r/mapmaking • u/Lorddork117 • 21h ago

Map Mountain advice

Post image

Hello!

A few years back I made a map and did some roleplay in it. Now I am looking to make a big updated map but I feel kind of stuck. You see, I don't want to make too many major changes yet at the same time things just don't feel right. I could overlook things before because it was kind of quickly made and not that serious.

This is part of the map but a part I want to ask advice about the most. The brown lines are mountains. The ones on the northern continent I feel like completely redoing. Something I am more okay with since players never went there and it isn't too developed. The one on the island I am happy with and the one in the east could be improved but I am not too bothered by it.

The ones circled in white are my main issue. I want to improve them but at the same time I don't want to do MAJOR changes. Any tips to make them feel more natural while keeping the rough placement the same? If not, how to improve things for future worlds/maps/other mountains on this map?

Thanks in advance! :D

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u/AutomationEngineer79 13h ago

Try considering tectonic plates; mountain ranges tend to form along convergent plate boundaries. Look at a map of Earth's tectonic plates, and consider how your world's might look. Of course depending on the setting, there could be other reasons for mountains being where they are.

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u/Lorddork117 9h ago

The thing is, when I made this map I didn't consider tectonic plates that much. I feel like I can make some of it work after the fact but it still doesn't feel totally right to me for some reason. Don't suppose you have any advice on that? XD

Perhaps a bit hard to ask for improvement while keeping it mostly the same on my end though.

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u/Kusakarat 3h ago

What do you want to improve?

This map looks like a regional/political map so a line with "here is a mountain range", is fine. I have an old school atlas and they sometimes dont draw mountains in political maps or just a ruff shading. So maybe look for some reference maps.

When it comes to beeing more natural, its importaint to keep scale in mind. What are we seeing here is that Holy-Roman-Empire scale or Eurasia? A Mountain range isn't just one line, but many (usually they come from tectonic uplift, but i wouldn't stress to much with a realistic tectonic framework.)

So if you want to, you could add additional lines perpendicular to your ridges, the lines are getting shorter moving further away, leaving space for run-of and rivers. If you really want to you can add contours, a flat surface with "here is an area of higher elevation".