To begin with, I have an MS Paint map that covers basic terrain zones of one of the major countries of this world:

Google Drive Link

Brown is forested mountain, red is plains, yellow is desert, light green is rainforest, dark green is evergreen forest, grey is chapparal, and pink is coastline. I feel like what I have is a basic start, but probably riddled with geological inaccuracies. I also feel like I need more chapparal and evergreen forest, and less plains, desert, and rainforest, but I don't know how to realistically create chapparal. I also want the map to look less like the western US, but I am at a total loss as to what else the landmass should look like. Despite not wanting a US shape, that's what I keep visualizing. I'm also afraid that if I change it, I can't have my Mediterranean climate zone. There is land to the east of the mountains, but I haven't decided what the terrain is, just that it's a post-war, magic WMD wracked wasteland. North is another nation, as is south.

I want to do something higher quality, but I can't figure out how to work Gimp and Autorealm, and something like this can be handled adequately with Paint, anyway.