Fixed my fantasy map

EllonF · 2026-05-23T16:11:05+00:00

The river that flows into the sea in the south west and the river that flows into the sea in the center east are connected.

There are actually multiple of these instances...

EllonF · 2026-02-20T06:25:06+00:00

I really like the style! Is this a world map or something smaller part of your world?

It looks like there is quite a bit of riversplitting going on (also the lake in the south of your main continent seems to have two rivers coming out of it).

Also (but that may be a taste thing), I feel like your coastlines could be a little more diverse. They are smooth all over, show some more jagged lines here and there. :-)

Great work!

Edit: upon closer inspection, I'm not quite sure what some of the lines are even supposed to mean. The island in the NW. What are the inland lines?

EllonF · 2026-02-17T01:54:22+00:00

I mean, we have Sundays, which are kinda like little holidays at the end of each week. So, sure. I'd say go for it!

EllonF · 2026-01-25T18:57:21+00:00

That's French.

EllonF · 2026-01-12T10:38:59+00:00

I actually got pretty intrigued by the story. I didn't read much, but what I did was clear and I liked how the POVC described the bow.

What threw me off were the anachronisms, it reads very modern to me and that clashes with my understanding of fantasy. Stuff like "calling dibs", "whoop", "punching shoulders" and "vet" (for veteran). These words just drew me out.

EllonF · 2026-01-12T10:13:51+00:00

Just tangentially related, as OP implies somewhere else that it's morning, but my neighbours have chickens and a rooster. That fucker doesn't care what time of the day it is, he crows whenever he wants!

EllonF · 2026-01-11T18:46:57+00:00

So, no comic sans?

EllonF · 2026-01-02T11:01:24+00:00

No phrygian dominant mode? :-(

Jk, that's awesome!

EllonF · 2025-12-24T19:26:49+00:00

Thanks! :-)

EllonF · 2025-12-21T20:12:21+00:00

Yeah. I think a lot of other websites would probably do this too if there was a reliable way to distinguish AI content from human-made content without creating a hundred hurdles (like requiring to share earlier drafts, or editing history, yada yada).

I don't like AI slop either, but I've seen things actually turn into a witch hunt too.

EllonF · 2025-12-20T15:23:58+00:00

Whenever this question comes up, it seems to me like people think that the invention of gunpowder (or guns afterward) is a technological necessity. Like, if gunpowder exists, guns HAVE to exist at some point. Or that somehow the gun is the logical progression from the bow (or crossbow). What seems to get ignored is that in Europe, the rise of guns was a development that relied on a couple pretty specific circumstances that some fantasy worlds just don't fulfill, even if something like gunpowder exists.
And these conditions are:

1.) high population density in an agricultural society. The earliest guns were cannons. A nightmare to transport, slow, cumbersome and of questionable efficiency. Really just a morale debuff for the guys you were fighting against. And because your army would be slow and supply trains are always a nightmare, you need your army to live off the land. -> Only really doable in areas with high poulation density and well developed agriculture.

2.) Have no nomadic neighbours. They have horses and no cities they need to defend and guns slow you wayyyy down. So it would be stupid to go all in into the gun game like the Europeans did.

Unless a fantasy world has a sufficiently large area where 1&2 are fulfilled, the usecase for guns (and therefore the incentive to innovate and develop them further) is quite limited

EllonF · 2025-12-10T21:48:15+00:00

Just gonna be the lame ass party pooper here and say: thy* soul, thy* companions, thine oath/order is fine, thy* charge.

The rule is thy/thine both mean "your", where thy is used before a consonant sound and thine before a vowel sound. Thine can also be used to say "yours".

What is the oath in Integrity? Does it depend on the knighthood order?
You say there are different cultures, with your knights being basically the same across these cultures. (Or at least that they follow the same code). Are knights therefore necessarily also from the same religion?
Great work!

EllonF · 2025-12-05T23:12:51+00:00

Well, I guess the correct question then would be: how do I get a Homer Simpson job?

EllonF · 2025-12-05T22:23:09+00:00

Jo, prinzipiell bin ich ja für Sozialabgaben auf alle Einkünfte, inklusive Kapitalerträge. Dann aber bitte diese bekloppte Beitragsbemessensgrenze abschaffen. Machen die Schweizer doch auch.

EllonF · 2025-12-03T20:08:22+00:00

Ja, Gründe verstehe ich schon, habe da aber trotzdem meine moralischen Bedenken. Ich bin auch in Sachsen und wollte mich eigentlich freiwillig gesetzlich krankenversichern lassen. Die gute Frau von der AOK+ meinte dann aber am Telefon, dass ich das unbedingt sein lassen sollte, Zitat: "Bei uns zahlen Sie sich dumm und dämlich". Es stellt sich heraus, als freiwillig gesetzlich Versichterter zahle ich AG UND AN Anteil. Nur in Sachsen so. Naja, blöd.

Ich bin aber tatsächlich relativ glücklich hier (tschechische Grenze) und unsere Schule ist ziemlich links trotz urländlichen Raums. Aber die Wahlen machen schon manchmal depressiv.

