Is this a good map?

My observations:
Yerevan is roughly the size of India.
For a fantasy game the countries are way, way, way too large!
And even for a "modern"/sci-fi game it's on the large side.
Only if this is represents a colonized planet it would be okay.

If i were you i would scale down the map by half or so, add a shit-ton of more countries (At the current size around 20, at a reduced size atleast 10), add rivers, think about the climate and the subsequent land-usage in the regions.

Not sure why this thread is focusing so hard on where these names have been used before, when the question is how you feel about them.

Not as good as this one.

The names remind me of how JRPGs always have weird sounding place names and then one or two names from real life.

For example:
>Helman
>Zeth
>Monster Land
>Leazas
>JAPAN

granada makes me think about the carribbean and cocktails but it is a mountain region
Kinshasa plains sounds like its full of some half lion stuff to me
yerevan lets me think of some middle eastern stuff
and Nolzeria puts the picture of a dense forest into my head, just because wood in german is Holz and Nolzeria sounds a lot like that. also maybe some norse stuff
Aedirne doesn't really invoke a lot but Dirne is some older german word for Whore so...

At least two of those are actual real-world locations. Don't like that.
Okay, none of the names are new.

From the scale I guess this is a single island and not a pangea-style world map?

I will take you in good faith, OP and describe what I think of when I read those names.

Gut feelings:
> Yerevan
I get the feeling that it will be one of those eastern post-soviet not-quite-europe-not-quite-asia countries like Kazakhstan or something like that. I know nothing about those places so I'm really picturing Half-life 2 architecture.
>Nolzeria
Spain, but conquered by Kenya instead of the turks. Hot. Humid. I expect a vaguely mediterranean/ mixed-ethnic population who eat their Paella with Cassava in it instead of rice.
> Aedirne
France during WW1
> Granada
Never mind that it is AN ACTUAL CITY, it feels just so modern. Late twentieth century western world. Hobos and businesspeople.
> Kinshasa plains.
Being white and scandinavian, Kinshasa is a word that feels alien to me. So saying it out loud, I start thinking about Mufasa, and so I expect the lion-people to live there in a vaguely faux-african Wakanda-style nation with a king who has [the prettiest mane in all the land, look at it flow] when he talks like a crossbreed between Aslan and that one professor I had in my second year of nursing school who came from the Republic of Congo.

I think the general response to OP begs another question: how do you feel about names blatantly taken from real life?

Ooshoolala
Spain
Planes of eternal torment and pain.
Wiolalloal
Chicago
Fineralgen

Depends how obvious it is. I would be a bit phased by a town called London, but something like Kinshasa I've never heard of before.

ali boma ye

Leaving aside the naming issues that have already been brought up, let's talk about the lay of the land.

Aedirne is almost entirely mountains and Granada is ALL mountains. That means hardly anyone is going to live there, and there's little room for cultivation. No nation is going to survive entirely on hunting and herding, and going by the scale indicator, these nations are HUGE. These aren't kingdoms, they're empires.

"Kinshasa plains" ostensibly includes a couple of mountainous regions, but I guess the "plains" part is supposed to be its identifying feature?

Either way, I'm getting very little instinctive "feeling" about this world. Yerevan is fucking humungo and borders every other nation, so if it's supposed to be the Big Evil Empire, it's a wonder it hasn't gobbled them up yet.

That little tip down south is separated from all the rest by mountains and could easily be a realm all on its own.

Good start, needs work.

Seems like people are triggered by these names. Maybe a better exercise would be for people to suggest names based on short descriptions of the natures?

Aedirne
> A peaceful and relatively prosperous aristocracy ruled by a coalition of noble families. They have strong political and trade relationships with every nation.
Nolzeria
> Oldest country. Once a dark theocracy, Nolzeria is now occupied by Yerevan after trying to conquer the entire continent in a crusade. As a result, its citizens have been reduced to slaves and refugees.
Yerevan
> Yerevan is the largest nation and has the strongest military. They are traditional, expansionist and militaristic. After the Nolzerian War, Yerevan demanded all Nolzerian lands be entrusted to them.
Granada
> Granada's infertile lands created a culture which relied on conquest and raiding other countries in order to sustain itself. In recent decades, many in the populace have instead turned to mercenary work.
Kinshasa Plains
> Home to nomadic tribes who live peacefully and in harmony with the environment. They have no unified political system, but tribes are known to trade with other nations on an individual basis.

let's ignore the scale from now on, I'm an idiot

I'm just a pleb, but I don't mind it too much OP.
Just that I'd extend Granada out to the coast rather than have them surrounded.
It's possible you could get away with it with people less autistic than the average fa/tg/uy.

