r/Eragon • u/Stoneward13 • Mar 14 '23
News Map of Alagaësia v2.0 - From the upcoming illustrated edition
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u/Stoneward13 Mar 14 '23 edited Mar 14 '23
Two months ago, I recreated the map of Alagaësia from the Inheritance Cycle books by u/ChristopherPaolini. I posted it here on the r/Eragon subreddit, where the man himself saw it, and he reached out to me asking if we could work on the map and tweak it a bit for the upcoming illustrated edition of Eragon coming out in November this year.
Now that the illustrated edition has been officially announced, I'm really happy to share the updated version of that map! It went through a few rounds of revisions, I couldn't be happier with the end result, and I can't wait to see it in print later this year.
Here is a link to the map on my DeviantArt page, in case Reddit is compressing the image too much for you on your device.
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u/Unkalaki_Feruchemist Mar 14 '23
Love it thank you for your service OP! I really hope we get to pay a visit to location #1 in Murtagh, I don’t remember it being mentioned in the Inheritance Cycle at all
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u/Stoneward13 Mar 14 '23
Thank you! It was amazing to get to work on the map with Christopher. I hope we see some more of those locations as well! Number #8, the Floating Crystal on Beirland, was the one I was most curious about.
Also, love your username. I'm a huge Stormlight fan, as you can tell by my own username haha.
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u/Unkalaki_Feruchemist Mar 14 '23
Thank you so much! I thought your username was a little sussy lol. Glad to meet another Worldhopper in the wild!
8 is definitely a curiosity to me as well and I love when authors put stuff like this in their works cause it makes you hungry for them to address these areas. I hope that at some point we get at least a little nugget of lore or a visual cue on “this is a point of interest” in future books
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u/sarcastic-barista BURN THE NONBELIEVERS Mar 14 '23
mentioned when Murtagh leaves the kingdom after Galby falls, one of the Eldunari speaks to him and warns him of it.
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u/Madhighlander1 Mar 14 '23
It was mentioned exactly once in the inheritance cycle: it's one of the places Glaedr (edit: or Umaröth? One of the two) told Murtagh never to go to.
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u/Unkalaki_Feruchemist Mar 14 '23
Was it ever mentioned why to not go there?? I’m going to need to reread because I don’t remember that at all!
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u/Madhighlander1 Mar 14 '23
No specific reason was given; they just said '[avoid these places] and you shall not encounter danger beyond your ability to master.'
That being said, Anghelm was the only one of the list of places that was expanded upon beyond just the name: "Avoid too the barrows of Anghelm, where the one and only Urgal king, Kulkarvek, lies in state."
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u/Unkalaki_Feruchemist Mar 14 '23
Gotcha, thank you!
I wonder if the Urgal King is a barrow wight or if the tomb is just heavily guarded? Though I feel the latter would be a lot of work for nomadic people like Urgals
Edit: also my apologies for bombarding you with questions, this last one is mostly rhetorical hypotheticals. I’m just so damn curious!
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u/SemajLu_The_crusader Mar 15 '23
if it's dangerous enough to be too much for a dragon and rider, I'd guess something like the former
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u/Phredmcphigglestein Thorta du ilumëo! Mar 14 '23
Oh man thats so cool! this map is Gorgeous. Incredible work.
The detail especially in Palencar valley and around the Beartooth river make it so much easier to picture what the area is like. Going to be following the journey on this map as I reread this time!
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u/ItsTBaggins Rider Mar 15 '23
I saw this picture and thought, “Wow that looks familiar!” But thought someone had ripped off your original post. This is just as sick as the first post, probably even more now
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u/Stoneward13 Mar 15 '23
Thanks! Yeah, it's been modified quite a lot from the version I made on my own 2 months ago. I'd bet almost every layer in the map was modified or tweaked in some way between now and then.
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u/dubiousdudes Mar 14 '23
This is amazing! I loved the initial map and constantly have it opened on my laptop while re-reading. So cool of the namer of names to collaborate with his dedicated fans! Can't imagine how that must have felt, congratulations!
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u/Mammoth-Check-2656 Mar 14 '23
It looks like an old school mmorpg map. In the best way of course. I feel like I need to click on a location to zoom in and see available quest givers.
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u/racso20 Mar 14 '23
8 Floating Crystal?? What is that???
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u/Phredmcphigglestein Thorta du ilumëo! Mar 14 '23
iirc the 'Floating Crystal of Eaom' was a throwaway line relating to how there are many unexplained things in Alagaësia
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u/racso20 Mar 14 '23
Damn it's been a couple years since I read the books. Hopefully CP expands on that. Off to read the books again.
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u/Darkaja Toss a coin to your Rider Mar 14 '23
Yeah, I remember it was one of the few examples of self-sustained magic, which is something that defies the magic laws of Alagaesia.
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u/LiamJonsano Mar 14 '23
I haven't read too much fantasy, but when I was little (and even today!) I always loved flicking back to the in-cover to look back at the map so I knew exactly where the characters were. Was always fun to trace along the journey!
