The location of the nautiloid crash site and the grove have been bugging us for some time, so we decided to take it upon ourselves to figure out where exactly, we start. The inner line on the image, where it intersects the Chionthar, is our estimate.
Supporting evidence:
In the gameplay demo, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9hU6UJX_pc, Larian references the crash site as “200 miles from Baldur’s Gate.” However, 200 miles from BG intersects Elturel, suggesting that “as the crow flies” is not right. Instead, we used string to measure out 200 miles by river.
The tieflings in the Grove mention being “a ten-day” away from the Gate. #dnd characters move approximately 24 miles a day. We assume they round up a bit, account for difficult terrain on parts of the trail, and the slower pace of children. They also likely estimate from their (former) home of Elturel versus the relatively unfamiliar Grove.
Blighted Village / Moonhaven
The Blighted Village (Moonhaven) is recorded as being on the edge of Elturgard. While Elturgard likely extends out quite a ways on paper, they are not likely regularly patrolling more than a day out.
Additionally, goblin raiders on the grove do not carry many supplies, suggesting that they can raid and return “home” in less than a day.
Some maps place the Grove much closer to Elturel. However, we believe that even with their recent return from Avernus, they’d have sent scouts to investigate the crash of the nautiloid if they’d seen it. Based on the altitude of the ship when it began its descent, our placement puts it below their line of sight.
The tiefling refugees would have put enough distance between Elturel and themselves to avoid harassment, but they were laden with children. A day’s journey, if that was the edge of Elturel’s patrols, makes sense to us.
Placing the grove further west puts it too close to Baldur’s Gate, in our opinion, as the travel times would no longer make sense. #dnd #dungeonsanddragons
I see an issue with this, we have a coast in act1.
It’s actually a river you crash on the edge of. You can see if you look out over it, there’s cliffs and hills on the other side.
Alsp supported by the fact that if you walk along the riverbank at the crash site Tav will exclaim “Fresh water! surely there’s a settlement nearby”
No coast, just a large river.
That would be the bank of the Chionthar. If you skip to about 6:45 in the video above, Larian mentions it by name.
Do we know if it’s an ocean or a lake?
It’s the Chionthar river; it’s explicitly stated in the original demo. Sorry, that came across as short! We see a mention of it in the demo; Larian notes that if we had a boat we could take the river all the way to BG.
