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DerynifanK

March 17, 2024, 03:48:44 PM
Happy St Patrick's Day. Enjoy the one day of the year when the whole world is Irish.

The rest of the world

Started by whitelaughter, January 23, 2016, 10:55:31 PM

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whitelaughter

G'day, enjoyed the books as a teenager and remember than fondly. Have a few questions though, including:

Does continental Europe exist in the deryni books (presumably overrun by Islam) or is everything between the Welsh border and the Mediterranean missing? Wiki mentions various snippets (frex a Byzantun empire is mentioned in the pre-history of Torenth) but I'm not sure whether R'kassi is meant to be sitting on the smoking remains of Cornwall or to be completely different geography. (Given that it's traditional for maps to make stuff up beyond known borders, I'd understand if Gwynedd didn't even know that the Channel existed).

Thanks in advance!

Evie

Welcome! I tend to see the Eleven Kingdoms as more of an alternate universe almost-Earth rather than as an exact parallel, so while Gwynedd can be seen as roughly analogous to medieval England (and yes, possibly with Wales added in, since that's where the name comes from after all, though I tend to think of Llannedd as perhaps being closer to Wales in that universe), I think it's more accurate to say KK was more just trying to reflect her influences from various parts of Britain/Europe rather than make exact correlations. Torenth is equally mixed, possessing elements of Germany, Russia, Hungary, and Greece in its names. Names like Fianna sound quasi-Italian to me, whereas Bremagne sometimes seems more Spanish and sometimes more French.  But I think she was more trying to evoke a certain cultural feel with her naming rather than hint at exact 1:1 correspondances.

If you can remember the TV show Sliders, I tend to think of the Deryni world as more of a parallel Earth in which some aspects of history were roughly similar while other aspects diverged sharply. Even the land masses on the maps don't correspond with a map of Europe, much less Europe + Asia, so I think we can deduce it's not meant to be the exact same world as ours, just one that managed to develop quite similarly in places while veering off in interesting ways in others, especially in regards to the development of a genetically magic-potentialed human subspecies.

(And yes, I think a Sliders/Deryni crossover fanfic would have a better chance than most crossover fiction at being at least a halfway plausible story. :D )
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

revanne

Hi. Good to have someone else joining in the fun.

There are obviously lands beyond the parameters of the maps we have: a parallel Roman (Ruman - with circumflex) empire is referred to somewhere, and there must be some equivalent for our Holy Land/ middle East for Judaism, Christianity and Islam to exist.

Northern Western Europe seems to be missing as Torenth has something of a Russian or at any rate Slavic feel.

The eleven kingdoms feel to me like the British Isles compressed with flavours of the constituent parts - Llanedd, Wales; Kheldour, Scotland: Meara and Cassan, Ireland, but very much flavours rather than exact equivalents. One of the fun things for me is trying to imagine living in an AU Britain which isn't an island, given how much being an island impacts on so many things. It's only slightly less difficult than imagining a magical race.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
(Psalm 46 v1)

drakensis

I worked out a rough outline of Europe compared to Gwynedd using the maps from the back of the Deryni Codex by setting the Anvil of God (the desert region south of Bremagne and the Forcinn states) as about the level of coastal North Africa and the Eisenmarcke mountains (north-east of Torenth) as roughly corresponding to the Baltic States.

The very different layout of the landmasses does mean a one-to-one match is difficult but it does make it clear that Gwynedd and its western neighbours are pretty much the same size as western Europe. Gwynedd has more in common with a super-sized France or the Angevin Empire than it does with England or even Britain. Torenth is more like Poland-Lithuania at its greatest extent (Baltic to Black Sea).

For scale, the Duchy of Cassan is about the size of Ireland while the Kheldour penninsula (Claibourne and Rhendall) occupies all the space that would be the North Sea in Europe. The region between the Lendours and the border with Torenth is almost as large as Germany (which it largely overlaps). Mooryn (the duchies of Carthmoor and Corwin) is roughly northern Italy while Bremagne as well as the states that broke away from it (Fallon, Jaca, etc) would be a good swathe of the western Mediterranean basin). Byzantun's exactly location is unclear but it's probably somewhere around where Turkey is by comparison.

R'Kassi, as mentioned in the opening post, would occupy a region analogous in location to Naples and Greece, although the geography is immensely different, more like Egypt but in a more northerly location.