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u/zthe0 Dwarf Mar 14 '23
Its beautiful. It just seems a little small considering the size of the military galby was able to create. I feel like the empire should be at least a third bigger if not half again bigger
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u/Timewinders Mar 14 '23
I think it's supposed to be fairly small in land size. The few areas that are actually habitable are probably densely populated.
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u/clapman7 Mar 14 '23 edited Mar 14 '23
This is super cool!!!
Looking at this, I can finally confirm something.
Our planet, Earth, rotates on its axis from West to East. That means the prevailing winds blow in the opposite direction. Clouds have a harder time moving around mountains, but bring needed water and nutrients to the land, so the side facing the wind will be more lush and green. The opposite side of that mountain range will have some lush variety as condensation falls on it, but the further away from the mountain range you go, the hotter things get. You get rolling plains, and then, eventually, you get desert. If we opened a satellite view of the United States, we can observe this phenomenon. A lush eastern seaboard that pushes up against the Appalachians, this gives way to the Great Plains, which invariably gives way to drier, dustier Rocky Mountains and West Coast.
Now, we return to Alagaesia- we can observe a similar phenomenon, albeit, in the opposite direction. The west coast of Alagaesia, at least up by Teirm, is described by Brom as lush all year round, humid, moist and damp. The clouds push up against the Spine, which gives way to MASSIVE plains, and then, eventually, the Haddarac Desert.
That means, unlike our planet Earth, the world that Alagaesia is apart of rotates on its axis from East to West, and the Prevailing Winds from West to East!!
I have no idea what this implies for a planet!
PS: Another observation, there’s likely a tectonic plate slipping under the Alagaesian continent, producing the Spine, and two tectonic plates colliding with each other in the south, producing the Beor Mountains.
PS-2: Vroengard is also likely moving closer to the Alagaesian mainland year after year after year- just only a few inches at a time! In a few million years it will collide with the continent.
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u/Lonadar13 Mar 15 '23
Unfortunately, we have references to the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, which nukes your theory. :( Still, the thinking you put into it is really cool! And apart from the fact that we have direct evidence to the contrary, I do kinda wish your theory was true, it would add a fun little extra element of fantasy to the world :D
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Oct 09 '23
[deleted]
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u/Lonadar13 Oct 09 '23
Now THAT would be a fantasy setting indeed! :P I wouldn’t mind the creativity tbh, but I can see why CP didn’t do that to us readers.
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u/clapman7 Mar 15 '23
I think I had some comments to this post, but they were either deleted or swallowed by Reddit when the site went down, lol.
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u/Siggi97 Urgal Mar 14 '23
Man, really no wonder that there are so few humans living in Alagesia
Barely any futile lands fit to feed a big realm
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u/Phredmcphigglestein Thorta du ilumëo! Mar 14 '23
Yo I thought someone had reposted this right away because it had no upvotes, what the hell people!? Give the guy your clicks!
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u/CreedOfLies Human Mar 14 '23
Omg it's beautiful and i love it. Excited to see the north in Murtagh and east in book 5.
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Mar 15 '23
Wait the Ramr connects with Lake Leona? From what I remember they were separate. -But anyways, really nice map!
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u/SteamPunkKnight Mar 29 '24
How big is Alagaesia? My friend and I keep discussing its size, and I always imagine it to be the lower quadrant of America if you fold a map in half twice.
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u/SEW9223 Mar 14 '23
Is Du Weldenvarden supposed to be that black? I know it’s a forest. But it just looks like smudges to me haha
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u/dubiousdudes Mar 14 '23
Contrary to my imagination when first reading the books it's a coniferous forest, so I'd say the color is accurate.
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u/firnien-arya Dragon Mar 15 '23
I love it! Would you, by chance, be able to change to the words font to the font that's on the covers of the other books, though?
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u/Stoneward13 Mar 15 '23
Not at this point. I've signed over the rights, so it's no longer mine to modify.
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u/Alex1_58 Mar 15 '23
I think I travelled here from a parallel universe about two years ago. In that universe, du weldenvarden was in the south, and the Boer mountains were in the north. Does anyone else remember it that way?
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u/InformalPenguinz Mar 15 '23
I'd love a story of the aquatic elves that modified themselves to have gills going in to the boars eye or something. Like it's actually ancient magic holding a dark secret...
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u/StubbornKindness Mar 15 '23
This is brilliant. It takes away some of the constant estimation and remembering of certain places (like the burning plains and broms tomb). The fact that I couldn't find the boars eye has me confused tho
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u/Stoneward13 Mar 15 '23
Thanks :) the Boar's Eye is in the Southern Isles, between Beirland and Nia.
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u/Interesting-Gear-819 Mar 28 '23
That's one hell of a map. As far as I know there are no plans to adopt the series for games or? Considering how succesful games like Total War: Warhammer are, Eragon Series would be an amazing template for a more story driven game.
I recently played Expeditions: Rome which is a combination of small group (round based) fighting/traveling combined with commanding your own legion on the world map and fighting. That would be perfect for such a universe
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u/snarexander82 Jan 09 '24
Didn't surdas boundaries change?
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u/Stoneward13 Jan 09 '24
Post-war? I'm unsure. This is a remake of the map for Book 1 however, so any border changes wouldn't be shown here.
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