“What's in a name?”

Likely location: an island close to Sarpadia

- after Ice Age, not overrun by thrulls
- ruins of a Sarpadian outpost have been discovered
- Loot Niptil is reading a Sarpadian text (from Sarpadia, not just about Sarpadia)
- has to be a very isolated place for people to be stranded there forever
- ruins of Sarpadian outpost are said to be “only a fortnight’s ride” (p. 26) from Grover’s pub (and the Peregrinator Complex is five days from Grover’s pub), which means it’s a relatively large island

Further information from the sequel “Insufficient Evidence” in Distant Planes:

- “the eastern mountains” are mentioned (p. 5), which might imply there are mountains in other directions as well
- guy sells forgeries of predynastic Sarpadian artefacts he supposedly found

I would probably pick the large island with the two snow-covered peaks that's west of Sarpadia on the 2018 map, as it fits all the criteria (mountains, size, general location).


“The Brass Man who would Sink”

Clearly written as a fable without a specific setting, probably doesn’t describe actual in-universe events.

“Inheritance”

Location: woods near the Bade Mountains, North Aerona (explicitly stated)

Further information:

- a “clan of brave fighters who lived in the trees, far away from the Bades” (p. 53) is mentioned
- “a people called Samites”, many of which are healers (p. 53) is mentioned
--> We learn during the Weatherlight Saga (Rath and Storm, I believe) that the Argivian University trains Samite healers (e.g. Orim), so I guess the Samites were originally a people from Aerona rather than an organisation, which then gave rise to the Samite order, which in turn formalised their training?
- Scarwood goblins are mentioned (p. 58), but they could have just been summoned from one of the other Scarwoods (Terisiare or Jamuraa) and kept their name as a kind of clan name, otherwise we’d have to assume that there are three Scarwoods on Dominaria


“Smoke and Mirrors”

- Lords and fiefdoms are mentioned
- Human lord has dwarven units working for him
- Local dwarves are called the Posied Hill Dwarves
- Dwarven Demolition Corps


“Dochyel's Ride”

Likely location: the Rundvelt range, most likely in the Domains

- Goblin loremasters claim that “the Rundvelt goblins were the only tribe of goblins who had taken upon themselves the task of teaching the old skills throughout the generations” and thus “the only tribe who used rock sleds and the only tribe who had kept alive the craft of the war drummers” (p. 124).
- “There are over thirty villages in the Rundvelt range” (p. 126).
- The Rundvelt goblins in this story are ruled by a council, there is no chief or king
- Ashes of the Sun confirms that only Rundvelt goblins use rock sleds (p. 23), and since Ayesh makes it sound like she has seen them herself, this would suggest that they live somewhere in the Domains
- Flavour text on Goblin Warchief: “Not since the days of Pashalik Mons have the Rundvelt goblins been so united or effective.”


“Animal Trap”

Likely location: somewhere in Aerona

The Keldon trader refers to the locals as “foolish southerners” (p. 177). I'd argue that it wouldn't really make sense to call people southerners who live in a completely different part of the world, even if that part of the world is technically further south. (For instance, I live in southern Germany, but it would never occur to me to think of people in Australia or Africa as "southerners". However, I might think of people in Spain or Italy as southerners, and people in northern Germany almost certainly would think of me as a southerner). Thus, somewhere in Aerona seems to be the most plausible setting for this story. Some other things we learn about the place that might help us to narrow it down further:

There is an unnamed walled city surrounded by woods, and possible dangers in those woods include bandits, giant spiders, grizzly bears, basilisks and hellcats (whatever those are). There are some travelling merchants and a trader from Keld who is also a werewolf (a Keldon werewolf has to be the most Metal thing ever). I briefly considered whether the city could be Myrion in the Smoke Mountains (a city attacked by Immugio in chapter 2 of Final Sacrifice) just to be able to tie this to a named location, but the surroundings of both cities don't seem to match.


“Wellspring”

Likely location: not on Dominaria

I’d say the magic system in this one is pretty much incompatible with everything we know about Dominaria, or any other known plane for that matter. There are some elves who discover how to use mana (before that, wizards used their life energy to fuel spells, so they all died around 30), but tapping into the land destroys it... Yeah, the story mentions a “larger moon” (p. 202), but we know there are other planes with several moons, and not all anthology stories are necessarily set on Dominaria. If I really wanted to force it, I could make up a theory according to which this story is set in Dominaria’s distant past in a place that had its mana messed up by some ancient cataclysm (maybe the Tivan Desert before it was covered in sand and became a desert) but I really don’t think it’s worth the effort. I’ll just assume it’s set on a really weird plane and hope it’s never brought up again, since it’s a really lame and pointless story anyway.

“Dryad's Kiss”

Likely location: somewhere in post-Ice Age Terisiare

Other than a larger and a smaller moon being mentioned, there are no particular clues that are clearly Dominaria-specific. However, the protagonist thinks he once heard “the harsh laugh of the jackal-headed being” (p. 214) while practising magic. In the context of Dominaria, this is reminiscent of an Eater of the Dead, which is a card from The Dark and is mentioned as a stereotypical bogeyman of that era in The Gathering Dark. In addition to that, “A Monstrous Duty” in Distant Planes, which is explicitly set in Terisiare during the Dark Age, also features a monster whose description on p. 154 would fit an Eater of the Dead even more clearly, and the protagonist remarks that it reminds her of a sick wolf, so clearly I'm not the only one who thinks the Eater's head looks canine. Yeah, technically we don't know anythig concrete about the Eaters and their origin or where on Dominaria they can be found, or whether they live in the Abyss or whatever, but Terisiare is the only part of Dominaria where we've seen them. The story probably takes place sometime after the Ice Age because there seem to be plenty of books and teachers around for those who want to learn magic, and magic is socially accepted and not persecuted by the Inquisition.


