Map thread

The previous thread was fun, so let's have another map thread. Share your maps and discuss them with others.

Other urls found in this thread:

docs.google.com/document/d/1-T9WpY3Q6aWn98V3SuOJUp5SbqZcQ_cIPBDTn5ZtsFo
i.imgur.com/3RHOCsH.png
i.imgur.com/ZjdpbMf.jpg
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

To bump this thread, I'll post my old map that I used before Inkarnate updated.

This is my update of the T-rex head map, hopefully looking a bit less tyrannical. I want to do a bit of work regarding the giant swathes of river that cut into the land but I'm not sure how to make them look interesting and yet distinct from "winding river".

Not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but I find the easiest way to do natural looking coastlines in inkarnate is to draw the landmasses as blobs with the add tool at 64-128, then use the subtract tool at 10-16 to weather it down.

pic related isn't the best example, but it's the product of only two minutes work

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First map I made for an AoS campaign I'm running at my local store. Mortaset Island

What's with the line of ice going from the north-west?

When the Beastclaw Rauder sailed to the Rukkdrawl Den, the eternal blizzard that chases them froze the seas behind them. Their ships are frozen in place at the shores.
Realm of Fire portion of the map, Mount Vesicus

Beastclaw Raiders
Here's a link to the doc if anyone wants to read more into it: docs.google.com/document/d/1-T9WpY3Q6aWn98V3SuOJUp5SbqZcQ_cIPBDTn5ZtsFo

What is the best map of Middle Earth you have ever seen, online, physical, or otherwise?

Looks like Scotland

Does anyone have a copy of the guy making map outlines by dumping pasta on paper and drawing the rough shapes? I was dumb and didn't save it last.

My Not!Europe setting I've been using for the past two years. Posted the handrawn version in a previous thread, but I've converted it to a digital format now.

My current setting that I've been building since fall last year.
The whole thing is basically set only 23 years after the fall of the not!Roman Empire, with new countries trying to rise to the top.

Also the Lord's Alliance should actually be called the Valentian Alliance (to avoid confusion with the Forgotten Realms faction for my players), but I can't make changes in Inkarnate anymore.

>Kang Sultanate

Most of my players are normies so they don't understand the vague meme reference

Map of my campaign setting, done primarily in photoshop. The world is tidally-locked: the top continent under the sun, the bottom always dark. The islands in the center are in twilight, and rotate 2x the speed of the rest of the world.

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Hey, apart from colouring it blue, how do I handdraw the ocean on my maps?

I love the coastlines and geography on this. It looks very natural.

What do you guys think of my work-in-progress post apocalyptic wasteland? And do you have any advice on how to make the map look less empty?

What was the apocalypse that occurred? Unless this map is near ground zero of a nuclear blast, I can't imagine that there wouldn't be ruins of some kind spread throughout the map, and even then, I would expect the city in the SE to be the target and to no longer be there as a result.

I see you used Google Translate for your map.

add gigantic sea creatures to fill the void

The apocalypse is left deliberately vague but nukes were part of it. I can add a few more ruins scattered across the map i guess. As for the city there is an in-universe reason that its somewhat intact (though still in ruins).

Basically just add things like ruins, settlements, bandit camps and other landmarks like a dead forest, a stream of lava that has surfaces due to the shock of the nuke.

I like the design about it otherwise, though.

Yeah. The world is the result of a previous game, where a lot of in-game cultures were stereotyped as real-world races (Dwarves as Russians, etc) which players liked, so I tried to keep it in. Is it especially disagreeable?

If that's the case, what I'd probably do would be something like: add ruined suburbs around the city to some extent, as well as more towns (both pre and post apocalypse) scattered around the map. There's plenty of other little things, but those would just be a good start.

Your coloring makes the map way harder to read than it needs to be.

Did this in PS a few years ago, but it never really went anywhere.

Well the area is supposed to be desert like but add more towns and ruins and stuff. Anybody got any good road textures i can use?

*i can

>Raponia

A city my campaign was set in.

I'd think most people wouldn't even notice the mistakes, but they look silly to me. For instance, Zatoplena Dolina means "A valley has been flooded", that's clearly not a very good name. I imagine you were going for "Flooded Valley", that would be "Zatoplennaya Dolina", but that still doesn't sound very good.

