Records: Arcane Cartography

## **The Maps of the Royal Academy**

The Royal Academy had leapfrogged mundane (non-magical) cartographic and survey science and technology. With magic, through England and Aquitaine, they'd mastered the technique of creating inch-accurate, terrain-inclusive topographic maps.

The proviso: the territory was limited to line-of-sight recording with magical lenses.

With techniques mastered at home but applied everywhere, the RANP compiled accurate coastal positions and scale maps of continental Europe, up and down waterways and along major roads and trails. The RANP's collection went as far as Newfoundland to the west and Arkhangelsk to the east (at the time, the eastern reach was limited only by the ice). They had the entire Mediterranean coastline, north and south, and what were effectively annotated aerial photographs of every city populated over an estimated 10,000.

The "new world" to the west was ultra-secret at that point; somewhat known in Scandinavia where it was otherwise so remote that it was very effective security by obscurity.

These maps were the new, ultra-valuable strategic gold standard.

### **Charting a Course**

The RANP revealed the continental European map. The release version was limited in detail and scale, but was still *centuries* ahead of what had been considered the state of the art. Slightly improved maps were sold to individual crowns through the area, which was a strategic boon.
Every court figured out the subtext of warning on their own: *the RANP knew their backyard better than they did*.

The mapping value was especially true for challenging locations, like Iceland and Greenland, where the seas were cold enough that travel there was limited to a few months a year (at least for the Scandinavian cogs). For the massive English galleons like the *HMS Discovery*, there seemed no place they couldn't go (and go confidently).

## **The Top of the New World**

That navigational prowess was the point of negotiation as the English RANP confirmed that neither Denmark nor Norway held any territorial claims west of distant and brutally remote Greenland. These secret talks went back as far as little-known legends of Erik the Red and the native Skraelings.

The Norse exploration of the new world was mostly limited to collecting timber, with very few attempts at settlements. The furthest south on the mainland was by the northern tip of what an alternate timeline might've known as Newfoundland. The English had been there, been home again, and they were going back.

Also, the Scandinavians *probably wouldn't want to go back*...

By the time the RANP found the southern-most Norse settlement, it had already been abandoned for roughly 30 years. Likely from the harsh winters and challenging travel caused by the Little Ice Age, the RANP had predictions they'd find nomadic, advanced Paelolithic cultures native to the area. In that case, there was a duty to protect and integrate them before any kind of mad rush of iron-wielding Europeans could claim their territory.

What the RANP found, however, was incredibly intelligent dire wolves the size of bison traveling in packs. They found tigers the size of clydesdale horses, with swords for upper fangs, traveling in lion-like prides. There were bison the size of elephants traveling in herds, and hairy elephants the size of two-story houses. All of these beasts were wary of each other and ready to rip, tear, shred or otherwise stomp everything that wasn't them into oblivion.

These monsters were absolutely deadly and *did not fit at all* with the predictions handed out by the secret Merlin source. There was some consideration if these creatures may have been amplified in size and aggression as part of the *Incidence of Incidents*.

## **South of the Sahara**

In the opposite direction, the *HMS Explorer* had been in charge of mapping the Mediterranean. They'd done the European north shore on the way in and stopped by Constantinople to speak with the leadership of the shriveling Byzantine empire. That was an *interesting coversation*.

The *Explorer* went as far as the Don river, at the edge of the Sea of Azov, in the far northeast corner of the Black Sea. While rumors of the "Terror of Blood and Thunder" had reached as far as Tanais, itself a *former* Genoan colony (the *Explorer* dropped off a platoon of Royal Guard to garrison the town), the *Explorer's* actual visits were a Plantagenet goodwill tour. Every stop left behind at least one plague-healed person and a satchel's worth of *Glow Stones* sold.

On the way back out, they'd stopped off at Istanbul, just across the channel, to the south of Constantinople. There was an opportunity to meet with members of the Ottoman turks, and that conversation had a great deal of veiled portent for the future of Anatolia. Still, between smiles and gritted teeth, it was a civil meeting.

The ship continued the southern route, sailing down the Levant, past Egypt and stopping in Alexandria. They stayed long enough to record the continuing political and religious fallout from *Burning Frogs of Cairo*.

They sailed west and sunk four corsairs of the Barbary pirates. The few survivors spoke of seeing a ship with potential treasures beyond their dreams – and pirates did what pirates do. The *Explorer's* cannons rather more matched their nightmares.

The stop in Morocco held a meeting with the vizir and the sultan of the Marinid dynasty. There, the area was in turmoil (instigated by the Nasrid princes of Granada, no less) with recent division between the Kingdom of Fes and the Kingdom of Marrakech. That was "interesting" conversation as well, though with a healing and selling a bags' worth of *Glow Stones*, the *Explorer* was winning hearts and minds.

Further around the bend, and into the great Atlantic Ocean, they reached all the way south past the western edge of the Sahara. There, they found the salt-farm shore settlements of the gold-rich Mali Empire. The once-stalwart Muslim nation had been shaken by the burning frogs, but this English vessel and its *Glow Stones* and Jesuit healing sent stories back from the coast to emperor Musa II of Mali.

It was a cruise of the western known world at that point, now mapped in intricate detail including prevailing wind and sea currents, fish types, coastal names and city maps, list of market contents, coinage types, foods, political leadership.

## **Recall and Preparation**

The ships were updating the RANP every day via records on what was essentially modified *Scrolls of Correspondence*. With logistics-capable portals on board, the crew of the ships could literally walk through a gate and be back in London. If the ship sank with the gate open... well, that would flood London but immersion of the gate would shut it off (and there were controls on the London side as well).

What the Royal Navy and RANP needed, however, was an overhaul and retrofit: *stronger, faster, farther*. They were borrowing magical propulsion from Aquitaine, taking the scanning lens off the mast and making it float far above for a much farther LOS mapping sweep.

These two ships were getting ready for a coastal speed run – *around the world*.