Dunan River

Hypothesis for, and analyses of, the various locations and backstory of the Suikoden world.
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Wolkendrache
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Dunan River

Post by Wolkendrache »

Take a look at the Suikoden 1 game map. It's the river separating Senan (Moravia etc.) from Dana (Kirov etc.), and connecting Toran and Dunan. Look at the river, north of Moravia there's a realistic example of 2 rivers joining together, and when the river hits the rocks at the lake banks, it causes rapids. In the end, the water finds its way to the nearby ocean in the northeast (and maybe in the south), after bypassing Shasarazade and several smaller fortifications which protect the capital.

Sounds good, but now I've read the following on Suikox:
"Dunan River
A River that starts south of Toran, runs through lake Toran, and feeds into Lake Dunan. This river is considered to be an extremely important trade route between Dunan and Toran.
SARSadmin's Comment: This info comes from the Suikoden Encyclopedia, but looking at official maps, I don't see the river connecting Dunan and Toran. So what's the truth!?"

All of a sudden, a typical example of conflux turns into an unrealistic (at least very very rare) example of river bifurcation, and the rapids don't make sense to me anymore, because a lake can hardly develop water speed which is needed to cause rapids. Moreover, it would mean that Toran is located higher than Dunan, so the stretch between the lake and the ocean must have an extreme gradient (invisible in the game), making the fortifications obsolete (or else, the Dunan river must be below sea level).

To me, the only explanation is that the compilers of the Encyclopedia wrote this close before knocking-off time, you know what I mean. Am I missing something?
"Within the four seas, all men are brothers" Shuihu Zhuan
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Re: Dunan River

Post by Antimatzist »

I don't know how rapids work, but the Rhine features rapids that were very dangerous near Loreley. I think these come from the Rhine and some other river meeting there or something Couldn't that be the case here as well? Slow rirver from the lake + fast river + some rare natural occurence at the river bottom = rapids.

Or it's just a gameplay mechanic. :P
Wolkendrache
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Re: Dunan River

Post by Wolkendrache »

You mean Genso Orography :wink:
In the S1 script, Gen talks mentions the rapids you need to cross to get to Liukan's hermitage (in the south of Toran) and refers to them as Dunan rapids. I can understand the idea that "both rivers" are counted as one, but the suggested direction of flow doesn't make sense. I guess the S1 map designer wasn't consulted, so it's a misconception by the compilers of this one encyclopedia.
"Within the four seas, all men are brothers" Shuihu Zhuan
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