The problem with toponyms is that they aren't built like regular words, so Google Translate wouldn't help you much. "Bright City" would be "Yarkograd", "River View" would be "Vidnorechensk", "Home City" would be "Rodnograd", etc.

Some German names also look silly to me (Ritterbrot - surely that doesn't mean "Knight Bread"?), but I'm not a native speaker, and I'd rather leave it to some kraut to comment on them.

Generally, I avoid using the languages I don't speak in my campaigns like the plague. It's not gonna look good if someone who does calls your out on it in the middle of a game, not to mention it would destroy all immersion.

dude thats pretty sick, how'd you do it?

It isn't mine, it came with the setting I am playing in

Sorry to dissappoint.

Thats pretty neato, Is it cool if I steal it?

Why would they build a completely new town right next to ruins with perfectly good walls and river access?

Fucking trolls living in the ruins, also there are some huge holes in the wall that are hard to fix.

You should ask the founders of Salisbury.

Sure, go ahead!

Could you be more specific? I don't have trouble reading it myself, so I'm not sure how I might go about fixing it. The map is also about 800px by 800px smaller than intended to allow for upload here, so the text may be affected by that.

Thanks for the detailed feedback. Your points are all good, so seems I'll have to go back to the drawing board for those.

As a DM that is a nightmare.

Do you actually have histories for that many separate nations? Political positions and standings? Military presence? How do you possibly manage all of that.

I have at least a little bit for all of them, yeah. I made a spreadsheet that contains enough to go off of if it ever becomes relevant, as well as relatively detailed notes for the countries with more established lore to them. Some of my notes haven't been physically changed in a while (pic related: spreadsheet has some wrong names) but they're still good. Many of them started out being randomly-generated if I didn't have a better idea for them already, and then going from there.

As an example, my party has never even considered paying Argorin any attention, so I haven't developed it past what I consider basic: it's a nation mostly known for its tourism, and as being the number one destination for the rich and famous to party and vacation at. It's run by a real-estate obsessed wingless dragon that spends much of his time surveying his holdings via hot-air balloon. It's part of the Confederate Pact, a political movement in the islands that seeks to allow them to maintain a degree of sovereignty while still protecting their independence. Argorin has a pretty extensive police force, because with important and rich visitors it needs to make sure they're protected, but it otherwise has no standing military. But it makes a decent enough amount of money to hire mercenaries.

Many nations could probably use more detail, but my style tends to result in the very fine aspects being added only once they'll be relevant. If I tried to make every nation flawless at once then I'd probably lose my mind.

New Inkarnate update?

Old inkarnate map of the continent my D&D players are currently adventuring on, never had time to finish it.

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Used a Cartographers' Guild tutorial or two for this. Oddly turned out better than all the dedicated mapping programs I used, despite using an ancient version of photoshop and not having much skill with it.

Why is the coldest sea "the burning sea"? There has to be a story there.

Well done for doing it with Photoshop rather than a mapping program.

Posted this in the last thread, planning on using this for my first campaign. This is Crow Island, or "basically not!Iceland with desert"

Progress of my wasteland. Hopefully this is better.

yes

>basically not!Iceland
So huge, completely empty space with one village of moderate size that doubles as the capital?

I meant more culturally then geographically, I guess. All the settlers there are either fishermen, farmers, or vikings/pirates.

I'm starting the first steps of "babbys first setting". Decided to just add onto a map I doodled the last thread for it.

What do you think of this rough map?

The only continents I plan to actually flesh out (for now) are the middle two, and won't be doing the middle-bottom until later since it's going to eventually be plot relevant.

Red indicates tectonic plates.

All the continents are fuckhuge as of now, Earth map for scale. Might shrink the whole world down a bunch/shrink continents and make more ocean.

I don't suppose you have that in a little higher resolution? It's a sweet map but I can't make out most of the smaller text.

I can only suggest not to create anything you explicitly intend not to use. Save your time and creativity.