“Airborne All the Way!”

- Goblins have unusual names (e.g. Dog Squat, Dumber Than #1), like Egg Sucker in the Greensleeves trilogy?
- probably most stupid goblins on Dominaria (inbreeding?) Remnants of Goblins of the Flarg (decimated by Tivadar’s Crusade etc.?)
- Dragon Whelp, Goblin Balloon Brigade
- A plateau overlooking a broad plain, enemies dress in white, archers, ballistas, enemy command group “pulsing with white mana” (p. 235)
- Thaumaturges named Roxanne and Theobald (and some others)
--> Suggests formal training. Tolaria and Institute of Arcane Studies seem unlikely, but might be College of Mages in Epityr
- army is fighting for a wizard named Malfegor
- Groundwater/aquifer below
- Nearby cavalry regiment with red banners
- Giants, trolls, possums and sea serpents


“Not Just Another Green World”

Likely location: not on Dominaria (strongly implied)

“Insufficient Evidence”

(See "What's in a Name" in Tapestries)

“Chef's Surprise”

Likely location: probably either Terisiare or the Domains

The parts of this story that don't take place in Hell can't really be placed properly. The region where Asmor ends up after her service in Hell seems to be the same one where Vincent picked her up, and also the same one that is connected to the rubbish chute in Hell since that seems to be where the copies of her cookbook ended up. The ingredients she uses in Hell are either pretty generic or seem to come from all over Dominaria, and we don't know how and in which places Vincent's realm is connected to Dominaria. The creatures and people that are mentioned to exist in Asmor's region are Gray Ogres, Granite Gargoyles, goblin princes, the dwarven high council, the aristocracy of the sea, the elven conclave, rocs and dragons. There are no named locations in this story that we could put on a map, but it would be cool to know where Asmor lived.

“Foulmere”

Likely location: an island close to Sarpadia

The ties to Sarpadia are very explicit, though I can't entirely shake off the feeling that the story keeps the fate of Sarpadia deliberately ambiguous and can't decide whether it's supposed to be set in mainland Sarpadia or not. Here we go:

- wood gnomes are believed to be descendents of those driven from Havenwood centuries ago
- Foulmere itself is the region around the delta of the Kron Lu River
- “the forest was being cleared for lumber and farmland” (p. 90)
- The dobhéma have no homeland and travel “across the continent” (p. 94)
--> Which continent? Sarpadia? The flavour text on Brassclaw Orcs suggests otherwise, but who knows...

- Peter and the summoned dwarf can communicate in “Old Sarpadian, the ancient common tongue of both Icatia and realm [sic] of the Ebon Hand, and for over a millennium since, the lingua franca of the continent and surrounding islands” (p. 108), though the other character usually communicate in “Modern Sarpadian” (p. 109)
--> Could mean that the dwarf comes from a community of dwarves that are descendents of Sarpadian refugees (maybe those mentioned in “The Lady of the Mountain” that were supposedly teleported away?), says he comes from “the City of Deep Keep” (p. 109), wherever that is
--> More importantly, what does the bold section mean exactly? I guess it means Old Sarpadian continued to be spoken in Sarpadia proper for about a millennium after the story of Fallen Empires... and then what? Does it mean nobody survived in Sarpadia beyond that point, or did the language change enough to simply not be considered Old Sarpadian anymore? An earlier part of the story suggests that people still carried on in Sarpadia until the Ice Age, which would fit the “millennium”, but it might have been re-settled in modern times?
- The story suggests that Foulmere might never recover from the planeswalker battle and that the delta is basically gone, so the region might not look like a swamp on modern maps (cf. p. 114)

Then there is apotential problem with the idea that Jinuoe is a planet. The dwarf claims to be “from a land with no star like to that one” (p. 109), referring to Jinuoe. That could be the case if Jinuoe was a star that was never visible in the northern hemisphere (and maybe not even that), but if it’s actually supposed to be a planet, I don’t think that’s possible. Granted, I'm not an astronomer, but I'm pretty sure planets can't be completely invisible from some parts of Earth (or Dominaria) all the time. Now, I don't want to invalidate the info that was established in the podcast, so how can we try and save this? The dwarf can communicate in Old Sarpadian (pp. 108-109), but technically it's never stated that he was summoned from Dominaria, so maybe he's from another plane, but his ancestors were brought there from Sarpadia, and maybe they kept the language alive as a kind of temple language (like our Latin) or something? In fact, he asks Peter "Where from, sir? From what world taken [...] or are ye local folk?" (p. 109), so he seems to assume he's from another plane himself. He also seems to speak Old Sarpadian really well, and dwarves live for centuries, so I guess it could for all intents and purposes be his native language that simply hasn't changed much since his ancestors somehow ended up on another plane. We see a similar language situation in Planeswalker, where Xantcha and the other planeswalker companions can communicate in a mix of various elven dialects from different planes, so stuff like that seems to happen.


