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I've read through Chapter 1 of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden and have not found any guidance on how to judge distances between the settlements of Ten-Towns.

Other than a good old fashion ruler compared to the map scale, is there a quick way to determine the distances between the settlements of Ten-Towns?

The actual travel time by road is discussed in the section for each town, but the introduction says, in the section Overland Travel (pg. 11):

Travel is less time-consuming on the snowy roads and trails that connect the settlements of Ten-Towns, as discussed in chapter 1.

So it is not enough to know the travel time via dogsled and convert to miles. We should expect it to take less time when traveling on roads, but it is never explained how much less, so the travel times are insufficient for guessing distances without use of the map scale.

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One dot marking the roads between towns represents 1/4 of a mile.

I've verified this using microsoft paint. First, note that 1 mile is 63 px wide:

enter image description here

Next, I found the nearest-to-horizontal stretch of road, just east of Torgos and measured four dots:

enter image description here

Also 63 px wide.

So four dots on the roads represents one mile, or 1/4 of a mile per dot.

Note, astute readers will be keen to avoid a fence post error; the 63px segment consists of exactly four whole circle diamaters.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Does the spacing between the dots remain consistent throughout the map? \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    Oct 11, 2020 at 21:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ @V2Blast There appears to be some ambiguity around the circles which are immediately adjacent to the circles representing the towns and cities, but all the circles representing the roads appear to be pairwise tangent. \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Oct 11, 2020 at 22:37
  • \$\begingroup\$ If you measure leading edge to leading edge (or center to center, or whatever: as long as you’re consistent about where in the dot you are), that looks to me much more like five dots to 63px, i.e. they are ⅕ of a mile rather than ¼. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Feb 16, 2021 at 20:03
  • \$\begingroup\$ @KRyan This is the third or fourth time this answer has gotten that incorrect comment. 63px is four circle diameters. Measuring center-to-center you have .5+1+1+1+.5 =4 circle diameters. \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Feb 16, 2021 at 20:07
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    \$\begingroup\$ Pro tip for future readers: you measure distance by starting at 0. \$\endgroup\$
    – RevanantBacon
    Feb 16, 2021 at 20:37
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One way to measure distance is by linear displacement. @ThomasMarkov's answer does that very well. More practically though, you can also measure distances by travel times. The adventure itself does that: Each town entry in chapter 2 gives travel times to nearby towns.

TheAlexandrian compiled these into a travel-times map which I have found useful while running the campaign: https://thealexandrian.net/creations/icewind-dale/icewind-dale-travel-time-map.png

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    \$\begingroup\$ Those are approximate travel times, not absolute And are very loose based on mode of transport and difficulty to get there. \$\endgroup\$
    – NotArch
    Feb 16, 2021 at 19:05
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    \$\begingroup\$ @NautArch …yes? The book has the actual values; the link I pasted just collects and presents them in a nice format. E.g. the entry for Caer Dineval (p.37) includes overland travel times to Bryn Shander, Caer-Konig, Easthaven, and Good Mead. The text says that the times are for overland travel on foot, and that other modes of travel will shorten it. In my experience running the campaign, that's the mode you need most often, and you need times far more often than raw distances. Is your experience different? \$\endgroup\$
    – fectin
    Feb 17, 2021 at 14:10

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