How big is faerun?

[keeper2161]

How big is faerun? A friend and I got into a debate about how big a campaign world should be. I said that the sword cost (where a lot of stories and books are based in) would probably only take about 2 2 1/2 weeks, maybe a month to cross the whole of the sword coast. He likes to have major cities that takes months to travel in between. Like balduers gate dark alliance it would not take that long to walk to each chapter only a few weeks. But I don't actually know how big faerun is. What I base my estimates on are different games, mainly NWN2. So does anyone know how big faerun is and how long it would take to cross the whole thing? I am wrong in my estimates or just a little off.

EDIT: Based on a human can walk 20 miles a day.

[Extra Anchovies]

Well, the map in my digital copy of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting has a map that scales to about 3750 by 2500 miles, but it doesn't encompass all of the land (at least, not as far as I know). I haven't actually gotten around to reading the book, though, so that's all I can tell you for now.

[Alleran]

This map (http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120201174035/forgottenrealms/images/1/10/Map_-_Faerun_-_3E.jpg) includes a scale. It's not the entire planet, since there's Zakhara to the south, Kara-Tur to the east, and so on. Remember that "Faerun" is just one part of Abeir-Toril.

[Bullet06320]

December 31, 2004: Hello, all. Hereafter

Like our real Earth, Toril is an oblate spheroid rotating in the same direction as Earth does, around a tilted axis (as Earth has). Its distance from its sun is unknown, being roughly equivalent to that of real-world Earth (but affording some "wiggle room" to adjust climate and to a small extent gravity). It's clear that the Heartlands of Faerun are SLIGHTLY warmer (higher temperature, longer growing season) than real-world Earth regions of the same latitude, but get a trifle colder in winter than real-world locales of the same latitude. In effect, discounting altitude- and wind-current-related factors, this is roughly equivalent to winter temperatures on Toril being about 5 degrees of latitude cooler than on Earth. In other words, Waterdeep at a little north of the 45th parallel on Toril averages the same winter-cold as does a Manitoba, Canada timberlands locale a little north of the real-world Earth's 50th parallel (though like any large city burning wood and peat and dung for warmth and cooking and industry, crowding people and livestock together, casting minor warming magics, and taking up slightly-warmer-than-winter air from Skullport and the Underdark depths, actual Waterdhavian street temperatures, when one escapes wind chill, can well be higher).

The D&D rules postulate an environment as least as rich in heavy metals as our real world, so Toril must be as dense as our real world. It's clear from any close examination of my original maps, the Fonstad FR Atlas, and the ProFantasy Interactive Atlas, that Toril is larger than Earth. TSR designers over the years have estimated anything from ten to fifteen percent larger, and I corrected some of them (discovering along the way that map projections seemed to be a subject neglected in the early grades of some American schools) to show that they were correct in seeing about a five percent 'window' in size, but that the bottom figure couldn't be less than 12 percent. We settled on official agreement at twelve percent at a design meeting at the TSR offices after I pointed out that a larger Toril, given similar densities, has increased surface gravity and therefore the "Barsoom factor" (Hey, I'm a strongman! Watch me bend iron bars with my little fingers!) comes into play. That was something we largely wanted to avoid, as it affects not just musculature and body strength, but trajectories and therefore weaponry and spell effects and yadda yadda. :} So 12 it is.


So saith Ed.

I kept the relevant parts of the post, but here's a link to the full post over at candlekeep

http://candlekeep.com/library/articles/sse/sse_1112-04.htm

[Sian]

also note that it would appear artificially bigger as outside the traderoads your average speed would drop a good bit, dependent on the local enviorment. So figuring out the speed from A to B is not as simple as messuring as the crow flies.

But really, such an FR specific question really is better off on Candlekeep where they have access to most if not all of the designers

[Bullet06320]

But really, such an FR specific question really is better off on Candlekeep where they have access to most if not all of the designers

Agreed, Candlekeep is really the best place for FR

There's also dragon article I'm looking for, that explains how they had to rescale the map to fit the page. the Hordelands and Kara Tur is really twice the distance than what is printed on the map

[Spiryt]

According to that most popular map, there's around 4500 kilometers from Baldurs Gate to the very east edge of the map.

Way more than from Lisbon to Moscow.

So continent seems to be at least a bit bigger than Europe, though seems to have bigger amount of inside nautical areas.

[magwaaf]

toril is supposed to be 5 times the size of earth

[Sian]

toril is supposed to be 5 times the size of earth

Given that that disargees with the explicit quote from Ed Greenwood (The setting Creator) that Bullet posted, i'd like to see some qutation on that hyperbole.