Last but not least, we don't know where Akkat is, but unlike "Dual Loyalties", this story is clearly set on Dominaria. Here is what the story says about Akkat:

It has a university, “golden domes and marble boulevards” (p. 87), and it's said to be “a somewhat more sophisticated land: Akkat the Mighty, Citadel of All Knowledge” (p. 88). I'm inclined to put this in south-eastern Jamuraa. In fact, I suppose it could work as a Suq’Ata colony near the coast, close to the setting of "Who Is Queen?". Could be in the jungle or in the mountains, but there seem to be some flat, open expanses there as well. Alternatively, it could be on the Horn of Plenty, the region where Karakas is. I just think the name and the golden domes might work for a Suq'Ata colony, and since it's supposed to be such a big deal, I'm inclined to put it in a part of Dominaria that we haven't seen that much of and that's far away from more well-known locations. Putting it in south-eastern Jamuraa would also give it the advantage of being not too far away from the islands close to Sarpadia, especially those west of Sarpadia, since Peter left Akkat to live in Foulmere.


“God Sins”

Likely location: May or may not be set on Dominaria (though this being on Dominaria might make the planeswalker protagonist more trouble than he's worth)

- Set on an island called Kartya (remote and isolated, mostly populated by humans)
- Elves live in nearby lands or on another island and sometimes travel to Kartya by boat



“A Monstrous Duty”

Location: northern Terisiare during the Dark Age (strongly implied)

Further information:

- Torya’s family was killed by the goblins of the Flarg, so it must be relatively close to the Flarg Mountains
- Angremur city is to the east (p. 142 f.)
- People in an inn “halfway to Angremur” mention “the rebels trying to fight the usurper Mairsil and restore Lord Ith to his throne” (p. 144)
- A coal golem supposedly “set the whole north side of Mount Shadow on fire” (p. 144)
--> Speculation: Mount Shadow might be the name of the mountain in the Colekgan/Ohran Mountains where the City of Shadows is located in Dark Legacy


“Dual Loyalties”

Likely location: probably not on Dominaria due to the very specific metaphysics of the setting (but it's more complicated)

Here's what I mean in a nutshell:

- there are powerful magical Sun-stones that just appear in the fields through prayer or trance
- the demon Illith seems to be convinced that “deities” exist (p. 215), which seems to be true
--> They seem to have an influence that reaches even to Hell
--> Illith has intimate knowledge of planeswalkers and is unlikely to mistake them for gods, so the gods in this story probably aren’t planeswalkers
- The Sun and Moon are personified as gods by the protagonist and generally a big deal, but there seems to be only one moon

The following caveats apply:

- a university in Akkat is mentioned (p. 188), the same as in "Foulmere", which is definitely set on Dominaria. As crazy as that sounds, I think considering the weirdness of the setting it's probably easier to justify the existence of another University of Akkat on a different plane or just chalk it up to a continuity error (I mean, the double-inclusion of Akkat was probably the editor's doing anyway) than to try and find a place for this story on Dominaria. Maybe there was an Oldwalker called Akkat who went around the multiverse founding cities that were named after him, and because he was bent on fostering education and knowledge across the multiverse, he also founded a university in each of them. Or maybe the plane in this story touched Dominaria once, and they somehow influenced each other, or it's simply a coincidence that two places in the nigh-infinite multiverse have the same name.

- It might be worth looking into the cosmology of Hell, especially in relation to other versions of Hell, because this one would be pretty consistent with the thousand hells in "Chef's Surprise", where the overworld in the one particular hell we see is clearly Dominaria. Different hells could be connected to different planes as well as to each other, though (at least before the Mending), which might also help to explain the two Akkats. I've taken extensive notes on the topic of Hell/the Underworld/the Abyss/what have you as far as it's mentioned in the anthologies, which means I'll probably be doing a separate thread about it somewhere down the line. Belzenlok was involved in the War in the Abyss after all, so...



“The Face of the Enemy”

Two planeswalkers fighting an ultra-destructive battle in a post-apocalyptic place we’ve never heard of for untold eons? There is probably no point in placing this on Dominaria...

“Horn Dancer”

Location: Hurloon Mountains (explicitly stated)

Further information:

- The Morningstar Falls (aka Morningstar cliffs) in the Hurloon Mountains are mentioned (p. 270)
- The village of Morningbrook is close to the Hurloon Mountains (p. 271)
- Ikenet’s parents were killed by marauding goblins (p. 274)

I'm going to add the Morningstar Falls to the list of stuff named after celestial bodies in the OP.


“Shen Mage-Slayer”

Likely location: somewhere in Jamuraa (could be in pretty much any part of it, really)

It features Cat Warriors, but they don’t live in an oasis like the tribes near Scarwood, they just have a camp more or less in the open. “Mirri’s Tale” in Rath and Storm also features a (different) random tribe of Cat Warriors in an unspecified location in Jamuraa, so why not?

“Defender”

The “Ruins of Binyen” are labelled on the new map of Terisiare, in the Ohran Mountains

Here is the most relevant geographical information the story gives us:

- “an abandoned city on a ledge halfway up the Muraytt Mountains” (p. 325)
- North: “great white plains of ice”, which are empty (p. 325)
- West: “straight down – almost – to the endless blue ocean”, no ships or dwellings (p. 325)
- South: forests and swamps (forest cities and swamp villages are there, but not visible, p. 325)
- “he turned his gaze east, up into the mountains”, dragon’s cave “high up in the side of the cliff” (p. 325)


Maybe move just slightly to west-south-west, i.e. to the westernmost point of the Ohran Mountains. The distance to the sea wouldn’t really change, but it would free up space to the north and south that would be needed for the geographical description in the story to fit (i.e. for there to be swamps, forests and plains instead of just more mountains). It would probably also make more sense for that somewhat free-standing outcropping of the Ohran Mountains to have a name of its own (the Muraytt Mountains) than if the Muraytt Mountains were deeper in the Ohran Mountains proper. The general area you placed it in fits very well, though.



