• Footstep One: Think About Geography
    • Mountains
    • Rivers
    • Borders (Natural and Political)
    • Settlements
  • Pace Ii: Don't Think, Just Create
  • Pace Three: Call up About How Your Fantasy Map Will Appear in Your Volume
    • Practice it yourself
      • Drawing your ain fantasy map
      • Map-making tools
    • Hire an creative person
  • You lot're fix to commencement cartoon your fantasy maps

If y'all've read more than a scattering of fantasy books, you can hands deduce that fantasy authors love maps. We assume that fantasy readers love maps besides, which is why we go along putting maps in our books. I retrieve it'due south a safe assumption but, if it isn't, fantasy maps are here to stay anyway; of the tiptop 25 fantasy books, almost half have maps. (Truth be told, I'd expected more!) But, if you're not a professional person cartographer, drawing an entire world can be daunting. So I've put together some hints, tips, ideas and tools that volition assistance the fantasy author, Dungeon Master, or anyone else to draw their own fantasy maps.

(Looking for the applied stuff? Skip down to pace three!)

Footstep One: Call back About Geography

You're writing fantasy, which means your earth likely contains things that our would does not. Whether it's dragons, magic, or unusual landscapes where the laws of nature don't seem to utilize.

But, for readers to believe in the fantastical elements of your world, yous need to go the other fundamentals right. That'south considering you lot're asking the reader to believe in something they know isn't real. And readers are pretty obliging in that sense. They'll believe in dragons, they'll believe in magic, they'll believe in a canyon where gravity is screwy and mountains bladder on by, merely ONLY if you don't ask them to believe in as well much. In one case you ask for as well much, the entire illusion is cleaved.

And so, with that in mind, make sure y'all get your geography right. Here are some common fantasy map mistakes that tin rip your reader out of the globe:

  • mountains that turn corners
  • rivers that connect two oceans
  • rivers that menses towards mountains
  • towns or cities in the middle of nowhere
  • borders that don't make sense

And here'south what you tin do to make certain you don't make the same mistakes on your map:

Mountains

The map of Mordor is an excellent example of how mountains don't work
Mountains don't plow corners!

Mountains are formed by tectonic plates colliding with each other. That ways that mountains tend to be in long lines (take a await at the mountain ranges on Earth). Mountain ranges aren't going to plough corners because tectonic plates aren't rectangular. Fifty-fifty where they do have corners, they are a) enormous and b) irregular. Any mountains along the border of a plate are going to describe a gentle bend across your map.

Don't forget that there'due south land nether h2o, so mount ranges would continue by a coastline to create islands.

For this reason, mountains don't tend be lonely (sorry, Tolkien). Volcanoes tin can be alone only because they've put in the work over fourth dimension; erupted fabric settles around the volcano over time, allowing information technology to grow.

Rivers

Rivers have one goal: get to the everyman betoken possible, past the easiest route possible. The lowest point is often sea level, and the easiest road possible is always down. So rivers tend to race abroad from mountains and end up in the ocean.

This is also why rivers commencement in high places (mountains and hills).

Of course, rivers don't flow in straight lines to the oceans. That's because they follow the path of least resistance. They'll tumble and meander around hills, rises, through canyons and crevasses. If the river enters and area with high terrain on all sides, it might form a lake. land gets flat and open with high terrain on all sides, they might form lakes. Rivers can go underground too; whatever gets them downwards faster.

Rivers also similar to get sociable; they join together where possible and very rarely split up. In fact, call up of rivers like tree branches, when the trunk is an ocean and the twigs are the starting points of your rivers.

Lakes are areas of state with high terrain on all sides, and are generally fed past rivers or rainfall. The water will usually find an escape route and form a new river to bring together the ocean.

Just like rivers, lakes tin flood with torrential rain and dry during droughts.

Borders (Natural and Political)

Natural borders are barriers that are hard (simply not impossible) to cross. These tend to exist places of loftier altitude (mountains), low altitude (canyons), and inhospitable geography (deserts, oceans, etc.). It'due south possible to traverse all of these things, just it's difficult. Even rivers can exist a pain; unless they're very shallow, yous'll need a bridge, which acts both as a clogging that doesn't only slow y'all down simply is also piece of cake to defend.

Armies march as far as they tin can, and so everyone packs up and goes dwelling house.

That'due south why political borders (i.e. the borders between kingdoms/states/realms/etc.) tend to coincide with natural ones. Armies march as far equally they can until they accomplish something that'due south hard to cross. A determined leader might make the effort but, at some point, the army can't observe an easy way to traverse the barrier, and and everyone packs upwards and goes home.

Just where a edge is established by peacemakers instead of warmakers, your borders will expect a little different. Most statesmen won't recall nearly natural borders; they'll carve up the land in straight lines that are like shooting fish in a barrel to draw. A lot of the problems nosotros accept in the modern world accept their root in the straight lines drawn through cultures and people by a bunch of people stood effectually a map. Information technology's awful in the existent earth. But it could create some interesting strife in your fantasy world. Something to think about.

Settlements

People like convenience. So they're not going to put downward roots somewhere that makes their lives difficult. If you're about to put a metropolis onto your map, think about why it's there. Is it near a h2o source? People need h2o, and they won't want to travel far to get it (because that's inconvenient). Unless, of course, there's another reason to build there. Perhaps there'southward a natural resources nearby? People won't want to slog miles to go to a mine, so there's a reason to build a town around the mine and send someone to fetch water for everyone.

