Apart from Outdoor Survival, two other games have map boards that attract me as campaign world settings. I put them together to imagine the map of DONJON LANDS’ “Known World.”

I always thought Avalon Hill’s Civilization map board looked odd. I couldn’t put my finger on why it didn’t look right, but the shapes on the board didn’t match up with the Mediterranean map in my American-educated mind. I figured the map board artist was obliged to distort coastlines to fit land masses within a limited space or otherwise failed to color inside the lines.

I was surprised, when I laid a scan over a Google Earth screen projection, to see that the board artist only rotated the map a few degrees from north.

Both the geography and history of the Mediterranean and the Near East inspire adventures in ancient lands with seagoing voyages, threatened by mythological creatures from the deep, and desert treks to visit distant realms and explore forgotten temples atop stepped pyramids.

At the same time, pseudo-medieval is the “classic fantasy” I grew up with, before and after my introduction to adventure role-playing games. Northern Europe inspires adventures where vikings plunder coastal towns, armor-clad knights ride out from spired castles on quests for legendary objects, and druids chant rituals amid misty forests.

Unlike Civilization’s map, I thought the Diplomacy board was more or less correct—excepting Iceland, which I assumed was displaced to make way for the elevation legend. Not at all. I had to rotate the Diplomacy map a full 20 degrees to line up the coastlines on the globe. Thule is in its proper place.