How do I get away from my map being a two continent bore?

something ive been wanting to find out about for a setting im working on.

Could deserts form ABOVE the equator naturally - im talking northern European-like region?

Maybe, to a degree. What aspect of the "heat" desert do you want to replicate?

Hey this thread was pretty long so I didn't read it all the way, I don't know if anyone ha suggested this yet, hear me out: what f you added more continents?

Do you mean north of the equator or at the equator but at very high altitude? Because your wording isn't very clear and kinda sounds like you think the equator is in the Mediterranean.

Anyway, for a desert in Northern Europe you'd probably want a super continent up there. Make sure there is a lot of land around where you want the desert to be for moisture from the sea to rain off on.

The heat is another issue.

probably 50% done at this point, don't think I will ever finish it

donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/world/

shitty mapmaker. you used to be able to 'construct' the world but that doesnt work for me

Deserts can form anywhere. Use a rain shadow or some anomalous wind pattern that prevents rain clouds reaching the region.

>im talking northern European-like region
That means a temperate oceanic (Britain, France, Western Germany, etc) or humid continental (Eastern Germany, Poland, Western Russia, etc.) climate. Its more likely to have a cold semi-arid area bordering this than an outright desert, though that semi-arid area might transition into desert. It would be unusual to have a wet temperate region like northern Europe transition into an outright desert, but a rain shadow could still work.

Though not the same as Europe, there are plenty of cool, green regions bordering on deserts like northern China and the Gobi or the Andes and the Atacama.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-arid_climate#Cold_semi-arid_climates
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_climate#Cold_desert_climates

Technically yes. Remember that the polar ice cap is a desert.
But I assume you mean the dry, hot, sandy desert. Naturally? No not really, what you get is more like wastelands, look to the center of the USA for an example, it's all stony and rocky with little sprigs and bushes popping up here and there. There's sand, sure, but it's no ARABIAN NIIIIGHTS.
If you really want, just convolute a magical reason for a sand desert up north like I did in my setting.

Have landmasses that just poke in around the edges but are not fully explored. The game takes place on a single continent but the world is much larger, albeit most of it undiscovered. ASOIAF is great for this - I really want to know what the rest of the world looks like, but this is the only map available. For all intents and purposes it IS a two-continent borefest, but the information provided about the rest of the world leaves one wondering what there is out there.

If you want, you can let the players trek into these unknown landscapes. That sounds like it could be REALLY fun - hostile, unmapped and altogether alien places that are totally foreign to everybody. Good stuff.

Volcanic ice glacier field between desert and jungle

??????

Don't try to map continents.

Your campaign is gonna be no-more than three cities, with a couple dozen towns and villages, forts and mines, crossroads and trade-fairs.

Stop trying to map a world. You will invariably get lazy, and it will be reflected in the quality of your world.

Don't map a game-world. Map a game.

I will never get over how fucking disgusting ASOIAF's map looks.

Not to mention one continent is literally Ireland+England and the other continent might as well be turkey.

Actually that's basically-exactly what the Himalayas are. South is tropical. North is desert. In-between is high-altitude, arctic areas. And there's some temperate forest to the East.

And it is all about ocean currents.

soss for the delay i getting back to this
firstly thanks to eveyone for offering suggestions.
>Do you mean north of the equator or at the equator but at very high altitude? Because your wording isn't very clear and kinda sounds like you think the equator is in the Mediterranean.

If i was using europe as an example i was looking at a land mass starting from not say northern italy/suothern Switzerland and ending in not northern Tunisia if that makes any sense as far as latitude is concerned.

If it helps its for a VERY [and liable to be scraped] Work in progress plot point involving moving the player from a fantasy not europe to a Brazil like enviroment through a desert like land mass.

would somthing like that work? does it look like i may have to drop the "magical realm" bomb on it to make it work? should i scrapp it and try something else?

Just go wild, who cares about realism

looks nice, give the southernmost island a bit more margin.

Since this is a map thread, judge mine if you would.

Scale? Are these continents or islands?

Zoom the fuck in.

If you're doing a fantasy game, there's no reason to have the map of the entire world. Filling an area the size of Turkey or India or the Levant will do you for an entire campaign.

Travel without airplanes is slow as fuck.

make it three continents?

I would say that one hex is at least one half a days travel.

Are salt flats considered deserts?

>who designed this, an alien

Every fucking time.

And to answere your second question, one is an island, the rest is conquered continent.

make three continents!

god, that was hard

aaaaaand seeing this picture for the hundredth time I only now realized it's not joke about the coastline being weird, it's a reference to Slartibartfast

WHAT PROGRAM

I'm making a world which got ravaged by a magical god-war. With whole continents shattered, and several others reduced to wastelands.

This.

Take your world map and throw it in the trash where it belongs. Make a local map with some vague ideas as to what is beyond the boundaries, and then flesh those ideas out if/when players cross that bridge.

Preach. I made a world-map, but just for myself because I like making those things. I'd set my games in a fun part of the map when cool shit was happening.

What's the scale of your map ? It this is a continent then your forests and lakes are goddamn huge.

>also and old map from an old game I ran (basically generic fantasy setting but 1000 years later, during !notWW1)

Dude just islands lmao

rate my map lads

The cluster of islands southeast of Bredon look a bit unnatural.
Wildlands sound a tad too generic to my tastes but that's just my opinion.
Kalimahi better have some priests that rip out hearts with their bare hands.
7,5/10

paint dot net, cursor drawn

Full version

I've been working on a world map for my shitty world for a while now. Probably about 20% done.
It might have been wiser to just make some smaller area maps for the immediate areas of the player starting point than a whole world map but I couldn't resist the urge to just design the whole fucking thing.
I kinda wanted to see what the world looked like for myself too.

Put the pen down and wait for inspiration to come.

Think about the emotions you felt when you first began to build your world, when you feel those feelings again you know you'll be satisfied with your world.

nice, thansk for the advice :)

Wanna know how to get nice jagged coastlines?

Draw the basic shape of the land, and open up another image. Render some clouds and use magic wand to select a chunk of it. Paste this chunk onto the original image and then use threshold to make it entirely black or white.

>not running multiple games in the same world at different locations

At least your bitterness and spite is a little charming.

Don't suppose anyone's got a link for CC3 they'd be willing to share? I'm new to map-making, so 60 for something I don't know I'm going to use is ridiculous

Oooooooohhhhh the memories are flooding back.
Also, yeah, this map isn't that geographically accurate, now that I look at it.

Crazy motherfucker.

that is literally a map of Europe turned 90 degrees

Nothing gets past you, does it?

And while you're technically right, the map has been shifted slightly in some areas, and Spain has been squished into France.

here's the map I'm drawing up for my players to scribble all over for our swashbuckling campaign. I have posted it up as i have been making progress so this picture is quite outdated now. also i took it using the panoramic feature on my phone since this is poster sized but unfortunately that means the pic is out of proportion a bit. I'm starting to slow down with progress now as i seem to always go back and touch up parts I've already done. also i suck at coming up with names so I'm having trouble with starting the northern islands. whats a good way of differentiating between types of forests?