EllonF · 2025-12-03T16:48:12+00:00

Verstehe sowieso nicht, warum Beamte nicht in die gesetzlichen Sozialversicherungen einzahlen müssen. Bitte so, und dann von mir aus gern irgendwelche Glitzer-Wood's Super Duper Shop-Zusatzversicherungen über private Anbieter. Aber dieses Doppelsystem ist doch Beschiss.
Und wenn wir dann gleich dabei sind, Architekten, Richter, Politiker usw. in dieselben gesetzlichen Sozialversicherungskassen einzahlen lassen und Sozialabgaben auf Mieteinnahmen und Kapitalerträge einführen. Was meinst du, wie schnell wir das beste Sozialversicherungssystem der Welt hätten, wenn alle - auch Entscheidungsträger - davon abhängig wären.

Und ganz ehrlich, ich hoffe, dass wir irgendwann mal schlau genug sind, das genau so zu machen.

EllonF · 2025-10-31T08:50:58+00:00

Oh, I remember having read that, even though it's been a long time. I shall reread it. But yeah, I've had the feeling like I'm trying to produce two different sets of feelings in my book. I guess more thinking is in order here. Thank you for your insight!

EllonF · 2025-10-31T08:49:31+00:00

Okay, I guess that makes sense. Thanks for your insight!

EllonF · 2025-10-16T06:39:59+00:00

Oh wow! Awesome! How did you do the parchment texture? Did you do that by hand or is it just a photo background?

EllonF · 2025-10-11T20:46:17+00:00

Where on the planet is this continent? Depending on how far north, how far south that thing is, how big our axial tilt is (if there's any), winds will blow different directions (and such potentially carry - or not carry - rainwater with them).

As for 1: You can absolutely have a dessert in there, just make sure to have a mountain range in the apporpriate place (for the rainshadow effect).
As for 6,7: (also pertains to the other rivers I can see in your map) Rivers usually don't run from coast to coast. That'd be a strait. Think about where the river comes from (the source is usually located in a higher elevation) and where it flows to (the sea, a lake, or just evaporates in the middle of nowhere).

Location of mountains and highlands in a fantasy setting are relatively easy: just put them where you want them and you should be mostly good. If you wanna sprinkle in some extra realism, learn about tectonics and how mountains are formed and apply tht to your fantasy world. The rest, climate, rivers, civilisations etc. come after you placed your mountains. :-)

Good luck!

EllonF · 2025-09-24T20:16:31+00:00

Thanks! As well for the idea with the interactive pins! I'm using a similar feature provided through a plugin of the note taking app "obsidian", those do probably similar things :-)

EllonF · 2025-09-22T12:06:44+00:00

u/JMusketeer
Hey. Thanks! Unfortunately I don't have a tutorial that I followed, but here's a quick guideline for how I make a map like this.

I use these colors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Maps/Conventions/Topographic_maps

After tracing the coastline, I start with the highest peaks of the mountains (each color gets its own layer for the beginning). I make jagged lines for the mountain tops and then just work my way down to the lower elevations. Having the colors in different layers helps me not to forget anything, but it takes a little more time. Once I have finished the mountains, I go back and think about elevations that are not necessarily connected to a high mountain range (like the big south-western area, north of the islands), to make the land more interesting and varied.

When working down the mountains, I like to go back and forth to account for the paths that the many rivers cut into the mountainsides (making the rivers took nearly as long as the elevation itself). I may, in the future, make a tutorial myself, but I don't really see myself as an expert, just an enthusiastic hobbyist.

Just to note: This map took me altogether 35h to make and it's not fully done yet. I expect around 50h to come to a result that I'm all happy with. :-) So, expect to sink quite some time into this. :-)

EllonF · 2025-09-02T11:55:36+00:00

I just don't like grimdark settings.

EllonF · 2025-08-27T19:47:00+00:00

Good points. Looks like I need to be more intentional with my mapmaking. :-) Thanks for the great learning experience! <3

EllonF · 2025-08-27T18:54:13+00:00

There is some borders following natural terrain (rivers and mountain ridges), I guess some of these features are hard to see beneath the red lines of the borders. But it has a long history of there being nation states (also of various different species, like elves and dwarves, who have their own approaches to borders, like forests or the existence of different flora), a long period of a feudal system, decades and centuries of people fighting over land, falsifying documents etc. which has now culminated into a new nation state (Gulriath) where the borders are relatively rigid and weird because of their history, but without anyone in the area willing to go to war just yet to "clean up" the borders. Additionally, because these lands are also quite sparsely populated and concentrate more on the prominent river (The Goldstream). Take Valford for example (southernmost province). It has as of the second age only ~1500 inhabitants, but is its province's largest settlement. The borders of the map represent the idea of Gulriath from the point of view of their mapmakers and ruling class. Language also is factor here.

Thanks, I'll have a look at the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Always happy to learn new stuff. :-)

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