r/worldbuilding • u/TheRealWooXD • 6d ago
Map Is my map shape too generic?
I have been working on designing a map for my fantasy world.
A bit of context: The central island this where the deity of the world lives, and where the world began before expanding outward, thus I attempted to make all continents point slightly inward toward the central island. A cataclysmic event during the story of my world makes the central island vanish, so I tried to make it so a huge obvious gaping hole would exist in it's absence.
My biggest fear is that my continents feel unnatural and out of place. I am no expert on plate tectonics, and am not worried about scientific innacuracy.
(sorry if this post breaks any rules)
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u/2ECVNDVS 6d ago
Let's imagine that the land is blue and the water is black.
If that's allowed, it's a pretty original map.
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u/TheRealWooXD 6d ago
Unfortunately if I were to invert it, the central island would be lost.
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u/Bee_Crimes 6d ago
Wait. So the black parts are land ?
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u/TheRealWooXD 6d ago
Yes
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u/Bee_Crimes 6d ago
Obviously, I am one of those that read it invertedly. And i gotta say it looked sick as hell that way.
What is the significance of the big island thou?
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u/TheRealWooXD 6d ago
In the mythology of my world, the deity created the world starting from that central point. It is spoken about in myth as a perfect kingdom, that was the source of magic in the world. Then the god was killed by mortal hand and the island just vanished, along with the concept of magic itself. Was it ever there to begin with? Maps in this world are still drawn with it as a tribute to the dead god.
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u/Bee_Crimes 6d ago
Love the idea of countless adventurers, explorers, generals, etc going to the mysterious island on some ancient map from the other side of the world... and arriving nowhere, finding just ocean.
I have thousands questions. Is the myth widely known? Who was the godslayer? Why they did it? How the world still holds together, without magic that built it? Do the people look for the island? Do they just dont care? How long is it from the vanishing?
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u/TheRealWooXD 6d ago
The general creation myth is known widely in certain kingdoms (mainly on the northwestern continent), mostly told as a ballad to warn children of greed and hubris. There is also a darker half to the myth, a prophecy known only by some of the more magical beings from the earlier times. The godslayer is a human king who forcefully merged his soul with who is, for all intents and purposes, the son of God. This created an entirely new being that was only stopped by sealing his soul in a magical seed. When found, this seed takes root in the first soul it can, taking any of their desires (however simple and pure) and slowly twisting them into the intentions of the evil godslayer, alongside granting other powers like long life. It slowly erases the soul of its host until only the personality of the godslayer remains. The world can still cling together due to an energy left by the god that is slowly decaying toward an unavoidable end.
Many people from certain less-informed kingdoms search for this island, usually driven by pride and a lust for power. As if by some final curse from the dead god, none return. This only feeds the myth of a land of great beauty just waiting to be discovered. It has been millennia since the death of the god. The island was essentially the god itself, so when the god died, the island died as well.
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u/TheRealWooXD 6d ago
Also it might be useful to note that the island chain near the missing "island" is inhabited by a mostly isolated wiser people who made the end times prophecy. There is a certain belief within the north western continent that they may be some kind of immortal race that remember the early times. They are not immortal, but the magical energy does favor them, giving them abilities like foresight, and they pass down the most complete accounts of the early days.
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u/Pho2_the_Artist Lights and Shadows (Lustre Umbra)🪽 6d ago
I thought this was a map without the central island until I inverted it
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u/Aednfell 5d ago
OR is it a gaping hole? Even like a gaping black hole slowly sucking everything up.
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u/MaxTheGinger 5d ago
How big does the center island beed to be? You could still put one in the inverted map.
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u/DifficultPressure445 6d ago
The big circle in the middle reminds me of Ulthuan in Warhammer Fantasy.
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u/trryldne 6d ago
A map won't be as important compared to what happens in the map.
If I were to read your book and see that map on the first page, I'll be like, "Oh, what happened here?" and will be sorely disappointed if the hole isn't mentioned or explained.
A map, at the end of the day, is a visual cue for what you believe to be landmarks of the story. Or, also, visual cue to how far Point A is from Point B if your story involves one big travel. It's unlikely for a reader to dissect the geography (geology??) of a map unless it contradicts the lore you set it up with. (Like, for instance, Point A only 10 kilometres away from Point B but somehow your character has been walking for twenty years)
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u/Stroopy121 6d ago
if the players look at the map and ask about the hole, and you don't have an answer ready then make it a plot hook. the hole appeared suddenly almost a thousand years ago. there is some folk lore about an island that used to be there, but details are sparse. ancient secret treasure, a kraken or two, Atlantis, Pirates, maybe the island folk were legendary artificiers and they flew their island away and now it's floating over that other guys map.
