Map Thread

Let's have another one of these threads.

>Post what you're working on.
>Post map inspo.
>Discuss fantasy geography.
>Discuss fantasy cartography.

Somebody give me the low-down on this map. Besides:
>desert in the middle of a plains
>one Empire
>one Kingdom
>one place full of elves
>one place full of dwarves
>rivers running over mountains
>one of every major geographic features
what did I miss?

All the trees are concentrated in one large area.

The rivers are driving me absolutely crazy. Not the running over mountains bit, but I honestly can't tell which way half of them are supposed to be flowing. Is Isenstar a salt lake? Cause it doesn't appear to have any drainage. The Rio Ramr's tributary is going the wrong way, unless the Ramr is flowing away from Isenstar, but then it just ends in the middle of nowhere?
What's up with Lago Leona? It has two rivers connecting it to the ocean, indicating they're both drainage - which isn't possible, you can only have one river draining away from a lake. On the other hand, Rio Toark's tiny branch there seems to indicate it's flowing toward the lake; but then it's flowing inland from the ocean, which also isn't possible.
The tiny lake at the end of the Rio Diente de Oso also looks like a salt lake.
Other rivers and lake at least look somewhat plausible, albeit very wonky. You've basically got a bunch of lakes popping out of nowhere, with rivers running out of them. Usually the latter is true; rivers form from merging of small streams and tributaries in mountains/highlands, then flow out to sea, with lakes forming along the way wherever there's a relative elevation dip.

tl;dr your river and drainage systems are all sorts of messed up.

is this a good map?

I believe someone actually asked the author who made that map over twitter why it was so fucked up and his response was essentially "magic, lol"

I don't get fantasy maps' obsession with indicating forests everywhere. Real maps generally don't bother unless they're explicitly terrain maps of relatively small areas.

Fuck I loved that game. Those maps aren't realistic, but they feel good.

I blame Tolkien for the idea that forests need to be on maps.

I also suspect this is true.

I think the cities' locations leave much to be desired, form a realism perspective.

Assuming we're talking classic medieval fantasy, forests need to be on maps because they are actually a thing. They're dangerous, mostly unexplored, and can greatly affect travel and warfare.
Modern maps don't bother because who cares about forest when you have highways and rairoads.

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isnt that the eragon map

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yeah, the one with the dragon guys.

I really like this map. I wish I could find a copy in high-enough definition to read the smaller clan holdings though.

Not a fan of Paolini (sp?) but:

>desert in the middle of a plains

Nothing wrong with that.

>rivers running over mountains

Where? All I see are rivers running through mountains.

>one of every major geographic features

Almost. No canyons, glaciers, or active volcanoes, though.

>forests need to be on maps because they are actually a thing
>They're dangerous, mostly unexplored, and can greatly affect travel and warfare

Confirmed for not knowing what a forest is. Forests were just names for land royalty claimed as hunting grounds. They weren't that dangerous, since it was the king's property, they weren't unexplored, since the king so often visited them, and they weren't difficult to traverse, since the king is normally lazy.

What you're talking about is ancient woodland.

Didn't see anyone mentioning historical royal forests, we were talking about "Forest of Fangorn" type forests, specifically who started to put them in fantasy maps.
But you knew all this, didn't you? You just wanted to show you know history.

>Didn't see anyone mentioning historical royal forests

Yeah, let me show you:

>"Assuming we're talking classic medieval fantasy, forests need to be on maps because they are actually a thing"

See the words "medieval" and "forests" being used there? Guess what they mean. Yeah, that's right, "historical royal forests".

I'm very sorry about your autism user. Don't worry, it's gonna get better eventually.

>Is Isenstar a salt lake? Cause it doesn't appear to have any drainage.

Diffusion exists. Though I suggest Rio Ramr is a drainage river.

>The Rio Ramr's tributary is going the wrong way, unless the Ramr is flowing away from Isenstar, but then it just ends in the middle of nowhere?

Look up Helmand River. An endorheic river that ends in the middle of nowhere. There's even a chance it goes subterranean after Uru'baen and joins Lago Leona.