“The Old Way to Vacar Slab”

Likely location: the Tivan Desert

- “a hostile confrontation with Aerathi marauders in the foothills just outside of Kenlefia” (p. 333) is mentioned
- “custom demanded a proper mummification of the body to ensure the soul’s transit to the Otherworlds” (p. 334)
--> The dead in this story rise as semi-aware zombies if this doesn’t happen

The story is explicitly set on Dominaria, but the fact that the dead rise as zombies suggests this must be a larger area that is somehow cursed or just has some weird ambient magic. I've picked the Tivan Desert because the landscape and climate would fit, and there is plenty of room to dump all this stuff we've never heard of, most notably Kenlefia, which seems to be a nation (or maybe some kind of city state?). Plus, Aerathi marauders are mentioned, which would fit nicely with the fact that we've seen them in Southwest Jamuraa in Legends I, which isn't too far away.

“Versipellis”

Location: in and near Argivia (explicitly stated)

There is one odd wrinkle here that I wanted to mention, though: “Though he preferred Penregon beer, Argivia was a wine town” (p. 93). I assume “Penregon beer” is just the name of a particular kind or brand of beer, because Penregon doesn't exist anymore and even used to be in the same place where Argivia now lies.

“The Crucible of the Orcs”

Likely location: near the Kjeldoran/Baldivian border (so probably in the Karplusan Mountains)

Further information:

- An older battle at Balesh Pass is mentioned (p. 154)
- Mount Delapre (p. 157)
- The goblins of the Flarg are still around shortly after the Ice Age, but those present at the battle all die
- The goblins have a king (p.163)
- Lake Balduvia (p. 158)
- “After two days’ march through the passes leading south, they came to a large glade on the opposite side of Mount Kireshal from Balesh Pass” (p. 158)
- Narmund Forest is mentioned (p. 164)


„Dark Water”

Location: northern Terisiare (strongly implied)

- the wizard from the flashback was “a refugee from some mysterious struggle in the south”, so the “city” in the flashbacks is farther north (p. 189)
- The cousins flee even farther north at the end of the flashback (p. 192)
- The main part happens 20 years after the Worldspell (p. 192), the landscape is changing rapidly
- Recycled metal from one of Mishra’s machines is used (p. 198)
- “the mayor of Cade” (p. 202) is mentioned, and we learn that "Cade was the smallest settlement Tayva knew of that actually had a name" (p. 202), so who knows if it still exists...


“The Mirror of Yesterday”

Location: an old tower on a cliff by the sea, somewhere in Terisiare around the end of the Ice Age (but apparently not Kjeldor)

The tower is implied to collapse eventually, so its ruins are probably underwater now.


“Bound in Shallows”

- An unnamed city, soldiers returning from the Brothers’ War, so it’s probably supposed to be in Terisiare
- The portrayal of magic and the fact that it exists as popular entertainment shortly after the Brothers’ War are at odds with what we know from the rest of the canon, so I’d gladly forget this story anyway

“The Isle of the Lost”

- An island called Tyree (maybe one of those northeast of the compass rose on the Dominaria map?)
- An island trader said to bring pearls, tropical timber and coconuts back to Jamuraa is attacked by three pirate ships (one with tattooed islanders from the Burning Isles, one “from the Jamuraan city of Dunance, famous for its traders who raided when given the chance” (p. 42), one from Terisiare)
--> The defenders are soldiers wearing armour and have “heavy weapons”, one of them has red hair and an “ornate sword” (p. 43)
--> Tyree is apparently closer than Jamuraa (pp. 48-49)
- “Tyree had been a common watering and provisioning point for decades. Isolated in a stretch of empty ocean, it was the only landfall for hundreds of miles. Large and thickly forested, it appeared on every navigation chart.” (p. 50)
- Samal sails back to Terisiare after fleeing the witch (p. 61)
- “The two pirates arrived at a port where a small Tyree trading vessel waited to return to its island.” (p. 61)
- “It was large enough that it didn’t seem an island at all but rather the shore of a continent. Massive mountains covered with greenery filled the interior.” (p. 62)
- “There were fields farther out, but all signs of civilization disappeared into the thick foliage of the jungle.” (p. 62)
- Check Legends I to make sure it doesn’t clash with any of the tropical islands in there


“Leviathan”

Likely location (frame narrative only): the Voda Sea

The merfolk that live close to the crabs have a thing called “scripture”, which is “the backbone of their religion” (p. 81), which would fit Vodalia (though the Svyelunite creation myth is different from the one told by the crabs). The leader of the early merfolk in the myth was called either a king, prince or Prime Minister (p. 81). The latter might be a word the crabs picked up from the Vodalians, who picked it up from the Icatians, because Icatia is the only place on Dominaria that I can think of that had a Prime Minister. (Although I seem to remember the word popping up in the context of Otaria, too, and the sea around Otaria had talking crabs as well, but I'm really not sure). Then again, there are virtually no merfolk left in the Otarian Mer-empire, and this anthology was probably published too early to have intentional ties to Otaria, so I think the Voda Sea makes more sense.