Don't forget nearly trade. Points where roads intersect are perfect places to host beds for weary travellers, as well as introducing traders travelling the unlike roads.

Settlers will also call back nigh defence unless your earth is peculiarly peaceful. Rivers aren't just a handy water source, but they're difficult for armies to traverse, so a town might nestle itself into a curve in a river, or with mountains at its back.

Stride Two: Don't Recall, Just Create

Having spent some time writing about all the technical aspects of how to draw a fantasy map, I'll at present tell you not to worry near them. Non at first, anyway.

Cartoon a fantasy map is an act of cosmos. Some people wonder whether world-building or plot comes first; the truth is that you'll probably go the best results if you permit both grow together.

Then let all those facts about geography sit down at the back of your mind and allow your pencil get where it will. You tin set any geographical mistakes later on.

Because it might turn out that they're not mistakes. In his book How to Write Fantasy and Science Fiction, Orson Scott Carte relates how, in the process of drawing a urban center map, he accidentally blocked off a gate.

"Except that I believe, when it comes to storytelling – and making upwards maps of imaginary lands is a kind of storytelling – that mistakes are frequently the start of the best ideas. After all, a mistake wasn't planned. Information technology isn't likely to be a cliché. All you have to do is think of a reason why the fault isn't a mistake at all, and you might have something fresh and wonderful, something to stimulate a story yous never thought of quite that way before. So I thought – what if this gate has been permanently airtight off?"

Bill of fare goes on to relate how he decides the gate was actually a magical entrance to the city that was closed off, and how this then mistake leads him to create a mythology of true gods that becomes the backdrop to his novel Hart's Promise.

And then it might be that you accidentally create a river that connects two oceans. Or a volcano that has no business existence there. But earlier you fix your mistake, take a 2d look; it might turn out to exist a happy accident that makes your novel fifty-fifty better.

Stride Iii: Call up About How Your Fantasy Map Will Announced in Your Book

If yous're anything like me, your fantasy map is an unattractive putter that has no business being in forepart of human being eyeballs. So how practice y'all go it into your book?

Do it yourself

If your artistic talents are greater than mine (not much of a claiming), you could always depict your ain fantasy map. If you cull this path, you'll have 2 options: hand draw information technology, or use software. Whichever path you cull, you need to think advisedly almost what your map will look like. After all, the map you fabricated for yourself is probably stuffed full of details and notes. The map you make for your reader needs to be useful, yes, but it also needs to look pretty.

Drawing your own fantasy map

Given my complete lack of artistic skills, I turned to Howard Coates, the artist behind the maps in the Realm Rift Saga books, for his advice on how to manus draw a fantasy map.

An excerpt from the fantasy map drawn for The Northern Wastes.
Graphical representations of elements make a fantasy map nice to wait at.

"I cull to hand draw my maps because the looseness of real analogy gives it a more than traditional feel which fits into the fantasy genre. I ever had in mind that these are representative of the maps Katherine would have in the book. A digital image with perfect lines would not fit in the earth created.

I utilize ink on card to create a textured experience. It may not come across in the last volume, simply it feels important for the visual aesthetic to be accurate.

Each surface area is drawn separately and I use Photoshop to put the elements together similar a jigsaw. This means I can remove or rearrange the pieces to add together a flow to the map and prevent information technology existence cluttered.

Incidental elements (landmarks that don't appear in the story itself) are a useful way to break up any empty area and make the world experience more than real and lived in. But it's important not to clutter a map. Representative graphics, rather than detailed analogy, can be used for events or places to avert bogging a map down in detail.

I also like to include unlabelled landmarks for the reader to discover subsequently the story's over."

Map-making tools

If you don't experience upwards to the job of drawing your fantasy map, you've got two options open to you lot: use some software tools to help you, or hire someone else.

I've used some of the following software tools in the past with varying success:

Wonderdraft

Campaign Cartographer

Medieval Fantasy City Generator

These tools are particularly useful for the D&D or wargame histrion who wants a map but doesn't want to hire an artist to draw them (which would stand for a detail dedication to the hobby!)

Hire an artist

This is my option of choice; while software can offer a fantastic manner to become a decent fantasy map into your book, nothing can beat the skills and creative flair that an artist can bring to the table.

Start your search on DeviantArt, Pinterest and Instagram. Be sure to wait for artists who are already cartoon maps; although you might have luck approaching an artists who is cartoon portraits or landscapes, odds are that they won't be up for the challenge.

And if y'all spot a good-looking map in a fantasy novel, take a look at the copyright page; the artist'southward copyright should be listed at that place, giving you a name to chase for and approach for your commission.

Or you could just hire Howard Coates. He's pretty skillful.

You're ready to start drawing your fantasy maps

It's daunting, I know. Merely don't look. Dive in. Make some mistakes, learn on the fly, and if you accidentally describe a mountain range with corners, a river that connects two oceans, or a edge that makes no logical sense, don't panic! Try to detect a reason why your mistake isn't a error after all, and yous might find that you've accidentally created a brilliant new twist on your fantasy novel.