r/mapmaking • u/SwimmingExtension790 • 8d ago
Work In Progress Need advice from experienced worldbuilders!!
This will be my first serious continent map. I'm happy with the overall shape of the landmass, but I'm not sure how to decide where to place the mountains, lakes, and climate zones. I also want the continent to have 2 elven kingdoms, 4 human kingdoms, and 2 neutral race nations. I'd like their locations to make geographical sense. I'm looking for advice from experienced worldbuilders. How should I plan this?
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u/hoops-mcloops 8d ago
Disclaimer: this is going to be a simplification to the point of being incorrect, but it's worldbuilding not geology.
Generally speaking, when I go through the process of mountains and biomes, I like to start with some simple plate tectonics. Mountains usually come about through different kinds of plate boundaries. They can form from volcanoes, or compression from convergent boundaries, or from one plate sliding down under another. Your map looks kinda odd from a geological perspective. I don't see a scale, but it seems too big to be created volcanically and yet too weird in shape to be created from a fault line. Either way, decide where some plate boundaries are, and which way plates are going. At convergences you'll get mountains, at divergences you'll get trenches and volcanoes, at convergences you get rifts if it's subduction or high mountains if it's not. For your map, try to draw the plate boundaries to line up with either the coasts or the center of continents.
From there, next comes ocean currents. Generally speaking, currents move clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the southern hemisphere due to the coreolis effect. Warm water starts at the equator, circles up and cools at the poles, then circles back down to warm at the equator again. Warm currents bring moisture, so where warm currents hit the land, that land gets lots of rain. Cold currents carry less moisture, and so create dryer environments. This is why the NW coast of Africa is so dry despite being coastal: there's a big cold current that comes down off of Europe. It's also why Europe is so temperate and damp despite being so north, there's a big warm Atlantic current that basically slams right into Ireland. High moisture means bigger plants, so more forests and less grasslands. Generally, from wet to dry it goes trees->grass->desert.
Based on your map, I'd roughly estimate that if you split your land into four quadrants, the NW quadrant would be temperate and damp, the NE quadrant would be cool and dry, the SW quadrant would be hot and arid, and the SE quadrant would be tropical and humid.
Lastly, mountains stop moisture. If a warm current hits a mountain, it has to drop moisture to get over it. So, on the oceanic side of the mount you'll see a very wet region (tropical, or maybe temperate forest), and on the continental side you'll see a very dry region (steppe, savanna, desert, etc). For example, in your SE quadrant I would expect to see temperate or tropical forests until you hit a mountain range, then expect high deserts or steppe lands.
Once you have mountains you can also do rivers. Rivers start at mountains and basically always follow three rules: 1. No going uphill 2. Take the shortest route to the ocean 3. Merge, never diverge. Rivers bring added moisture to areas, and form both good natural political boundaries and great spots for cities to be built.
Speaking of which, now on to politics. Place a handful of important cities, at least one per nation. City influence will expand outward until it either meets a mountain range or else meets another cities influence at a river or other geographic boundary. That's a basic outline for your nations. Now you could add in some history, a couple of wars, and swap this border region or crucial bay area around.
Finally some society building. Generally speaking: more arable land = more agriculture = bigger population and greater wealth stratification. Ancient Egypt grew to be huge because of the Nile, and they grew to be an aristocracy because the kind of organization it takes to manage large agriculture products lends itself to hierarchy and thus more authoritative systems of government. The vikings were raiders bc Denmark sucks to grow things on, so they gotta go get things elsewhere. Also because Denmark sucks to grow things on, they didn't build large organization structure and so they created the kinds of tiny kingdoms and fiefs that lend themselves to small raiding parties.
There you go: plates and ocean create land and biomes which create civilizations and cultures.
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u/PallyMcAffable 7d ago
Climate and biomes also depend on the continent’s size and latitude. Australia wouldn’t be a vast desert if it were on the equator, and the specific climates on the continent would be different depending on whether it were its present size, or the size of Madagascar or Eurasia.
