How Big is the Lunar Empire?

Recently there's been a recurring thread on the scale of Glorantha - how large countries are, how far apart landmarks, etc. A few people seem very upset about it, others to not see the issue at all. I'm somewhere in the middle - I do think sometimes that distances seem a bit small, but I don't think it's a major worry. Mainly, the inconsistencies are what bother me.

In the hopes of settling a few arguments, I've put together a couple of rough maps

The definitive guide to the Lunar Empire is currently the map drawn by Wesley Quadros, and published by the Unspoken Word. A copy of the image is on the Issaries web site. I've used that as the basis for the map below. On this the black area is the Empire proper, the dark grey areas are the provinces (Tarsh, Vanch, etc.) in the south and Carmania in the northwest, and the pale grey is outside the Empire. The red bar in the lower left corner is 100 miles long. The two white dots are Glamour (in the middle of the Empire) and Mirin's Cross (in the far south). Imposed on this is the outline of mainland Scotland, England, and Wales, drawn to the same scale. All of this was sketched by me, and is doubtless slightly inaccurate.

Lunar Empire, shown to canonical scale

The second map is based on the following statement on Imperial couriers, taken from page 12 of the Imperial Lunar Handbook (Vol. 1) :

With regular remounts (provided at post stations and garrisons) and the powerful magic of the horse goddess Gamara, a good rider can cover up to 350 miles in a day - and all of the Emperor's couriers are good riders. A rider can reach Glamour from Mirin's Cross in three days.

Three days at 350 miles a day would be around a thousand miles, whereas the map shows Mirin's Cross to Glamour at about 300 miles as the crow flies, and not much more by road. The couriers described should be making the journey in one day, not three.

The text quoted implies that the maps have an error in the scale of around a factor three. Which happens to be about the largest scale up I've seen mentioned. The map below assumes the red bar is 300 miles long. This time, western Europe is imposed on the map to give an idea of size.

Lunar Empire, shown scaled up by a factor three

What does all this tell us? To be honest, not a lot. Based on various comments, the Lunar Empire is larger than some people think, but also smaller than others believe. Perhaps predictably those who believe the scale is wrong often fall in the former category, and vice versa. At least now the arguments will hopefully have a little more basis...

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