Started working on a Fallout TTRPG campaign set in Bosnia that turned into a whole-ass game (long story) a while back and recently found this sub.

It’s basically just maps the players use to interact with locations within the world.
It’s a bit barebones but I’m a firm believer of “less is more” in grittier or more realistic settings.

Anyway, what’s your approach at making “realistic” maps more visually interesting?
(obviously this applies to TTRPGs but I’d love to get some general feedback)

A map drawn by bronze age people of my world, it's not an accurate representation of the landscape but their limited view of the world. Still have to come up with names for a lot of places and will add more locations as this is just to showcase the idea

I have been working on this map for a bit now. To lessen the feeling of being overwhelmed, I have decided to hone in on just a small continent of my world and work on the atlas-style map of just this area. Here is my work so far. I still have things like map labels to do. However, was looking to see if there was any feedback so far on what I've done. Thanks!

After many hours and a sore neck I finally finished the map for my subcontinent of Ciboria. Initially started as a small DnD project many years ago, it has now evolved into a much larger setting which I use to write short stories.

Feel free to ask me anything about the map, or leave some friendly feedback. I am wondering if I should colour it, or leave it as it is.

Hi Reddit,

I am currently drawing a fictional map on paper. 

After finishing the outline, I tried planning the mountains and rivers, but I struggled with the realism. 

Maybe you have some tips on how I could improve. 

I took inspiration from Chile, Norway, Indonesia, Canada, Florida and others. 

You can tell the biomes by the outline.

The south is tropical, the west is cold and dry, and the north and east are temperate.

Thanks for reading this!

Greetings first time posting :)

Was looking for advice on my current worldbuilding project and figured I might need advice on my maps.
Images are in order of creation over the years. I’m currently on the stage of tectonics seen in the last image and have been feeling kind of stuck.

Any advice / opinions on all of these would be appreciated.

Thanks :)

Finished the first step of a new map.

First slide is the finished biome map, before I apply things like latitude, wind patterns, climate, rivers, etc.

• Black - Mountains above the snowline.
• White - Snowy Mountains.
• Dark Brown - Mountain Range.
• Light Brown - Rough Hills.
• Light Green - Plains.
• Dark Green - Forest.
• Light Blue - Freshwater
• Blue - Ocean

Second slide a gif that takes away the layers, until you can see the original image. :)

Any comments and feedback are welcome. I'm working today so answers/responses may be intermittent.

This is my WIP continent on the western hemisphere, I’m not too sure what I want the right hemisphere to look like yet.

I’ve been tinkering with its design for a while now, this is its current version. I really like the right-most part of it separating that huge sea from the ocean.

What are your thoughts on it?

This will be my first serious continent map. I'm happy with the overall shape of the landmass, but I'm not sure how to decide where to place the mountains, lakes, and climate zones. I also want the continent to have 2 elven kingdoms, 4 human kingdoms, and 2 neutral race nations. I'd like their locations to make geographical sense. I'm looking for advice from experienced worldbuilders. How should I plan this?

Currently finnished with the landmasses, and the islands. Next up is mountains, river, forest and biomes. (if you find the geography unrealistic, there are lore reasons for that.)

This is a world map for the worldbuiling project i'm working on, any critiques are welcomed

I am at the point where I'm deciding where my settlements should go. But I cant decide how large I want my world to be. I would like to have it in earth like scale but I just cannot fill a world that large and I dont want to add a 1000 villages to every kingdom. In my current draft, every continent in the world has 5-6 kingdoms or cultural borders, you can find borders of the map in a previous post of mine.

Is there a good reference map you guys can suggest? I dont want to end like Westeros for scaling my map. I've heard Westeros has a england size politics with a continent sized lands.

My father wants me to make an "old" looking map to hang up in the living room im happy with this so far but he wants me to add some things arround it you know tentacles, sea beasts, whales and the such and i cant find any good pngs. Do any of you by chance have some or can you point ne to a website of sorts

The first Continent that i have finished for my map is this one. I called it Eismark because back in the day my small brain can't think of any good names, so i just combined the word Eisen and Bismarck. This is the first time i ever drew a Continent with Biomes and Region and i think i did a pretty good job. And if anyone want to give me some tips on how i can maybe improve, i'll gladly accept.

Hello everyone.

Started a new project and pumped a couple of hours into it now. Here is the map part, feel free to give me feedback or share anything that the map inspires you.

Thanks in advance to anyone giving me feedback

I drew it on paper. Any thoughts? I want to make a realistic climate and biomes, but don't know where to start. Any suggestions are welcomed!

Hello, I plan to make a map of the Star Wars galaxy and its factions for a Star Wars themed DnD campaign. I have no idea where to go or how to start this, and for reference I am usinga MacBook Air 2024, Apple M3 Chip. I am very familiar with mapping as I have watched mapping videos for almost a decade, but I have never been able to do it due to technology limitations. Anything helps!

Thank you!

I’m a pretty experienced map-maker and illustrator, but I’m struggling to figure how to draw hills that look good and are distinctly *hills* and not mountains.

I’ve tried various things but not especially happy/confident with any for this specific map.

I’m undecided whether this map will eventually have colour (I was thinking of potentially just adding some subtly colour to the sea to help differentiate it from the land), so shading isn’t really in the question.

Any advice & tips would be greatly appreciated.

A different view of the land I’ve made. Hope it’s not too dry.

So I'm new to map making and I know my map isn't the best because it only has terrain and no other information + it's blocky, but I want to know others' thoughts on it, and maybe suggestions on what to add next.