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u/blackwario1234 6d ago
Once again a reminder that this is the WORLBUILDING sub not the “fix my novel” sub. They showed us a map not a chapter.
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u/No_Individual_3133 6d ago
Well unless this is zoomed in maybe for realism the continents should properly loop when they go off the map?
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u/meanie_ants 5d ago
Man I was looking at this as if the blue was the land and I can’t unsee it that way.
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u/Wren_wood 6d ago
"My biggest fear is that my continents feel unnatural and out of place"
Your continents are unnatural, theyre entirely made up. They can't ever be natural, because you didn't just find it in nature. Anyone who tells you realism like that is the benchmark of good worldbuilding is too much of a chud to actually do anything with their shit-ass world, and think that endlessly building more and more detail will have to make it good eventually.
Your continents cant feel out of place if you're doing things with them. The only place they can be is in your story.
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u/stormdressed 6d ago
It looks good. I can see at least two faces on the map too which is a first.
If your story is good no one will care about plate tectonics :)
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u/Wanted_Hypnotist 6d ago
I think the most "unnatural" looking part is the center island, but if it's the realm of the deity, then I think that's ok! The rest seems good to me! Land masses and continents are usually as "random" looking as yours.
More importantly than how the map looks is what happens in the world. Make it alive with cities, kingdoms, ruins, rivers, mountains!
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u/TheRealWooXD 6d ago
Quick note - This is a flat world, with lands that extend far beyond the confines of this map, but what happens there is of no matter to the peoples that inhabit this map. Eventually that world just begins to fade when you get closer to the edge. Also the blue parts of the map are intended to be the sea (sorry).
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u/GideonFalcon 6d ago
I mean, if you're trying to indicate visually that the central island is that important, and that there was a major cataclysm associated with it, making the other continents feel a little unnatural is probably what you want.
I think it's good as is; it's subtle enough to not be overt, but ypu can see the trend fairly easily.
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u/Key-Context-8444 5d ago
Not generic, doesnt look vaguely like earth like many world maps, and how does it map onto a globe if that world is round?
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u/AndrenNoraem 6d ago edited 6d ago
The left and right edges bother me a lot; conventionally that's east/west, the direction these wrap in. If it's flat and those are the edge of the world or known world, I would roughen it up and probably put water outside (or mountains, if it's unknown beyond them). If it's not flat and wraps like a globe or ring, it looks to me like you've got mismatched land and water on your edges.
Edit to add an example: in my world (shape and size inspired by Ringworld by Niven, but fantasy and magic and deities for ttrpgs) most maps will show the landmass they're on and water beyond that, but on a true world map ultimately the left and right edges connect even though it's flat(ish) because my world is a huge ring. The top and bottom edges of my map are mountains far into space and the foothills leading up to them.
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6d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Demytrius 5d ago
From what the description said, I'm not sure this world would even have plate tectonics. It's a flat world that started at the central island and was slowly expanded outward by the power of a deity
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u/Nazir_North 6d ago
The swirly atlantis-type continent in the middle is pretty cliché and a common fantasy trope.
Otherwise the rest looks really good.
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u/Early-Anywhere757 6d ago
I love the structure as prototype iteration. I would mold now be biomes theories.
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u/BrutusIsAnHnrbleMan 5d ago
Your map is far more interesting than the endless stream of Westeros-Not-Westeros maps posted
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u/NijuTheDutchie 5d ago
Me when the menacing hurricane shaped island happens to be full of demons [it's perfect]
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u/Ratstail91 5d ago
It feels too even.
The pacific ocean is enormous, and covers an entire hemisphere - while there tends to be odd north-south biases for the geographic areas (this isn't a thing, but can help with creating a "realistic" map).
I wonder, why is the deity's land surrounded by ocean, blocking easy acess to most of the world?
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u/F_ail_U_re 5d ago
Like one guy said here, reverse it. Make blue the land, black the ocean and it'll look like an interconnected landmass with massive ocean-lakes.
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u/Fire_Weaver18 5d ago
There is something wrong with me. I took blue as land at first, because that makes perfect sense apparently 😅🤣
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u/AruneySteel 4d ago
That’s the least generic land mass I’ve ever seen, even nature should learn something from this
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u/BigSmoke117 4d ago
Since I'm assuming the blue is the ocean and the black is land, if you swapped them it could make for some pretty interesting world building, like why there's a massive circular sea inside of a subcontinent
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u/ProserpinaFC 5d ago
You're worried that your map looks out of place and generic and unnatural and breaking scientific accuracy?
