Fantasy map

not worldbuilding by considering planet mass, then techtonic plates, then geography, then sea level, then atmospheric conditions, then rainfall, then rivers, then civilizations, then trade routes

But really, it comes from people drawing them not giving a shit or knowing shit. And then there are poeple who draw them properly, but another idiot puts biomes inproperly. And so on and forth.
It's pretty much impossible to make a half-decent setting, unless you sit bunch of academicians around it and force them to design it from a scratch.

>The real world still looks a lot less island-y than most fantasy maps
Depends on the projection.

It still looks like mostly one landmass cut up by a few straights, except for the one small island continent in the corner, which still has an island chain between it and land.

I think the actual problem with these fantasy maps is that they make everything really far apart and smooth, with not enough isthmuses, island chains and other little nubby bits.

Your question is fundamentally flawed.

The thing you posted isn't an entire world and those continents look like islands because they're islands, not continents.

This sounds plausible, no matter the projection the world still doesn’t look like a bunch of islands. is wrong, even from that perspective it’s completely different.
I wonder if learning about tectonic plates and geography would be enough to make a more plausible fantasy world

>I think the actual problem with these fantasy maps is that they make everything really far apart and smooth, with not enough isthmuses, island chains and other little nubby bits.
This is a good point.

My favorite way to make a "realistic" (i.e. not created by a stupid monk covered in shit bent over a candle) is to take random chunks of Earth coastline (zoomed-in is best so you don't easily recognize the outline of continents) and stitch them together in Photoshop. Basically, take some pieces of Mexico's coastline, add a little of the US east coast, throw in a few chunks of Southeast Asian coastline, and you're good to go.

Sure. Then work on your oceanography and climatology to figure out the weather and ocean currents and how that will shape the climate on land. And what angle the planet tilts at as it orbits its star and how the sunlight it gets affects the seasons. Not to mention the ocean and atmospheric currents. What sort of moon(s) does it have? How does it (they) affect the tides?
And what sort of cosmological instances have happened on this world? Huge meteor strike that wiped put all life in the past?

>iced over islands on the same latitude as a desert and a jungle
REEEEEEEEEEEE

Depends on which real world you're talking about.

That reminds me, I need to put in the polar ice caps.
What's a pulpy name for the arctic continent?

Because the map makers try to somewhat equally spread the landmasses out amongst the map, and fill up the empty space that would otherwise be boring swathes of water.
This results in more map/page space actually being utilized with information, which is theoretically good, but also has the side-effect of making it all seem very artificially constructed.

This is one of the best maps ever created for a fictional setting. And it's about islands. And it has a continent shaped like a peacock.
Because it has great tectonic justifying those shapes (not present on this image) and one of the best climate and rainfal ever made, along with rivers.

>on the same latitude
Why are you applying Mercator rules to a Dymaxion projection?

that's pretty neat actually

Deathlands.

The Pale

>Anyone starting on the northern tiny island, right above the central continent
I remember once winning a tournament because of that, since the guy playing Spartans ended crammed up there. Since it was in vanilla, sea squares were much less profitable, so he couldn't even make up for intial lack of space for expansion and it was forbidden to make a base crawl.

Don't mind me... just posting some god-tier maps.

2/4

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3/4

4/4

This thumbnail looks a lot like Westeros.

that just looks like the baltic+russia but they removed the scandinavian mainland and kept the islands

That's a pretty straight border for a medieval fantasy simulation world.

Best worldmap coming through

>Here be monsters

I think islands inherently look pretty cool. OP's map looks p cool, except for muh whirlpool.

MY DICK

I had the same thought, but thinking on it more, it really doesn't look like Westeros. I guess it's just the relatively pale landmass that can be summarized as a long vertical stretch of land, and otherwise it's just water around it. It's definitely something you need to squint to see otherwise.

Hyperborea.

that's pretty damn terrible, but i admit the painting is nice

>Best map
>Not pic related

Agree. But since most maps follow terrain features it makes sense that in something like a desert, the two nations might draw a literal line in the sand.

Alternatively, the border could be contested.

Dunno about that...
pic related

Big fan of this map.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Erathia one of those few settings that are on the southern hemisphere, thus avoiding all the "cold north" cliches with barbarians and not!vikings, while making its own far south a place of study and high magic?

>the two nations might draw a literal line in the sand.
Without modern technology that's really really hard to do, you wouldn't expect people from different countries to even have the same maps, as cartographers would have their differences.
Unless you can fluff in wizards being able to map out all terrain and having modern precision or something

Fuck it didn't post the image.

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Another island-y world map. I get it, you feel nostalgic for the game, but it's no different from any other generic fantasy archipielago

>Another person that plays in Thule

It could easily be the case that the exact spot where the border lies is not specified, as it rests on uninhabitable desert area anyways. So on maps they just use a straight line because who cares, nobody's using the terrain anyway, so the specifics of the border are cared for by nobody.

And Hypoborea in the south.
Or Hypoauster if you want to be anal about it.

gottem - somehow this was more recognizable then sideways europe

For South Pole "The Frost Below"

True, I'd probably suggest that the border is simply a generally accepted "all lands 20 centroyar (or whatever that unit of measurement is) south of Healthhome is commonwealth land; from the eastern border of the Grand HabboK'alat Mtns. to the coast of the Xaervo.

