Fruela's Self-Updating Maps

Fruela's Self-Updating Maps are magically enchanted, inked on canvas or vellum, and show the extent of the World of Vreathe. The master map is kept at the Imperial Vault in Caisra, the Irellithian Capital. The master map was originally drawn by Grethan Fruela in the year 1700, I.A., and it was continuously updated until the year 2980 I.A. when the last of Fruela's line was said to have died out, and knowledge of the map's workings was lost. A complex entangled enchantment ensures that the changes magically transfer the new information from the master map to all the smaller maps when it is completed.

Map Front

Map Back

You can view the full size version of the maps Here (may take a second to load).

Construction

Maps were made with different materials depending on their intended purpose. Maps that were to be kept inside and not handled often were made of vellum. Travel versions of the map were made with treated canvas for increased durability. Either version, when taken care of properly, could last centuries. The inks used on the maps were made either from oak gall or from charcoal, depending on the time period. The ink was also mixed with silica crystals to hold a reliable mana charge for longer. The most expensive versions of the maps were made with diamond dust, which could potentially hold a mana charge forever.

Map Enchantments

Self-Updating Enchantment

Entangled Enchantments are a very popular but expensive way to communicate over long distances. Usually the enchantment is placed with a simple word of power inside a charged circle. As long as the document is kept clean and clear of outside magical influences, the enchantment can last forever. Entangled enchantments were very common during the Iron Age.

The enchantments used for these maps are very complex. The various colors running through the charged mana arcs are different magic spells, interacting with each other in a specific way. The formulas written in the inner circles are used as the words of power holding the enchantment in place. This is also one of the few examples of math being used as words of power in an Iron Age enchantment. Usually such things are found on relics from the Silver Age.

The sequence of numbers is a mystery to scholars of later times. It appears to be coordinates, but they do not match any coordinate system in use. The master mathematician Yeshua Ordan in 2670 I.A. suggested that the coordinates are not for just the world, but for the entire universe, or perhaps every universe connected by the World Tree.

The words on the bottom do not appear to affect the enchantment itself. The left words say "Last Updated - August 2980", the last year these maps were updated. The right words say "bound to Grethan Fruela".

The circle at the top has part of a prayer in it, invoking one of the four. This pulls the smallest amount of Primordial Energy into the map, stabilizing the many intricately layered spells on the enchantment.

"In the Name
of the god Alom,
Master of Space,
Creator of Light, Highest
Above all others."

Location Tracker

This enchantment uses a simple Find Location spell, and then uses that to place a marker on the map showing the user's location in the world. This enchantment can also trace the path that the map previously traveled, up to a timespan of twenty five years.

Knowledge of the Past is dangerous and generally outside the reach of humans. This enchantment attempts to get around that by invoking symbols of all four of the Elder Gods, and the long prayer wrapping around the outside is dedicated to the Elder God Tarcur. This caused some controversy when the maps first released because it was common knowledge by this time period that Tarcur was an evil god and praying to him was dangerous.

Outer Line: To Know the Past is to Know Infinity. To Know Infinity is to Know Truth. To Know Truth is to Know Absolute Terror.
Inner Line: Only in the Name of Tarcur, he who sees in the Shadows, he who knows All, he who sees the Past, Can you know your path, Backward and Forward.

Beacon

By placing a drop of your blood on the back of the map and pressing with your thumb, this beacon enchantment will use a Find Location spell to track the location of the owner of the blood, if they are still alive. This enchantment can also track multiple users, though there is a limit to how many.

The dozen spells layered on the enchantment are able to pinpoint the locations of every person it has recorded, and will display their location on a map in the form of a colored dot. It will even show their name. This works because the enchantment invokes Saint Nora, who knows the name of every person who has ever lived and will ever live. Oddly, the writing on the enchantment invokes Nora as a Goddess, even though she gave up that title long ago.

In the name of the Goddess Nora, Supreme Judge, Regulator of the Infinite, Master of Time.

Irellith Weather Tracker

This is actually another Entangled Enchantment, linked to the Golden Observatory in Irellith. This enchantment is amazingly accurate at displaying the current weather conditions, but only in the Empire of Irellith. The further you get from the Golden observatory, the less accurate the information becomes until it stops being useful about a thousand miles away.

This enchantment is also the most complex of the four, with 64 separate spells cast in the 16 mana arcs. The Letters don't appear to be in a specific order for any language native to Vreathe. The coordinates in the center are slightly different from the coordinates on the self-updating enchantment. The Letters across the center simply say "Golden Observatory" and do not appear to affect the enchantment itself.

Examples of the Enchantments in use

The map we are using for examples below is from the self-updating map owned by Vyerin Vernador, the wayward prince of North Cassel. This map was a gift from Vyerin's father, King Brenon. This was just several nights before both of his parents were murdered.

Location Tracker

The Location Tracker shows a green to red dotted line showing the map's previous location, as well as year markers in blue. It shows Vyerin's journey from North Cassel to Rhinea and Faeon, to Galleska several years later, back through North Cassel, and now at his present location near the town of Farossa in South Cassel.

Beacon

Vyerin has the blood of all five of his siblings on the map (Belle, Renelle, Arden, Tyren, and Marlaselle), as well as three of his closest friends (Kitephone, Seratha, and Thames). Both of Vyerin's parents as well as his oldest brother were also recorded on the map, but all three of them died eight years ago in Lornar...

Weather

This enchantment is difficult to read at first. Bright Clouds are just clouds and fog, without an associated storm. Dark Clouds indicate stormy weather, and the darker the clouds, the heavier the rain and stronger the winds. The resolution of the clouds is quite high over the Empire of Irellith.

However, around a thousand kilometers away in the Kingdom of South Cassel, the accuracy of the map is considerably impacted. This giant gray blob indicates that there is a storm in the area, but how big or strong the storm is cannot be known from this map alone.