How big is Arcanum?

Ladies and Gentlemen. Lords of the House.

I have recently been having yet another go at one of my most beloved old games, Arcanum that is, and a question popped into my mind: how big is this land, really? I decided to investigate the problem by searching the forums here for information on the matter, and while I did find some it was far from satisfactory. The previous investigation was based upon how many tiles the game map in Arcanum consisted of, and was converted from that medium into metric distances. But I believe the developers wished for a bigger place than what the actual map would contain, so I decided to try a little experiment in the game.

How many days of travel would it take to cover this distance?





The answer was 59-60 days of travel on the world map screen. If we assume that the Living One can maintain a marching speed of 30 km a day, the distance measured would be 1800 km. If the LO can maintain a speed of 40 km/day, it's 2400 km. This probably means that Arcanum, from peak to peak, is roundabout 2000 km wide. At least on the western side of the continent.

Thank you for your time.

Please comment below.

 

From Arcanum's Tip to Toe in 60 Days? I approve.

 

Each pixel on the world map equates to 1 sector which is 64x64 tiles. The whole world map is 2000x2000 pixels/sectors. Do your math.

 

If I'd done that I would've missed out on killing all thosr ailing wolves Besides, the result you get from your numbers are somewhat disappointing. If we assume that 1 tile is the equailent of 1 meter, Arcanum would turn out to be quite small. 1 sector is 64 tiles wide, and there was 2000 sectors in the world map. Multiplying 64x2000 leaves us with 128000 tiles/meters. That's 128 km. Not very much. It's far more realistic that Arcanum is 2000 km wide, wouldn't you agree?

 

Seems pretty small, Australia is much bigger.

 

I guess it is, at that.

The calculated size of Arcanum leads me to believe that Arcanum isn't a continent as much as it is a country. Tarant, Caladon and Dernholm (with their surrounding lands) are probably more like city states than proper nations.

If Arcanum is indeed only as big as we've calculated here, I see no problem with there being other landmasses and continents out there. The PC might very well be an outlander after all.

 

I think that's the whole point. They're supposed to be UK (and Ireland) before it was United.

 

This is true.

We've discussed the parallels between Arcanum and the UK before, and I've just thought of something else.

Gar and green tea. It's 'for the foreign constitution'. It suggests more parallel nations. An entire parallel earth, in fact.

All things considered, including the small size, I'm changing my opinion about the 'other continent' theory.

 

Arland is obviously Ireland.
Would that make Dernholm and the rest of Cumbria into Scotland or Wales? And what of Quintarra? Isle of Despair is probably Australia but I've always thought of Maximillian as Napoleon.

 

What's Arland again?

In my model of Arcanum = UK:
Tarant = London/England.
Wheel Clan = Glasgow/Scotland. (Stillwater = Liverpool)
Caladon = Cardiff/Wales (south-east; joins UK).
Dernholm = ?/Cornwall (south-east; conquered by UK).
Qintarra = Ireland.

Except:
Caldonia = Scotland in the Roman Empire, which would make Cumbria = Wales and therefore Qintarra = Ireland OR Cornwall.
Given that Cumbria's flag is a dragon, let's call Dernhom Wales, and Blackroot Cornwall and Qintarra Ireland.
My geography is rusty, but could Rosewater be Glastonbury?

 

Re:

Do you mean Roseborough? Well Glastonbury is in Somerset so if the geography of Arcanum is meant to mimic that of the UK then that would make Caladon more like Cardiff than Glasgow (though for this to be 100% accurate, it would make more sense in this relationship if Cardiff was Roseborough and Glastonbury Caladon as Glastonbury is southeast of Cardiff). Still Roseborough having the Ring of Brodgar reinforces the Caldonia = Scotland.

So what would that make Ashbury - Blackpool or something similar? And what is Vendigroth supposed to be? I guess it could be a post-apocalyptic Norway or Iceland that drifted across the sea and fused with the mainland, but that might be taking the analogy a bit far.

 

Re:

Arland is to Caladon what Cumbria is to Dernhom (or that the Unified Kingdom is to Tarant).

Seeing as how Arland is pronounced almost exactly like Ireland, I figured any further discussion (on at least Ireland) to be unnecessary. However, your knowledge on the different areas of the British Isles seems superior to mine, so I'm probably wrong.

 

Not at all, good sir.

I prefer to think of Elves as Irish and Dwarves as Scottish, but the names (Arland and Caladon) suggest otherwise.

Hmm, maybe the Arcanum map is sideways cf earth? That would also explain why 'east' is hot and humid while 'west' is temperate.

 

Or, perhaps the planet Arcanum is on has a horizontal axis, allowing for the north/south dynamic present in Earth to be shown in an east/west dynamic there.

Either that or, what could be happening is the effects of a "rain shadow."

Of course, the places I know that happens on Earth are deserts (Death Valley, Atacama Desert), where across the mountains is a nice, temperate to sub-tropical climate. Maybe the mountains aren't so high on the land of Arcanum.

I think the rain shadow idea is more likely, because Thanatos is a rather tropical looking island, and Cattan is known for bananas. If the local jet stream can't go directly over a land mass, it'll go around it - though I'm relatively unsure of weather patterns in Arcanum.

 

I think it is an entirely made up land.

 

Yes, and so is Arcanum.

 

Guess that answers that question.