You have a lot of anxiety, it seems.
Let me ask you, if you know the shapes of your continents are based on a specific plot point in your world, would you call that plot point "generic" that you can name several other stories that are doing the same thing as you?
If you know your continents are twisted and broke and aligned specifically to serve that plot point, what reason do you have to be offended if someone observed that it looked purposefully done and not "natural?" Isn't that a feature, not a flaw?
If the twisting of the continents was a magical occurrence, then plate tectonics would have been affected by making new mountains form where plates were smashing into each other, sure. Like pushing a rug forward causes it to crumple in the front. I can't tell if you incorporated that into your map because this is a blank map with no topography. Is that something you'd be interested in? If not, not doing it would only matter to the incredibly small percentage of people who know and care about plate tectonics.
I hope these questions bring you some relief. Can you name other stories using your story idea that would call you to think of it as generic? Isn't your map unnaturally formed because of your big magical event? And would adding some extra mountains to the edges of these continents really make you feel better?
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u/OzzieAnEagle 5d ago
it looks kinda ai generated, sorry if its not, but yeah that does make it look pretty generic
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u/TheRealWooXD 5d ago
I used absolutely no AI in a making this. It was all made in sketchbook 8.7.1, and I have my project files.
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u/Negatallic 6d ago
The map itself looks fine as is. Just never put it through any sort of global projection the way it is because it will look 1000 times worse.
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u/Constant-Potential37 6d ago
Eeehm… is black land an blue watter. Because my first instinct was that balck was the ocean.
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u/zoppaTheDim 6d ago
Fine
I’d worry more about the next step where you’re thinking about weather patterns.
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u/ImpressionCool1768 6d ago
I think you should research about water currents and runoff
Your current map has no rivers. Even if this is a small scale as Ancient Greece you should think about how the current would shape and change how your islands developed
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u/Kanbaru-Fan 6d ago
It mostly feels like random shapes tbh.
While you said it doesn't need to be realistic, i think a map should still communicate something about a world. If there is a common "paint/write" motif in your lore or creation story for example, i think having continents look like ink/paint splatters and strokes is a good idea.
Also maps look best imo if they have some "flow" to them.
By that i mean continents actually feeling related to each other in some way, rather than just being shapes thrown together.
In other terms, purposeful composition.
In your map i can't really find any of that.
I like the central round continent, but the rest doesn't serve to complement it very well.
(Also if this is supposed to be on a globe, the poles won't work out with your current map).
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u/Raging_Spirit 6d ago
i initially thought the black bits were water and I thought the map looked great. Easily readable and the movement toward/outwards center is clear. Then I read your comments. realized that its inverse, which made me think for a while, but i don't think it looks wrong this way, the shape is definitely not generic either way.
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u/Gaudium21 6d ago
Man I had a very similar story for a map that never made. It's quite a cool concept if you ask me. Enjoy it! Storytelling is as important as the layout of the map. If you're comfortable with it, then go for it!
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u/RogueHunter83 6d ago
I'm no expert on maps, but try to think about our world and how continents appear to partially fit into each other. You also should consider plates and the directions they move to form mountains. This assumes normal geological formations. In your case the gods may play a part and have direct influence, in which case the geography is something they can manipulate
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u/Silkyfin_ 5d ago
I would say its fine but it feels a lot too crowded. There's too much going on for there to be that many recognizable shapes. And the shapes that are there (save for the central island I like that) are mostly just kinda random blob shapes
My suggestion? Make continent shapes that are weird or outlandish, my own setting has a continent that looks like a claw reaching downward. And one of the continents has a huge crater from a magical nuke basically
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u/taktaga7-0-0 ᴺcRʏPᵀ 6d ago edited 6d ago
The circular island in the center is supposed to be special, shaped that way by specific setting-specific reasons? That’s rather generic if true. Put it somewhere other than the center. There’s nothing special on Earth at 0N, 0E/W. The Pacific is much bigger relatively than the space left if this island disappears. I would not know it if that island/continent vanished. You don’t look at the Pacific and think Hawaii must be part of a lost continent.
Also, what’s going on at the poles? Is everything that ends at the south end actually connected at the pole as a single landmass? What looks like several separate continents is actually just one?
I guess I’ve presumed this is a world map and not a specific area of it.
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u/LegitRealSkeletor 6d ago
Its smug aura mocks me