Oral maps are a navigational aid used by many peoples of the Wounds, a method of encoding directions, routes, and geography into oral stories. To those untrained in how to interpret them, oral maps can appear little different than any other oral story, as their information is provided in the form of parables, legends of past heroes and their deeds, or other common mediums. Those familiar with how they are recounted, however, know that oral maps provide an easy to remember directions for reliable routes between the many islands and archipelagoes of the Wounds.
As with most orally-distributed stories and knowledge of the Wounds, the actual knowledge they contain is guarded by multiple layers of safeguards to ensure those who are spiritually dangerous or outside the desired audience cannot access it. This most typically takes the form of repeating circular motifs that are designed to trap the uninitiated, a near-complete absence of names to avoid invoking anyone or granting them power, and so forth.