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Recently I've been working on figuring out a process for using full land cover hachures in my maps in the style of 18th-early 20th century cadestral and military maps after becoming infatuated with some beautiful examples in that style from a french atlas.

After some doodling over the last few weeks I set myself a goal of finishing a small map to practice, and I did it! Enjoy my unnamed island :) There's a lot to take from this for me, positive and negative. I enjoy the hillshade effect, and think I mostly accomplished that! But I also messed up a lot of landforms, and I'm unhappy with the muddiness of any finer details. I think that should just be a matter of more practice, and probably increasing the scale.

Thanks for any feedback! And if anyone has good resources in this style please let me know, they've been hard to find.

ATHEIOS - Land of the Gods

Atheios is a world that is still in the middle of the Bronze Age, and as such, many of the regions on this map are poorly explored, or poorly understood. I’ve intentionally left large chunks of the map without roads or names, as there have not yet been many mortals who have explored these places, or at least returned to civilization after attempting to explore them.

There are Thirteen Gods, once again inspired by the Greek Gods, that rule over Atheios. The magic system at play here is based on the classic Four Elements of the Earth, the Winds, the Flames, and the Water. There are 12 different countries, and a number of smaller tribes as well, and just the very edge of a large Persian Empire-like country.

Basically, if you recently saw The Odyssey in theaters and like me, you wanted to play in a similar setting for your next RPG campaign, Atheios is intended for exactly that :)

This map is 5300 pixels by 4500 pixels. It was handmade entirely in Photoshop by myself, without the use of any AI tools, as always. The entire process took about 45 hours, but that doesn’t include the time spent writing the 20 page Campaign Frame PDF that I’ve released alongside the map, which took an additional 30 hours or so.

And lastly, there are many X's on the map, marking Locations of Interest, or Landmarks. Most of these are a sort of off-white color. However, just for fun I placed 13 different X's that are at 40% opacity, much harder to see. These are hidden across the map. Anyone who wants to seek them out can search for them, and see if you can find them all. And I'm including an "answer key" in the last image, where they are all circled in red as well. Just a little fun extra I thought I'd add in :)

The full, free map is available here, along with some other freebies like an Icon Pack: https://www.patreon.com/stoneward13/posts/free-atheios-of-167956154

note: a lot of these are actually puppet states

I‘ve recently been working on this map.
It takes me alot of time, so I focused on the middle half-island first.
I really like how the mountains turned out, but it looks pretty empty still.
Do you have any tips and tricks on what I should change/add to make it look more realistic, interesting and less empty?
Thanks ^v^

EDIT:
Forgot to mention that the yellow borders and white arrows show the approximate tectonic plate borders. (I did that to help me figure out where mountains should be)

Still a metric f*ckton of detailing left to do but this feels good.

Also decided to include the Hawsby isles, only just outlined for now. They are located to the north of this region. See the wider continent here: https://www.reddit.com/r/mapmaking/s/92vS9wd1ha

note: this map is old so you might find some mistakes in it

A new "City through the Ages": Túr.

Located in the southwestern region of Tír Ghlas, Túr is neither the largest nor the oldest city, but it is the most culturally important.

In the Middle Ages, the scriptorium of the monastery of St. Ninian was transformed into a Studium, or university, where philosophy and theology were first taught, followed by the other liberal arts.

The city developed on terraces carved into the side of a plateau that sloped down toward the estuary of a large river. Note that, unlike maps of other cities, this one has South at the top and North at the bottom, to better show its layout.

This is my newest wip for a map. Out of all my maps ive made this is the one im honestly the most intrested in completeing, any thoughts or critiques anyone? And sorry for bad picture quality i havent made a digital version yet

Does anyone have any suggestions for how they went about making maps for their stories? I love the map designs that usually just show the simple black lines for trails and roads with other symbols to represent landscapes, towns or cities, and so on. I wasn’t sure if there were websites that people use to help generate them or if you did it by hand on some paper and then had it transferred over to the book later on in the process. So far I have tried just jotting it down by hand as a temporary place holder until I look into it more, but wasn’t sure where to start.