Further information:

- The “abyssal plain” (p. 76) is mentioned, which is seems to be an expanse of deep sea
- Seals, otters and merfolk live near the crabs, and there are humans nearby as well

“The Deathbringer”

Location: South Aerona (explicitly stated)

- The city of Janar (from the frame narrative) was founded next to an already existing graveyard with an old mausoleum (p. 120)
--> According to the story within the story, Janar was founded in the place where there was once a city called Hujek (p. 123)
- West of Janar/Hujek, across the plains, lie the Tonga Mountains (pp. 124-125), which we know are in South Aerona (opposite Sursi and north of Kush)
- There are (or were) dwarves living in caves underneath the Tonga Mountains (p. 125)
- “She traveled west through the mountains and into the forests, which are now open grasslands. […] Bethanelle came to the western sea, north of where the city of Estark now lies. […] Finally, Bethanelle hiked up into the mountains that skirt the coast” (p. 125)
- In those mountains (presumably the southern ranges of the Tonga Mountains), there is a peak called Mount Canval (though apparently only the assassins remember that name). There are three prominent crags on the shore of a small, frigid lake (p. 126)
- There is a secret, worldwide brotherhood of assassins that are implied to be Royal Assassins and that worships an angel of death called Avarre (she is real, she actually manifests in front of them). How cool is that?


“Keldon Fire”

Location: Keld (explicitly stated)
Further information:

“The view from Tajamin’s tower was among the most spectacular in all of Keld. To the east lay Port Bay, its busy docks, and the rising sun. To the north perched the great Necropolis itself, seat of Keldon glory, and to the west was the mountain, squat and massive […].” (p. 141)

„The Lady of the Mountain”

Likely location: Pardic Mountains, Otaria

The frame narrative is set in a dwarven community on Mount Fiers, which is also mentioned by Balthor in "Journey Home" in The Secrets of Magic (p. 233). Furthermore, the myth itself as well as the dwarves' religious duties as rock druids are also mentioned there, which we have never explicitly heard about in the context of other dwarves on Dominaria.

Further information:

- The myth told in the story claims that Mount Fiers is the tallest mountain in all of Dominaria (pp. 183, 186), but i’s debatable whether this is actually true.
- A few surviving dwarves from Sarpadia were supposedly rescued by the Lady and brought to other mountain homes (p. 218)
- “One day, while surveying the mountains east of what we now call Unyaro” (p. 197)
--> What? There are no mountains east of Unyaro, at least not on the Mirage era map we have (unless it’s referring to the mountains on the other side of Zhalfir, which are technically also in the east)… Several other places around the globe are mentioned (Shiv, Sarpadia), though, so maybe it’s just namedropping and the dwarf telling the story isn’t as good at geography as he thinks.


„Hand of Justice“

Location: Zhalfir, Ki’pamu (explicitly stated, but misspelled as “Kipamu”)

Just one thing I wanted to mention:

- “The city was called Kipamu [sic], beside the blue ocean at the end of the Desert of Bones” (p. 245)
--> Eh, another short story that doesn’t line up with the Mirage map. Ki’pamu isn’t supposed to be anywhere near a desert, nor is it by the sea… Then again, the narrator of the frame narrative might have made a mistake, so we could explain it away… The Desert of Bones might just be another name for the Great Desert. It's also mentioned in the prequel "Angel of Vengeance" in The Colors of Magic (p. 4), and there are caravans and Viashino guides, so that could fit. (I'll admit that I had kinda forgotten the Mirage map existed, too, before you pointed it out).

“Hero of the People”

Likely location: Terisiare, either northwest of the Colekgan/Ohran Mountains or west of the Sardian/Karplusan Mountains

- Mitrokin village seems to be in the same part of the world as the city of Losanon (p. 49)
--> Losanon later became one of the Thran city-states, all of which have to be in Terisiare since they are connected to Halcyon by a single long highway (The Thran, p. 22)

- The dragons fly westward from Mitrokin village for a long time and cover a lot of ground, then cross a mountain range and a river at the base of the slope and then dive into a pool of water to get to the cavern with the city in it (pp. 56-57)
- A huge well built over an open geothermal vent provides steam power and helps to regulate the water level in the cavern (pp. 70-71)
- At the end of the story, the cavern is flooded and the dragons leave through “a large hole in the top of the cavern” (p. 78)

There are two options for the location of the ruined dragon city that seem particularly compelling to me.

Option A: If Mitrokin village used to lie somewhere east of the Sardian/Karplusan Mountains, the hidden entrance to the cavern could have been just west of those mountains, with the cavern (or parts of it) possibly being underneath or inside the mountains. The general region where Tarnrish is located on the modern map of Terisiare seems fitting because we know there are "high mountain lakes in Tarnrish" (Song of Time, p. 62). Actually, that makes it sound like Tarnrish should be a region rather than a city, but it's certainly possible there is a city of the same name as well. Whatever the case, the fact that there are several mountain lakes makes it likely that the dragon city would have had to regulate the water level. If there are mountain lakes, this could mean there is also a lot of thaw water from the mountains and/or subterranean rivers and/or underwater caves, stuff like that.