>What's up with Lago Leona? It has two rivers connecting it to the ocean, indicating they're both drainage - which isn't possible, you can only have one river draining away from a lake.

Yes you can. They're called bifurcation lakes.

>On the other hand, Rio Toark's tiny branch there seems to indicate it's flowing toward the lake; but then it's flowing inland from the ocean, which also isn't possible.

Tributaries don't have to point in the same direction of the flow.

>The tiny lake at the end of the Rio Diente de Oso also looks like a salt lake.

Quite probable. But many exist.

Did you really get so upset that I corrected you, that you fell back into projection? Pitiful, really.

Medieval and earlier maps also do not generally show forests.

You suck user. Gotta be 18 to post here.

Gee, with a post like that, you sure showed me!

>tfw my old setting just feels like shit to me and I don't want to work on it anymore
>this map will never be finished

It's from 2016, by the way. Not really a big accomplishment or anything, just thought I'd mention.

I think you're mixed up, user. You've got the Kingdom of Walls and the Greatest Land marked down as separate countries.

I'm interested or amazed to see someone take such a liking to a fantasy nation/kingdom without any provocation or detail on what that place is actually like.

how 'accurate' is this?

Did you miss the whole US/build a wall meme?

You're either trolling or seriously retarded here. Let me show you real quick.

Pic related is a classic medieval fantasy forest.
By classical, I mean Tolkien. Someone also mentioned Tolkien ITT.

Guess ill post the political map of my 'not europe' fantasy setting. Made in babbies first map maker before the update.

>inb4 people say rivers never diverge into separate mouths
>too many people blindly following map "rules" without knowing about real-world examples of distributaries

>forests are this because one author made a mistakes!
>everyone else is the retard one, not me!

Mate, you got corrected. Fucking deal with it like a big boy.

This one is a medieval forest, part of the King's Domain. There is no King's Domain in Tolkien, neither in classic fantasy.
Got it now?

Samefagging won't help you dude.
Please see

What the fuck are you on about? My posts are clearly all me. Just calm your shit down and accept you were wrong.

>jlaws pic
>virginity confirmed

(You)

>two eurofags cuckling
>implying...

(You)

OH! The kid's mad, now. Look the fuck out!

Just started working on this before reading this post. I don't have any details figured out yet, (if there's interest I'll post what I've finished later). Although it isn't much yet, I'd like to know what people think about the general shape of the landmasses. I will add inner seas and rivers soon so don't bother suggesting that.

>"A child with autism may use his voice in unusual ways, such as referring to himself in the third person."

How many more signs of autism you want to give us, son?

Can't seem for the life of me to find a decent-sized map of Europe during the 7 Year's War. I'm thinking of a political/assassination/war campaign set during the time period, but google seems to have a hatred for maps from the era.

>still projecting
And your raging pre-pubescent butthurt will force you to respond, in three, two, one..........

(You)

All too easy...

>so desperate for "the last word", he refuses to quote

You're getting yourself all worked up over nothing, son.

Actually, fuck it, I'll let you have it just to give you some small glimmer in your little life. Enjoy it. Savour it. Wank over it. Do yo thang.

Funny thing is, I started this argument this afternoon, and none of you is me.

Here's the monstrosity I've been working on. The concept is to make a fantasy setting that's so easily accessible, anyone with a basic understanding of fantasy tropes and European history can figure it out pretty quick. I also wanted to put all the legendary lands of history like Punt, Hyberborea, Nod, Carcosa, Avalon, etc. into one map.

What looks better: red lettering or black lettering?

I like the red lettering. Makes it more distinct against the w/b background.

I feel like red looks good on white, but black looks better on blue.

Here's something I'm working on. Almost a Pangaea world for a fantasy game I'm running. It's a fledgling planet that was sort of gifted to the races after trashing the last world. Although the stipulation was that they had to start over from scratch. There's just one problem; they are running the course of their last planet all over again, and this time the goddess that gave them a sustainable world won't be so graceful this time.