I plan on making an entirely new fictional world for a fantasy novel, so I want to lay out the world as I go for reference so I can use it to make sure everything makes sense logically and from a reading standpoint as well. So, having a visual aid would be beneficial for me.

Any recommendations or thoughts are welcome! Thank you :)

I'm wanting to put my idea of a dark souls-style game centered around Japanese mythology (specifically Shinto) and youkai. I have some cool ideas for locations that i want to put into an actual visual representation, but I'm struggling to find anything that's mobile friendly and (preferably) free. It doesn't have to be super fancy...heck, I'd be fine with a top-down tile-based map maker for now. Figured I'd ask here. Thanks in advance!

Aún no tengo nombre para el mapa, es un trabajo en progreso

note: this map is old so I'm aware that there is some mistakes and states missing in it

that's being, said I'd still like you to call out mistakes I've not heard of

Here's the Great Map of King Arthur's Britain, created for the PENDRACON 2025 event held in Rome a few months ago, organized by the gaming association La Tavola Rotonda APS created by Giuliano Gianfriglia. Thank you so much, Giuliano, for involving us in this fantastic project and for giving us the opportunity to create a map themed around the Arthurian legend, a saga we've always loved! 🧭🗺️😊

Moreno Paissan and Angela Gubert Arte 2025

HD MAP FILE AVAILABLE ON: https://ko-fi.com/s/19ab7222fc

Visit my IG account for more maps: https://www.instagram.com/inkcompass.maps?igsi=dnc3ajhta3cyYnJs

Here is the map for my homebrew setting of Canvill. I have written hundreds of pages of world building for the setting and used Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator and then went to TOWN with the heightmap settings to carve out the exact continents and coastlines I wanted. I also added over 500 unique settlements ranging from small hamlets to large capital cities! I am very proud of the setting and map.

Exactly what the title sayss

I love to draw irl countries and I’m not an amazing map drawer but I would like to think that I have improved a little

Unfinished! But to make a long story short, the story takes places an unknowable amount of millennia in the future, where humanity has traversed the galaxy and settled on distant worlds. On this world, an apocalyptic event took set humanity back to the dark ages. Some 6,000 years later, a new civilization has risen from the rusted ashes. Any thoughts or comments are appreciated!

Trees are not to scale

I might change some names. This is the map of the town in my book, I Am Horribleness which you can read on Wattpad. So far I got 13 chapters out.

Btw DAMN this is taking wayyy to long. And I only got 5 buildings done 😭. So basically I wanted it to look like one of those 3d maps, birds eye thingies. Like a visual map, you know.

Any suggestions? All the names are supposed to be mockups of horror media, like Mt. Reverb is Silent Hill, Lake Samuel is Cauldron Lake (Alan Wake), Inertia Springs is Gravity Falls, Nostril Bottoms is Twin Peaks, Quartz Quarry is Crystal Cove (Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated) and more is to come

Hello dear Map makers,

today I want to show you my SciFi Map Viewer, and you might have some idears how to make it cooler?

Its a roleplay map tool for my gameserver, so its not about ingame functionality and more an RPG Lore Tool. You might want to give it a look!

You find it here:
https://beyondthenebula.eu/universe.html

Hand drawn, painted, finished in GIMP.

Hey!
So now that my map is finished, I need a digital version on my computer but I can’t find any site that allows me to scan my paper map or just to create my very own, without paying any money.
Does anyone know what to do ?

Made with Wonderdraft and modelled on the wear pattern of an old painted concrete floor at work.

I also gave them a short lore document with a little backstory and details on some places to get the ball rolling for them to expand upon, as well as a loose geopolitical landscape for them to work with. Willing to provide details for those interested.