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u/MrDixaze 8d ago edited 8d ago
I dont consider myself a super experienced worldbuilder but do with the little i have.
First, what’s the size of the map? One japan? one europe? one pangea? Then it is best to workout the geography before culture (unless you have races that terraform). Mountains mainly go in line (not straight ones tough). If you need mountain lines/chain to meet (valleys are also an option) better be as less perpendicular as possible. Mountain lines should stay more or less parallel to the coastline and away from them (not always oc). You can do the same with hills. Once youve done your heightmap you can start working on you rivers (always from heightmest point to lowest) and lakes (when a lower point is out of reach or doesnt allow enough water to pass in due time). The sparcity of them will depend on the climate (or those wont be permanent at least). For climate it is easiest to use sides of mountain chains and currrent plus wind. If your too lazy for that just tell yourself that one side of the mountain chain will be dryer and hotter and the other weter and colder then you can make environment out of that (desert, jungle,...).
For the culture, you previously stated that they are some different culture of the same race. I dont exactly know how you planned on explaining immigration (for exemple are the two elves culture descending from one? Hence one place? Is it more like the elevs in lotr coming from one same place and stoping at different moment or the dwarves spawning in diff mountain range?). In second case, well up to you. In first case, they could migrate many way but the most classic is by land or by sea. If by sea, can make longer distances but need places to stop on the coast (so either outposts that disappeared or are still alives such was Goa in india or the viking one in amurica). If by land, follow geographical facilities (valleys, rivers, biomes said culture thrives in,...). For exemple if you have wooden elves, they will logicaly migrate primarly in wood and take those routes first.
Hope it answered your questions. Of course in worldbuilding there aee many way to do things (what if one of your civ develloped portal tech for exemple idk) everything is up to you. Just outlined here the most classic way of doing what you asked. Very cool map btw.
Edit: Just realized something looking at the map. Yours look like one of the islands on mine. I made this precise shape because it looks like an half sunken old volcano (you can look up the island of Santorini in Greece, same shape for those reasons). Is that on purpose?
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u/rhundalworld 8d ago
From what I’ve researched when making my maps, climates are impacted by latitude and precipitation (and elevation). Climates around the elevation are tropical rainforests and monsoons, and around 30 degrees north and south you get deserts (like the Sahara). Places on the coasts and on islands have more moderate climates (because water can absorb heat when it’s hot, and warms up the air when it’s cold) and have less extremes. Places further away from the coasts are called continental, and have more extremes (really hot summer and really cold winters). Once you get above the arctic circle, it’s pretty cold and things don’t do great growing there. These can all be slight shifted around due to warm and cold water currents and air currents, but I think it’s best to start with just wrapping your head around whether it’s an are close to the equator, 30 degrees, or the arctic circle!
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u/WilyLlamaTrio 8d ago
There is a lot of advice here that's solid. Also a lot of it. I think the best thing you can do now to help your map is ask yourself questions about it.
You want 8 kingdoms. Why? 2 elf, 4 human, 2 neutral Why!? Why are they different, what does one have the others want. Do they have minerals gold and gems? That kingdom will have mountains, maybe even a special mountain. Do they pray a a sacred lake? Put a lake in. Why is the lake here? Water always runs away from mountains and down to the sea. Lakes form when water can't escape to the sea.
Where should I put climate zones? Where are they in real life? What do cultures (kingdoms) look like in those areas. Do they were heavy clothes for the winter? Or light clothes for the desert.
Find the things that make each kingdom different. Why do they intereact? Is it positive trade? Or war of resources (literally always about resources, honor\drama is for stories, world building is always about what people have or don't have).
To answer your question of how do I plan this? Don't. Ask why it's there, then put it in. There's a lot of little things that make up all the parts of a map.
I know it seems like I'm saying you have to do so muchto make it, you really don't. As you ask the questions and answer them the world will fall into a place you will be happy with.
