Reply With QuotePerfectly acceptable for a campaign. I feel that the western river where it branches at the mountain is a bit unlikely, but it's all pretty good and something your players will likely enjoy! You did fine for a first map.
The Continent of Alaris (WIP)
Hello! This is the main continent for my D&D setting, and I was hoping to get some feedback on it. This is my first attempt at map, and I hope that I did ok.
Please note that it's currently unlabled and there are a fair amount of details I'd still like to add.
Alaris, a continent in the world of Y'Diria
Perfectly acceptable for a campaign. I feel that the western river where it branches at the mountain is a bit unlikely, but it's all pretty good and something your players will likely enjoy! You did fine for a first map.
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Very interesting. Maybe you could add some more mountains or something to the volcanic wasteland? Other than that, really neat!
The colors make a pleasant composition, and your land shapes are good. The latter is particularly good for a first map; it is all too easy to create landforms that obviously are designs to fill the page.
Only the smallest lake shows any tributary rivers. It doesn't matter for D&D, but for even slightly more realistic fantasy, I would suggest that you figure out where that water is coming from. Given that this is the most critical thing I can say about your water flow, that's another sign of an excellent first map. Getting rivers all wrong is the most common issue with beginning cartographers (from a realism POV).
Thank you for the interest! It's something that I would consider. That area is the prison for a primordial being of fire that has begun to weaken, hence the molten activity. Maybe it's reasonable that some smaller mountains have formed due to volcanic eruptions surrounding the larger mountains.Originally Posted by mapmage
Thank you so much for the kind words! I feel kind of stupid for asking this, but do lakes always need tributary rivers? I had kind of thought that maybe they were basins in heavy rainfall areas that collected water over time and eventually formed a runoff river, or hot springs near thermal fissures that bubbled up underground water to fill a crater. I honestly hadn't given it too much thought other than those vague notions, and my knowledge of geography is limited to what little information I recall from grade/primary school and various things I googled in an attempt to avoid any egregious errors.
Thank you!Perfectly acceptable for a campaign. I feel that the western river where it branches at the mountain is a bit unlikely, but it's all pretty good and something your players will likely enjoy! You did fine for a first map.
Also, here's an updated version for anyone that would like to see:
While you can have a lake fed by underground sources or runoff too dispersed to show as rivers on your map, these sources must provide as much water is being lost, not merely through the outflowing river but also from evaporation. The drainage areas feeding into several of your lakes is also rather limited, as there are rivers restricting where streams that flow into the lake could be (as well as hill lands and desert and a canyon that further limit what can be happening with water flow). But as I said, for D&D it doesn't really matter. There are multiple magical explanations that would provide sources of water. If a character comes to question the geography, you can fall back on one of those (and they probably won't question it).
Oh ok, I see now. Thank you for explaining those concepts to me. I'll be sure to keep them in mind when creating future maps.
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