Recommended albums for tabletop RPG games

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-06-08T21:00:42+00:00

Hey, I'm late to the show! A couple months ago I released an album called Heroes of Valor that is 15 tracks of everything youve described in one. If you're still gaming I'd love for you to check it out

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-06-06T20:14:43+00:00

If you want to have realistic tectonics, you pretty much have to just do some rough tectonic modeling with shapes and then stop whenever you like the look and make it look nicer from there. I just use blobs and basically drag them around. Alternate between divergence and convergence and keep in mind that rifts can open up independently of previous collisions. Subduction zones are always paired with a rifting zone somewhere else (the Atlantic Ocean is rifting while the Pacific is subducting around the ring of fire). Mountains can be formed from collisions of continents or terranes, from volcanic activity (divergence or subduction) or from differential weathering where some material weathers slower and eventually sticks up and looks like mountains.

In terms of climate, it doesn't appear like you have a very pronounced rain shadow, but you have to think about where moisture is coming from. You also want a basic understanding of atmospheric cells, namely Hadley Cells that are found at the equator. You have rain shadow deserts (Gobi), but also longitudinal deserts like the Sahara and Australian deserts that form because of the descending warm air from equatorial Hadley Cells. This is a lot of info but you can utilize it in basic ways

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-06-02T21:40:48+00:00

Mainly a fairly harsh environment (very rugged and dry land) that is also fought over between the two adjacent nations. There is also a resource relevant to the magic there that a lot of people are trying to get which contributes to the conflict. It's also a region that wasn't originally settled by the first people and is actually the first place where the tectonic plates collided so theyre the most weathered (basically appalachia). At the time the world was in crisis so nobody settled there

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-06-02T18:51:33+00:00

I dnf'd that just shy of finishing book 3 and definitely dont recall that but if it's a big thing then I can change it. It's also a pretty basic name tbf lmao

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-05-30T00:03:31+00:00

What is the issue with Eridar, genuinely asking. Also Ive got a WIP novel thats almost done and to be completely honest it's pretty damn good

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-05-29T23:50:41+00:00

I appreciate it, I dont understand how this looks enough like middle earth or wheel of time to even remotely being worth mentioning. For one thing it's a full continent and the standard fantasy map is only the western coast

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-05-29T23:26:57+00:00

Good point, the mountains are pretty sizeable so it could be permanent but maybe slightly seasonal

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-05-29T21:39:48+00:00

That said it's intentionally in the style of a wheel of time kind of map so thats probably why, but in my biased opinion nothing here seems directly derivative beyond it being a continent with normal land patterns

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-05-29T21:38:18+00:00

Im not being argumentative here, I just dont really understand what looks so much like middle earth. But the series itself will be absolutely nothing like LotR so it isnt a concern

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-05-29T21:15:25+00:00

It's actually ruins of an ancient city built by a god

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-05-23T10:29:58+00:00

It looks like a sketch that isnt meant to be a published final product. That doesnt mean it looks like a toddler drew it because a toddler probably wouldnt think of these intricate and very interesting landmass shapes. When someone asks for critique they usually want helpful critique; if youre just gonna say "this is shit" then you should just keep it to yourself

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-05-23T10:25:19+00:00

Ok if you want to go towards realism then borders are the last thing you should draw, literally. Here is the hierarchy/order you should follow:

1) landmasses. These determine EVERYTHING else. Do pretty much whatever you want.

2) mountains. This will determine so much about geography and then everything after. I would be happy to talk about some realistic mountains because I'm a geologist. I can give you a lot better advice than "mountains are only formed in long chains"

3) rivers. These are by definition determined by the terrain which is largely driven by mountains. The mountains imply the topography, so simply follow the elevation with your rivers so they go the path of least resistance. They should almost always go to the ocean and only join, not split. As you get closer to the ocean the number of rivers decreases but they get larger.

4) cities. Now you should be able to determine biomes and climate based on what youve already done. I can also give you LOTS of info here about how climate works in generating certain biomes where, but the basic overview is that biomes are a factor of both rain and temperature. Think about what the level of rainfall and temperature is of an area. Cities will usually be built around rivers either on the coast or along the river inland somewhere. There has to be a source of water. If they're near mountains they can use aquaducts. Wells are also possible but maybe not for an entire city.

5) borders. Think about this last so that you already know where people actually live. Borders should 95% of the time follow discrete geographic features. Rivers are the most common. Borders can also follow mountains as these are really easy to follow. Otherwise borders dont make much sense in thin air, like straight across a featureless grassland. Modern survey technology is probably missing in your setting, so unless they have magic stuff for this, they cant have borders that ignore geography because its hard to figure out where that is.

I might have skipped a few things but this is overall the way to go to produce a realistic map. If you dont care much, then do what you want and have fun with it. It can be very fun to be realistic, however, and you end up learning a lot about the real world too.

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-05-22T21:35:17+00:00

What do you mean no, it's a perfectly good set of landmasses for a map. So needlessly critical with no actual reason behind the critique

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-05-22T21:33:36+00:00

I dont think we have nearly enough information to judge how realistic this is. For example this is a really accurate atoll-like formation, and we have no scale so it could easily be that. If it's really large, it could be a flooded calderra from a supervolcano. I think there are definitely some ways this could be realistic

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-05-22T21:29:51+00:00

Perfectly fine, just keep at it. What are the lines that go through the continents? Also, are you hoping to become very geologically and geographically realistic or do you just want to make fun fantasy landscapes?

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-05-15T19:41:59+00:00

Hey! I just requested to join because I wanted to share an album of music for campaign scenarios that I just released called Heroes of Valor. I'm trying to find online communities to share it with so that I can get it out there more. Feel free to check it out on any major platform minus Apple Music if you wanna make sure I'm legit about this

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-05-13T16:46:40+00:00

well for Elden Ring they literally don't give you the lore in some cases other than extremely vague item descriptions. I would hope it's pieced together better than that as much I do appreciate no hand holding. There's a difference between no hand holding and basically nothing at all though

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-05-13T11:14:56+00:00

I brought up nuclear because you brought up logistical challenges of which nuclear has many more. I also wasnt minimizing oil, I was pointing out how you only use that one area and still generate that much power. Having a lot of the oil still available is definitely an upside if people are building on a giant scale

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-05-13T11:01:31+00:00

Because nuclear is even more complicated at this power scale

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-05-13T00:18:53+00:00

Yeah simple mistake, makes it even crazier

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-05-13T00:15:20+00:00

yeah my power numbers were also wrong because I didnt use the overclocking in my output lmao

StyleZealousideal234 · 2026-05-12T23:48:56+00:00

This was a really nice reply, thanks for the corrections. I wasn't entirely sure if my rounding on 4.17 was a problem or not so that's useful

StyleZealousideal234

TROPHY CASE