Just finished my campaign map for my homebrew DnD 5e setting. Thoughts? Missing something...

*your

>Missing the Shattered Isles (Broken Isles)

This is prior to any major geographically affecting event, Think Pangea. Very early lifetime of this planet.
Good to know that i've been subconsciously nabbing things from other fantasy settings. Fortunately none of my players watch GoT or play WoW so they won't notice it.

Such a continent can form if four plates drift to a single point, and all four sink at that point.

Green, Cyan, Red and Blue would be those plates, which collided and folded along the mountain ranges, and said point would be that inland sea in the center.

That can actually be a hook. There's something horrible in, or under, that city.

>Fortunately none of my players watch GoT or play WoW so they won't notice it.
You hope, anyway. I've not played WoW since vanilla but I still caught the references.

>DnD setting

You could've just shat on a paper and it would've been okay. Not even hating on it or on the game, just saying that there's a 90% chance your players only want to kill monsters in dungeons and will mostly ignore it.

The setting overall is fine. But simple, with only five nations that are clearly separated by mountains and all that. But that's not even a bad thing. Mordheim might not be the best name for a place unless you want it to be a direct reference to warhammer fantasy.

You're right, I do hope lol
You've nailed it on the head, The City of Brysaris (not part of the other countries) was actually built ontop of where an old god was sealed away long ago. The third act of the campaign involves either preventing his release or defeating him after his release (hah GL)

I've had a discussion with my group and they're interested in actual story progression along with the killing of baddies and getting loot. My campaign will have a balance of that and political intrigue.

A proto-continent which didn't separate yet AND didn't form by joining of another continents wouldn't have any mountain ranges at all.

Your amalagamation of cliches has seven. Nine, if we count that range in the middle and that one along the south-eastern coast as separate, which they are.

It's kinda obvious.

Make the island artificial, heed if you want your map to be believable, don't obsess over your setting too much and you're golden. Focus on the campaign itself. All else is a background.

Fair point, I've never claimed to be a geographer so I'll change it to where the multiple continents formed together to create the one.
I appreciate all of your constructive criticism. It's why I made this thread.

>subconsciously

You're lying, aren't you? You put all those things there on purpose, you cheeky little fucker.

Well good job, I spent a good ten minutes playing "spot the reference".

>WoW
>Warhammer
>Witcher
>LotR
>GoT
>Ultima
>TES
>Mothafucking Conan
>Possibly Dark Souls

It can be great setting for comedy games. It's very much possible to make it so bad and reference-ridden it would cross the "so bad it's good" line.

If it was a super continent it would not be a single blob mass. Also mountain ranges would be accompanied by back arc basins.

Additionally, there was no single proto continent. A more realistic picture would be hundreds of small islands that accumulate due yo accretion.

In addition to all the others people pointed out Kaer Morhen is a prominent location in The Witcher... honestly half-way through I figured the point was just that it was a bunch of references. I'd definitely redo the names at least

As someone whos never seen Conan, played Ultima/Warhammer/Witcher/Dark Souls I appreciate your "compliment?"
But in all honesty none of the names were pulled intentionally, and i'm not against changing them to be more original.
Seems that though it would be quite difficult with the countless fantasy fiction/games out there. also "cheeky little fucker" gave me a laugh.
Open to name suggestions if you guys have any.

Use real life languages as a starting point, those make names that people can recall. Dragon Age does this very well. Don't use too many apostrophes and keep the lexicon of symbols similar to english with not too much use of the weirder parts of the IPA.

>Guy shows his map
>All the so called geography majors come in to harp how it's not realistic enough/10

I'm pretty sure his players aren't as anally retentive. I agree the names feel a bit referency (which isn't always a bad thing, but a whole map is a bit excessive).

Decided to go with the concept of that each plate smashed together to create the massive continent. This was caused by the event that sealed away aforementioned Old God

>not suffixing every city with "burg"
>not using exclusively german inspired names
tryhard/10

German a shit. Old French mixed with late Latin a best.

kek. and yet everyone says my names are all intentional references, which could only be possible if I've had experience with the many things i'm supposedly referencing lol

This thread is clearly a bait.

It's not a bad kind of bait, though. There's some effort in that map. Good job, OP.

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Thanks user, means a lot.
Okay.. its not at all that dramatic though

You don't have to be a cartographer or geology minor to design maps that don't look wildly fantastic and artificial.