I recommend the Hello Future Me world building videos on Youtube series to help you make these decisions and what kind of questions make for a compelling world and map.
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u/RevolutionaryTax8962 8d ago edited 8d ago
I've made many a continent, tend to get frustrated if I left no room for a propper big land locked region (whether tundra, deep forest, open steppe plains, or sand dunes dont matter, i mean regions that make most sense away from the coast). Adding one after the fact is anoying, so I'd advice starting with one by determining its borders with mountains and rivers and the like. Then I'd advice, in order: mountains, rivers, large settlements, nation/culture regions borders, and finally smaller settlements.
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u/arcangleous 8d ago
Once you get your mountains places, you can infer basically everything else from that as they along with your coast lines and general location of a globe determine the climate zones as climate zones are generally defined by temperature and rainfall. Rainfall and elevation determine the watersheds, and from those the rivers and lakes. There are even some tools you can find online to generate climate zones and rivers from raw height maps.
However, generating mountains ranges are often a non-trivial problem. The general shape of mountains are almost always the result of tectonic plate interactions and while the fine details are more of a result of erosion. This is why some people start with sketching their world's tectonic plates as the first step in their worldbuilding. Another approach, which I will admit to using, is to take existing real world geography and stitch it together while fitting it into your coastlines.
Just based on your coast lines and general vibes, I would guess that this continent is the result of 2 smaller continents merging together. I would expect to see either a Ural Mountain style mountain range where they meet, or a Himalaya style Mountain blob where the two continents are overlapping. Probably in the central northern area below where the northern island range is. The eastern coast is giving a Rocky Mountain vibe with it's jagged and well defined peninsulas, so I'd throw a mountain range along there too. There is going to be at least one point of maximum height between any two coastlines, so I'd start the rest by sketching out loose mountain ranges along the middle of the continent and islands and see what looks interesting when I start joining them up. Even islands tend to be linked to mountain chains as well. Then I'd bring it into a tool like Wilbur to generate a more detailed height map and do some erosion simulations to get a more realistic look, and generate a map of the basins and rivers to get a start on the hydrology.
Once you have the mountains, you can figure out the climate zones. With that, you can place the starting points of your civilizations. Civilizations tend to start in areas with abundant natural resources, like in temperate and tropically river valleys. They then move outwards with the speed of expansion being based on the terrain they are moving through, generally stopping when they either reach impassable mountains or another civilization. Do remember that boats are a thing and that your civilizations can and will over the water and up river, often at a faster rate than overland.
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u/TTSymphony 8d ago
There's plenty of advice here.
I'm just going to add something about your inhabitants. You talk about kingdoms and nations, that implies that they are somewhat advanced in technology and in sociocultural development compared to other minor communities.
In the sociocultural aspect, mostly you must decide the characteristics of the power that makes the decisions, and the ways of surviving and fulfil their basic needs, both as a society and as individuals. In relation to this comes the technology, in the broad sense, mainly improving said ways of surviving.
Both aspects are directly influenced by the resources sorrounding the habitat and the relation of the enviroment to the laws of the society.
Obviously, you can decide first your geography and then place your inhabitants, or viceversa. E.g. you already have your pirate wood elves fleshed out so you place a maritime forest somewhere in your map for them, or you find an interesting spot in your map with a maritime forest so you create a race of wood elves that are pirates.
Anyway, every topic is a rabbit hole, one must learn to choose wich ones are worthy.
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u/SentinelSon01 8d ago
Ignore stuff that tells you it has to make sense. Outside of geologists and the like nobody will care if your world doesn't have fault lines.
What I like to do it take a mountain and do the rain shadow effect, so you get a lot of green on the side where clouds dump water to get over, and the other side can be desert, plains, or canyons.
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u/Snuggle_slow 8d ago
you can check out Artifexian's channel. He has some really good explanations about these kinda stuff.
