The Fantasy Miniatures Game...
www.theoldworld.com
GW at long last has released a detailed version of the Old World map. There's already a dozen retcons in the making! I am proud of their stunning efficiency.
Impressions, in no particular order.
It looks like they've gone with a complete reimagining of the Time of Three Emperors. In original canon it was split into two rough time periods: first it was the Ottilian Emperors in Talabecland, the Wolf Emperors in Middenland, and the Elected Emperors from everywhere else, and then the Ottilian Emperors still, the Marienburger Emperors, and the Reiklander Emperors. This seems to have mashed both periods together and cut out the regular redrawing of the maps that made the period so chaotic by splitting it into four 'great provinces'. The Wolf Emperors have Middenland, Ostland, Hochland and the eastern half of Nordland. the Marienburger Emperors have Marienburg, half of Drakwald, and the Laurelorn half of Nordland, which seems like a pretty unenviable position. The Ottilian Emperors - if they still originated with Ottilia - have, uh, just Talabecland, and it's described as the largest despite being visibly smaller than mega-Middenland. Then you've got the Reiklander Emperor, who just has Reikland and a chunk of northern Wissenland. Then the southern half of the Empire belongs to none of these states - are they neutral or do their loyalties shift around?
Stirland is... odd. What year does this take place in again? I suppose it makes sense if this is post-1st Vampire War but pre-3rd, but it's an odd choice to formalize their partial control of it by drawing a line right along the middle of Sylvania. Mootland's borders has always been an ambiguity, with some maps showing it hemmed in by southern Stirland and others having it extend all the way to the mountains. But in this they seem to have just conflated both versions together again, giving Mootland the ambiguous territory but having the formerly explicitly Stirlandian town of Sigmaringen within it.
Karak Angazhar has has been formally promoted to Major Young Hold, I see. It used to be a minor Hold to Karak Hirn's major one, but it grew in prominence from things like adventures set in Averland. What's odd is that Karak Azgaraz didn't get the same promotion, despite being the Reikland equivalent and getting a lot more attention. IIRC Azgaraz mostly rose to prominence in 4e, maybe the Old World team is sticking with older stuff?
Karak Vlag is in ruins, as other people have pointed out, but it's also been relocated from High Pass to... swamps on the western end of Zorn Uzkul? That's a bloody strange place for a Karak unless you're trying to do a Monty Python shoutout. Then again, it might be tied in to the Kislev lore changes that has them colonizing the northern portions of the Dark Lands. That would solve an old oddity about how Kislev is characterized by neighbouring the horse nomads of the Great Steppes but there's actually a considerable distance between the two - I don't think it ever came up but my handwave is that they cross over the Frozen Sea and through the Goromadny. Or it
would solve it if they hadn't apparently wiped out the Kurgan lands entirely and moved the Hobgoblin Khanates west.
There's a lot more forest in Kislev than I remember. It looks like the Dukhlys Forest - wait, it's Dukhly's Forest now? - takes up a good third of Kislev. Kislev also has a big chunk of what we'd think of as Ostland, I wonder if this is a retcon or if this takes place in the era before relations were normalized between Kislev and the Empire(s) and the border was properly established where it is now.
Uzkulak, the Place of the Skull, is no longer on the Skull Road. Okay. I suppose Kislev might have rerouted the path? And it looks like Kislev has a fort on the gulf that gives Uzkulak access to the Frozen Sea, so I don't know what the point of Uzkulak is any more.
I see there's an 'Ancient Chaos Temple' called Chamon Dharek where Castle Alexandronov is in older lore and in Total Warhammer. That's a strange departure. Are they ignoring that lore, or are they implying that Castle Alexandronov (whose date of founding is ambiguous) was built in later years on top of its ruins?
This is before the Great War Against Chaos, so the Norse Dwarves are still around. There's a lot of unlabelled and unexplained Dwarf heads throughout the Goromadny, which suggests a presence much closer to Kislev than in earlier canon. I wonder if they're still out of contact, or if they're going to be reconnected to the wider world in this version of canon.
Interesting to see they've mapped inner Norsca instead of just leaving it a vague 'here be vikings' blob. A good amount of forests instead of it being wall to wall mountains, which is good for explaining how there's any sort of significant population coming out of it, but I'd have given it more and longer fjords and rivers. As it is, half of Norsca wouldn't have any reason to even know what a boat is.
Karak Varn is not only back, it's relocated to right next to the Border Princes. The whole point of it was to mine the deposits under the Black Water, that's what made it the brother Karak to Zhufbar.
Lol at the Border Princes getting more lore than Tilea and Estalia combined. The whole concept is a place where micronations rise and fall in the space of an afternoon.
Karak Eight Peaks is back, but Karak Izril isn't. Wouldn't have guessed that.
I don't know how much to read into Athel Loren and Laurelorn having the exact same escutcheon, but it worries me.
I am interested to see that Khemri has been split into explicitly demarcated kingdoms. Their modern politics has always been underexplored and underutilized.
Lol at the complete lack of even an attempt to make the geography of Mondidier Pass make sense. Interesting that this map would seem to suggest that Bretonnia controls the entire Grey Mountains north of Axe Bite Pass, that area's just been sort of handwaved.
Overall, a lot of opportunities to make interesting decisions squandered in favour of making a lot of really weird major retcons that solve only some of the lingering ambiguities and make others even worse.