Option B: If Mitrokin village used to lie somewhere east of the Colekgan/Ohran Mountains, we could tie the dragon city to the setting of Dark Legacy in an interesting way. We know the dragon city had an open geothermal vent and an entrance close to the western side of a mountain range. What if this geothermal vent was the first hint that there was a magma chamber deep underneath the northwestern part of modern Gulmany, which seems to be where the Niroso came from? In fact, what if the magic emanations from the dragon city above were what eventually created the Niroso in the first place? It is clear from "Hero of the People" that the dragons had all kinds of magical artefacts and machines down there, and Vervamon theorises in Dark Legacy that the Niroso might be a result of the magical fallout from the Brothers' War. He blames "the poisoned land of Lat-Nam", but I guess the continuity of Lat-Nam is already convoluted enough without the Niroso, so we could just blame the Primeval empire instead.


“Dragon's Paw”

- The island of Tolaria used to lie west-northwest of Madara (if you compare the old Invasion map with the new one)
- From Tolaria, the dragon flies off into an unknown direction for a bit, but then turns east, crossing a large stretch of empty ocean until it arrives at a coast (p. 94)
- It then follows the shore northward while occasionally snatching “a small, screaming snack” from “the rolling plains” (p. 94)
--> This probably rules out Madara, as the west coast of Madara is the setting for Legends II and rolling plains don’t seem to fit there. This makes southwest Jamuraa the most likely candidate.

- It then reaches the north coast where it finds a familiar countryside with fields (p. 94)
--> This could be the Storm Coast near Buzzard’s Bay

- The story then skips a week, and the dragon has already destroyed five castles in the area, the latest of which is referred to as “the castle at Rushlim” (pp. 95-96). It then returns to Tolaria
--> Those castles and the place called Rushlim could be in the plains northwest of Arboria, the same plains where Amrouhaven is located. The general direction would fit, I’m pretty sure we haven’t seen that part of Jamuraa in Legends I or any other story, and the climate there seems to allow for fields and castles, if Amrouhaven is any indication

- Now being bigger and smarter, the dragon leaves Tolaria again and flies “west, toward new lands” (p. 97)
- Over the next ten days, the dragon destroys an entire kingdom by burning down cities and forests (“fear struck every soul for hundreds of miles in every direction”, p. 97)
--> There is nothing west of Tolaria, unless we assume said kingdom was on one of the many small islands there. Considering that it doesn’t mention it being on an island (which, admittedly, is no clear indication) and the area seems to be very large, it could be that the dragon circled north towards the Domains (those ten days are just briefly summarised, so that could be the case). In that case, it could be one of the named or unnamed bigger islands in the southern Domains, which works pretty well because we haven’t seen most of them in a story and a dragon causing wanton destruction there wouldn’t get in the way of anything we know about.


“Of Protectors & Pride”

- There are seven reefs in the Cosiman Tribelands
- The merfolk in that story don’t have Vodalian sounding names
- The mother dragon loses one of her talons when the Tolarian wizard who steals her egg from the Fourth Reef escapes through a magical portal. The dragon locates her missing talon close to Etlan Shiis (“Its inadvertent entry through the portal brought it only partway along the conduit created by the fleeing mage”, p. 112). She then follows the trace to Tolaria.
--> For what it’s worth, this is reminiscent of the portal magic Jodah uses in Planar Chaos (“it works by following ley lines and mana channels”, p. 95), but either way I think it’s safe to assume that the trace the dragon follows isn’t necessarily a straight line going through the Fourth Reef, Etlan Shiis and Tolaria but could be rather curvy.
--> That means we don’t really know where the Fourth Reef or any of the other reefs are, but it seems likely that it could be in or close to the Voda Sea, at least closer to the Voda Sea than to Tolaria


“Familiar”

Likely location: New Argive (possibly during the Flood Ages or some time after that)

- White dragons “migrate every fourteenth spring from their homelands in the north to their hatching grounds in the south”, “They’re quite a sight as they fly over the forest” (pp. 125-126)
--> Check Invasion and Planeshift for hints
- There are porcupines near the druid’s house (p. 127)
- There is a town close to the forest (“a humble cluster of buildings huddled together at the edge of a small lake”, p. 140), the houses are built to withstand storms, thunderstorms seem to be a frequent occurrence (p. 141)
- There is a merfolk wizard with legs named Vaerix (doesn’t sound like a Vodalian name)

The migration pattern of the white dragons makes me think that New Argive is the most likely setting for this story. Planeshift calls the white dragons "the dragons of ancient Argive, alabaster creatures that were more at home among clouds than sand” (p. 52), and that's the only hint about their home we get in the entire trilogy (that and the fact that Treva was imprisoned in Argivia I suppose). The white dragon Eagyn from "Dragon Lord" is an ally of the Order in Otaria, but it's clear from that story that he's a bit of a loner, and I'd say it's also implied that he has only been in that part of Dominaria for a few decades, so as far as the whole population is concerned, that guy isn't any real indication. There are also plenty of unnamed patches of forest in New Argive where this story could have happened, and placing this in New Argive would also mean that it wouldn't be too far away from the Mer Empire in the seas around Otaria. The merfolk wizard in this story doesn't have a Vodalian sounding name - he's called Vaerix - and he's walking around on two legs, which is a trick that we've seen most prominently with Laquatus and Veza. The part where storms and thunderstorms seem to be a frequent occurrence may or may not be chalked up to the story being set during the Flood Ages, but the mention of the Glimmer Moon being clearly visible (p. 137) makes me inclined to put it before the Invasion, which would mean the merfolk in Otaria would still be around either way.


