/wbg/ World-building General

Abyssal terrors from the deep. Building-sized leviathans that smash their way into coastal cities. Lobster/gator/shark hybrids that come in waves up rivers and drag people off in the dark.
Basically, the ocean itself is the antagonist.

Really depends on whether gunpowder is a thing or not. It's kind of a tricky invention, and possible to miss. Especially if you have something else that can do the job, generating heat or electricity in a reliable way.

The way those villages and towns are all the same looks really jarring given the map's attempt to look hand-drawn.

Without a scale it's hard to really determine. But I would think that due to agricultural inefficiencies old cities and towns would still require tons of farming land. Look at this map of a medieval manor. Compare the amount of land used for planting, for pasture, and for woodlands, compared to the area of the actual village.

The real weird thing is al the roads. There are so many roads for a village of just 700 people.

Consistency of scale is also something to keep in mind as you add buildings and fortifications to your town. In my map, for example, each pixel is about 2 square feet. 2 pixels is a small shanty, 4 pixels is an average peasant house, etc. Keeping to this scale makes figuring out the functions of buildings and their relative proximity to other buildings easier.

I also used a few simple cartographic symbols to keep things easy to understand. For example, the thin squares to the left represent tanneries where hide is turned into leather, but they aren't actual representations of the vats themselves. The bullseyes repeated throughout various points of the city represent shrines to gods, but while they have a shared motif they remain distinct allowing me to easily remember what each one represents. The arrow markings all represent areas that are used as warehouses.

Tell us about one of the minor ones.

What's a good name for an eldritch abomination?

I don't know where to fucking begin.

I want to run a campaign in that world where the evil force is just the kingdom's postal service gone rogue.

What are you having trouble with?