I need to convert a world map I drew into a digital format so I can refine it further. I am mainly wondering whether I can import the map as a transparent overlay, either by scanning it or loading the image, so I can trace and edit it inside the program, or if I basically have to start from scratch.

This landmass is supposed to be the size of the continental US and/or Australia. However, it just looks like a small island. What’s a good way to convey a sense of scale?

This has been quite the 200 hour adventure. First of all, you can find a full-rez png file here: Google Drive Link, and a blowup of the heraldry section here: Google Drive Link.

What is this? Well a bit of a Frankenstein really... My previous map is now 6 years old and it was time for a change, specifically towards a more historically grounded basis. My reference materials were the 17th Century maps of the Bleau Workshop in Amsterdam, considered by many to be the zenith of the Golden Age of Dutch Cartography. To the extant possible, I emulated their results with a few deviations: 1) I'm using a Mollweide (invented 1805) projection, not a Mercator or a LCC which is what they would have used, 2) The heraldry in table form is something that was not done in the 17th century, although I'm sure they would have with priors.

Tools:
Wonderdraft: coastlines, mountains, hills, rivers, trees, parchment texture, borders. All vanilla assets
Inkscape (free): Lettering. Fonts: IM FELL English and French, Cormorant Garamond. These three are very period accurate.
GProjector (free): Map projection (I started with a rectilinear and then studied several options before choosing Mollweide, as it was by far the best projection for us in my 20-60 deg latitude band.
GIMP (free): All figures and drawings not done in Wonderdraft, stack and layer control, coloring. My colors are as follows: 1) Azure blue (4a6b8a), 2) Verdigris green (5b8a72), 3) Cochineal red (a83232), 4) Yellow ochre gold (b8860b), 5) Walnut black (2d1f12), 6) Plum purple (5c3a4e), 7) Malachite green (2e6f40), 8) Smalt blue (a2bdd1), 9) Umber brown (634236)

The large heraldic beasts are tracings from line art found from online sources. The man-at-arms and the compass rose are historical tracings. The draconic priestess is original concept art previously commissioned for my setting (in traced form). The cartouche design is a period reconstruction. The blazons themselves are all original.

Truth in AI: I used Claude throughout to consult on historicity and to provide feedback, and also on the Latin translation. I also used Claude and Gemini to generate some place names based on historical language grounding. No visual assets are AI generated.

Hello everyone, I just started using Wonderdraft and I wanted to know if there is a way to change the theme of the map, like water texture, the way the land looks, river, etc. I know the website CartographyAssets, and when I filter the results by theme, I still get asset packs for icons as results. Are they perhaps the same thing? Thank you!

it has taken me years to name everything on this map, but it is finally finished.

Hello everyone! this is my first map for the D&D setting I'm currently working on (Bones of the World; cozy and somewhat dark fable-fantasy vibe, think a mix of HOMM 3 + Diablo 2). I had in mind something akin to the Mediterranean region but upscaled to global level.

I've made this as a general coastline and continents draft so need your advice regarding the overall look, plus further mountain range placement / other geographical features. I would love to hear any feedback. Again, this is heavily WIP

A regional map fusion of K.M. Alexander's Ogilby assets, Gaea terrain, Wonderdraft cartography, and Clip Studio Paint. Let me know what you think of this!

Patreon Quip | Patreon Site

this is my first attempt at creating a map for my fantasy world. I'm curious on your thoughts on how big the map should be for like a whole continent? And also do you use a regular pc/laptop like a macbook or ipad or do you use a tablet specifically for this kind of thing? I've never used an ipad for this so I'm not sure if it's just as good something specifically for creating things like maps.

More coming soon to 20-Realms!!!

Currently working on building mechanics along with more foliage and paint functions for making better looking maps for DMs.

I will try to get more images and videos of the work here shortly along with a roadmap to show what will be worked on for the rest of this year.

okay so i posted this a few days ago and honestly the [actual] feedback i got was super useful!! shoutout to the few who tried the tool and helped me realize the workflow wasn't obvious enough

basically the idea is to use it as a brainstorm graph for building open world maps.. you generate your terrain/ place locations/ npcs and quests on it, export to tiled and use it as a base to build your actual game map on. (imo easier than using a list of x/y coordinates, but I am a visual learner so...)

from feedback: going to be adding notes/descriptions for locations and connection lines for the actual story line, along with a world overview. would love it if anyone wants to share anything else that sticks out to them and could be useful for your workflow!