I planned to leave a lot of room between countries, let the world feel really unexplored. I like the feeling of really dangerous wildlands lurking on the corners of struggling civilizations. It's just a rough atm, but by far one of my favorite projects.

I want to die.

>Nod

Does anyone have a map of the ocean I could use for an upcoming naval campaign? Something on a scale that would be useful for combat, please.

Here's my work in progress.

About forests, I can see how they are distracting on maps and it's not good to spam them for no reason. But in a fantasy setting forests determine a lot (type of creatures, habitability, magical things, natural barriers, ect) so the benefits outweigh the cons. I've decided to put only the large or most important ones in my map.

On another note, does anyone know how to make shorelines more defined? From a distance they're blending together a bit

What programs or apps do you guys use for your map building? I kinda got stuck with a generic online map maker but tried my best to make it work.

I use Paint.NET.

Technically, the most legible writing is yellow on dark blue.

map made for a group project. Made in paint. The sea streams are very arbitrary, green is plains/forests/marshes/lowland in general, tan is hills/highland/mountains, brown is high mountains. Climate etc probably doesn't make any sense. It was made with the group members preferences in mind.

and a more detailed view of country number 4, ADFF. I do think it's a bit sparse with the details. I will have to work on that. Maybe add more cities/villages and enlarge things like the forests (inb4 no forests, reee).

I rather like it. The coastlines are quite good.
I would like to see a scale, The 'medallion' is large and covers part of the land, which bugs me slightly. If this is an island I would like to see the part that is off the page.
Are all the major settlements shown?
Did you make this? If so, with what?

Coastlines are not bad. the mountain chains are the weakest feature IMO.

Nice map, the fact that vaguely reminds me of Faerun doesn't bother me for some reason. Your shorelines are nice, you are looking at them from the viewpoint of the mapmaker, so it's normal they look odd - I can assure you it's not the same from outside.

My only advice would be overlapping the mountains a bit more, it helps giving the chain feeling your map is lacking atm. That, or add more mountains in the gaps.

Oh, and another minor adjustement since it look like you are hand-drawing: pretend you are looking the map from the south, and give some perspective shadow to the coastlines. A light pencil stroke to the coasts facing southwards will do fine, a few minutes work makes for a great visual impact, and also helps separating land from sea.

Either color the land or the water. If you are sticking with B&W, shade the water. 19th C maps often did a pattern around the coasts or colored in the shore.

Slowly getting somewhere

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This is very nice.

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Looks good

I'll need to make a map in the not too distant future
What's a good tool for it other than drawing it in paint or on a paper?

How do you get your mountains like that?

From Saderan tutorial (with a tiny bit of creativity)

Neat.

Photoshop is great.

Inkscape does nice work but has a bit of a learning curve. and it is free.

If you do it on paper set up a lightbox.
When you get the basic mountains and coastline, make copies either by hand or a copier. That way you have a backup for mistakes and you can make one map for politics, one for climate and geology, one for DM, one for players, etc.
A lightbox can be as simple as a piece of lucite on your lap with a lamp on the floor between your feet. For 8.5x11 paper I use a clear plastic clipboard.

Holy fucking autism. When normal people say 'forest' they literally just mean 'a place with trees.'

Trips of truth

I like it. Usually Not-Europe maps feel stale and repetitive.
Please consider adding Huy Braesil.

different subject;
pic is a lo rez snapshot of a beautiful map that was wonderful to run a game on. Kingdoms of Kalamar.

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Also Inkarnate, but it produces a very consistent look as a result of the ease of use.

man I want to like Inkarnate, but the map size is just too small for me to do anything useful with it, at least in Hex format

Check out and rate my glorious and totally not shit hand-drawn map. Marvel in my l33t map drawing skills.

That's just the map to Fable. You even called it Albion.

>the Island of Queer

Was this what you had in mind, user?

Thank you user

Correction: when plebs say forest, they're misusing the word.

He's still sperging out...how adorable!

He still doesn't know how to quote... what a faggot!

You can adjust the hex size in settings.

Sylvania a best.

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The coast looks real and detailed.
The small islands seem haphazard, though the large ones look interesting.
Your mountains are shit, son.