What method'd you use to come up with the map?

Remember Op. The names for places in their native tongue is always stupid.

England means "Land of the Angles." Not the ones with wings, the ones that Anglo-saxon comes from.

Nippon? (Japan) Sun Origin / sunrise.

India? Hindu River.

So just pick a language that fits the race of people in that country somewhat closely and name the country a stupid phrase from that language.

Yerevan: Give it to the Norse and call it Isigaskit. It means Icy Shit, sounds exotic as fuck to us though.

I loathe it when it seems arbitrary and effortless, like if a fantasy world has a counterpart culture for Ancient Rome and the capital is just lazily called "Roma" or something. At least look up some Latin naming conventions or grab a more obscure placename. Fuck.

Sometimes it makes sense, though. I'm pretty sure GRRM's Westeros has a peasant shithole called "Blackpool", which is also a town in the UK. However, it's perfectly reasonable that a place distinguished by a small body of water would be named "pool" something.

And then there's the batshit retarded way, like in Paul Hoffman's god-awful offense on the senses "The Left Hand of God" where there's one place called Memphis, another called Norway and they're all within short distance of each other.

Actually meant to include that in the post

gmworldmap.com/#2875738:2144284582:2048

It's a great tool.

I'll take a crack at this, but first I need to know how closely related these lands are supposed to be culturally. Are their languages similar, or does Yerevanians speak, say, Russian while the Nolzerians speak French?

Rome actually is derived from a word for the upper udder of a she-wolf due to the shape of the surrounding hills. This proves my point quite well I think. The greatest empire in history was named after a wolf tit. (Ruma)

Not OP, and no intent to usurp their thread, but what kind of kingdoms/culture/factions that you think would reside in areas with these names
>Dago
>Cisitu
>Antapani
>Tamansari
>Kopo
>Ledeng

[spoilers] these are literally some neighbourhoods where I live, but got me thinking

The map was taken from a website that infinitely generates continents, that's why its 2 colours.
I cant remember what the URL is

Ah, right, the legend of Romulus and Remus. Fair enough, but then you need your Rome rip-off city to have many hills and by that point it has ceased to be "inspired by" and veered into "copy-pasted" territory.

I agree with you whole heartedly, I was just hijacking your example to prove my point. Names in native tongues are dumb and easy to come up with. Spend 20 minutes on google translate and you'll have a goldmine of Gorath ass fantasy names for all your favorite elf hamlets. No need to copy paste.

>Nolzeria
SPAIN
if there are any other continents around they are the ones who are going to discover them.
>Yerevan
Propably a culture based on some Asian country,mixed with Russian climate. Middle of it is not inhabited
>Aedirne
A mountainous region,inhabited by strong men.
They also make wine.

Home of an UNEXPECTED PROTAGONIST

>Kinshasa Plains
Probably the biggest and most populated country on the map. The fact the country is named "Plains" make me doubt they civilisation.
I guess they are just barbarians or mongols

>Granada
Considering it's strategic placement and the fact it's in the middle of the moutain range it has to be the most important place on the map.

The country is propably related to gods/aliens/ancient civilisations in some way, now but monsters live there or it's a place were few Tibetian monks live

Nolzerians are the aboriginal culture of the nation and might be Egyptian/Ancient Greek inspired
Kinshasans came pretty early on but are peaceful and tensions with Nolzerians were low. I'm thinking Mongolian influences for these guys.
Then some more advanced colonising power came over, and took heaps of land from Nolzeria and they gradually split into Yerevan, Aedirne and Granada. Yerevan would be Germanic and Roman, Aedirne would have French influences and Granada I've got no clue. I want them to be a pretty informal culture. They're trying to go from banditry and raiding to peacekeeping mercenaries.

A few decades before the current date, a religious ruler in Nolzeria (who had much more land at the time) led their people on a crusade against the other countries and were only defeated by the other countries working together. This war wasn't total though, large portions of Yerevan and Aedirne's political leaders refused to see Nolzeria as a threat.

culture of the continent*

Right, so every country has a distinct culture, but Aedirne and Granada sprung from an even greater Yerevanian empire? And the current Nolzeria is an annexed state?

This is fun. Last question: Do you want these names based on real Earth languages or are you going for a mystic Elvish type feel?

Daily reminder that smooth coastlines exist.

