Excerpts from "Cosmographia": The Whole World

Ed. Note: Cosmographia, widely know as “The Book,” is one of the most widely printed books of the known world: it is published by the Collegium (widely known as the wizard’s guild) and is viewed – in the civilized world – as the birthright of the trained mage, and the core text of any educated person.

Most mages are concerned primarily with the second “book” of Cosmographia, collectively known as The Spell Book. While the book alone is not enough to open the secrets of magic to a novice, for a trained wizard it holds both the basic spells of a wizardly repertoire and the key to understanding more. Many wizards unwisely ignore the pedestrian content of the early chapters: copies of the second book can be had without the earlier volume, though they usually show considerably more wear; complete volumes of Cosmographia virtually always have more damage (tears, bloodstains, burnt pages) in the later part of the book.

The first part of the book, however, is useful. It is a description and a rough history of the known world, describing its several ages. The book was available as a manuscript throughout the fourteenth century, and it was committed to type in 1482. It was little revised, so much of the information is a century old, and out of date. Its most interesting – and most often missing – leaf is a woodcut map of the world. (see previous post)

The world:

            "...Ignorant persons have it that the world is flat, or that it is set upon the back of a great elephant, or that it is in a bubble, or some other such nonsense. Any who have seen a ship sail off in the distance (as foolish an act as that may be),  can reason that the world must be round, and so it is. One could then make them a model of all of Ardis, in the form of a ball, if one could but know the form of the rest of the world. It is possible that The Dragons do know, for they alone have crossed the outer sea.
            "The continent of Ardis can be considered in four parts: The Southlands and Northlands, divided as it were by the Dwarf Mountains, are two parts. The Frost Sea, the Elves' lake of Eilin Ened, and deep Zilar mark off the west part of Ardis, and that is the third part. The Dragon Kingdom, the great Trollstep Mountains, and secret-shrouded Sset all lie beyond the Eastern mountains and the Black Sea and these are the Fourth part. All Ardis is bounded by water: To the south is the Inland Sea, where men and elves go in ships. The east and north are close set by the Outer Sea, where mariners cannot go. Also forbidden to the kindred of Ardis is the Sea of the West, though the elves say their fathers sailed across it in deep antiquity.
           "The Sea of the West and the Inner Sea are connected by a narrow strait, and the Wine Sea. Across it is the only other continent known to the wise, which is Qesh, which has two parts: Upper Qesh, which is a great desert, and Lower Qesh, which is a terrible forest. Mariners report no cities on those coasts, and none have reported that they have sailed far south or west along them."