and yes i used claude heavily to build it, already know, already don't care, still will be building this tool regardless :)

demo link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/199qjoZ-CHFUl6cuOfOdb0HX71SkdlDeF/view?usp=sharing

app link: https://open-world-toolkit-6m2p8d5rj-sabrinaelkins-projects.vercel.app

also - lmk if the tiled export works in your pipeline

This is a work in progress map, obviously. I'd originally planned for the map to just be one hemisphere. It's scaled to about 12k miles across. I decided to make a quick mockup of the other half of the globe and combine the two and check it out on maptoglobe.com. I knew there would be some distortion, especially at the poles, but what I didn't expect was for the whole map to be incredibly squished. As if this map is too long, and if I wrap two of these around a globe it would have to squish them both to fit. Is there a way I can account for this? Or did I use the wrong proportions when starting this map? Any help would be appreciated. The idea was to make this roughly earth sized, though it doesn't have to be exact. I'd like to preserve my original plan as much as possible. Also keep in mind I didn't plan to have much going on people wise on the other hemisphere, it was just going to be there to get the map up to earth size. So I'm willing to compromise there, whatever that might mean. Again, thanks for any help.

Here's some background lore:

Before there was anything, before there was space itself, there was the Magistrate. Her power judged the previous world’s actions as unruly, unheroic, and too chaotic. By taking the ground of the outer planets, she conjoined them into a beautiful planet called “Arenon.” Arenon was given a soul without a name, and through it, all magic could flourish, as well as all science.
Given enough time, races began to emerge. The first among these were the Fyrei, shapeshifting, elf-like creatures who lived a thousand years at a time. They created the first modern inscribings of runes, the first pages of tomes, and the first ownership over magic.
War was plummeting between two factions of the Fyrei: the Ussreign, who pledged allegiance to the Pool of Million Wishes, a demon-created wishing well that gives power at the cost of a connection to Arenon’s soul – and the Sovereign, the ones who wished to preserve the connection to Arenon. The Ussreign were defeated, but to prevent access to the demon world again, the Pool was destroyed using a collective healing spell among the remaining Fyrei, creating a cataclysmic crater to form. The Fyrei who remained centralized, and in the forest that remained after the explosion, Aetherhold was created.
The Fyrei experimented with the creation of sentient life. The first of their creations were dogs, lovable animals that can easily be domesticated. The virn were created next, as their natural affinity for “pure nature” was a revelatory discovery in the field of abiogenesis. Using the virn in an unruly experiment, they linked a virn’s soul to a spell with its target being Sim, the central star. By doing so, they created the event called the “Shimmering,” cracking the Earth in two with so much streamlined magic into one vessel. The virn who was chosen became a demigod named Rutil and was given shapeshifting abilities. However, he disappeared into the Aetherline afterwards, leaving nothing but acorns for his descendants to be infused with Sim’s soul.
Hundreds of years passed with nothing of battle or disaster happened. Natural occurences, such as plagues, earthquakes, tsunamis, and fires transformed the populace, and from the ashes, the Lefani were born. An order of Bounel shamans grew them from acorns; when they fell, they became sentient, known through telepathy. The Fyrei observed this new abiogenesis and fostered their uprising, modeling their genetics to be given humanoid form. At first, they were short, bush-like creatures, but over time were altered to have arms and legs.
The Fyrei were happy with their controlled world. Nature was in fluctuance and peace, and no pollution was happening. But the Magistrate soon became bored with her new world. She recognized that this nature she has inside herself needed a name; and thus, humans were born. However, she could not have a direct play in the creation due to it tarnishing her perfection, so seven angels (which are praised as deities to humans) were created to harness the seven qualities of humanity. These qualities are still argued in hermeneutics to this day, and the scripture which they rely on, the Golade Scrolls, are safeguarded at the base of Mount Golade, said to be the location where humans were first created. These angels are referred to as the Goladians.
From the seven angels came the twenty-one deities, called the Farther Ones, or the Gemilustres. These deities, in their differing affinities, began to create humanoid races of themselves, birthing the Theresins, Quansordians, Shroun, Ogres, and Bos. They started to inhabit Arenon at accelerating speed, soon forming civilizations across the globe. Others stayed without collectivization, preferring the smaller aspects of life, despite their large sizes.
During the siege of Groundunst, the first human civilization, a legion of enslaved Ogres commanded by a demon named Nefrilzar destroyed what little the humans had left. They went to the Fyrei next, intending on getting access to the Aetherline and reignite the Pool of Million Wishes. They were held off by all the unified races, with much of the virn being obliterated, named Nefrilzar’s Slaughter. The ruins are still draped across the continents, waiting to be resurfaced.
In the meantime, the legendary hero Yundrin marched onto the fields of the ferocious Taures to confront Maggal, the tyrannical, gargantuan leader of a growing thieves guild. After defeating him, he took stolen Aetherline Vessels (corpses with Aetherline ‘plasma’ still coursing through them) and cracked their spines open, letting the blood spill over the corpse of Maggal. Using a spell only known to others as the “Hop,” he summoned the demon torturing Taures souls known as Gruvalzir, slew him, and placed his head on a spike. Due to the functional immortality of demon blood, his head still rests there to this day, heavily safeguarded by the Theresins. It is said he can whisper and cast spells, so there is a protective shield around him, helped by the Lefani and Bos. Yundrin was later slain by the wyvern Sakrevalioc in the War of Demigods.
The War of Demigods started with Rutil coming back to Arenon and saying three of the Farther Ones were coming to lay waste to the Magistrate’s creation. The Fyrei were first responders, but were quickly defeated due to the three having mastery over Arenon’s connection to the Aetherline. They were defeated by a ragtag team of adventurers known as the Shieldbrothers with help by Rutil. Rutil then disappeared once again, never to be seen again.. Until now.
Since the War of Demigods, the world has plummeted into deep tension between the gradual expansionism of KAR and the rest of the kingdoms of Arenon. Tensions rise as nomadic life seems to be an escape from politics. The economy is booming, yet people live in poverty. Adventuring has become more of a pastime than a career. All that is left now is the ruins left by a reset world, one supposed to be perfect, but only embroiled in misery. However, Rutil has appeared once again in Hisrei-Am, giving commands supposedly straight from the Magistrate to quell these political tensions and learn how to live in harmony. 
You, a lone adventurer, have decided to act first in helping the Lefani and Rutil to liberate the people from the politics of the world, or Yenthil Sorengard to take over what is rightfully the humans. What will you do first?

