A very first attempt, a dying earth map

[Jabbber]

Thanks a bunch!

The huge black pit is a god that fell on earth from outer space - it's essentially a sentient black lake, somewhat inspired by the "Color out of Space" by Lovecraft. The line dividing the sea is a massive bridge, spanning from coast to coast, with the ruins of a futuristic empire in the middle. In my mind, pilgrims would spend weeks walking on the transparent glass walkway on their way to scavenge age-old-ruins. I only have very rough and approximate background lore for most places on the map, since it always seems better to let the players co-create places unknowingly.

I'm super excited about all of the information and tutorials available here, as well as by the positive feedback! I can't wait to blend and improve my style with the more precise and expert techniques here. I'm currently working on a city map of Archepontus, a capital city built on the site of old Constantinople. I'll post some WIPs at some point!

EDIT: I've only realized it'd be nice to explain some methods, too; basically, my understanding of GIMP is still somewhat limited. How I went about it was just find a very simple outline of the Black Sea area, get some masks with its shape going and then fill it up with a ton of low opacity, chaotic brush strokes & tactical deletings, using some very nice grungy brushes (there's tons of those going around the 'webs, I guess I was just lucky enough to stumble upon some good ones). The land area is just barely modified old paper texture. I just fiddled around a bit with color levels until I was satisfied with a look that was old but not stereotypically so. The roads are slightly modified lightning brushes. The two "stencil" kinda symbols are, once again, just brushes . So yes, all in all, a very, very simple and basic work process.