Yeah I won't be putting anything else into it besides just what's there and maybe actual names for them, enough that I can say "yes it exists, and that's all you know about it".

it's so cold you instantly go into hypothermic shock and shout "IT BURNS" and die. hence, the name

Because it's actually the hottest! For reasons unknown, it's actually rather warm. The center is hot enough where it's impossible to be traveled over: you'd be cooked alive by the constant cloud of steam that emanates from it.

It also is super convenient for allowing life in what would otherwise be a barren frozen hellscape, and acting as a plot hook for any ecologically-inclined adventuring parties.

German user here with some name tinkerings

>Waldrettung -> Heilrode ("Heil" means basicallly the same thing as "Rettung", "-rode" is used for many real life towns that were once in deep forest territory)

>Steinbrücke -> Steinbrück (sounds more natural without the "e", but it's an alright plausible name)
>Fischauge -> Fischaug (same as above; maybe substitute "Fisch" for the name of a kind of fish)

>Königsstadt -> Königspfalz (means the same thing, but "Königsstadt" is LITERALLY "King's Town" and that sounds more like a description OF the place rather than an actual name)

>Grenzburg -> Wehrmark ("-mark" was used for border regions staffed by military to defend the actual border, "Wehr" implies fortifications in the same way "GrenzBURG"/"border fortress" does, but you can basically put in any descriptive word in front of "-mark" and it becomes "X at the fortified border")

>Ritterbrot -> Herrensspieß (in medieval Germany the "Ritterstand", the kinghts, are usually referred to as "Herren", in contrast with peasants who are "Männer", and in general a higher ranking man will be referred to as "Herr" by his subordinates, and will refer to them as "Mann" - "Spieß" is a kind of medieval fork AND a generic term for any sharp pointy stick; since this town seems to be at the very edge of the Ritter-Weige, a punny name meaning both "Lord's Fork" and "Knightly Spearpoint" would be fun AND preserve the original food-themed name)

>Schiffsmund, Heißenpfeil (nothing wrong here, but Heißenpfeil better have a kick ass backstory to it)

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Those all sound much better, perhaps I won't have to completely scrap my naming conventions after all. Much appreciated, thank you!

>but Heißenpfeil better have a kick ass backstory to it
The mountains that contain much of the heat to the dustlands in the north have an opening just east of the city. Some pretty small but hardy creatures known as Sandskinners live there, and were known to migrate in search of food during leaner times. As there are smaller mountains to the east of the opening, they tended to go west to the city.

The problem with Sandskinners is that competition over limited food made them aggressive and reasonably good in fighting bigger prey, meaning that they're a good threat to the life of a typical peasant. The end result was that the city got so infested, their only recourse was to burn it down and kill any survivors they found before building it back up.

Following this, the town began storing small amounts of food in clusters of depots outside the city, and if they noticed sandskinners in one they'd just burn it down. Nobody would risk approaching, so naturally they'd do it with a hail of flaming arrows. They'd lose a bit of food, of course, but better that than have another infestation. Then, once the fire was out and the depot burned, they'd have a small festival as a way of celebrating that they avoided catastrophe.

Eventually, it became tradition to burn down the oldest depot each year even if there hadn't been sandskinners (after removing the food, of course) as a way of further celebrating prosperity. So, the city got the name among visitors who were drawn by their yearly tradition of burning down their grain depots, and eventually it just became official.

Has anyone tried importing textures and icons into Inkarnate?

I have no artistic talent so any map I make looks like shit. Even looking around in here at WIP maps mine is shit. Can I get away with just having a mental map and never showing the players anything?

doubtful. making good maps takes practice, but using something like inkarnate allows people without any map making skill to make good maps with a minimum of effort and practice.

I need some good village, town and city maps, preferably unlabeled. Anyone have some good ones to share?

Nice, made from the Saderan tutorial? Here is my first one.

A Dutch game set in Glorantha?

Any chance I could get that spreadsheet? could really use something like that

Latest update.

>Kasketiwa
Qu'est qu'il ya?

Remade Katapesh from Golarion in inkarnate for a friend.

I picked a pleasant sounding word out of a Native American dictionary.

The central area of Katapesh seems so barren. But that's just my input, I don't know what plans there are for that area.

The central areas of katapesh are basically sand dunes, and if there are to be things there they wouldnt be on a map.

This is the map of the Wreath! Until I can do it in watercolors. I'm proud of this map, though there are definitely some city names that need changing.

