Is Innistrad continent large enough to sustain this kind of civilization?(MTG lore)

[Pinjata]

Hey guys,

I'm setting up a campaign in Innistrad and the other day I was looking at map (http://i.imgur.com/0WAEvWv.jpg). Thing is, according to my Innistrad lore, there are no other continents in this setting. Isnt this continent kind of small to sustain such a population and cities? Sure, its magic and all but I was really wondering - is Innistrad, in terms of size, poorly shaped? It is also true, this map is fanmade. There is no official Innistrad map online, but hen again, official lore - to my knowledge - never mentioned any other sites.

thanks

[Slipperychicken]

I'm wondering what the scale is for this map. Did we ever get numbers for things like travel time between major settlements?

[Cynthaer]

So, with the recent exception of Ixalan, M:tG planes intentionally have incredibly vague geographies. It makes sense, really—having a concrete layout of the plane adds little to the story and nothing to the game itself, and the lore discussions would 100% turn into a swamp of people snarking about how the distances in [insert plane here] make no sense with [insert plot point here].

(The secret is that most planes have impossible geographies if you actually map them out from the stories, but for the types of stories they're telling it doesn't actually matter.)

For your own campaign in the setting, you have a few options for handling the map.

1) Ignore it entirely.

Not every campaign needs a map. The actual M:tG Innistrad stories do just fine with defining the handful of specific, important locations, and then establishing or handwaving their relative locations when it's relevant to the story.

It may be enough for you to establish that Thraben is as far as possible from everything else, Kessig is a big forested region full of werewolves, and you can follow the Silburlind River to get to Havengul, without getting deep into the details.

2) Use the map you've got and don't worry about it.

Honestly, I'd be surprised if your players looked at that map and immediately asked how an isolated continent of that size had the population and resources to develop 1600s Prussian architecture. Unless you do something that blatantly contradicts setting expectations, nobody's going to ask about economics.

3) Abstract the map a bit.

If you're very concerned about the details not working as-is, use a fuzzier map that's explicitly imprecise. Subway and bus route maps are useless for depicting distance, but they show how things are connected. Depict all of the important places with no sense of scale. The path from Estwald to Markov Manor looks like this:

Markov Manor --- Kruin Pass --- Estwald

Or if you really like this particular map, just use it and say the distances are all guesswork, because they are. It's a fan-made map!

4) Make your players build the map.

If they want a map so bad, they can make a map as they go. Granted, this might get annoying if there are a bunch of locations their characters should already know about, but other than that it can be satisfying to create your own record of the world as you explore it.



Personally, I'd probably use approach 4, with the fan-made map as a personal reference. The players probably don't need a complete world map for a normal, non-sandbox game in a horror setting, but it's nice to have a concrete source as the DM to make sure descriptions are consistent from day to day.

[gkathellar]

The map has no scale. Why do you think it's small? Certainly things about the graphical layout make it look small (I'm looking at you, background grid), but there doesn't seem to be any clear indicator of size.

[Mechalich]

The map has no scale. Why do you think it's small? Certainly things about the graphical layout make it look small (I'm looking at you, background grid), but there doesn't seem to be any clear indicator of size.

There are three lakes shown on that map. Unless those happen to be extremely large Great Lakes style features, which does not appear to be the case, then there's an upper limit on how big the overall map would be. This would seem to match up to a region about the size of Eastern Europe - this makes a certain thematic sense - which is not an especially large region. However, that's still plenty big to sustain both a fairly large civilization and major wilderness regions just like the actuality of Eastern Europe does. It doesn't make sense as a planet but the planes of MtG don't have to deal with that particular constraint.

[Armored Walrus]

As a player of a game set in Innistrad I can verify I never had any of those questions until OP raised them.

[ngilop]

first: its a fan made map so take it for what you will

second: tome I feel it is about the size of Australia, so about 3 million square miles, so if we take Australia's population density that still 25 million people. Since this is supposed to be a 'gothic horror' magic set I would feel it is more accurate to go with central European population densities during the gothic period that is closer to about 38 million people. (of course that is considering the black plague, so population density and therefore the total population) might be a bit higher

third: Magic

fourth: What is the stated population of Innistrad, since you seem to doubt the veracity of being able to sustain the population.

[Slipperychicken]

As a player of a game set in Innistrad I can verify I never had any of those questions until OP raised them.

Seconding this. I never really thought about detailed geography and demographics of Innistrad, despite playing games set there for about two years.

[ka_bna]

As for mtg, good luck mapping Zendikar:p

Disclaimer: I started playing mtg around Ktk.

As I understand, Innistrad is home of a lot of conflict. A lot of Mtg involves conflict. What strikes me most of the lore, and in this case the Innistrad-map, is the lack of agriculture and industry. Villages will be self-sufficient, and export food to the big cities. But is it enough? All those weapons and armor - have you ever seen an iron mine on Innistrad?

After the conflict of Shadows over Innistrad, the whole world is shaken. Unless everyone starts farming soon, there will be famine all over the continent.

My options:
1. Swap the cities, so you have untouched agriculture. For example, put Thraben in the center of the map, and put farms on the north side of it. Conflict touches Thraben, but agriculture carries on.
2. Create another continent which exports food and materials to this continent. Does not solve worldwide problems.
3. Magic. Crops grow fast and abundant by magic. This is the best option if you base your campaign on the map.
4. Scale it down. I felt Hanweir was a settlement with about 1000 people. I also found a discussion: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-storyline/722985-human-population-of-innistrad
So if all cities are small, they will grow their own crops and have their own small industry.
5. Scale it up, as others have mentioned. But you'll need to invent and place more settlements.