With medieval technology it would be hard to run realms this side but both Gwynedd and Torenth are largely built around immense river basins which would ease communications easily. The Eiran and its tributaries are easily as large as the Rhine and we know it's navigable for much of its length. The Beldour River is even larger.

revanne

Quote from: whitelaughter on January 23, 2016, 10:55:31 PM

(presumably overrun by Islam)


KK says somewhere (possibly in the foreward to Deryni tales) that she doesn't make much mention of any Jewish community in her books because Deryni play the part of the feared and demonised "other" played by medieval Jewry IIRC.

There doesn't seem to be any particular hostility between Islam and Christianity either; in Torenth a form of Eastern Christianity and Islam seem to co-exist and, unless I have missed it, it isn't clearly stated where the religious allegiance of a fairly major character, Azim, lies.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
(Psalm 46 v1)

revanne

Quote from: drakensis on January 24, 2016, 03:06:24 AM
Gwynedd has more in common with a super-sized France or the Angevin Empire than it does with England or even Britain.

Although the weather as described is a better fit for Britain :(

Quote from: drakensis on January 24, 2016, 03:06:24 AM

With medieval technology it would be hard to run realms this side but both Gwynedd and Torenth are largely built around immense river basins which would ease communications easily. The Eiran and its tributaries are easily as large as the Rhine and we know it's navigable for much of its length. The Beldour River is even larger.

This would also explain why Deryni were in positions of power as they would not be bound by some at least of these limitations. It is not surprising that the rulers of many of the countries have at least some Deryni potential although it may be down-played as in the case of the Hort of Orsal or repressed entirely as with the Bremagni royal family in Jehana's time. It is hard to see how a country the size of Torenth could be ruled as a coherent unit for so long without Deryni power, and even at the height of the persecutions the rulers of Gwynedd still needed the aid of the Haldane potential.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
(Psalm 46 v1)

Laurna

#6
I am looking at my poster map of the Eleven Kingdoms.
The distance from Rhemuth to Coroth is roughly 300 miles. The distance from Rhemuth to the coast line west, in the Connait, is 200 miles. That is 500 miles from the west coast to the Coamer Mountains that boarder on Torenth. As much as my mind wants to make the Eleven kingdoms equivalent to all of western Europe, it is much smaller than that.

I propose that we cut out bits of Europe and repast them:
     England is the main Duchy of Haldane,
     Welsh is turned sideways and is Howicce and Llannedd.
     Ireland is slammed into the Northwest and becomes the Connait and Meara.
     Cassan, Claibourne are bits of Scotland.
     Cut out parts of Germany and paste it on England's east coast to become The Marches and Lendour.
     The English Chanel becomes the Southern sea. 
     Leave France south of the Southern Sea to become Bremagne.
     Tape parts of Italy and Greece east of that to become Fallon, Andelon and The Forcinn States.
     Move Spain over to become R'Kassi (I see R'Kassi as the early Spanish Moors)
i will leave others to figure out Torenth.
Oh and the Norselands would be Denmark, Sweden and Norway, somehow.

If you look on the last page in the Codex you will see far east and south of R'Kassi are the lands of Rom, Agyptos, Libania, Samisreael and the Holy Lands. Those lands are represented on the map, however, by medieval terms they are beyond general knowledge and only known as stories from distant travelers.
Any fanfic writers care to tell us some traveler's stories.
May your horses have wings and fly!

whitelaughter

Awesome, thanks everybody, much interesting information  8)

Elkhound

There seems nothing quite analogous to the Low Countries (Belgium & the Netherlands.)

drakensis

Quote from: revanne on January 24, 2016, 07:51:03 AMAlthough the weather as described is a better fit for Britain :(
Oh yes. Certainly.

Quote from: Laurna on January 24, 2016, 12:37:04 PM
I am looking at my poster map of the Eleven Kingdoms.
The distance from Rhemuth to Coroth is roughly 300 miles. The distance from Rhemuth to the coast line west, in the Connait, is 200 miles. That is 500 miles from the west coast to the Coamer Mountains that boarder on Torenth. As much as my mind wants to make the Eleven kingdoms equivalent to all of western Europe, it is much smaller than that.
I suppose that the map in the back of the codex may be Eleven Kingdoms-biased with them shown larger because more detail is known and the more distant lands taking up less room on the map because information is sparser. "Scale? What is that and why is it important?"

According to the map, Bremagne is about the size of Llanned and even adding breakaway lands it would only be around Howicce&Llannedd sized. If it's actually larger, say around the size of the Haldane Plain, that could push the Anvil of the Lord (which seems pretty clearly intended as a desert) more realistically south compared to that scale. As it is, Remigny in Bremagne appears to be closer to Rhemuth than Coroth is. If it's more like the distance from London to Madrid (785 miles) that would be a more reasonable scale, making the northern parts of the Anvil around the latitude of southern Spain.

Quote from: Laurna on January 24, 2016, 12:37:04 PMI propose that we cut out bits of Europe and repast them:
     England is the main Duchy of Haldane,
     Welsh is turned sideways and is Howicce and Llannedd.
     Ireland is slammed into the Northwest and becomes the Connait and Meara.
     Cassan, Claibourne are bits of Scotland.
     Cut out parts of Germany and paste it on England's east coast to become The Marches and Lendour.
     The English Chanel becomes the Southern sea. 
     Leave France south of the Southern Sea to become Bremagne.
     Tape parts of Italy and Greece east of that to become Fallon, Andelon and The Forcinn States.
     Move Spain over to become R'Kassi (I see R'Kassi as the early Spanish Moors)
i will leave others to figure out Torenth.
Oh and the Norselands would be Denmark, Sweden and Norway, somehow.
Culturally speaking that sounds about right.

Laurna

I have digital versions of the poster map and the game book map. However, I am not sure I can post them here. I know Evie has them too. So let me ask, would it be copyright infringement to post one?

The biggest clue for scale is when Duncan had raced non stop changing horses multiple times to get from Rhemuth to Coroth in three days.  Travel by horse is normally 20-40miles a day. The Pony Express riders could travel 75 miles a day. If Duncan did not stop to sleep, and the road was clear, he could do 100 miles in 24 hours. Coroth is 300 miles away. He was pushing the envelope, but it was possible.
I  found a interesting blog post on horse travel and distance at, of all places, and cartographers blog post.
http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=19730
May your horses have wings and fly!

Elkhound

Quote from: Laurna on January 26, 2016, 03:29:19 AM
I have digital versions of the poster map and the game book map. However, I am not sure I can post them here. I know Evie has them too. So let me ask, would it be copyright infringement to post one?

The biggest clue for scale is when Duncan had raced non stop changing horses multiple times to get from Rhemuth to Coroth in three days.  Travel by horse is normally 20-40miles a day. The Pony Express riders could travel 75 miles a day. If Duncan did not stop to sleep, and the road was clear, he could do 100 miles in 24 hours. Coroth is 300 miles away. He was pushing the envelope, but it was possible.
I  found a interesting blog post on horse travel and distance at, of all places, and cartographers blog post.
http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=19730

As a Deryni and a healer, could Duncan feed energy to his horse enabling it to run farther/faster than a horse normally could?

Evie

I love the Cartographers Guild website, Laurna! And yes, unfortunately, I suspect posting the maps here would count as copyright infringement, since they come from published materials, not to mention those publications are still in print. (I made my scanned version for ease of checking on travel distances while writing, since I'm not always at home near those resources when I write, but they were scanned from the RPG book and poster that I purchased first, and so I figured that fell under the category of fair use for research purposes.) There is a mileage scale in the lower left corner of the most recent Kingdom maps, but be aware that the size of Gwynedd has expanded from the earliest versions (where it was narrow enough to fit on a single paperback book page) to the current version (which, iirc, is a two-page spread, or at least formatted for a much wider page). Looking through an old copy of SC last week, I was startled to find that the locations for Caerrorie and St Liam's Abbey are reversed on that map from where they appear on my poster map. I suspect some of the inconsistencies can be put down to KK changing her ideas over time, compounded with different mapmakers occasionally getting details wrong. (Plus, of course, we can say those medieval cartographers were more interested in general locations than exact accuracy. ;) ) Alaric's and Duncan's ride to Culdi after the events at St Torin's seem much more plausible on the older, narrower map than on the new one, especially given the mileage scale.
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

Evie

Elkhound asked:
Quote

As a Deryni and a healer, could Duncan feed energy to his horse enabling it to run farther/faster than a horse normally could?

Theoretically, that might be possible, but it sounds awfully energy-consuming to me. I suppose if he was being chased and the safety of the city or castle gate was in sight, it might be worth a shot, but for long distance travel, that sounds like a good way to completely exhaust yourself and possible leave yourself defenseless if you needed to summon up power for some other magical use later.
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

whitelaughter

Quote from: Laurna on January 26, 2016, 03:29:19 AM
So let me ask, would it be copyright infringement to post one?

Wiki only uses public domain stuff, and has a map: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/5d/Eleven.kingdoms.jpeg/320px-Eleven.kingdoms.jpeg

and the distances travelled site is interesting, thanks!