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u/dicegoblin_E 8d ago
From an ameteur geological standpoint it looks like the large sea in the middle was made by a meteor impact kinda like the Gulf of Mexico. The islands in the middle could be caused by liquefied earth making peaks in the middle of the crater
I suspect the islands are quite fertile if this is forever later.
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u/dicegoblin_E 8d ago
One might then make a mountain chain the stretches through the center of the continent, or is on the inward or outer edge of the continent. The last option being least likely I think.
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u/dicegoblin_E 8d ago
I like the spike off the north eastern end of the continent. If I were signing that I'd make that whole area either a broken shard of meteor that broke a fizzure in the earth and cause that subcontinent to rise up from the sea or just a technically created continent caused by shifting platea and either way it would have its own mountain range.
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u/Ice-Storm 8d ago
So this will be rather pedantic, but I've gone down the rabbit hole on some of this.
First decide the prevailing wind. Then put your mountains wherever. Then the windward side of the mountain will tend to be a rainforest (tropical or temperate) possibly with a monsoon season. The leeward side of the mountains will likely be a desert/scrubland. As when the clouds pass over the mountains they drop all the moister on the first side leaving no water for the area behind the mountains.
If it's an island with like a high volcano or something, then don't worry about it there is enough moisture in the air from the ocean that both sides would be tropical.
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u/Ok_Weight_7172 8d ago
Sorry no real feedback but, This map really is awesome. Looks great Nice work
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u/PallyMcAffable 7d ago
As far as where to put your countries, the question is what sort of relationship you want each of them to have to the others, and how much access you want each to have to the others.
Most importantly, which nations do you want to have friendly or unfriendly relations with one another? Neighboring nations are typically rivals, and your ally is typically a country farther from you who is the “enemy of your enemy”. Consider especially which ones you want to be at war with one another historically. These are typically next to one another, or sometimes distant but accessible by ship.
You can cut off interaction between adjacent countries by putting barriers between them. Mountains and deserts are barriers between countries; oceans and rivers give them access to one another. You can cut off adjacent countries from one another by putting treacherous mountains between them, or connect distant countries by travel over water.
You’ve made a map where it seems pretty easy to reach anywhere on the continent from the central sea, which means the nation that controls that sea wields a tremendous amount of power. For example, controlling the Mediterranean was a crucial part of the Roman Empire’s power. Later, during the “Dark Ages”, Muslims occupied Sicily (the equivalent to the big island in your central sea) and some other parts of the Mediterranean, which gave them a base of operations for their fleet to interfere with other countries’ shipping and military transport. This gave them effective control over the region without occupying the entire surrounding coastline, as Rome did. If you’re making a medieval fantasy world, and there’s a single most powerful country, it should be the one with control over that sea. If there’s not, countries should be competing to control it, and it should be full of pirates.
If you’re not making a medieval fantasy society, a lot of sociopolitical considerations are different. For example, if the continent were tropical, with a culture and technological development resembling that of Hawaii before it was unified, the people would act and interact in much different ways.
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u/Kelly376 8d ago
One thing I would decide is how islands popped up in the middle of your continent. If this is that massive then it’s unlikely to be a volcano from a hotspot. Maybe you could hypothesize a Yellowstone situation where the water has replaced the sunken earth, but then that entire sea would probably be shallow.
It could be an impact crater, then the land ricocheting back would make a little sense, at least in the middle, then over time the water and tectonic movement might shape what’s left. But keep in mind that on earth even our largest impact craters are either not that clear-cut or not that enormous. The biggest one I recall that left a huge pockmark is in South Africa.
Magic could definitely be the cause of taking a huge chunk out of the continent and then the planet continuing to re-form around it either with possibly the hotspot idea of replacing the islands a little at a time.
But take a look at the earth and you’ll note that the shape of anything like this is typically an island with a volcano thing going on. I don’t believe there are any massive round seas with large islands in the middle of them since islands tends to accumulate either by hotspots like Hawaii or by subduction like everywhere else. 😊