Meta:Heidmarch Manor

Canon error

The map of Heidmarch Manor on Seekers of Secrets, A Guide to the Pathfinder Society 39 depicts the manor as being located on a sprawling estate, conflicting with the manor's depiction in city maps of Magnimar. Per James Jacobs, this map is in error. The canonical map of Heidmarch Manor was intended to be published in Shards of Sin but cut for a lack of room, and was instead published in Shattered Star Player's Guide.¹

The Player's Guide map lacks some of the details from the manor's description in Seekers that might remain canon, so elements of the manor's description remain cited in the article. These should be replaced by references to other, more reliable sources should they exist. -Oznogon (talk) 16:37, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Note that the description in Lost Omens Pathfinder Society Guide aligns with the depiction and description in Seekers, describing sprawling grounds that take up several city blocks with a single gatehouse entrance, two large koi ponds, an island refuge in the middle of one of the ponds, a large topiary maze, and a separate meeting house of similar size as the manor house on the opposite end of the estate. The four cottages are also described as being scattered across the grounds.

That description can't be reconciled with the city map of Magnimar, which puts the House of Lords around where the meeting house would be. Due to Jacobs's official clarifications specifying that the estate should fit the footprint of Magnimar on the city map, that the map in Shattered Star Player's Guide is the canonical map, and that information about the manor in Seekers is unreliable, the manor's description in Pathfinder Society Guide must also be considered unreliable for repeating these non-canonical details, despite being from a newer, higher-tier source.

This means this canon clarification itself creates a canon conflict that is unresolvable in our canon policy.

If the Player's Guide map is canonical for the reasons in the clarification, the description in Pathfinder Society Guide is irreconcilable.
If the Pathfinder Society Guide description is canonical, the Seekers of Secrets map it describes is also canonical, and the official clarification is irreconcilable.

-Oznogon (talk) 17:11, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Rise of the Goblin Guild uses the map from Shattered Star Player's Guide, with labels specifying that the four structures also on the estate are the Thassilonian cottages. -Oznogon (talk) 17:45, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Heidmarch Heist refers to Wumbrout Brios as overseer of the manor's meeting house, and describes the meeting house as a venue for the lodge's training classes. These details are consistent with Pathfinder Society Guide and Seekers, but the meeting house does not appear on the estate map from Shattered Star Player's Guide. Barring either further official clarification on the manor's size and structures, or an extraordinary decision to overrule the official clarification regarding the manor grounds' map, the meeting house's location is an unresolvable canon conflict. -Oznogon (talk) 17:39, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Proposed a resolution in Talk:Heidmarch Manor for discussion. -Oznogon (talk) 17:51, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

References

↑ "The material in Seekers of Secrets is a little bit riddled with some lore errors, alas (including giving a few NPCs associated with the place the wrong classes), particularly in how it presented the map of the manor as being int he {sic} middle of a wilderness type area when the manor is in fact located in the city of Magnimar and not surrounded by woodlands or as sprawling an estate as the map from Seekers of Secrets proposed. Of course, feel free to use that map if you want, but if you're looking for the "official map" of the manor as it currently exists in Magnimar's Alabaster District, we were going to publish it in the first volume of the Shattered Star Adventure Path (Shards of Sin) but didn't have room. So instead we published it in the Shattered Star Player's Guide, which can be found here. The map of the manor found on page 7 of that free PDF is the official map of the manor for us, as its outline matches the footprint on the larger map of Magnimar." James Jacobs. (November 21, 2024). Comment on "Heidmarch Manor Map; Does One Exist and also Recent Events Question", Paizo Messageboards.

Unincorporated sources

Magnimar, City of Monuments --Fleanetha (talk) 20:36, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
Pathfinder Society Primer --Fleanetha (talk) 19:16, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
My Enemy's Enemy several refs --Fleanetha (talk) 15:26, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

[1] "The material in Seekers of Secrets is a little bit riddled with some lore errors, alas (including giving a few NPCs associated with the place the wrong classes), particularly in how it presented the map of the manor as being int he {sic} middle of a wilderness type area when the manor is in fact located in the city of Magnimar and not surrounded by woodlands or as sprawling an estate as the map from Seekers of Secrets proposed. Of course, feel free to use that map if you want, but if you're looking for the "official map" of the manor as it currently exists in Magnimar's Alabaster District, we were going to publish it in the first volume of the Shattered Star Adventure Path (Shards of Sin) but didn't have room. So instead we published it in the Shattered Star Player's Guide, which can be found here. The map of the manor found on page 7 of that free PDF is the official map of the manor for us, as its outline matches the footprint on the larger map of Magnimar." James Jacobs. (November 21, 2024). Comment on "Heidmarch Manor Map; Does One Exist and also Recent Events Question", Paizo Messageboards.

1