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Author Topic: Geography Nerds... I Summon Thee! (Critique My Amateur Cartography Skills!)  (Read 1158 times)

Simon Fiasco

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Greetings and Salutations, Rollers of Dice and Tellers of Tales!

I'm working on a map for a homebrew world, Scryr. Now, understand, I know precious little about geography, and even less about mapmaking, so I'm in need of folks who might take a look at this map and tell me what I've done wrong before I put any more time into finishing it up. The map below has no rivers, cities, or other features, yet, nor have I named any places other than the two continents, Erakadu and Malnivar. I was hoping people would be willing to tell me if the features I've included - mountains, especially - make sense where they are. While I'm not shooting for 100% realism - this is a high-magic fantasy world, after all - some semblance of reality would make me feel better about it. I've left in the equator and the tropics lines, if that helps.

So... let me know where I've gone astray! I'm more than happy to make changes.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4125[/ATTACH]

Slipshot762

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Geography Nerds... I Summon Thee! (Critique My Amateur Cartography Skills!)
« Reply #1 on: February 08, 2020, 06:43:43 PM »
If working in gimp it is perhaps easier to get those rivers cut in prior to coloring land or adding mountains, especially if you are gonna have shallows be lighter than deeper areas or give rivers a notable thick line/stroked border. Assuming you still have all layers not merged down this should still be easily doable. When you do cut rivers they should flow from high to low via path of least resistance and they tend to feed forests along the way, breeding swamp as they pass through lowest points. Also smaller streams usually merge into larger as you lose elevation, and typically don't split without first forming pool pond lake butted against a rise in elevation, from which multiple outflows can split but tend to remerge as elevation again lowers to speed them along. Excepting plains civ centers will tend to attempt to use waterways to avoid trekking thru hills forests swamps far more often than you will find a city in the middle of a forest with no water nearby. Rivers are really origin feeders for food chain, so areas far away from such will tend to be less populated by critters that cannot get by on smaller amounts of water or vegetation

GameDaddy
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Geography Nerds... I Summon Thee! (Critique My Amateur Cartography Skills!)
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2020, 05:52:39 PM »
+1 ...and my message needs to be longer, Well Done!
Blackmoor grew from a single Castle to include, first, several adjacent Castles (with the forces of Evil lying just off the edge of the world to an entire Northern Province of the Castle and Crusade Society's Great Kingdom.

~ Dave Arneson

Renegade_Productions

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Quote from: Simon Fiasco;1121483
Greetings and Salutations, Rollers of Dice and Tellers of Tales!

I'm working on a map for a homebrew world, Scryr. Now, understand, I know precious little about geography, and even less about mapmaking, so I'm in need of folks who might take a look at this map and tell me what I've done wrong before I put any more time into finishing it up. The map below has no rivers, cities, or other features, yet, nor have I named any places other than the two continents, Erakadu and Malnivar. I was hoping people would be willing to tell me if the features I've included - mountains, especially - make sense where they are. While I'm not shooting for 100% realism - this is a high-magic fantasy world, after all - some semblance of reality would make me feel better about it. I've left in the equator and the tropics lines, if that helps.

So... let me know where I've gone astray! I'm more than happy to make changes.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4125[/ATTACH]

Given those equator lines and the size of the map, this world is probably the equivilent of a Small map in Civ IV, so the ice and tundra parts look about right. That desert looking spot on the middle landmass is also in line with what would cause a dry area near a mountain range.

I noticed a volcanic lake on the southern landmass. Could be something you could turn into a story point if it doesn't form a river at some point.

Overall, pretty nice map. Looks like a quality world foundation.

Winterblight

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Great looking map. I wouldn't worry about where mountains are positioned, as long as when you add the rivers they flow from the uplands to seas and lakes. The landmass names are a little hard  to read. I normally don't add text to a map until everything else is finished. Great Job.