I was thinking about the left justified continent like in the Lord of The Ring. I think it's pretty popular.
I don't really have other clichés in mind but I know where you can find some : Search Results - TV Tropes
I was thinking about the left justified continent like in the Lord of The Ring. I think it's pretty popular.
I don't really have other clichés in mind but I know where you can find some : Search Results - TV Tropes
I've never understood why that's called left justified - personally I'd call it "right aligned" if I were going for a type analogy. "Justified" text in design means taking up the full width of the area. "Left" justified means unfilled lines are aligned to the left. Left justified is the most common form of justified text, and is usually referred to as merely "justiefied", as per this image:Originally Posted by Azelor
As you can see from that image, the alignment that appears most similar to the LOTR map is Right Align.
What is a cliche for some people may not be one for some others. I think this is rather a cliche for western european people, which build fictionnal maps influenced by their own territory, with lands on east and ocean on east. Not sure it would be a cliche for asian people for instance.
Oh oh I have some:
City maps in fantasy settings with lots of magic and flying intellogent damgerous creatures... Why do they have city walls? I mean magic alone snuffs that defense... It's like earth history trumps the internal logic of the fantasy world because we weren't creative enough to imagine a truly fantastical city that fits into our magical realm...
Another cliche for fantasy world maps that I have noticed is the overly tied cultural to terrain type bs. Oh a desert is here, so the culture has to change... Oh forest here so the culture (and of course place name style) has to change. That is total bull****. Cultures above tribe level (but not even most tribes, tbh) do not stop at drastic changes of climate/terrain except when relatively impassable.
Oh one more thing i notice at city level gain and again, fantasy or reality based... COMPLETE and utter disregard for... The source of... Water?? Where are the aquaducts? Cisterns? Etc?
Last edited by Dearmad; 05-01-2014 at 07:32 PM.
Those are all valid points, and I really agree with the climate part; why should a new culture spring up whenever the climate changes? The Romans conquered everything from the Sahara to what's now Denmark and the climate didn't stop them spreading their culture.
I spotted one more :
Does a fantasy setting have necessarily to rely on heavy magic?
Last edited by - Max -; 05-13-2014 at 04:55 AM.
Why does it have to have cities then? Why does it even have to settlements or human beings or be in a European style setting? Why can't it be a completely alien planet? But why does it have to be alien? Why can't it be some point in earth's history veiled by magic? But why magic?
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