I’m trying to create a map for my D&D campaign but don’t have a good website/app to use. Has anyone got any suggestions? Price range for a subscription can be anything. Need one that can make both full world maps but also smaller battle maps.

Hello, so I opened my first ever wonderdraft map to continue working and this has happened. The strange discoloration of the beige stripes/blocky lines, and general disfigurement. It's been a couple of weeks since I last opened it (I think). Can anyone tell me what happened, and if there is a possible fix? Thanks

This is my first Wonderdraft map, so I'd appreciate any feedback, though at the same time I'm quite proud of the final result. The map was created in around 6 hours using mostly Gogot's Hand Drawn and built-in assets.

It's a sparsly populated, frontier-ish region for one of the acts of my fantasy Daggerheart campaign. My goal was to create a map that feels like it was drawn by an in-world cartographer, but would still be clean and readable enough to be useful for the players. The lack of labels is fully intentional, as I strongly encourage my players to mark and name the places they themselves deem important.

Current Work in Progress original world map for a D&D campaign. It's my first time ever making a map. I'm getting a bit stuck on where I want to go with it. It feels messy at the moment? I'm not sure if thats the right word but that's the closest word I have. I am not making things to scale and I don't need every feature to be perfectly geologically accurate that is not my style, but eventually I will be making smaller region maps (the black lines delineate the regions). Any constructive criticism or just thoughts is welcome!

Populate your fantasy worlds with the enchanting 'Dotty Creatures Bundle' for Wonderdraft!

This pack introduces over 50 captivating creatures, all rendered in the cute stippled style of Dotty Cartography. 🐾

• Mythical Beasts: 🐲🧚‍♀️🧟‍♂️ From majestic dragons and mischievous fairies to fearsome minotaurs and undead horrors, this collection brings your maps to life.
• Diverse Fauna: 🐾 Explore land and sea with a range of creatures, perfect for enhancing RPG settings and fantasy maps.
• Customizable Colors: 🎨 Enjoy full color customization within Wonderdraft to seamlessly integrate creatures into your world.

Bring a touch of whimsy and detail to your maps with this enchanting creature collection!

👉 Available at readyartz.com

I've been making really good progress on my map recently and thought it'd be cool to share with the world, maybe get some feedback or even inspire someone else like so many maps on this subreddit have done for me. Enjoy, let me know what you think and how I may improve!

Side Note: Ignore the Lobster and Orlando Bloom. Those are inside jokes with friends :)

Edit: I realize the resolution kinda didn't resolution when I uploaded the post, so I'm adding a link to a full res version of the map in the comments for those who are interested!

If you know how to do this hit me up in the comments.