[Bullet06320]

toril is supposed to be 5 times the size of earth
cite your source please

Everything I've ever seen or read, says Toril is slightly larger than earth
I own almost everything ever published for the realms, and have been exploring them in the novels, games and my own imagination for over 25 years, and there are corners that haven't been detailed in source books or stories, and gaps left in the map. Faerun, Zakahara, Kara-Tur, Maztica barely make up half the globe. yes there is some discontinuity in the maps between the editions, some by design, some by lack of time to get it all published, but the short answer to the OP, is its huge

[Belial_the_Leveler]

1) If Toril is 12% larger than Earth (the lower figure), its surface is 25% larger.

2) If Toril is 17% larger than Earth (the higher figure), its surface is 37% larger.

3) Toril has higher climate variation. This could be because of lower oceanic coverage. We don't actually know how much of it is water - it could well be 60% instead of 70%.



With the higher figure for size and the low figure for oceanic coverage, Toril could have easily twice the land surface area as Earth. That isn't five times but it still is a major difference.

[Phelix-Mu]

So, I am going to come at this the opposite way, as an analytical approach seems well-covered.

If people are walking several weeks to get from city to city, that is probably okay. But, if it's literally months, traders in transit miss entire seasons of produce, perishable goods can't make it out of the local market (even moreso than is established in the faux-medieval setting), and it becomes increasingly perilous to travel (as that is quite a few chances for random encounters, let alone planned ambushes). This creates more of a Silk Road feel of huge expeditions rather than smaller caravans, which isn't much supported by much of the flavor of the various regions.

Furthermore, if there is such a distance, it seems unlikely that new cities wouldn't crop up at one of the towns situated to refuel/refresh the supplies of the travelers. Eventually, density of population would even out a bit, concentrated around trade routes in such a way as to ensure that normal people wouldn't be risking their lives every time they left to visit the city (keep in mind this is normal people, whose lives are both more boring, but also more precarious, than the average adventurer).

If there is a particular stretch of wilderness to cross, however, like the Jungles of Chult or something where habitation is sparse, then the above logic isn't particularly accurate.

[DeltaEmil]

Toril, or at least the continent of Faerûn is rich in portals and other magical gate stuff that shortens travel, and there are enough flying ships and teleporting wizards and other monsters that it's only the very poor who must travel in a caravan and walk the entire distance.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Toril, or at least the continent of Faerûn is rich in portals and other magical gate stuff that shortens travel, and there are enough flying ships and teleporting wizards and other monsters that it's only the very poor who must travel in a caravan and walk the entire distance.

From a PC or adventurer's perspective maybe. There's still plenty of low level NPCs who can't afford to buy a teleport if they saved up for a year and magical portals usually lead to places you don't want to go, are keyed or aren't generally accessible to the public.
Flying ships are actually pretty much exclusive to Halruaa by the fluff and monsters don't exactly wait for opportunities to ferry people around. FR is not a Tippyverse.

[Sian]

Toril, or at least the continent of Faerûn is rich in portals and other magical gate stuff that shortens travel, and there are enough flying ships and teleporting wizards and other monsters that it's only the very poor who must travel in a caravan and walk the entire distance.

For flying ships, outside of Haluraa, highly unlikely, even even more expensive to use (a Halruaan flying ship costs 400.000gp, and is IIRC the most costly magical item in any 1st party book)

While it is a fairly magical setting theres nowhere enough Wizards to even consider having enough so they want to run taxi service as a way of living ... and Magic aren't all that good at bulk cargo which is what most often is on caravans, and certainly not prize efficient when it comes to goods that doesn't need to be sent large distances ASAP (regular teleport costs at least 450gp with chance for error and all, Greater Teleport costs 910gp).

While Faerûn is relatively rich in Portals, they're also for the most part hidden, forgotten or unknown beyond a very small number of people.

[Alleran]

If there is a particular stretch of wilderness to cross...
That's actually kind of what lots of it is. Well, the North, anyway (places like Cormyr are definitely a different story). Outside the big cities and some of the larger towns, up north is mostly wilderness, because the cities themselves don't have the manpower to patrol the region.

I went and pulled together numbers from Silver Marches a while back (see the spoiler).