Homebrewed World

Those names are so cute.

Thank you! I wanted to try to make some evocative and original place names with only English. (I think I could do better than "Corona," just can't think up the right name.)

Is it clear enough that the diagonal purple shit is supposed to be mountains?

The work in progress map for my realm.

I've been constantly revising the map, it used to originally be i.imgur.com/3RHOCsH.png with the vestiges seen in that Italian/Greece style peninsula dead center-ish and the island to the south-west.

The last major iteneration was i.imgur.com/ZjdpbMf.jpg but I didn't like how it looked, so I am trying to tweak it further. The river is broken in the south because I haven't yet settled on its direction. Likewise I am still re-tweaking grass and mountains and shit.


The paradox I have is dealing with our real world (which is very thicc in land masses) and most fantasy worlds (which are usually very spindly and narrow land masses). I'm not yet settled on a scale but the goal would be for Makhene or not-Greece (those islands in the centerish area) to be about the distance to the coasts of Niravahnam (Not India, the western subcontinent with the two rivers and the island to its south). The Peloponnese to New Delhi is about 3000 miles.

I've tried to keep continental drifts in mind and visualized where the tectonic plates might fall. I am worried it might look artificial somehow and tried to avoid a T shape but now it feels kind of like that celtic whorl.

>Age of Sigmar
Well if nothing else, the shittyness of the map is matching the game and setting. Spot on. Just as some extra pastel and explosions, spill some onion rings and pretzels on it and it'd be perfect.

Then West of the SW island was to be the not-further Asia. South of Jinguo would be Maharasham or not Indo-Chinese. Realm of the Yaoguai being something I don't want to blather on about and busy up the topic.

What I would welcome help with is if there is anything uncanny valley with the silhouette of the continent here or to a lesser extend here. The former is encompassing a range of cultures and peoples of pretty much Europe + West Asia + Africa down to the Savannah + India. In terms of latitude it reaches around 60+ north (Finlandish) to 8ish degrees south (Indonesia or so). Does it look too spiral whorl-y? Should I fill in the sea between Niravahnam (Western subcontinent) and "Afro-Arabia" (let's call it Ahbaz)? Is the Easternmost continent (arazala) too 90 degree angle?

Despite the name Shit gulch is actually a really nice neighborhood to live in, I hear.

Stop your bullying user, I bet your haven't even played the game.

Oops forgot map.

I could try and put in more of a sea between Niravahnam and Ahbaz, get more of that split between Africa and Eurasia going. But iot's that trickiness of if you were from a different world and looking at our map shit like the Sinai peninsula or Bosphorous or especially the gibraltar straits would reek of fantasy meta-design. Bit of that "Map of Europe turned vertical with cliches all over it".

You're free to go play 9th age with your imaginary friends, using acorns as proxies.

Jep, game's been running since september.
Open it in it's own window. The resolution is big enough.

Some time ago a guy posted this map in a map thread. I really liked it so here it is.

what kind of biome you think the green tinted area should be?

I'm blanking and might as well ask you guys

How about a gobi desert? A rocky desert instead on the usual sand.

fuck yeah dude, that island on the right, the big one with the fucked up coast, is supposed to be like, 100% slavers, desert would be perfect

I was thinking that or like, dingy swamp shanty nation, but I might do something like that with the upper islands

Fungal jungle. This extremely cool biome is barely used.

no but I think I might do that on the left continent, the island that looks like an eagle is surrounded by supremely ancient waters, like see how there is a series of lakes leading up to it?
Every lake is another huge stretch of time backwards into like, the primodrial soup era, which is what is contained in the lake around eagle island.

then maybe the island can be a dank glittering star, populated by amphibious musroom/coral people, seeing as water is the root of all life.

I like it

>Zatoplena Dolina
Which language did you pull this from? Slovene?

Maybe a ground coral reef that used to be on the bottom of the sea before the tectonic plate rose above the sea level?

Probably subtropical. Just from eyeballing it and consulting my worldbuilding book.

Russian, though I would imagine it might mean the same thing in Slovene.

fucking sick

If it means Sunken Valley, the preposition would shift from Za- to Po-, cool stuff btw