had. Even the Zaranistangi somehow acculturated before their magical leaders disappeared. Their (mixed?) offspring remained.

 

 

2 hours ago, Jon Hunter said:

There is no reason for Kralorela to be as large as china , or Teshnos as large as indian, for them to make sense in Glorantha.

True. Kralorela is large enough for the provinces to have significant local flavor. Teshnos consists of four regions which had some history as separate political and possibly cultural entities, but post-colonial Teshnos has only started splintering with Harstar seceding with Melib. Both offer sufficiently different input to the current whole that the analogies make sense as far as they go.

I couldn't say whether Teshnos is an alternate India or rather an alternate Khmer empire. It would even make sense as an alternate Sri Lhanka only.

Both are splinters of the former Vithelan empire, which still has political continuity in Vormain, never mind the fragmentation by the floodings. Those (mythical) empires (Vithela, Murharzarm's Dara Happa) beat anything a Bronze Age empire could have hoped to achieve. But then they never were anything like comparable to the Bronze Age, either, but mythic realms. The closest terrestrial analogies would be Atlantis or Shangri-la.

 

[simonh]

For me Dragon Pass from Heortland up to Ivory Plinth is roughly comparable in scale to the area from the south coast of England up to Northumberland, which is roughly the range of my old Pendragon campaign. Excluding long trips 'abroad' to Pavis or the Lunar Empire in Gloranthan terms, or to Ireland or Paris in Pendragon terms.

Simon Hibbs

Edited April 20, 2018 by simonh

[seneschal]

 Re:  Bronze Age territory sizes, a couple decades ago National Geographic writers attempted to retrace Odysseus' epic journey, matching events in the poem to actual locations.  Turns out the world of Greek myth was (to 20th century eyes) smaller than expected. The world is a much bigger place when you have to depend on capricious winds or your own aching feet to get anywhere.

Edited April 21, 2018 by seneschal
Correct grammar

[Joerg]

14 minutes ago, seneschal said:

 Re:  Bronze Age territory sizes, a couple decades ago National Geographic writers attempted to retrace Odysseus' epic journey, matching events in the poem to actual locations.  Turns out the world of Greek myth was (to 20th century eyes) smaller than expected. The world is a much bigger place when you have to depend on capricious winds or your own aching feet to get anywhere.

So the Strait of Messina isn't identified with Scylla and Charybdis any more?

Odysseus spent most of his epic homecoming in the epic arms of island goddesses. Not entirely his own idea, but that cost him way more time than the opening of the sack of winds within sight of Ithaka.

[seneschal]

Not the physical article I read, but covering some of the same territory (pun intended):

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/maps/travels-odysseus/

 

[Akhôrahil]

On 4/20/2018 at 1:50 PM, Jon Hunter said:

There is no reason for kralorea to be as large as china , or Teshnos as large as indian, for them to make sense in Glorantha.

 The scale really does bring up some counter-intuitive things, though. At least to me, the Lunar Empire feels as as though it should be comparable to, say, the Persian or even the Roman empire. But going by the scale, it's about the size of, what, France (maybe a bit bigger)? Sure, it can still have the same relative power, as everything is smaller, but it still feels... kinda smallish.

[seneschal]

41 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

 The scale really does bring up some counter-intuitive things, though. At least to me, the Lunar Empire feels as as though it should be comparable to, say, the Persian or even the Roman empire. But going by the scale, it's about the size of, what, France (maybe a bit bigger)? Sure, it can still have the same relative power, as everything is smaller, but it still feels... kinda smallish.

That was my point earlier in reference to the Odyssey.   Bronze Age civilizations and empires were smaller than the later Alexandrian and Roman ones we are more familiar with.  Doesn't make them less epic. Augustus Caesar didn't have to worry about every petty god in the pantheon messing in his personal business.  The Bronze Age guys apparently did.

Consider the Minoan Empire, which ruled the Mediterranean world the way the British Empire did the whole planet in the 18th century.  King Minos has the best soldiers and the largest most advanced navy.  His trading fleet brings wealth to Crete from strange people living on distant shores.  He wows the rubes with his posh palace (a literal maze of rooms), his slinky topless snake priestesses, and his bull-vaulting dancers.  He extracts harsh tributes from those dirty, uncultured fishermen on the Aegean coast north of him (that's Greeks to you and me).  He's on top of the world -- until a volcanic explosion on the island of Thera sinks his fleet, burns his buildings, swamps the islands the Cretans have colonized with massive waves.  The greatest civilization known destroyed in one day by cataclysm.  While the Minoans feebly try to recover from disaster, those dirty fishermen have enough breathing room to start to develop a civilization of their own.

[Dimbyd]

There 's another approach to scale here- which for gaming purposes tends to get fudged- but illustrates how scale has shifted dramatically.

 

If you look at most modern  countries, they have a number of indigenous minority languages (IMLs). So the British Isles has in addition to English , has Welsh, Irish, Gaelic as its three main IMLs (listed in degrees of health). It also has Manx (related to Irish and Gaelic), Jèrriais, Guernésiais (related to Norman French) and Cornish (related to Welsh). Every single one of those languages have different accents and dialect variations  in vocabulary and pronunciations. And then, there are the dialect variations of English such as Geordie and things like Scots and Ulster-Scots which straddle the dialect- language divide, plus British and Irish Sign Languages.

 

All this in a group of islands much smaller than the US. And this is not a unique situation- hello Spain, Germany, France and the US with the First Nations'  languages.  And this tells us the size of most people and communities' world. A lot smaller than ours. This makes the scale of say the Lunar Empire seem reasonable to me, especially when you consider that the barbarians have magic...

 

 

 

[simonh]

38 minutes ago, Dimbyd said:

All this in a group of islands much smaller than the US. 

I think the Pendragon comparison is a good one, with its kings of just about everywhere. If you read up on England during the Viking invasion period it was a hodgepodge of Saxon kingdoms with Wales, Cornwal and Scotland and certainly Ireland pretty much Terra Incognita for most purposes.

As for Rome, it wasn’t always a continent spanning super-Empire. Look at it during the Punic Wars and it looks a lot more closely scaled to the Lunar Empire. I think that period is a much better analog. They were still a hegemonic force, dominating various previously independent Italian states, with controlled and vassal territories on the periphery.

Simon Hibbs