It’s all very conflicting; by all accounts, Zin Azshari (which is pathetically small in-game considering what it’s built to be lore wise, well done Blizz) was built on the shores of the Well of Eternity, which is said to have become the Maelstrom upon it’s destruction, correct?
I’m sorry just the idea of a supermassive whirlpool that we can’t visually see from any of the edges in Nazjatar, no indication of it being near the Maelstrom in any sense is confusing the hell out of me.
Zin Azshari reaches as far as Azshara to the west and so it should be massive.
Suramar has been mentioned as being on the shores of the Well of Eternity too so it’s a big place as well! We see chunks of the city of Suramar(I think Blizzard even called the Broken Isles Suramar itself in one of their statements at Blizzcon) all over the oceans surrounding the Broken Isles.
The part of Zin Azshari we see in BfA is likely southeast of Suramar/Broken Isles and west of Kul’Tiras considering we are next to N’Zoth’s prison.
We don’t even get to see the majority of Nazjatar either since all we see is the Eternal Palace and it’s Courtyard along with the Highborne Estates and the Marketplace of Zin Azshari(we really should be shown the Marketplace of Nazjatar in all honesty one day)!
Another thing to consider is during the sundering chunks of Zin-Azshari may of been literally torn up from where they were and hurled out to land where we see them today, or even have been teleported with so much arcane energy erupting out. N’zoth may have somehow even influenced their final destination to suit his needs.
I’m interested to see a source, I have no such recollection of Suramar being in such close proximity to Zin-Azshari, and a brief search of Suramar and Zin-Azshari doesn’t indicate anything to this effect on WoWpedia.
I’d love to see this too; I just, have a hard time getting my head around the sheer distraction and tectonic plate movement the sundering caused. This is my brain too grounded in real world geology though.
I’ve recently suddenly become very interested in Highborne lore and have began a Nightborne mage so kind of immersing myself in the lore is a big part of that.
Zin- Azshari was big, but not that big. It and Suramar was separated by quite a lot of terrain as can be seen in the Chronicle map of the Empire at its height:
Just checked Wowpedia and it seems you are correct that it wasn’t as far as Canon Lore was concerned. The Non-Canon RPG on the other hand combined Suramar and Zin-Azshari into the same city and had Zin-Azshari’s Temple District and the Eternal Palace as parts of Suramar on the shores of the Well of Eternity!
Galhara on the other hand does have Lore of being on the opposite side of the Well of Eternity from Suramar as seen in the War of the Ancients Trilogy.
Wowpedia of course claims Chronicle contradicts this yet their source has the page sourced as “??” suggesting they are making random assumptions from looking at the map.
One of the Chronicle Maps for Vol. 3 shows the name of Kul’Tiras while leaving out Gilneas and Vashj’ir(https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/wowpedia/4/44/Chron3_map_of_Azeroth_at_AQ_reopening.jpg?version=5be8bcd5dbd97cc8a4d4012da1de182a) while another shows both but leaves out Kul Tiras(https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/wowpedia/4/4e/Chron3_map_of_Azeroth_after_the_Cataclysm.jpg?version=846b09e6149a727002728d9cf9636ef6).
Chronicle Maps don’t show everything so don’t be surprised that Galhara isn’t listed in the same place as Zin-Azshari and the Well of Eternity!
No idea how big Galhara is but Suramar in Canon was at least big enough to surround the Broken Isles(you can see Suramar’s ruins everywhere in the Ocean) but not as far as the Well of Eternity.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Zin-Azshari#Location quotes the novel Stormrage in revealing that Azshara is where the edge of Zin-Azshari was found.
Those markers are just where the center of the cities were. Look at a world map in real life, the dot they show doesn’t equal the actual size of the city
You generally have the city center and branching from that are suburbs, which are still part of the city itself.
This was once a place of great power. The highborne who lived here would host lavish parties, living in splendor. Zin-Azshari was once on the shores of the Well of Eternity and drew powerful mages from all over the empire to study here. I suspect, despite the many years at the bottom of the sea, there are still treasures and powerful artifacts hidden away here. Speak with the spirits that remain and see what you can find. There must be something to help us overcome the Guardian of the Tidestone.
Given that Nazjatar is not shown on the map the way Vashj’ir is, Nazjatar might still be where it’s supposed to be after all. With Zin-Azshari being on the East side of the Nazjatar map, that could line up with here it had been before west of the Well of Eternity:
I had suspected as much; and I’m irked that the developers were too lazy to just indicate where Naz is, the land mass need not be shown on the world map.
