Vouching for PopOS, which has been my primary OS for years. The only thing I run a Win VM for is the old Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas & Campaign Cartographer. I suppose I could tinker with Wine, but it tends to be finicky with the latter.

Constantly having issues

You’re going to see a lot of issues on Linux boards because people go to then for help. I’ve been running Linux since 2020 and though there have been hiccups, its been remarkably reliable. Having said that, when there ARE issues, it can take some digging to find answers.

Is it not stable

Moreso than Win 11, in my experience. I use Win 11 at work and I’ve needed a system wipe twice. Once because networking just… stopped… and once because appx apps decided not to load.

Ongoing issues

Plugging PopOS as a good “set and forget” distro that is easy to grasp. The workflow is very MacOS and the tweaks they’ve made make for a friendlier interface v Ubuntu, IMO.

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Is this the same system they use to slow down basically everything at AMS? Like seriously, that’s the worst, dirtiest major international airport I’ve ever had the misfortune of having to use.

This may not have been an instance of it spying on you; what can you do may be similar to other searches involving privacy, but one would do well to remember thst companies have been repeatedly caught spying on users.

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/vizio-ftc-smart-tv-spying-privacy,news-24415.html Vizio spying without consent.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/gadgets/how-google-is-secretly-recording-you-through-your-mobile-monitoring-millions-of-conversations/news-story/8089bf3084a430f4c4be46b81710c158 Google storing your conversations.

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/01/02/cox-distances-itself-from-claim-it-spies-on-users-via-phones-cable-box-mics/ Cox cable BRAGGING about spying on users.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/08/09/apple-is-not-spying-on-your-imessages-and-this-one-switch-stops-it-scanning-your-photos/?sh=485a1696605f Apple gaslighting users over their on-device photo scanning.

I’m sharing to say that whether this is an instance of spying or weird coincidence, you should absolutely assume that companies will violate your privacy at every opportunity because that’s what they’ve done.

Thanks! When time permits, I’ll tweak it for neighboring regions.

I do. There are, of course, as many Realms as there are campaigns in the multiverse, but I do assume that most of the geography and core lore is consistent across most of them.

Thanks!

I haven’t tried with 1 and 2. The BG3 in-games maps are useless except as notes, but context clues, dev statements, and prior material helped quite a bit, as did paying $100 for the official mapping software.

We don’t need flavor text. We know that the Realms have existed through multiple editions of the game; if spells were this consistent then they would operate consistently across the different rulesets. They do not, though.

Using Locate Object as an example:

2E Distance: 60 feet per level of spellcaster (so variable between 120 and 1200 feet for levels 2-20)
3E Distance: 400 feet plus 40 feet per level.
4E Distance: ???
5E Distance: Up to 1000 feet.

The spell itself is the same, but the gameplay limitations vary for the purposes of game balance. I sincerely doubt that a spell in-world changed; rather, we set limits to ensure balance in gameplay. We should be distinguishing between rules meant to balance play and in-world realities, here.

This, exactly. We can get a sense of this from the old novels too; magic is not nearly as restrictive as it is in-game; those rules exist to simplify gameplay, not to turn combat, magic, travel and healing into math problems.

Heck, Long Resting is an excellent example of how things 100% do NOT work in “real” Faerun. We think someone who survives being tagged with dragon claws, burned in a breath weapon, and sent flying with a tail attack is healed and ready to go with a nice 8 hour nap? Nah…

I’ll address Wish.

Wish states the following:

You might be able to achieve something beyond the scope of the above examples. State your wish to the GM as precisely as possible. The GM has great latitude in ruling what occurs in such an instance; the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong. This spell might simply fail, the effect you desire might only be partly achieved, or you might suffer some unforeseen consequence as a result of how you worded the wish.

As the Faerun canonically has inaccurate maps, we can assume that Wish has failed to provide accurate maps. I cannot imagine that a Wizard hasn’t tried to create one in the thousands of years that Toril has been populated, after all. Heck, if we are talking magic, Wish is amateur hour when one considers ancient Netheril and the possibility of 10-12th level spells.

Locate object does not provide measurements, it provides a direction and whether the object is moving… Canonical lore states very clearly that maps are inaccurate in the FR. That is a canon statement, pulled from a sourcebook written by the man who created the Realms. Whatever explanation we prefer, that is an in-game reality. We can assume that the “easy” methods of offering accurate maps have failed, which would necessarily include magical means.

