Geography and Scale of the 'Infinite' O.Z.
I originally posted this to a comm on LJ, but thought I'd crosspost it here for anyone who missed it. The following is the result of many hours of tooth gashing and hair pulling. Perhaps some of you will find it interesting or useful.
Geography and Scale of the 'Infinite' O.Z.
First of all, yes, there is a cute little Google map of the O.Z. on the SciFi Channel's web site. It's wrong. It's amusing, but it's wrong. Pay no attention to the map behind the curtain.
In order to construct what I hope is a more accurate map, I went through the information given about the various locations on the web site, and went through the entire miniseries and took notes on all directions given and travel routes taken. I estimated travel times to the best of my ability based on the information and events in the film.
Stage 1: From the Beginning to Central City
First, we should make note that Azkadellia tells us that it's seven days until the eclipse. The entire story takes place in a week's time, and if we keep track of the days, we can do a pretty good job of estimating distances between points.
When DG arrives in the O.Z., she's dumped in or very near the Guild Fighters' village. She meets Glitch, the two escape, and they blunder around a bit until they find Cain. Once it's established that they're all headed to Central City, Cain says he knows where the road is, and that "the way leads through the fields of the Papay."
They pick up Raw while traversing the fields of Papay, and are immediately set upon by runners. In the process of escaping the runners, the group veers off the road and hits a dead end at a cliff (Glitch says, "Wrong turn," heh) where they jump into the river below.
After fishing themselves out of the river, the group picks up the road again, which Cain says is "to the west." They travel through a forested area a bit until they come across Milltown. From there, it's not much farther to Central City.
Although it's not explicitly shown, the group must spend the night someplace -- possibly in the woods where they stopped and made a fire after getting out of the river. When we see Azkadellia digging up DG's empty grave, it's night, so presumably the first of seven nights has passed.
So, the travel route thus far is: Starting point --> Guild Fighters' village --> Cain's former home --> Old Road --> fields of Papay --> over cliff into river (just to the east of the road) --> back to the road --> Milltown --> Central City
We also know that this entire trip takes roughly a day and a half, with a lot of blundering around and frequent stops.
We don't know exactly where the starting point is, and we can't place this on a map -- yet. But we'll come back to it.
Stage 2: Central City, the Frozen Wastes, and Azkadellia's Tower
Now we can begin constructing an actual map.
The web site tells us that Central City was "once the center of the O.Z." This implies that Central City is not the literal center of the lands, but it's probably safe to assume that it's fairly central nonetheless.
In Central City, the Mystic Man sends DG to the Northern Island. Further information from the web site: "Far to the north, a great mountain of ice rests on the shelf of the frozen sea." The group hijacks Demilo's truck and heads north. The second night is spent in the truck, and they arrive at the frozen palace the next day. They're in the palace just long enough to get the information they need before Azkadellia shows up. DG and Raw are captured while Cain and Glitch are left for dead.
DG and Raw: These two are taken to Azkadellia's tower, which the web site tells us is "far west of Central City." Azkadellia messes with them a bit, and they spend the night in the dungeons. Again, this is not explicitly shown, but it's evening or night when Azkadellia has DG on the balcony, and broad daylight when she escapes the dungeon, thus a night has passed.
Cain and Glitch: Glitch comes to on the palace floor, then finds Cain and takes him back to Demilo's truck. When Cain wakes up, Glitch tells him that he's "been asleep for hours." The next time we see them, they're beating up long coats and breaking into Azkadellia's tower.
This is the most logical timeline I can put together for all of this: After stealing Demilo's truck, the group drives through the night and makes it to the frozen palace early the following morning. DG and Raw are captured shortly thereafter, and arrive at Azkadellia's tower by evening. Meanwhile, Cain and Glitch spend the day resting in the truck, then probably spend much of the night and next morning traveling to Azkadellia's tower.
From this, we can conclude that the trip from Central City to the Northern Island takes about a day (mostly by car, although the last leg is trudged on foot), and that the journey from the Northern Island to Azkadellia's tower takes roughly one day on foot.
We now have the beginnings of a map:
Stage Three: Azkadellia's Tower to Finaqua
This is where a lot of the meat of the geography lies.
Once the group is reunited and out of the tower, they decide to head south. We're told that, once again, they must travel through the fields of Papay. Cain: "The only road south leads through the fields of the Papay." They make it through without veering off course this time, and the fourth night is spent somewhere in the woods beyond the fields.