Not OP, but my last group had two history students in it, both of them somewhat into world-building.
It's a bit of pressure, but they appreciate the effort at least

That map is boring. I'd take OP's wildly cliche setting over that bland shit which I imagine is probably all about "super realistic" medieval humans rolling around in shit because "muh gritty realism."

>Implying your average player is going to know
>Implying your average player is going to even fucking care

Yeah, I just recall all those players and threads on "map wasn't realistic enough, I just got up and left what a shit game and a shitty GM".

Oh... wait.

But it's a Fantasy setting? key word being fantasy? I understand the desire for it geographically realistic, but it is fantasy after all.

Hell, I may keep it wildly cliche and have it kind of be that setting's thing. as said it could be so reference-ridden it crosses the line of "so bad it's good". Ultimately what matters is if my players dig it.

So because it's fantasy we should just throw all notions of realism out the window?

I call out my DM every time a map is not geologically plausible or for any other geology related errors in the campaign. Luckily I am able to have fun with the group the remaining 99% of the time.

I didn't say that, but It doesn't have to be Realistic otherwise it wouldn't be fantasy, by definition.

Does this map depict the whole planet or is there anything else on it?

Because if yes, your planet has an equator measuring roughly 1200 miles. Which means the planet's radius is rougly 190 miles (or 306 km). If we assume the planet's density is rougly similar to Earth's, simple math tells us that OP's planet is nearly ten times lighter, and it's nearly ten times smaller then the Moon.

OP, I'd fix the scale.

So what's this setting missing for it be geologically pleasing?

This planet is populated by fairies and other tiny beings. This explains everything.

Using the "lol I don't gotta explain shit, it's fantasy" excuse is the mark of a poor writer/dm.

There's no reason why you can't have geological anomalies in a fantastic setting as long as there's some sort of explanation as to why they're there.

There are other continents but this is the "known world" in the settings current timeline. Increase the scale from 200 to 400 would be suitable? I'd prefer if it didnt take a week of travel time to get from town to town. LOL

The "Player won't care" argument could easily be used to describe FATAL's incompleteness, so long as it let people fulfill the fantasy of being rapehobos.

There are always different levels of Fantasy. Whether you want something that looks like Hyboria or something that looks more like Pandaria is up to the GM. But people saying it looks really artificial isn't just trolling; if it looks really fake they expect some justification for that.

That also may possibly mean that the planet is too light to hold atmosphere by itself.

It doesn't matter how fantastic your world is, if mountain ranges exist then plate tectonics exist, and if plate tectonics exist you should learn how they fucking work.

As an history major into world-building myself, I've learned to shut my mouth. Sometimes even when they actively ask. No matter what you say people will end up thinking you're a cunt or stuff like "who cares, it's fantasy". And it's actually right, I don't even expect fantasy worlds to make sense anymore, I'm just not gonna read it if it's shit.

see

I don't even think you need to study plate tectonics but you should at least realise that mountains don't form on coastlines and that rivers follow gravity.

Unless, of course you're going to use the "a wizard did it" cop out.

This is primary school geography level shit.

OP here, in all seriousness i'm curious what the scale should be adjusted to if it's to be semi-realistic. As my previous post here says this isn't the only continent but I still want partial realism hence why I changed it from being a "pangea" and being multiple plates that have combined as states.

We should throw out boring notions that don't matter. Physics is one, geography is another.

Sup Veeky Forums, i'm trying to create a world where the adventure would take place in the continent pictured, but i'm not sure what tools you'd use for making a map.

This is the first "throwout" version, but my problem is with making a believable desert since i come from the land of "water everywhere" aka Sweden.
Should i make the land completely arid, removing the rivers completely? Or should i simply move them more towards the ocean?

The goal is to make a large desert that's habitable, but really fucking shitty. Shitty enough that only selected people in the nomadic tribes living there are allowed to have children.

The map shows bridges but doesn't show roads.

One icon type description is missing, the kind of that above the R in MORDHEIM.

Lochborough is there just to mess with players who would pronounce it wrong, I'm sure.

Weird black outlines along the coast in some places.

At that point you might as well just throw the rulebooks out the window as well.

There needs to be some sort of realism that the world is grounded in otherwise you're just playing in dreamland where literally anything is possible.

What mapmaking software did you use OP?

Your setting is good enough senpai. I see what is probably an elf country, a not-arab country, a dragonborn country a generic english human country and a dwarf country. You're playing D&D in a game about magic and gods or whatever, you don't need more.