That maps are as accurate as they are is likely a reflection of the use of magic to assist with their creation.

Welcome!

To measure 100 miles, assuming your 120 foot measurement and assuming that game mechanics = in-world logic, you’d need to cast your spell 4400 times per 100 miles, moving at a glacial pace as you measured. You’d also need to ensure that your path was perfectly straight, you accounted for elevation changes, that you precisely marked each endpoint, etc etc etc.

If you’re seeking accuracy, measuring the outside of a 200mi x200mi square would require doing all those calculations across 35,200 castings. If you were measuring the internal dimensions to about a one mile accuracy, you’d be in the millions of castings and you’d still need to ensure you accounted for all of the above.

Regardless, we know that it doesn’t work that way because FR sourcebooks tell us that maps are inaccurate, rare, and expensive. We know that the maps are inaccurate because they’ve told us so!

I don’t think this weakens my argument at all. It is fact from 1E to 5E, the official maps of Faerun are off by quite a bit. Looking for an in-game explanation isn’t unreasonable as the fact that the map distances are off is… well… fact. But don’t take my word for it… Elminster’s Guide to the Forgotten Realms says the following about maps:

Maps in the Realms are expensive works, being rare, easily damaged or destroyed, and more often inaccurate than not. Large, detailed, good maps are usually owned by rulers, from mayors of cities who have sewer and street maps, up to kings who own large and varied collections of old and fanciful maps from everywhere.

…

Nautical charts tend to be cruder, more inaccurate, and even more precious than maps.

Is Elturel 200 miles as the crow flies from Baldur’s Gate, or is it 215 miles from Baldur’s Gate? Apparently, even cartographers of the Realms cannot agree.

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Now that the “official” stuff is out of the way, here are some things to consider:

Maps during similar periods of Earth history have been laughably inaccurate, so we assume that Faerunian cartographers are offering “best estimate” distances. This is supported by real-world evidence. As this enterprising gamer has noted in detail, changes to maps distances have been substantial. Between the old Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas and the official 5E map, distances are often off by up to 20 miles; it even puts BG as around 17 miles north of the Chionthar!

It goes without saying, but take these map as aids, not as a hard and fast requirement for your own campaign.

So… fudge the distances if you need to; these maps are off by nearly 20 miles in some places! Elturel is 15 miles further east on this old map versus the newer map, for example, and there’s a similar distance discrepancy between Trollclaw and Baldur’s Gate. So… there’s wiggle room, even if you’re trying to be ‘official.’

For me, I prefer to place Moonrise 15-17 miles west of the Grove. Having it a mere 7 miles away seems a bit too close.

The Grove being 21 miles east of Elturel DOES make sense and is consistent with my original estimates (the 200 miles here is very close to the 200 “by river” I measured before) ; that’s between a day and a day and a half of travel on trails through mountainous terrain.

TL;DR:

Elturel = 215 miles east of Baldur’s Gate
The Grove = 200 Miles East of Baldur’s Gate
Moonrise / Reithwin = 193 Miles East of Baldur’s Gate

As noted in my last post, my partner and I have been trying to pinpoint the locations in Baldur’s Gate 3 on the Sword Coast map.

Larian, in their Gameplay Demo, revealed two vital bits of information. First, that the nautiloid crash site was on the Chionthar and second, that it was approximately 200 miles east of Baldur’s Gate. The Blighted Village, Goblin Camp, and everything else should be relatively close (within 5-10 miles) of The Grove. In-game text suggests that The Blighted Village, Moonhaven, is on the border of the lands controlled by Elturel, but where that border is or what it means is squishy.

Moonrise was more difficult. The only out-of-game reference to Moonrise was in an old adventure, and the only map we could find with Moonrise definitively mapped was in the old Forgotten Realms Interactive Access mapping tool. We got our hands on a copy and proceeded to measure distances. The results are available above.

Caveat: The maps of the Sword Coast have changed over time. Sometimes, TSR / Wizards changes distances dramatically, so this estimate is only that. Take this with a grain of salt / as a fun project we undertook to better understand how in-game locations meshed with Sword Coast locations.