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[moghopper]

A few years back I had started laying the groundwork for a homebrew campaign setting, but let it fall to the wayside after my D&D group split up. I kinda just picked it up again out of nowhere and recreated my world map in mspaint. I haven't added in any of the towns and cities yet, but i was wondering what you all think of it.

And no, I'm not very good with mspaint

Edit: New World map

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(made some island additions, city names, and a few terrain features)

Double edit: Modified map

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Triple edit: Final world Map->

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Mr_Ham97]

i had a big nice long post typed up but then i lost it when i was trying to enter a special character with the numpad

gog damn num lock i should see if you're on next time

i'll see if i can summarize it (it won't be as good because i don't want to take forever)

damn this pisses me off


Ok so you really need more stuff. This world doesn't really have a sense of "largeness" that it should. For a made-up-world example, see this wonderful (unofficial) map of Abier-Toril (scroll down and click on the "Abier-Toril.jpg" under the Maps and Locations heading, it won't let me link the image). There are just a lot more continents, and it certainly seems "big".

You need to say whether the world was explicitly created by gods (in which case anything goes really) or whether it is more like our world, in which case you should look at plate tectonics to get an idea of how your landmasses interact with one-another.

I was going to say something about the islands in the middle but I don't really care anymore besides saying that they form a pentagram.

You should define an equator, and base climates on the distance from it.

You forgot about units on your scale in the legend.

I'm assuming your world is spherical, so keep that in mind when defining the climates.

I think that's it for critiques.

On the other hand I really like the shape of the large landmass.

[Grakelin]

Pfft, forcing an equator on the poor guy is poor form, especially when even our real world isn't spherical. Fantasy worlds often have crazy things like globe worlds, though.

Erebus, for example, is an endless plain.

[moghopper]

Huh, I didn't realise the islands formed a pentagram...

But I know you are right about need more stuff, which I will add. I'm going to be adding more islands and terrain features after I finish with town names.

as for the climate, theres a (nasty) reason for some places climates to be all wonky.

Edit: added a newer version to OP

Second Edit: added a second version with more landmass to OP

[Mr_Ham97]

That's much better. Because the landmass extends beyond the bottom of the map I'm assuming this is just a section of a world rather than an entire world. I only have one question: You have towns on the map. Are you labeling the most important towns, or are you labeling all the towns? If you're labeling all the towns then you should probably have a lot more of them.

Other than that I think it's fine, although you should probably make a more detailed "zoomed-in" map for actual adventuring showing names of landmarks, dungeons, etc. (but this might take forever so maybe not!), and, if you want, a political map.

Also I recommend you stop using paint and get paint.net because it has layers and it's not that hard to use. If you want something more advanced (but a bit harder to use), get gimp.

[Warlord of Woe]

I'd suggest Paint.Net; it has all the features you could reasonably need for a project like this, and it's easy to get into. I had to switch to GIMP after P.N unexpectedly stopped working, and it's very difficult to read in to... I haven't even found a way to draw a straight line yet!

... I miss Paint.Net.

At any rate, what you have so far looks nice, but using Paint.Net or GIMP would certainly make it look nicer.

[moghopper]

That's much better. Because the landmass extends beyond the bottom of the map I'm assuming this is just a section of a world rather than an entire world. I only have one question: You have towns on the map. Are you labeling the most important towns, or are you labeling all the towns? If you're labeling all the towns then you should probably have a lot more of them.

Other than that I think it's fine, although you should probably make a more detailed "zoomed-in" map for actual adventuring showing names of landmarks, dungeons, etc. (but this might take forever so maybe not!), and, if you want, a political map.

Also I recommend you stop using paint and get paint.net because it has layers and it's not that hard to use. If you want something more advanced (but a bit harder to use), get gimp.

I'm just listing major population centers. There are many small villages scattered about.

And thanks for the reccomendation, I'll try it tommorow and post the results

[Mr_Ham97]

I'd suggest Paint.Net; it has all the features you could reasonably need for a project like this, and it's easy to get into. I had to switch to GIMP after P.N unexpectedly stopped working, and it's very difficult to read in to... I haven't even found a way to draw a straight line yet!

... I miss Paint.Net.

Hey, drawing a straight line with the brush or pencil tools is easy. After your first click (which paints your brush on the canvas of course, so click where you want it to start), if you press and hold shift (make sure you hold shift before clicking again), a straight line guide thing appears that connects from that point to your cursor. Click where you want your line to end and it paints your brush along the line.

For the pen tool, you don't even have to hold shift, just click and it should make straight lines automatically. To close a path, you simply choose one of the nodes you want to form the edge, hold control (I guess cmd if you use a mac) and click on the other node. To fill in the path, there's an option on the tool menu thing that says something like "stroke path". Choose that, select your options, click accept (or confirm or whatever) and poof you have a good line.

If you need more help with stuff send a PM, as I don't want to clutter this thread with unrelated stuff unless moghopper wants to know this stuff too.

[moghopper]

I'm figuring out paint.net currently.

Heres is a black and white world map I've been tooling around with (no terrain or locations on it yet).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

any idea how to make better mountains and such?

[Sinned]

Love the outline... Not very good with drawing/etc myself...

I would maybe show the outline of a continent going onto the north (why, most room) ... Keep people guessing what is up (direction) there.

When I was still a GM (group fell apart half my age ago.. dont ask. We started at 1st/2nd editon ) .. I always tried to keep em guessing. Of course there is always the chance of new land being discovered.. but when they see a map.. the stuff going on the horizon always keeps em guessing. Even more so if they can's see where it ends.

[moghopper]

I would maybe show the outline of a continent going onto the north (why, most room) ... Keep people guessing what is up (direction) there.

Like this?:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Edit: also, how do I make convincing terrain in paint.net? I have no clue what I'm doing.

Double edit: Final Map up in OP