[Dragaera] Ardon's Keep

[Bryan Newell]

> >Why can't one sail to the East?
> 
> To be fair, I think that one of the books may have remarked 
> something about how there are paths here and there but the 
> only ways through the mountains that could be considered 
> "roads" go around the northern and southern foothills of the 
> Eastern Mountains. Miklos may have been using one such 
> footpath through the mountains on his way home, though it's 
> been so many years since I lost my copy of _Brokedown Palace_ 
> that I can't really say for sure now.

I do not believe you can go north around the Eastern Mountains w/o a ship.
Steve told me that they extend for a thousand miles to the north of
Deathgate Falls with ocean to their immediate west.

 
> Sailing to the East is problemmatical due to the unusual 
> geography of Dragaera. The Great Sea of Chaos blocks travel 
> to the north,

Actually, Steve told me that "fastest" way to get to Deathgate was by
sailing clockwise around the continent, so I don't think travel to the north
is necessarily blocked (at least as far as Deathgate), but turning north and
sailing another thousand miles might conceivably put ice in your path.


> while the Maelstrom blocks travel to the south. 
> (I had actually thought the Maelstrom was West, but the Lyorn 
> Records entry suggests otherwise.)

I respectfully disagree with the Lyorn Records on this issue.  The Maelstrom
is only mentioned a single time, in Chapter 2 of Phoenix:

"There are stories of whole lands beyond the sea. Or beneath them, some say.
Beyond the Maelstrom, where no ships pass.  Except that, maybe, some do.
The whirlpools aren't constant, you know.  And there is always talk of ways
around them, even though we have charts that show only the Grey Rocks on one
side, and the Spindrift Lands on the other."

No direction is given, but south seems unlikely to me.  I mean, Greenaere,
Elde Island, and Landsight are all south/southwest of the Empire, but the
passage above says there is only the Grey Rocks on one side of the Maelstrom
and the Spindrift Lands on the other.  It seems much more likely to me that
the Maelstrom is to the west of the Empire.

Regardless, the same passage suggests there are ways around the Maelstrom.


> As far as that goes, I'm not entirely certain that Dragaerans 
> realize the world is round. Paarfi probably has something to 
> say on the matter if one digs around in the Khaavren Romances.

There are scattered references to the equator, latitude, and time zones, but
those might be artifacts of Steve's translation.

Bryan