>Le nostalgia meme
I've played HoMM3 for the first time in 2012. Tell me more about the nostalgia.
Focus on the main "island", since what's on sides are things from side campaigns and not up to scale with the continent.

oh yeah that's perfectly acceptable

Finnmark literally existed like this since forever. Swedes are still salty about it, as it cut them off from North Sea and there was plenty of time to contest the whole thing, only to ignore it back then and now it's "rightfully Norge clay".

That's a really great map. I don't suppose you do omissions?

ha I wouldn't even know where to start to price it, I just do them for fun.

Email me at mylakovich at gmail dot com

Better fuckin' believe I will, mate.

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It seems to be a natural tendency for a lot of mapmakers for whatever reason. I think it's because people subconsciously try to fill the space of the map.

You can always use a map generator for ideas to combat this if you're having a hard time with it.

I saw these maps a guy in the last thread made, but I didn't see any mention of the program he used to make them. Anyone know what it was?

Look at the scale of your map. Each one of those "continents" are only a little bigger than Rhode island.

Hah, good point. But even though OP's example is bad, his point still rings true.

But the example being on a smaller scale brings up the other issue of how a string of four small islands is home to multiple nations.

Archipelagos are the fucking best.

I agree, but only if there's a big continent somewhere nearby.

>not wanting to play in Fantasy Polynesia

For Earth-like feel: Connect almost all continents together. Spatter with really small islands to make the continents feel bigger in comparison. Only leave few islands the size of UK, Japan, etc.

Australia should not exist, it looks amateurish.

>Australia should not exist, it looks amateurish.
This, Australia is a leftover from when Mother Nature was a rookie.

>not developing hadley cells to appropriate moisture levels per latitude belt and accounting heat exposure, axis tilt, and distance from the equator
>not creating niche Mediterranean zones on western coasts with eastward mountains and have rain shadow affect the area over those mountains

>implying is it not the endgame area

I hate ugly, uninteresting endgame areas. And what's with the lack of level design in leue of throwing countless insanely dangerous monsters at the party?
Poor design on every level.

Postan my map

The geography is nothing special and most of the rivers really push the bounds of believability, but this is a good example of how the aesthetics of a map bring a LOT to the table, in this case I really like the red sea and rustic, colourlessness of the landmasses. I don't know if you intended it or not, but it really puts me in the mood for a certain kind of gritty story.

Pic related is a good example of aesthetic style turning a not-so amazing geographical map into one of the best maps I've ever seen. It's even got the cardinal sin of having rivers flow from one ocean to an other ocean.

HEY, I dont suppose you know one for "west pole" too? Doing a tidally locked world for a setting you see?

The White Plains?
Add Anea and Usea and it will look like Strangereal.

Oh shit real feedback thanks.
Which rivers are the most heinous and what would be a decent fix?

I was experimenting with colours and just really liked the way that the red played off the parchment. The setting it's designed to work with is a low fantasy post-post apocalypse so depending on how you use it it could easily be gritty.

Just a tip for anyone trying to make maps or any kind of visual media, you don't need to be constrained by how you think stuff should look, if you want red water or yellow trees or whatever it's fine, just see how it all works together.

Ultravesper? Transvesper? Praeter-something.
My Dog Latin give me those words for west:
- occidens
- sol occidens
- occidentalis
- occasus
- vesper
I don't know shit about latin.

post more maps

The rivers on the eastern continent, and the two right-most rivers on the north end of the largest continent. My problem with them is that they all start at mountains near the sea and travel very long distances across land before reaching the sea. Which in itself is by no means impossible(see the real life Nile), but I just feel like when over half of the major rivers on the map do what should be a fairly rare occurance, it stands out to someone with map autism like me.
Not all rivers reach the ocean, sometimes they flow into lakebeds that offer no path for the water to take outward. This in itself is also an anomally, though.
I don't even think your rivers necessarily need to change, because even the real world is full of anomalies and geographical near-impossibilities, so in comparison having several major rivers follow a long path of least resistance away from their closest sea isn't impossible by any means. But if you wanted to change them, you could make one of their lakes a dead end acting as an inland sea, or shift a couple of the river mouths to exit into the sea a bit earlier

no u

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Fuck man, your maps are good but your place names are awful. It's Stein. STEIN!

Part of it is badly made maps that lack an appropriate amount of features of appropriate scale. However, I think a big part is just that we have a very deeply seated impression of what a continent and world should look like that's really based only on what our planet happens to currently look like. I'm willing to bet most planets would look kinda fake to us.

Pic a little related but mostly just a cool map.

bump

>Gay furry vore

What

The setting was explicitly created for the backdrop of porn comics/stories, many of them gay, furry, vore, or any mixture of those. Especially if you consider half-monster half-humanoid fantasy races (like naga for example) as furry.
You can look up the name of the setting, it's in the top-left of the map.

>tfw your setting and map will never be as cool as one made by sexual deviants trying to masturbate with their friends
Suffering.

This is my friend's world I've been building in Inkarnate, doesn't have the details yet though, waiting on him to get me an improved hand drawn map. To give scale, that middle peninsula is 3500 miles long so overall his world is roughly 20,000 miles at its circumference.

It kinda has the island feel but that doesn't matter too much.

Also yes, the right continent does look like Carl from Johnny Bravo, I can't unsee it either....