First attempt at Fantasy Mapping

[jshoer]

I think the final answer depends on what you are trying to do -- what your campaign environment is going to be like, and what kind of feel you want the world to have. That's not the physics/realism answer, but it's probably the narrative answer.

One thing you could do is reason by analogy. For example, I see places in your continent that are reminiscent of Iceland, or the Great Lakes in North America, or the Nile River. You could take a look at those places and see how big they are relative to your scale, and inform what scale this continent should be. Or, for a socio-political version of that, you could look for an area on Earth that has a similar number of countries/cities/ethnic groups to what you want to have.

[Edward Tait]

Thank you for your feedback. Really have not decided what I am trying to do. I have a few adventures adapted into homebrew locations and thought I could let it just expand naturally. So basically I am laying out the world but what that will actually looks like will come from the other players (but with some boundaries to work within). Actually every line is from the real world and have a meaning to me. No Iceland, not really great lakes (but NYS), no Nile River, and sometimes my lines were exact and others exaggerated. I like you suggestion of going back to the places and see about grabbing some more detail other than the coasts and boarders.

Of course the more I think about the areas that are nagging me the more likely I am going to increase the size. I think my next project is to add a grid to help me show possible scale (although I dont plan on getting a map to exact scale just using GIMP, would need ArcGIS for that) but I have experience plotting on maps so it will help me determine what could be realistic within the DnD environment.

[Edward Tait]

Greetings,

So I have been playing around and started using RobA Tutorial (Using GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional RPG Map) (https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ead.php?t=1142). Also been bouncing around some other online helps and have gotten to a point that I am happy with what I have gotten achieved already. Now tackling adding mountains.

As for the scale, I have played around with putting both a hex grid and square grid and have a good idea of what the final will be, but that will probably be one of the last things I add to finalize the world and then move on to working on the city areas.

Here is what I have so far and appreciate any feedback.