Big Mac wrote: ↑Fri Apr 13, 2018 1:43 pm
Another thing, that Greyhawk Grognard might not have taken into account, is that the
entire general area to the east of the mountains, including areas outside of the area marked as Naresh territory, could be forested area.
...
If we have to have a forest that we can't see, and if gnoll rangers were a key to the expansion of gnoll territory, I think that the "everything is forest" (or "almost everything is forest") theory is the best way to fit Chris Pramas's
The Gnolls of Naresh article into Chainmail canon.
I think there's nothing really wrong with this concept,
at all!
At the altitude of mountainous regions, it's fair to assume that there's forests stop the mountains. But, *
*very*[ few maps of this sort distinguish between mountains, and forested mountains.
But, also, as Rasgon and I said above, there could easily be forests that we simply cannot see at this scale.
Let us assume, for sake of example, that the High and Low Khanates across the mountains (which are simply a flat shade of light green) are mongol-esque. I think this is a fair assumption, since it's ruled by khans, Ahmut is "Baklien", he's described using tactics known for practice by Genghis Khan, and he came from the southeast of Ravilla. So, let us look at Inner and Outer Mongolia for examples. If one were to look at Mongolia on Google Maps, one sees an area with the Gobi Desert. But, if one zooms in just one click, they find this ...

We can see that there are forests in Mongolia, even though it doesn't look like there would be. In fact, the forest directly by the "M" of Mongolia is about 150mi (241km) across. So, I think that one could reasonably say that 75 miles is "deep within the forest". So, that can easily give an answer to how large or small a forest might be and not show up on the canon map, but could still be large enough that the gnolls could claim a section of it.
I can see the gnolls working with (and eventually overthrowing) Mongolian-esque tribal warlods (khans), which would represent the expansion of their territory west across the mountains. The area of Naresh
now isn't necessarily the area of Naresh
before the war with the minotaurs when they reclaimed their land. Rather, it is likely that the area now shown on the map
includes the area that they took from the Baklien warlords,
and the minotaurs.
So, I would say that if we were to place this unseen forest, it's likely within the borders of what we known today as the lands of Naresh. The smaller peninsula within the northern reaches of Naresh (not the one east outside the border), or the river valley, might both be good places for an ambush, and both could be forested. Not
everything has to be forested, but, there could easily be forests there.