“The Fog”

- The island with Pari’s Golden Beach is pretty small and not on the protagonist’s maps (p. 193)
- “Agrippa had crossed the seaways to seek gold and purchase grain […] for his people”, who live on the Isles of Argive (p. 194)
--> the story is set a few generations after the Sylex Blast, but we don't know where he was trying to sail or in which direction he travelled from the Isles of Argive


“Dreamwings”

Location: Llanowar (explicitly stated)

- “Elfhame Basiphim” is mentioned (p. 216), but The Art of Dominaria spells it “Basiphem”. Not sure if it’s mentioned anywhere else in the canon.


“The Blood of a Dragon”

Location: Vintara Forest (explicitly stated)

- There are Garan Elves in Vintara, i.e. the same elf race that lives in Tamingazin


“Keldon Staredown”

Location: Keld (explicitly stated)

Further information:

- “On any good map of Keld, the village of Letha lay two days’ march south of the Parman border, nestled between two of the most forbidding peaks on the continent” (pp. 285-286)
- “Letha was little more than a way station for travelers to and from the Border Citadel, ten days’ march to the west” (p. 286)
- Port City is mentioned (p. 288), presumably located in Port Bay (see “Keldon Fire”)
- “the icy fjords of Vosok, three thousand miles away” (p. 290)

“A Nut by Any Other Name”

Likely location: the forested area around Barbar at the border to the Green Lands

The most obvious thing that links this story to Barbar are the sapient gorillas along with the fact that the forest is clearly neither Yavimaya nor Scarwood in Jamuraa, the only other parts of Dominaria (that I'm aware of) that have sapient gorillas. The physical description of the gorilla shaman in particular resembles the artwork of Barbary Apes enough that they could belong to the same group (“[T]his gorilla was clothed in an elaborate cloak of multicolored feathers. Bone trinkets hung from the shaman’s earlobes, and the fur on its chest was braided with small beads and jewels. It was clutching a stout wand in its hand, the top of the rod embellished with a series of tiny skulls”, pp. 78-79). The forest seems to be quite large (“’I’m only three days from the village’”, p. 74). At the edge of the forest, there is a “vast plain [...], a seemingly endless expanse of grassland, spoiled in its emptiness only by the human settlement a few hundred yards to the east at the bottom of a gentle slope” (p. 74). Both the direction and the description of the plains would fit the Green Lands (“’Our people live on steppes and taiga we call Green Lands near Honeyed Sea. [...] Ours is border country, where often are wars", Whispering Woods, p. 63). We also learn that the part of the forest south of the human settlement is “bordering on simian lands” (p. 81). The protagonists walk in that direction and follow a river for about an hour, “the water’s course becoming increasingly rough as they progressed” (p. 81). There are two rivers in that region on the old map of Aerona that flow straight to the south, so even that fits.

Further information:

- The forest has treefolk (oaks in particular are mentioned, p. 87)


“Goblin King”

- The knights and soldiers marched from King’s Head (p. 101)
- The humans have a king (p. 103)
- The goblins live in the mountains (p. 103)
- “Goblin, he thought. Strange that the word so closely resembled Go-blan, or “Many Kings” in the Sarpassian. The word was probably older than that, originally from the dwarves or first men. He’d have to check the university library when he returned to King’s Head” (p. 103).
- Gaslight Swamp is somewhere close to the camp (p. 103)
- The kingdom has a Lord-Protector (p. 104)
- “The king’s army set out in spring to take the lands of Viscount Tardis” (p. 105)
--> The king’s army was thus sent “south through the Gaslight Swamp to take the rear of Tardis’s line” (p. 105)
--> The Half-moon goblins are holding the pass the army has to cross (p. 105)
- The goblins use war drums (p. 105), goblin grenades (pp. 106-107), rock sleds (p. 108), goblin gliders (p. 109)
- “he meant to take the pass in a week and be ready to seize Tardis’ banners before fighting broke out in the plains of Tormuk” (p. 108)
- The goblins have a king named Jugrut
- “atog-in-the-box” (p. 116)
- The Half-moon tribe was at war with the Blood Fang tribe the year before (p. 120)
- King’s Head is west of the battlefield (p. 127)


“Like Spider's Silk”

- “the king of Caeliyan”(p. 149)
- “the assembly filled the natural amphitheater known as Rima’s Green” (p. 150)
- “guests from the nearby dwarven enclave of Battavorn” as well as humans (“merchants, nobles from the surrounding areas” etc., p. 151)
- The bridegroom’s parents are “the king and queen of Caeliyan City”, the protagonist’s elven village is called Veshaynya, and the elven people that lives there are the Veshayn (p. 151)
- “The humans did not treasure the forest as her people did. They were traders and merchants who had built a city of luxury off of lucrative trade and land holdings” (p. 152).
- “As the once temporary settlement of Veshaynya continued to evolve into a permanent home” (p. 152)
- The human king has granted the elves “farmlands to the northwest of Veshay Wood” (p. 152)
- The first captain of the elvish guard is a “veteran of countless border skirmishes with the goblins, orcs, and worse” (p. 153)
- “it wasn’t like goblins would attack this far into Veshay Wood” (p. 154)
- “The Veshay Wood – the lower territory of the Northern Forest claimed by the Veshayn – had been cleared of dangerous predators decades ago, not long after the once-nomadic tribe had settled there. The bandits who had initially plagued the village were soon killed or sent packing” (p. 155).
- The farmland given to the elves was once forested and cleared by the humans (p. 156)
- Rima’s Green is mostly ringed by “centuries-old gurna pines” and the occasional pinnacle cedar (mile-high and millennia old, p. 157)
- There are giant spiders
- There are other elf tribes in the forest (p. 162)
- There are gorillas in the forest, but they don’t seem to be sapient


