World of Threnn - A D&D global and regional map

[Imwacko123]

Years and years ago my friend Scott played D&D. He was the dungeon master and wanted to create a world map. He discovered a little program where he could create a crude map. Flash forward to present day, he's still DMing and I join his group. It is then I see this map.



With my background in graphic design, I get interested in making the map a bit more polished. So, I do a little research online and stumble on to this site with a pleathora of rich and diverse maps. I was instantly inspired, learning how to create mountain ranges, sea shelves and other wonderous tricks.




I also wrote a blog on my experience creating the map, D&D and gaming in general.

http://www.daedesign.com/?p=1807

Thanks for checking this out! And thanks for everyone on here who published tutorials, I could not have done this without you!

[RobA]

Looks like you attachment links are broken.

-Rob A>

[Clercon]

Nice first map, and welcome to the guild!

[vman3force]

Good first map.

The size of the city labels is very disproportionate to the rest of the labels (at this resolution they are actually unreadable) so you might want to go back and enlarge them.

Also, youve got some kooky rivers going on there - though it isnt your world so that aint your problem for some reason non-cartographer DMs dont tend to have a very good understanding for the way rivers form, generally speaking.

[Imwacko123]

Good first map.

The size of the city labels is very disproportionate to the rest of the labels (at this resolution they are actually unreadable) so you might want to go back and enlarge them.

Also, youve got some kooky rivers going on there - though it isnt your world so that aint your problem for some reason non-cartographer DMs dont tend to have a very good understanding for the way rivers form, generally speaking.

I uploaded a smaller resolution here than it actually is. The final product being a very large printout, thus it's not very useful for online viewing.

As for the rivers, please, any advice you can give would be quite helpful. Thanks!

[jfrazierjr]

Well... the rules are pretty simple: rivers don't fork going TO the sea, they start with large numbers of incoming branches that merge to create a single river. Lakes have many inflow's but only one outflow.... The only exception to the no fork rule is deltas.

With that said.. it IS possible to have rivers fork (and even rejoin) AND lakes to have more that one outflow.... however such formations are never sustainable... eventually one path will win out and the other will try up.

[vman3force]

Also - generally the direction that a river's course takes is determined by the watershed divide of the land (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drainage_divide) Water always flows away from the topographical highest point toward the topographical lowest point, which is sea level. Thus, almost all rivers drain into a sea, ocean or other large body of water. Those rivers on your map that dont do that would either A) have to evaporate or completely sink into the ground water, which doesn't happen, or B) flow into underground caves.

Long story short, rivers need to drain into oceans eventually.

[arsheesh]

Well if I were your DM I'd give you some whopping XP for designing me a map like this! Seriously, very nice job for a first couple of maps. The colors are very rich and vibrant. Welcome to the Guild man.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh