13 September 2026

Zendrolion’s Norwold Ethnographical, 24 miles per hex v1

This map was a work-in-progress step in the development of Simone’s Norwold map. He posted it in response to Mariano “Morgoth” Comense’s marked up version of his version 1.3 political map, during involved discussions in his Norwold demographics thread on the Italian MMB. Simone explained (translation by Google Chrome, with apologies for any errors):

I finally had some time to get my hands on the Norwold map again. What you see below is a POSSIBLE distribution of human, elven, and halfling ethnicities in Norwold (I’ve left out dwarves, humanoids, and other characters for now). I tried to base my analysis on what I’ve said so far, particularly Morgoth’s map and the timeline discussed at the beginning.

He then added some more comments on the labels used on the map:

Barbarians of Neathar lineage : They should descend from the same ancestral stock as the Denagothians and the barbarians of the Wild North, namely the Neathar of Boreas, expelled by King Loark in 1725 BC. Naturally, among them there will be many different tribes, each with its own culture since they are scattered over a vast area (mountain barbarians, hunting barbarians, nomadic barbarians of the plains and steppes, and finally the famous Red Banner Barbarians of Barkal, from CM1 and M2).

Barbarians and natives of Antalian lineage : These are the descendants of the destroyed Antalian people, whose culture went into crisis after the invasion of King Loark (1722-11 BC). Reduced to barbarism, some persisted in that state (inland areas), others, centuries and centuries later, began to re-settle on the coasts, creating the culture of villages, agriculture, and fishing that Morgoth spoke of a few posts ago.

Vantalians : This strain, derived from the Antalians, would be the “Slavicized” one to which the CM4 NPCs belong. They would be a sedentary people, with villages, etc., and therefore less “barbaric” than the rest of Norwold. The area indicated is indicative: there are probably Vantalian cells beyond the mountains, in areas occupied by the Heldannese or the Antalians.

I forgot to mention that all areas of intersection between populations are to be considered blurred, and that in any case there will be scattered patches of one population here and there in the territory occupied by the other.

“Normanni” here likely referred to Northmen, which is to say men of the Northern Reaches — probably mostly Ostlanders.

Simone, Michele Carpita, and other members of the Italian MMB had a very detailed and interesting discussion during the development of his Norwold map, of which this was just an in-progress version. That this occurred as early as April 2006 is also rather interesting, as this was not known outside the Italian community at the time — and Simone would not share his final map until much later in the year. The original discussion is well worth reading.

Fan-made Map by Simone Neri (April 2006)

*Norwold Ethnographical, 24 miles per hex, by Simone Neri, April 2006 (version 1)*

This is an original map created by one of Mystara’s excellent fan cartographers. For more information on the cartographer, including a gallery of all their maps, see also Appendix M: Mappers of Mystara.

Sources

Fan Sources

References

All of Simone’s maps at the Atlas of Mystara
Simone’s entry in Appendix M: Mappers of Mystara (upcoming)
Simone’s author page at the Vaults of Pandius

Chronological Analysis

This is a fan-made map. It was published in April 2006. The updated Atlas version of this map is not yet available. See also Appendix C for annual chronological snapshots of the area. For the full context of this map in Mystara’s publication history, see the upcoming Let’s Map Mystara 2006.

The following lists are from the Let’s Map Mystara project. Additions are new features, introduced in this map. Revisions are changes to previously-introduced features. Hex Art & Fonts track design elements. Finally, Textual Additions are potential features found in the related text. In most cases, the Atlas adopts these textual additions into updated and chronological maps.

Under Construction! Please check back again soon for updates.