Not my cup of tea, but changing the geography won't solve that. If I feel like playing something simple I would gladlt play in your setting if you can summarize it in a 5 minutes explanation and I can play something simple like a dwarf barbarian or something. In fact, people ITT complain about "clichea" but it's better that way.

Lack of roads was intentional for further cluttering purposes.
The non-described Icon represents some form of creature village/base but wasn't sure how to specifically label it. (stronghold? idk)
You're partially right about Lochborough.
The weird black outlines represent cliffs along the coast, and the ones without are beaches.

No one was denying that it looked fake to a bunch of picky geo majors riddled with autism. It's just the fact they're not indicative of the large majority of playerbase in any P&P environment, and should just be ignored.

Great, I always wanted to play a gaseous PC

inkarnate.com user
Abundarra is the Tiefling country & i'm In the midst of writing a basic summary this very minute.

Goddamn it, now you've got me playing too.

>boring

You are boring.

Fortpain sounds like a lovely place to live.

While you guys are all giving advice I could use some if you're willing.

Where do those towns get fresh water?

More land. More features.

It's a dwarven fortress.

...

Looks kinda like an impact crater from a meteorite that came in from the north-east.
Maybe you could work that into the world somehow? Maybe it's not a meteorite...

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This is pretty sick familia, the only thing I'd be iffy about is the mountains, tectonically speaking. That said, maybe I'm wrong, and I certainly don't know enough to care.
The map looks realistic, which is more important that actually being realistic in my book

They melt down snow for fresh water mostly.

I'm not sure what to add since part of the setting is that it's very resource scarce. A bit of understanding is that it's a dying world setting with a heavy dose of viking fantasy (much of the world is underwater and the sun is dying so it's getting colder and colder).

That could actually fit pretty well into the setting.

I would make in-detail maps of the most important islands/groups of islands.

But I'm still not sure what to include on those islands. I guess that's where imagination comes into the world building, huh...

Well, why are those islands there if you don't know what they contain?

Because I was originally gonna put in more points of interest but I'm not sure how many is too many/what they should be. A large part of the campaign is that the PCs are looking for the schematics needed to fix their clan's life support system and I want to give the islands a feeling of unexplored/hostile wilderness. I was considering using some kind of random generator.

What tools/generator is this?

see

Not OP, but you want subconscious? I was doing some worldbuilding a long ass time ago and while making my continents I zoomed the fuck in and starting ripping away at the coastlines. When I zoomed out to look at my work, pic related is what I saw...

I intended for 2 continents, but FUCK, I did NOT mean to make fucking Azeroth...

>Gods make a world
>Rise mountains manually
>No plate tectonics

>The homebase for realism in the campaign shouldn't be culture or non-magical physics or behaviour or time period basis but fucking plate tectonics

I try to make my maps look kind of realistic but fuck me you guys are autistic.

fellow Geology-fag here
this nigga is right on the money

its rare as fuck to see people on Veeky Forums talk about geology

especially on a map thread where it should be important setting-wise

>mountains dont form on coastlines

TOP -geology- LEL

subduction zones form mountain ranges on the coastlines

look at south america

South America, the ENTIRE PACIFIC COASTLINE, Morocco, too.

It's not Azeroth. Azeroth has a northern continent and an Australia in the south.

You're constrained by the canvas size. If you'd elongate the canvas and drag the Eastern continent out to the right more it wouldn't be such a clone.

cheers

>its rare as fuck to see people on Veeky Forums talk about geology
>especially on a map thread where it should be important setting-wise

Hi there, welcome to Veeky Forums. This occurs literally every time we have a map thread.

Im not OP and my map doesn't have town names

but how'd I do geographically?

The South Western Islands look a little weird. Like, I get that they were made by the volcanoes but why would there be volcanoes right there?

Hotspot/tectonic spreading center?

I'm building a low-fantasy setting for my medevial themed GURPS games, and I need some help with ideas on how to set things up geographically.

Are there any good guides to building a map? I was literally going to use a map of Europe sans Iberia and with the baltic sea filled in, but I'm not too keen on that anymore because the setting has gone from 'comically generic' to kind of my own thing.

Do you guys have any advice on how to place climates ? I've read guides before but I admit the part about currents and winds has me really confused. Is there a shortcut or should I just try harder to get that ?

How the fuck do I make good maps in inkarnate? Everything I make looks like shit.