My Current World Map - Trijanle

[Elzevir]

Agree with Freodin, it looks like you had a vague idea and were handicaped by your software. Trees and houses look like a lot of copypasta, sometimes inverted, which gives a creepy perspective to the whole town. Maybe you'd better try starting by drawing a sketch out of pen and paper - this is not a malicious critic, but i find it easier to begin a map that way : even if you don't draw well, you will see what must be in and what must be worked on. For an example, even old fantasy maps have a more precise coastline than yours ; mostly because if they don't have a great territory, kings and princes like to know the exact limits of their lands.

Concerning the Troublesome Island, how could they know such precise frontiers ? It would be more accurate in this case to draw only what should be visible from the main land, leaving the rest "terra incognita".

[wise_owl]

I'm still a newbie myself, but I'm very keen on the notion of generating maps in the context of 'objects from the world being depicted'.

So the broad criticism above are there, I'll be more specific on a few things; Intent of the Map is key. If your doing something from within the world the biggest question is why? If there is a Cartographers Guild, why? That implies there is some sort of guild system at play in your world and that map-making is a common enough enterprise to warrant a group of professionals who do little else. Who pays for them to work?

Those seem like really needly questions if all you really want is some sort of map you can show to players and be like 'There ya go'... but they are important in terms of informing aristics choices you might make with your map.

So first comment? If these guys are from the only city on the cotinent they are going to make it look as impressive as possible. Thus while they might use very simple symbols for other settlements they'll likely have some sort of 'unique' thing for their city(thus also flattering the powers that be that likely pay their paychecks). So think about getting something a little sophisticated, or a more odd medly of features for the main city.

There are a host of tutorials around here that give not just great ways to make the map that tutorial is talking about, but good basic techniques in the software that can be used in a variety of ways. Like ways to make coastlines more ragged and irregular(assuming you would want that).

Another good idea has already been posted; if you have access to a scanner, draw a coastline yourself and perhaps some other 'stuff' as best you can and than scan it and use something like GIMP to paint over it.

Lastly for the 'troublesome Island' if there is no reason not to, make it more interests. Give it a weird coast and plop down some artisitc monster or something there. A figure of death or a dragon or giant or whatever. People must have theories on the place and if it has 'significance' both in terms of your world and campaign it makes sense to make it look like a place the PC's might want to see sooner or later.