Aedirne and Granada would've split off a long time ago so they've had a long time to diversify themselves from Yerevan. Aedirnians would be peaceful and value art, but also quite materialistic. Granada was founded by bandits who had to live on the shitty Yerevan land and decided to take to the mountains and raid from there to feed their families rather than farm shit-all crops which would just be sent to the bigger cities in Yerevan. In the Nolzerian war though, Yerevan and Aedirne hired many Granadans to fight Nolzeria and this has created some positive change in the country, pushing some of the inhabitants to become mercenaries rather than raiders.

And only humans live here, so the names probably shouldn't sound too alien to us.

gut feeling on names:

>Yerevan
good humans
>Nolzaeria
evil humans
>Aedirne
elves
>Granada
that's just fucking Spain, dude
>Kishabracadabra Plains
mongols

try to make up names without "r"'s

it helped to increase the variety and uniqueness of names in my current campaign at least

Right, let's see.

Yerevan -> Varyavan. Let's keep the same phonetic melody going, then branch out from that sound to its sister nations:

Aedirne -> Edilonne

Granada -> Apistavna, which would be old Varyavanian for "refuge-land".

Nolzeria -> Zengivia, pronounced "zen-jiv-iah", though the Varyavanian occupiers call it Parsokvan, meaning "simple land".

Kinshasa Plains -> Olurok Territories

You're a master of your craft

Addendum: The average player doesn't inspect worlds this closely, it's usually a subconscious thing whether things sound "right". Your original version may be perfectly fine, it's all up to how well you know your players. They might raise an eyebrow if, for example, they're familiar with the Witcher-verse. Or if they've ever heard this song:

youtu.be/EzErh_s62Wk

I didn't want to make another thread for this but I wanted to know how I'm doing. This is my first time using Inkarnate.

Not much to say at this point, honestly. It's actually difficult to even get a feel for the map scale. Also, all your rivers fork into two near the mouth, which is not what real rivers always do. Not every river has a large delta, and very few split into two equal distributaries when specific distance from the coast.

>there's one place called Memphis, another called Norway and they're all within short distance of each other.

This is what happens when you base your setting on your playthroughs of Civilization games.

Generally speaking when it comes to making maps, I like to draw inspiration from Dorf Fort.

Also I never understood why most people try to make a "world map" when most of the time they wont even use most it.
I'd rather use just a zoomed in state-sized map and add on if needed. Could say its not been fully charted yet

In my case, I always make world maps because I don't want to have to wing it if my players should ask me what's beyond their little slice of the world, and because I personally find that it helps establish scale better.

Hell, my last campaign ended up with the party bouncing all across the world with teleportation.

>Also I never understood why most people try to make a "world map" when most of the time they wont even use most it.
Several reason for that. Aside from people feeling good about having the world mapped out in the full scope, it' simple a matter of consistency and making sense. Even if you are not going to use it, it's good to know if there is a landmass on the other side of that sea, if the mountain range continues? It gets doubly as important when you pay attention to things like plausible climates, which really forces you to know the geography in broad scope.
Also, people like to jump from place to place when thinking of their world. They like to explore it in it's variety, rather than focusing on narrow aspect of it most of the time.

Personally, I've made only a few very rough outlines of the whole world so that I would know where are the continents and major mountain ranges, then selected a very specific region (roughly the size of China) to recreate in greater detail, then focused on even narrower segment to make that in really great detail.
I plan on breaking the whole map up into several sub regions and do maps for each one in the order of their importance in the grand scheme of the word-story.

Fantasy Russia, Dwarf Country, Elf Country, Fantasy Spain, Unnamed Luxembourg, Let's put Africa in the East Instead of the South This Time.

It's fine for a stereotypical dungeon crawl campaign. Not every DM can be an anthropologist.

Nothing forms in a vacuum. Having a world map lets you puzzle out how everything interacts and came to be as it is. It isn't for players to see, it's for you to help build a consistent and logical setting. Slapping things down as you go tends to lead towards nonsensical geography and ethnography. It's a situation like one of those generated-as-you-go random dungeons where you make four right turns and should end up back where you were yet never do

What if the dungeon is non-euclidean?
What if the world is non-euclidean?

Then you have even more to consider about how your setting works

Granada is a region in Spain, Yerevan is the capital of Armenia, Aedirne is a ripoff of Edirne, Turkeys second (or 3rd) largest city, Kinshasa is some place in Africa somewhere, idk where, and Nolzeria seems made up.

>Aedirne is a ripoff of Edirne
Also Aedirn is a kingdom in The Witcher universe.