Silverymoon:

- 705 Knights in Silver. Varying levels, from Cleric 13/Fighter 12 on down to Warrior 1. About half are between levels 1-3, the rest are higher.
- 90 High Guard. None are below 6th level. Most are between levels 7-9.
- 32 Spellguard. None are below 5th level, most are around levels 8-10.
- The Argent Legion (numbers aren't given for how much of it is in Silverymoon).
- Alustriel (24th level) and Taern Hornblade (18th level wizard).

Sundabar:

- 1436 Shieldsar. A couple hundred of them are at or above 4th level.
- 83 Stone Shields.
- 39 Watchful.
- 206 Argent Legion members.

Citadel Felbarr:

- 783 Citadel Guard.
- 211 from a company of the Argent Legion.
- Various others (barbarians, clerics, druids, fighters, monks, rangers, etc.) ranging from levels 1-13. I didn't bother counting them.

Citadel Adbar:

- 2460 Iron Guard.
- 20 Deepscouts.
- 27 Hammers of Moradin.

Everlund:

- 1354 in the Army of the Vale.
- 187 in the City Watch.

Mithral Hall:

- 560 in the Host of the Hall.
- 21 in the Royal Guard.
- Various others that I didn't bother counting, since they're not directly military (although there are almost four thousand commoners that could be drafted if necessary - most would be dwarves).

Now, these cities are all joined together in the confederation that is the Silver Marches. From the way Sundabar, Citadel Felbarr, Mithral Hall and Citadel Adbar are strong Dwarven holds, and Silverymoon has a mythal to retreat behind, I would suspect that their weathering of invasion hordes and the general problems of the wilderness is mostly derived from an ability to retreat and fight from a fortified position. Especially for Mithral Hall, which was extraordinarily hard to besiege if I remember the Hunters Blades and Legacy series correctly.
So outside the cities and their immediate areas, traders and adventurers will, functionally, have a lawless wilderness to contend with. Hordes just roll on through, and as long as they're outside the influence zone in which the cities could actually strike at them, not much happens.

This would also explain partly how Obould was able to establish his own kingdom - he's occupying the wilderness, not actually striking into the heart of any of the city-controlled areas.

(Side note: Waterdeep is far, far tougher than any of the spoilered cities. Highly likely to be tougher than all of them put together, in fact. That said, Waterdeep seems to have more to do with seagoing trade than it does over land, even though it does quite a bit of that too, and has its own portals that can be used to travel around. It's certainly a trade hub, for both legal and illegal trade.)

EDIT: Thinking about it, adventurers (low-ish level ones) can probably make money (and get out and explore) by volunteering to act as caravan guards for traders attempting to make their way from city to city in the North, at a guess. Other wilderness areas, too (Chult, etc.).


While Faerûn is relatively rich in Portals, they're also for the most part hidden, forgotten or unknown beyond a very small number of people.
IIRC, one of the subplots in the Knights of Myth Drannor novel series is about several Cormyrean nobles who've gotten into the merchant trade by using several portals to rapidly move goods across the continent. There's a thing called "portal drink" that hits anything traveling through a portal, however, so whenever you step through one, there's a chance that some of the items you're carrying could disappear on you. So if you sent a dozen wagons through, only nine or ten of them might actually arrive at the destination.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by keeper2161
So does anyone know how big faerun is and how long it would take to cross the whole thing?

Apart from what's been mentioned already, you should chase down a copy of The Forgotten Realms Atlas by Karen Wynn Fonstad, which Ed Greenwood referred to as "the Fonstad FR Atlas." It's beautifully hand-drawn and an excellent overview of the world's geography.

In the Introduction, Fonstad writes that "The known Realms occupied a single land mass, sixty-five hundred miles north to south and eighty-five hundred miles east to west, totaling 28.5 million square miles." The Western Realms, or Faerûn proper, is a subregion of this continent. I would rely on her maps as the baseline standard, since there are some pretty glaring discrepancies among the later 3.0 and 3.5 sourcebooks.

Fonstad also notes the discrepancies between the different sources she relied on (meaning novels, game materials and Ed Greenwood's profusion of personal maps) and the difficulties in reconciling travel times with regional geography. She also did the lovely Atlas of Middle-Earth, and I have the sense that she found Tolkien's meticulous notes much easier to work through and render into drawings.


Originally Posted by DeltaEmil
…it's only the very poor who must travel in a caravan and walk the entire distance.

Which is still most of the population, as Sian and sleepyphoenixx noted. This ain't Eberron; there's no easy long-distance travel.


Originally Posted by Alleran
I went and pulled together numbers from Silver Marches a while back….

This is a nice compilation. Sure wish I'd had this handy when we were doing our Silver Marches campaign….