“Journey Home”

Likely location: southern New Argive

- Explicitly not set in Otaria
- Balthor finds Urza’s staff jutting out of a Phyrexian’s chest, somewhere in the plains or fields (p. 219)
- Balthor walks south toward the sea (p. 220), and the southern coast is mentioned again later (p. 223)
- “I came up here to fight in Urza’s war” (p. 223)
--> This suggests a place north of/farther north than Otaria, or at least farther north than the Pardic Mountains
- Balthor and Matoc find towns and villages populated by survivors on their way south (p. 223), then they reach a port town where they book passage to Otaria (p. 224)
- The ship has been sailing for weeks (p. 224) when it’s attacked by pirates (p. 226)
- Several weeks after that, they arrive in Otaria, “landing in the northern port town of Landshome” (p. 230)

So, first things first: The story makes it sound like it's set in a place that's far north of Otaria, but considering all the information that we have, there isn't really a place for this to fit. Anyway, I went through the entire Invasion trilogy, and it looks like the last mention of Urza's staff is in chapter 1 of Planeshift (No, I can't believe I was crazy enough to research that either, but I was looking for a couple more things anyway than just this piece of info, or I probably wouldn't have done it). The scene in question takes place at Koilos just after the Rathi overlay, and Urza is holding his staff before he gets into his titan engine. The scene then cuts to the Weatherlight crew shooting Phyrexians and watching as their allies are being teleported away. Then Urza is suddenly in his titan engine and the staff isn't mentioned again. Here is what I think must have happened for the scenario in "Journey Home" to make sense. I believe Urza just dropped his staff before he got into his engine at Koilos, being under time pressure to teleport everyone away and having no use for his staff anymore. The battlefield we see in the short story must be farther south, both because it's near the south coast and because the landscape is completely different from that at Koilos. So I think someone must have found the staff at Koilos after everyone had departed and taken it away, only to later stab the Phyrexian in whose chest Balthor ends up finding the staff. Urza doesn't feel like the kind of person who'd just run his staff through a Phyrexian and then leave it there anyway.

There is more, however. The short story mentions that Balthor and Matoc are sailing for several weeks, get attacked by unspecified pirates and then sail several more weeks before “landing in the northern port town of Landshome” (p. 230) in Otaria. I did a quick research to figure out how fast sailing ships can go and how far they'd get you in such and such an amount of time, but the info I found was vastly inconsistent because it all depends on what kind of ship from which time period and under which conditions we are talking about. It gave me enough of a gut feeling to say that Balthor's ship can't have gone too far, globally speaking, especially when you consider Dominaria has 2.5 times the surface area of Earth. Using common sense, you'd also think that people from Otaria who want to help fight Phyrexians would pick a place that is as close to their own continent as possible. And if you look at the Dominaria worldmap, it's easy to imagine that a ship could sail west from the south coast of New Argive in an arc around Lat-Nam and arrive at the Otarian east coast somewhere south of Balshan Bay (let's say), which is where Landshome could be. You could even call that "northern", especially when you consider that nobody at the time realised that Tamingazin would have to be in the north of Otaria. Placing Balthor and Matoc's involvement in New Argive is also kinda satisfying - to me at least - because we don't see much of the action in New Argive as a whole, and saying that some Pardic barbarians (presumably) and a lonely dwarf from Otaria were involved there helps us fill that gap a little bit.

“The Reluctant Student”

Location: Tolaria (explicitly stated)

- Barrin is waiting for his “Scrying Glass of Catania” to be delivered (it’s not quite clear whether Catania is the name of a place, p. 59)


“Ereth the Mighty”

Location: Yavimaya (explicitly stated)

The mini-epilogue (pp. 115-116) probably takes place in the future (i.e. after 4560 AR) as it’s set centuries after the main story, which in turn takes place about a generation or so after the Invasion. There might be some wiggle room as it’s all a bit vague, but it doesn’t seem to fit into the Rift Era and also not into modern day Yavimaya where sapient life has been cast out. If it does take place in the future, that would mean that the elves and humans are going to return to Yavimaya at some point and that the magic academy from the story is going to be re-established. Relations between humans and elves seem to be pretty good. All of this is absolutely possible now that Multani is conscious again and will probably allow sapient life to return.


“True Enough”

Location: the region between Benalia and Llanowar (explicitly stated)

- The setting is “unclaimed land at the meeting of forest and plains” (p. 117)
- There is a small town called Sylvayn in that area


“Crucible”

Location: Rath (explicitly stated)

The epilogue (pp. 265-267) establishes that the en-Vec joined the Dominarian cause after the Planeshift and consider themselves Dominarians now. The village of Travec has been rebuilt on Dominaria, though it’s not clear where it’s located or where the en-Vec in general ended up (possibly in several different places across Dominaria, though).


“The Voice of Command”

Location: Rath (explicitly stated)

There is a remote outpost of the Evincar’s army, a fortress called Tabala. I guess if another set or story on Dominaria is in need of a random Rathi fortress that ended up there somewhere, it might as well use this one.