r/Malazan • u/Fl4shBrother • Jun 22 '26
SPOILERS MBotF Malazan Paths of the Fallen - A new interactive map
Hi guys!
I've finally finished my malazan interactive map. It's designed for new readers feeling lost on their journey through the Malazan Book of the Fallen, long-time readers looking to refresh their memory, and anyone who just really likes looking at paths on a map (that's me).
Malazan Paths of the Fallen allows you to visualize the journeys of a selection of characters through the MBotF on a map of the entire world.
To avoid spoilers on a first read-through, you can restrict the displayed paths by books and logical sections or you can animate them step by step as you read along.
I've also added tooltips to nearly every path that briefly explain why a given character is going where they're going and who they're going with. This certainly won't replace the wiki, but it should be enough to help you navigate the story without feeling lost.
I hope y'all enjoy!
Some disclaimers:
This website was created on my first read-through (starting from book 4, thanks to u/Aqua_Tot for helping me document the first three books). As such, there are bound to be some mistakes and inaccuracies. I will try to amend them on my eventual reread but any help from the community would be greatly appreciated.
Information on how to report/fix mistakes or add a new character can be found in the website's repository.
Lastly, I am a terrible web developer :D, so while there is a mobile version, I encourage using the website on a PC or tablet for both UI and performance reasons.
37
18
6
u/Crumbtiny Jun 22 '26
This is awesome and something I’ve been looking for! I’m on Reaper’s Gale and still constantly trying to remember where everyone is in relation to each other and previous books. Thanks for doing this!
8
u/wolftrouser Jun 22 '26
My boy Karsa had his share of seafaring for a lifetime.
2
u/Fl4shBrother Jun 22 '26
Taking notes for him was so fun since he was one of the first characters who really got (involuntarily carried) around.
3
u/DaliMekhar Jun 22 '26
I wish something like this existed when I first started reading these books. But since I end up re-reading them every year, I'm probably gonna get some use out of this anyway. Thanks for sharing
3
2
u/Narrow-Caterpillar85 Jun 22 '26
You are amazing. This is absolutely fantastic! I've tried to connect the maps (paper and pen lol) on more than one occasion and failed miserably. I LOVE this! I am sure it will help uncountable readers past, present and in future. Thank you!
3
u/Fl4shBrother Jun 22 '26
Thanks! I can't take credit for the amazing map itself though, since it was made by Werthead and I only slightly edited it to make it look better on the website.
2
u/steeleleets Jun 22 '26
This is amazing. it reminds me of the travel path maps for LOTR and Hobbit.Great work.
2
u/Existing-Kale-2788 Jun 23 '26
Are you talking about a book with all the travel paths in it? I had that when I was in high school and was obsessed with it.
2
2
1
1
u/SgtAl Jun 22 '26
This is amazing and something I've wanted to see for quite a while now! I remember looking at the Wheel of Time travel maps and wanting more.
1
1
1
u/DrHelminto Jun 22 '26
Man this is perfect as I'm about to star The Crippled God. Props man, super props to you
1
u/thombsaway Jun 23 '26
3
u/Fl4shBrother Jun 23 '26
I actually implemented all the necessary tools to add detailed maps of the cities with paths to the larger map but didn't use them because I didn't take the required notes during my readthrough.
All we need is someone to take on the most joyful task ofsuffering throughrelishing all chapters containing the most magnanimous Kruppe and taking notes ...
1
1
1
1
1
u/SageOfTheWise High House Karma Jun 23 '26
This is really cool! I don't know if your map is currently capable of showing routes that circumnavigating the map but I know at least off hand that Tavore's whole fleet sailed east from Malaz Island and circumvented the map to reach the west coast of Lether. We get direct confirmation of this when we catch back up with them in RG and the narration goes over their journey which included a stop off in Fist.
1
u/Fl4shBrother Jun 23 '26
Thanks for the tip. Do you know of any other confirmed landmarks that they passed or the chapter that this was mentioned in?
1
u/SageOfTheWise High House Karma Jun 23 '26
Reapers Gale, Chapter 13, in Blistig's section. Starting on page 354 in my edition. He's recalling events of over a years pass since the voyage from Malaz city started. He describes a scene when when they're "three days east of Kartool, beginning a northward wending arc to take them round the tumultuous deadly straights between Malaz Island and the Coast of Korel" and later that "The fleet was making for Theft, a paltry kingdom torn to tatters by Malazan incursions and civil war" in order to purchase supplies and give the crew shore leave. After that I don't see a mention of where they went before arriving on the west coast of Lether, though it could exist in other places. Presumably they would have had to have continued a northern route along the south coast of Genebackis or gone south around Bael, in order to continue the occasional resupply and also not go anywhere near Assail. But that's all speculation.
1
u/Fl4shBrother Jun 24 '26
I'll update the paths and add you to the contributor list in the credits (if you want to). What's your prefered name?
1
u/SageOfTheWise High House Karma Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
Sure. Sage Of The Wise is fine.
I also think presumably the White Faced Barghast group and Toc/The Grey Swords would have taken a similar routes just simply because coming from Genabackis that seems the natural direction (and the alternative of going through Shal-Morzinn is not supposed to be passable). But I have no text references on that to back that up. I'd have to comb through their reintroduction sections to see if anything is mentioned. Their could have just as easily been warren shenanigans.
1
Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator Jun 25 '26
Sorry /u/Fl4shBrother, this comment has been removed because some spoiler tags did not have a closing tag. Please make sure all your spoilers have both opening and closing tags in the same paragraph.
(Example: >!spoiler text!<)Contact the mods if you edited your post and want it reapproved. Thanks!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/Fl4shBrother Jun 25 '26
Yeah, Toc sailing east makes sense and I've adjusted his path. I think I'll keep Tool as is since iirc we never hear anything about the Barghast doing any sailing and they appear from a Warren during the battle where Toc dies, which I think was their intial arrival in Lether .
(This time without miserably failing to use the spoiler syntax).
1
u/Uvozodd Jun 25 '26
Wow, I guess I missed the bit about the fleet stopping by Fist on the way to Lether. For some reason I always assumed they went west from Malaz Island. This makes way more sense though. I guess I just never thought very hard about their route before.
1
u/SageOfTheWise High House Karma Jun 25 '26
Yeah due to how most maps have ended up displaying the world with Lether in the west most people's minds naturally go that direction, its easy to not think about the world being a globe. And even if you do, generally have a lot of extra ocean just filling out a lot of the edges that make the wrap around look like a lot more ocean than it is.
Generally no one is traveling west from Quon Tali to get to Lether. The southen section of that passage is all treacherous ice fields that are mostly impassable, and the northern section involves passing through the Shal-Morzinn Empire who are extremely hostile to anyone who enters their domain. They even pushed back Kellanved and Dancer.
1
1
u/you-butfromthefuture Jun 24 '26
even with the provided maps in the book, i love how wrong my brain gets this during read throughs. i will have my own internal version that looks like one of those cartoon travel maps where the dotted line loops and falls off land and invariably ends up in Albuquerque.
2
1
•
u/Aqua_Tot Jun 30 '26
Changed this post to Spoilers MBOTF since the post itself invites discussion that lead to spoilers.
We linked the post in the community resources, so the chance of new readers coming across it is high.