29 September 2026

Zendrolion’s Brun and Alphatia Climate

This map had me puzzled for a long time. Bruce Heard used it as a base for his excellent climate map in 2013, with the Italian climate band labels edited out. The map was clearly Michele Carpita’s wonderful enhanced Brun and Alphatia map, but with its straight line for polar ice packs it wasn’t based on any version I knew of. Moreover, Michele himself said plainly that it wasn’t his own work. So whose work was it?

The answer lay hidden in lost Italian MMB discussions, parts of which I was able to retrieve this summer from the Wayback Machine. It turns out that this was indeed an edit of Michele’s map, and indeed likely an edit of the original version of the map. The mapper was none other than Simone Neri, who added the climate bands and labels. He explained in the thread, 40% Map of Mystara (translations from Italian via Google Translate, with apologies for any errors):

I tried to plot some general climate lines on Zompa’s excellent map.

As you can see, the southern Known World straddles the temperate and subtropical zones—at a latitude comparable to Cairo, for example. While this fits some descriptions (the Ierendi Islands have forests more similar to jungles, the Tiger Clan living in humid jungles, etc.), it clashes with other material (Glantri barely reaches 20°C in summer, Thyatis and Karameikos are temperate regions with average latitudes of 35°-45°N, the Northern Reaches should be at least bordering the subarctic zone, and the same goes for the Heldannic Territories and lower Norwold, not to mention Wendar and Denagoth).

Mystery solved!

Simone brought up some very interesting points on climate in his comments, and the discussion in the thread continued on that theme afterwards. The apparent coolness of the Known World despite relatively southerly latitudes is something that is often brought up in the community. Thus far there hasn’t really been a conclusive solution.

Fan-made Map by Simone Neri (May 2006)

*Brun and Alphatia Climate by Simone Neri, May 2006*

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

LoZompatore’s Brun and Alphatia Old (May 2006)

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 May 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.