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Atlas

   Britannia at the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment is much changed in appearance from its past. Though climate changes and geologic upheavals would roughen and blend its edges, it will retain this shape through to the end of the third age.

   The map that the moongate provides is helpful if a bit decorative. The newly christened Britannia is very different from the landscape that Sosaria in the previous age did portray. The runes speak the name of landmarks most significant, such as The Deep Forest and The Cape of Heroes. The townes and castles are not named though the cloth is marked with their location. Also note the signs of the phases marking the ever useful moongates.

Map of Britannia 
at the Dawn of the Age of Enlightenment

Castles | Townes | Villages | Shrines | Dungeons

   Four stone keeps hold the nobles and protectors of the people and the principles of the land. A great castle south of the Serpents Spine mountains holds the seat of Lord British. It also bears the name of the lands, Castle Britannia. There are three other castles. The Lyceaum is a great center of learning on the Verity Isle. Empath Abbey keeps watch at the western edge of the Deep Forest. Knights of the Order of the Serpent maintain guard on the Isle of Deeds in the southern seas. Their keep is known as Serpent's Hold.

   The main of the rest of the population takes up in the townes and villages dotting the landscape. There are eight cities and four small villages. Moonglow, towne of the wise, sits on the southern reaches of Verity Isle. Britain, where bard's songs fill the air, rests in the shadow of Castle Britannia. The Valorian Isle is the home of the fighters of the towne Jhelom. The courts of Yew, hidden in the Deep Forest, bring justice to many as its druidic residents hold high value in impartiality. Minoc's tinkers and craftsmen fashion their wares by the waters of Lost Hope Bay. The honor of the paladins of Trinsic is known throughout the world, but it is the heart of life in that town north of the Cape of Heroes. Rangers walk all the wilds of the land, but they are drawn to the island town of Skara Brae west of the haunted Spiritwood. The prideful residents of beautiful Magincia sequester themselves on an lone isle far out into the ocean.

   The village of Paws in the hills south of Britain does a decent trade with its stables and many other markets. Vesper sits alone on a peninsula off the far eastern prairies near Dagger Isle. The Village of Love, Cove, rests in a mountain valley south of the inland sea called Lock Lake. Pirates ad brigands of the oceans hole up in the island village referred to as Buccaneer's Den west of the Fens of the Dead.

   Lord British commissioned the creation of the Shrines to the virtues. There are eight, one for each of the primary virtues. Their location is generally proximal to the city whose residents tend to embody that virtue. Honesty sits on a promontory of Dagger isle north of Moonglow. Compassion rests high in the mountains south of Lock Lake, east of Britain. The shrine of Valor holds the shore across the channel south of Jhelom. Druids journey from Yew east, north then west to the swampy peninsula where Justice's shrine is found. Sacrifice is north of Vesper's peninsula on an isle in a small lake; this is south and well east for those in Minoc who travel there. Paladins from Trinsic trek due southwest to the cove surrounded by mountains and swamps where Honor's Shrine is. The humble shepherds who do not follow the prideful ways of the other Magincian citizens travel the oceans southeast where, high in a mountain passage on some unnamed land, the Shrine to Humility awaits them. Rangers travel to the Shrine of Spirituality, but it does not exist on the lands of Britannia. They say it is outside this realm and only a devout few make the trip.

   Ever since the dim past, caves, pits and mines have served as prisons for the wretched and lawless, and lairs for the fouler creatures of this world. Eight of these pits still remain. Most have been renamed for a antithesis of a virtue. Deceit is found on the satellite isle near the Shrine of Honesty. The opening of Despise lies in the Serpent's Spine chain on a valley opening to the north. Destard, a well known dragon's den, can be entered at the base of a box canyon southeast of Spiritwood. Many found guilty in the court of Yew pay for their crimes by being walled up in the prison Wrong whose gate opens on the High Stepes of the far north. The exit of the dungeon Covetous faces Lost Hope Bay, fitting for those whose last glimpse of sunlight shone off those waters near Minoc. At the head of the Serpent's Spine, the mine now called Shame sits on the north bank of a crater whose only access is a dark and deep river that empties the lake filling the basin. Some say the dungeons are in fact connected deep within the bowels of the earth, those legends hold that the pit called Hythloth is where they join at its base. Its egress is thought to set in part of the same volcanic island when Humility's Shrine rests. Also in that unexplored land is rumored a dark pit known as the Stygian Abyss. No reliable information has been found on that hole. Conflicting reports refer to a never-ending fleet of dark ships guarding it and an active volcano at whose heart the entrance is supposed to lie. 

    My roots in the Lands of Lord British began in this age and time. As it happens, so did an unhealthy obsession with the geography and other details of the games (ask me sometime about the effect this game contributed to my first year at college). The map below is a smaller version of more significant and more detailed copies. All locations, buildings and key items on it are noted along with the first order subdivisions to use the sextant for location.

Generated Game Data Map