The next day they travel through the woods until they encounter a gorge. They need to find a safe place to cross, and veer off the road a bit. They end up going to the resistance members' cabin and rest there until nightfall. After dark, they cross the gorge. The fifth night is spent in the woods, traveling and/or resting. They pass Adelia's grave, encounter the maze, and end up in Finaqua the next day.
This is a bit of a side note, but it's relevant to constructing a map of the O.Z.: While in the resistance members' cabin, there is reference made to a mine in the Black Mountains. It's implied that this is in the east.
A few things of greater relevance/interest: This is the second time the group has encountered a gorge/cliff/river, but it's almost certainly not the same one! Finaqua in the south is a region of vast lakes; there are probably lots of rivers feeding into it. I tried to construct a map in which there was only one river/gorge, and while it is possible, it squishes a lot of locations very close together, and places DG's starting location dangerously near Azkadellia's tower. It's much more logical to assume multiple rivers feeding into the lakes of Finaqua.
Time scale: The trip from the tower to Finaqua takes two days on foot, give or take. It's a bit hard to estimate, since there's some veering off course and a stop at the resistance members' cabin.
From this segment we can add to the map as follows:
This is where things get really interesting. From here, we can return to the first stage of the journey, and make some guesses as to DG's starting location.
Remember that, after picking up Cain, the group had to travel through the fields of Papay to get to Central City. They escaped the runners by veering from the road and leaping off a cliff to the east. After fishing themselves out of the river, they picked up the road to the west again, and traveled on to Central City.
We can add this to the map, and come up with something that looks more or less like this:
Although we can't say exactly where, DG's starting point is probably somewhere in this area:
This is speculative, of course; the fields of Papay could extend even farther east, and DG's starting point could have been along a different road to Central City. [ETA: It was pointed out to me that the Guild Fighters refer to themselves as the "Eastern Guild." This could mean that DG's starting location is, in fact, further east than I originally placed her. However, it's also possible that the "Eastern Guild" is called this simply because they're east relative to the "Western Guild" -- wherever they might reside. The information is still ambiguous and debatable.]
Stage Four: From Finaqua to the End of the Journey
We have the map of the O.Z. now, for the most part, and the rest is just filling in details.
The hologram of the Queen tells DG to look for Ahamo in the Realm of the Unwanted to the south. The group heads south, they find the trap door entrance to the Realm of the Unwanted, and they head on down. They're attacked at the tavern that night, and DG is separated from the rest of the party.
Group sans DG: Zero and company begin leading them back to Azkadellia's tower, presumably along the same road they traveled previously. The following day, the longcoats are ambushed by the resistance group led by Jeb, and our heroes are freed. They spend the seventh night in the resistance group's camp.
DG: She wakes up the following morning in Ahamo's "teepee." They take off in his balloon in search of the Gray Gale. It appears that they spend at least part of the night traveling (it's dark at one point while they're in the balloon), and arrive at the hidden tomb in the morning. DG gets the emerald, then is promptly ambushed by Azkadellia and trapped in the tomb.
The timeline is a bit wonky, but it seems that DG is being trapped as the resistance group is breaking camp in the morning. Tutor/Toto immediately figures out where DG is, races back to the camp, and leads the rest of the group to her. By sheer good fortune (or deus ex machnia ::cough::), the camp and the tomb are very close to each other. Once the rest of the group is reunited with DG, they head for the tower and arrive there before nightfall.
Note that there is a broad river or a lake beside the hidden tomb. I'd place the location of the tomb as well as the camp roughly here on the map:
Looks like the 'Infinite' O.Z. is really pretty small... Of course, we don't know much about what lies to the east, aside from a mountain range and some mines. No doubt there are lots of towns that we haven't heard about, and although the frozen palace and Finaqua are said to be in the "far north" and "far south" respectively, we don't know how far the lands might extend to the east and west.
* * * * *
While some of this is pretty solid, other parts are based on a lot of speculation, and I'm sure there are other valid interpretations. Also, I never claimed to be a cartographer (or an artist, for that matter…), so I'm sure the scale is less than perfect. If anyone has alternate theories, maps, etc. to offer, I'd love to see them.
ETA: LJ user phantasydweller applied some photoshop skillz to my map and made it look about a zillion times better! How cool is this?!