Ok, here's an early draft of my map. I apologize in advance for the long post!

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As you can see, the borders I've put in are purely geographical, but are also gonna be somewhat indicative of political borders. I'll add more details later, but I'll give somewhat of a rundown.

Generally, deeper into the mountains, and somewhat into the arctic mountains are going to be mostly dwarven lands, and really deep in will be those dwarves with stony skin cause in Zelda that's where the gorons live. There'll be lots of mining for precious stones and metals, as well as more useful material, so across the sea there, there will be lots of trade (and therefore, pirates, which is always fun)

The plains are going to be the main part of human lands, although they're borders will also stretch somewhat into the forests, some of the mountains, maybe even some of the desert. Castle town will be pretty central in the plains, and a large river will run up through it. Water-breathing elves will have an underwater settlement in the North end of the river, so the Zoras get representation.

The desert will have a small nation of humans separate from the Kingdom of Hyrule (or whoever I replace them with) inhabiting a series of oases fairly close to the plains. Close enough to the Kingdom to allow for some trade and contact, but also far out enough that the Kingdom doesn't care to take them over. These are going to be equivalent to the Gerudo, but without the wonky gender ratios.

All throughout the plains and the desert will travel halfling caravans; I haven't decided if they're going to have their own country, but probably not. They'll probably have a halfling dominated city somewhere though. The human nation in the desert will be taking influence from Spanish culture, inspired by the Gerudo Valley theme in OoT but also just cause I want Spanish people somewhere

The forest will have plenty of elves, and to the south will become rainforest, and jungle toward the Southern tip. In the forest somewhere will be a magically concealed Elven city, but there'll probably be smaller elf communities that are detectable to regular people. The Royal family of Hyrule will probably know about the city, but other than that, it's nothing more than a rumour to most non-elves, and even to elves who have spent their life in other lands. These are gonna be high elves, but I'll have more wood elves deeper into the forest, probably far enough that humans rarely if ever venture that far.



Now, as for the scale of the whole place, the border between the arctic areas and the areas below is about where the arctic circle is, and the southern tip of the continent is gonna be somewhere between the Tropic of Cancer (will have a different name, assuming the concept even exists to most people).

Also, I think I'm gonna have Mountains stretching all the way from the tropical islands, which will be volcanic islands, along the Southern edge of the forest, all the way up the Eastern side of the continent up to the North (the Northern and Eastern mountains' borders being marked on the map) But the ones in the forest won't be dramatic or tall enough to prevent trees from growing.

I also want Raptorans to exist somewhere, probably in a more cliffy area of the mountains.

Gnomes are gonna be somewhere, I'm thinking centralized in the more Northern areas of the mountains where even dwarves don't usually go, but they'll also trade with other nations


Questions:

1. I'm not sure how far South it should stretch. I'm thinking maybe all the way to the equator, but either way, the forest is really big and mostly "uncivilized," especially to the bottom (Amazons and stuff)

2. Obviously there's gonna be orcs and goblins etc. but should they have borders recognized by the Kingdom? Or should the world exist in a state where usually evil monstrous humanoids are pretty much suppressed, and have hidden cities in areas where other races rarely go?

3. Rivers. I think I'm gonna have a Tigris/Euphrates type setup in the desert, you know, cradle of civilization type of thing, but mostly dried up now. I think it'll still be where the capital of the desert people is. Also, I know there'll be a big river stretching up from the big sea West of hte mountains all the way up to the North of the desert. But I'm not really sure how I should set the rivers up as far as where they go.

4. The tropical and subtropical islands: Any suggestions on who/what should populate them?



Now, any feedback on anything about my map or my post will be greatly appreciated, not just the questions, although that's where feedback will be most valuable. And, any other ideas on stuff I should put in, like cities, and where more minor races or subraces should be centralized, will be appreciated as well. And anyone who gives me an idea I end up using, I'll credit you if you want when I have a group using this Campaign Setting, and I'll definitely be mentioning the Cartographer's Guild if you guys help at all ^^

I'll probably just edit this post as I make progress on the map, rather than reposting it. Now, let's make a map!