It’s not every day we get a new Flanaess map, end an “official” one is even rarer, the Paizohawk map from over 20 years ago are the last one, I think. So today is a special day indeed. I’ve only had a couple of hours to study it, so these are just some initial thoughts.  

The cartography looks like Mike Schley did it, it’s very stylish and looks like it belongs in a fantasy world. It appears very simple, but looks can be a bit deceiving, this map is way more detailed than earlier official Flanaess maps. Look at the coastlines and compare them to the Darlene map and you know what I’m talking about. Also, those coastlines look familiar, Mr. Schley has done an excellent job on those...

Labels for cities and towns seem to have been done with the map, because they look great and like they belong there. The rest of the labels, meaning all the other ones, are a different story. I don’t know who did it, and that is probably best. Most likely a quick and dirty job by the marketing department to make sure they stand out like sore thumbs.

Oceans have bands of color, and the hexes are still there, but in a more subdued fashion this time. The preview image has dotted lines to seem to indicate a page layout, or just lines to indicate where the map is going to be folded. An 8-page spread map isn’t bad, might be a pretty substantial size to this one.

Geography-wise it’s all what we could expect and are used to, very little news there as far as I can see right away. One change, Prymp has moved a bit more east to the little peninsula that offers a better natural harbor. This move is on my to do list for my campaign map, great work Mike!

On the political side we have a series of expected changes that I like, the barbarians in the northwest are now the Chakyik and the Wegwuir, an improvement that these names are used on the map. Scarlet Brotherhood is now more properly named Shar. Blackmoor is now Arn, interesting and a neat homage. I like Blackmoor and will keep the name in my campaign I think but there are probably good IP reasons behind the change.

Joe Bloch cover this and more in his great video about this map: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxoXH4JFnZc

Hats off to Mike Schley (if he is the cartographer) for a job well done. Minus points to whoever took over and did the labeling, please get someone with s bit more stylish sense.

You can download the map here: https://www.enworld.org/attachments/d18b9a566830e9c1215c662599e141cc-png.367815/