Hi all,

Haven't posted here much, but been following a lot of the work being done by others here and am both inspired and intimidated by the skill on display...

That said, I have my own endeavor going on here in terms of mapping for a fantasy world of my own creation. I have a dilemma, however, in how to best approach this. Here's the situation...

I'm creating a world where certain regions - due to lore - need to be located in specific areas, so there's going to be a very "custom" touch to the map. However, at the same time, I want the map to maintain a very "natural" feel to it. That is, I'd like some sense of randomness in the world as well so that everything doesn't seem contrived or "hand-created".

So, I guess what I'm looking for is something of a hybrid between a "natural" map and an "artificial" map in areas where specific features have to be located.

I'm thinking that maybe what I need to do is set out the general world map in broad brush-strokes, so to speak and get all the major geographic elements in place in a more random/natural fashion. Then, go back and modify the areas as necessary to get the more custom elements implemented that I require.

One example of this would be large rifts that occur along certain boundaries between major geographical areas. Obviously if I were to do this all by hand it would probably end up looking somewhat artificial... however, if I use a more "random" approach, then I'm not likely to get the effect I want.

So... is anyone aware of a good technique that allows you to go back and tweak an otherwise pre-made map in order to put in custom elements, without ruining that natural sense of randomness?

Again I apologize if none of that makes sense.. It's an odd situation and I'm not even fully aware of how to explain it.. so hopefully I did a good job.

Thanks for any advice!