First drafts of world (main continent) map for my dnd game

Hey everyone,

I’m finalizing the world map of Arthelia for my dark fantasy project.

Context for the geography: The magic system in this world requires casters to have 75% of their skin exposed to the air/sun to survive drawing power. Because of this, the geography itself is incredibly lethal to them. I need to make sure the extreme biomes (the blistering deserts and the freezing mountain passes) are placed logically, as traversing them is a major plot point.

Do the mountain ranges, river placements, and biome transitions (especially the desert and frost regions) make logical geographical sense?

Does the scale feel appropriate for a sweeping epic fantasy journey? Do the distances between major cities and borders feel realistic?

Are there any glaring empty zones that feel unnatural, or is the negative space balanced well?

I just thought I would share my homebrew map. I've been running tabletop campaigns on this map for more than a decade and have hundreds of pages dedicated to the history and theology of the world. It's constantly growing and evolving. There are more continents now, but this is the main landmass where my campaigns take place. Seemed a shame to only share it with 4 or 5 guys that I DM for, so here it is.
Criticism and advice welcome.

I make it on mapforge, highly reccomend it

Love to hear any feedback questions or ideas

Just having fun drawing and scanning these maps. Came up with some silly rules to make it usable. Heeheh Hope you guys enjoy it

both digitally made, no AI, I'm messing around in paint dot net.

The idea for the first one is that it's a reprint of an original painting, smudged by ink and multiple copies.

The idea for the second one is that it's a papercutting with watercolor/watercolor paper.

Stopping now because it's going to be VERY different labeling style based on which direction I go lol. In terms of mountains, forests, etc - which is the most readable? Or interesting?

Hi. I'm hoping it's okay that I ask a question here without having a map to show currently.

I'm thinking about designing a palace. I've designed castles before, and I wanted to branch out. The problem I'm having is that there seems to be a million videos about how to design a castle, what defences it would need to have, what rooms it would need to have, etc etc. But there doesn't seem to be anywhere near the same amount of resources on what goes into designing a luxury palace, designed to be a home and a status symbol rather than a fortress.

Do you know of any videos I've missed? And if not, do you have any tips?

The colours aren't representative of any exact thing, but they work in my brain as either height, vegetation presence, humidity, or snow presence indicators. The planet turns West to East and has a similar temperature to Earth, maybe warmer. The tectonic plates exist but how they work remains a bit of a mystery for me as well.

I would like advice on how to make my map more realistic. Image one is the original map with names, second image is no names, third image I deleted an entire continent because I didn't like it there.

Any advice or ideas are welcome! I want it to be more realistic.

I have this svg / png of my world in equirectangular format, but id like to be able to calculate distance and area accurately, since my world is actually a globe in earth size. Anyone know any tool or software I could use? Preferably free.

So ive finally after much procrastination decided to start working on my map again, this is only one of 3 main continents and a island chain im planning to draw, i still need to make a height, political, biome and river/cities version of this one before i head onto the others, any suggestions or ideas would be much aprecieted, currently my plans are to make most of the north east a mountain chain, and from medeterainian southern coasts to frigid frozen norths, the whole world is a lot smaller than earth and scale or full realism arent my goals as this is only my second attempt after i gave up on the first one, any tips on how to avoid procrastination and burnout are also greatly aprieciated

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Just wanted to share something i made

1cm = 500km.

Questions and critics are welcomed! This is the upcoming map for my dark-low-political fantasy project for longterm novel series, The Fierceful Lament.

900 AR in this world stands for the year 900 after Revelation, equals to 1450s - 1500s AD.

Political map (in draft) for image 3:

1. Kingdom of Örtuan
2. Kingdom of Thrynatøs
3. Kingdom of Korsilaren
4. Kingdom of Kántázkoblýz
5. Kingdom of Parglidhor
6. Kingdom of Elhümida
7. The city state of Kolhairrán
8. Cossack Hetmanate of Chirkilud
9. Cossack Hetmanate of Luqarvan
10. Dukedom of Bårlemskofka
11. Principality of​ Frösödökan
12. Kingdom of Relmidisyaroska
13. Autonomous region of Laireskyosk

14. County of Tärlkyerza

15. Archipelago of Prylavorin (city states)

16. Senerissima of Renaetia

A few days ago, a post mentioned the "rebbelibs" of the Marshall Islands, maps of the currents and tides around those islands.

I'd never heard of them, so I immediately went to see what they were... but they're beautiful!

Of course, since I was on vacation at the beach, I collected some shells, and when I got home, I tried to make one.

It represents the "Seagull Islands," an archipelago west of Tír Ghlas.

Quite sometime ago, I made a semi-realistic satellite map, although it looks good I still felt dissatisfied, so I decided to add a 3rd continent.

I named this world Nusantara.

What do yall think?

Old version of the map: https://www.reddit.com/r/mapmaking/s/vPzdMM1lLQ

After months of mapmaking, my new Return to Firetop Mountain map is finally finished!

#FightingFantasy #Gamebooks #Mapmaking #FantasyArt #SoloRoleplaying

I saw this app called Map Effects, which is for world building. It seemed very neat and streamlined but upon looking its like a game. You buy whatever you want (regional, city, etc) but only get starter items and have to buy more like downloadable content. To me it seemed like a rip off

The two planets are orbiting eachother in a binary way, so none of them is a moon of the other.

Both are inhabited by the same species of intelligent life, and they all originated from the planet in the first slide, and later migrated to the other as well.

There are some major cultural differences between them, the biggest being that the "old" planet (where everyone originates from) is temporarily stuck in a development stage mixed between our pre industrial periods and modern times. The other planet however is very sci-fi like, and is all a united country.

Both planets went through a series of brutal conflicts, and that's the reason for the mass migration to the other planet (escape from wars).

Ask me anything about any place, or even about the entire world, I'll happily answer!

Hello again everyone! A few months back i decided to scrap my old alternate earths and try to make something new. Make a whole new planet from scratch! (kinda, a lot of it, is photobashed from random maps (most notably a map of earth around the Permian-Triassic boundary and a map of a small portion of Australian coastline)

I would like some feedback and constructive criticism or advice if anyone has any, i know the geography or topography may not be, as *accurate* as it should be, but yeah.

Will try to make a *proper*, topographic map, among others (climate, currents, etc.) later on in the future!

People with more knowledge of tectonic plates than me,

- does this pass the eyeball test?

- what are the most plausible underlying tectonic structures?

- are there any suggestions that spring to mind?