• Step Ane: Recollect Near Geography
    • Mountains
    • Rivers
    • Borders (Natural and Political)
    • Settlements
  • Step Two: Don't Think, Just Create
  • Step Iii: Call back Almost How Your Fantasy Map Will Appear in Your Volume
    • Do it yourself
      • Drawing your own fantasy map
      • Map-making tools
    • Hire an artist
  • You're ready to start drawing your fantasy maps

If you've read more than a handful of fantasy books, you lot can hands deduce that fantasy authors honey maps. We assume that fantasy readers love maps as well, which is why nosotros keep putting maps in our books. I think information technology'southward a safe assumption but, if it isn't, fantasy maps are hither to stay anyway; of the top 25 fantasy books, well-nigh half take maps. (Truth be told, I'd expected more than!) But, if you're not a professional person cartographer, cartoon an entire globe can exist daunting. And then I've put together some hints, tips, ideas and tools that volition help the fantasy author, Dungeon Master, or anyone else to draw their own fantasy maps.

(Looking for the practical stuff? Skip down to step three!)

Step One: Think About Geography

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

But, for readers to believe in the fantastical elements of your earth, you demand to go the other fundamentals right. That's considering you'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 float on by, just Only if you lot don't ask them to believe in likewise much. In one case you inquire for too much, the entire illusion is broken.

So, with that in mind, brand sure you go your geography right. Here are some common fantasy map mistakes that can rip your reader out of the world:

  • mountains that plough corners
  • rivers that connect 2 oceans
  • rivers that flow towards mountains
  • towns or cities in the middle of nowhere
  • borders that don't brand sense

And hither's what y'all tin can exercise 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 turn corners!

Mountains are formed by tectonic plates colliding with each other. That means that mountains tend to exist in long lines (take a look at the mountain ranges on Earth). Mountain ranges aren't going to turn corners because tectonic plates aren't rectangular. Fifty-fifty where they exercise have corners, they are a) enormous and b) irregular. Any mountains along the edge of a plate are going to draw a gentle curve beyond your map.

Don't forget that there'southward land nether water, so mountain ranges would continue past a coastline to create islands.

For this reason, mountains don't tend exist lonely (sorry, Tolkien). Volcanoes can exist lone just considering they've put in the work over time; erupted material settles around the volcano over time, allowing it to grow.

Rivers

Rivers have one goal: get to the lowest signal possible, past the easiest route possible. The lowest indicate is oftentimes sea level, and the easiest route possible is always down. And then rivers tend to race away from mountains and end upward in the ocean.

This is also why rivers first in loftier places (mountains and hills).

Of grade, rivers don't flow in straight lines to the oceans. That'south 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 grade a lake. land gets flat and open with high terrain on all sides, they might form lakes. Rivers can become hole-and-corner too; whatsoever gets them down faster.

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

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

Just similar rivers, lakes tin can overflowing with torrential rain and dry out out during droughts.

Borders (Natural and Political)

Natural borders are barriers that are hard (but non incommunicable) to cross. These tend to be places of high altitude (mountains), low distance (canyons), and inhospitable geography (deserts, oceans, etc.). It'southward possible to traverse all of these things, but it'southward difficult. Fifty-fifty rivers can be a pain; unless they're very shallow, you'll need a bridge, which acts both as a clogging that doesn't just slow you lot down but is too easy to defend.

Armies march as far as they can, and then everyone packs up and goes home.

That'due south why political borders (i.east. the borders between kingdoms/states/realms/etc.) tend to coincide with natural ones. Armies march as far every bit they can until they reach something that's difficult to cantankerous. A adamant leader might make the effort but, at some point, the army can't notice an easy mode to traverse the bulwark, and and everyone packs up and goes home.

Simply where a border is established by peacemakers instead of warmakers, your borders will look a piddling different. About statesmen won't think about natural borders; they'll carve up the state in straight lines that are easy to depict. A lot of the issues we have in the mod earth have their root in the straight lines fatigued through cultures and people by a bunch of people stood around a map. It's awful in the real world. But it could create some interesting strife in your fantasy world. Something to think near.

Settlements

People like convenience. So they're not going to put down roots somewhere that makes their lives difficult. If you're virtually to put a metropolis onto your map, think virtually why it'due south there. Is it near a water source? People need water, and they won't want to travel far to get information technology (because that's inconvenient). Unless, of grade, there's another reason to build there. Perhaps there'southward a natural resource nearby? People won't want to slog miles to get to a mine, so in that location'southward a reason to build a town around the mine and transport someone to fetch water for anybody.

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

Settlers will also think about defense force unless your world is particularly peaceful. Rivers aren't just a handy water source, but they're difficult for armies to traverse, and so a town might nestle itself into a bend in a river, or with mountains at its dorsum.

Step 2: Don't Remember, Just Create

Having spent some fourth dimension writing about all the technical aspects of how to draw a fantasy map, I'll now tell you not to worry about them. Not at kickoff, anyway.

Cartoon a fantasy map is an act of creation. Some people wonder whether world-edifice or plot comes first; the truth is that you'll probably become the best results if yous let both grow together.

So let all those facts virtually geography sit at the back of your mind and let your pencil become where it will. Y'all tin fix whatever geographical mistakes subsequently on.

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

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

Carte du jour goes on to relate how he decides the gate was really a magical entrance to the metropolis 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.

So it might be that you accidentally create a river that connects two oceans. Or a volcano that has no business being there. But before you fix your fault, take a second look; it might turn out to exist a happy accident that makes your novel even ameliorate.

Step Three: Think About How Your Fantasy Map Will Appear in Your Book

If you're anything similar me, your fantasy map is an unattractive doodle that has no business organization beingness in front of human eyeballs. So how do y'all get it into your volume?

Do it yourself

If your artistic talents are greater than mine (not much of a challenge), you could always draw your ain fantasy map. If y'all choose this path, you lot'll have 2 options: paw describe it, or utilize software. Whichever path you choose, you lot demand to call back carefully most what your map will look like. After all, the map y'all fabricated for yourself is probably stuffed total of details and notes. The map you brand for your reader needs to be useful, yeah, just it also needs to await pretty.

Cartoon 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 hand 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 await at.

"I choose to hand draw my maps considering the looseness of real illustration gives information technology a more than traditional feel which fits into the fantasy genre. I always 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 globe created.

I utilise ink on card to create a textured feel. Information technology may not come beyond in the concluding book, but information technology feels important for the visual aesthetic to exist authentic.

Each surface area is fatigued separately and I apply Photoshop to put the elements together like a jigsaw. This means I tin can remove or rearrange the pieces to add a menses to the map and prevent information technology being cluttered.

Incidental elements (landmarks that don't appear in the story itself) are a useful manner to break upwards any empty area and make the world feel more real and lived in. But it's important non to clutter a map. Representative graphics, rather than detailed illustration, can be used for events or places to avoid bogging a map downwards in item.

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

Map-making tools

If you don't feel up to the task of drawing your fantasy map, you lot've got two options open to y'all: 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 specially useful for the D&D or wargame player who wants a map but doesn't desire to rent an artist to draw them (which would represent a particular dedication to the hobby!)

Rent an artist

This is my option of choice; while software can offer a fantastic mode to go a decent fantasy map into your book, zip tin can beat the skills and artistic flair that an creative person can bring to the tabular array.

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

And if you spot a adept-looking map in a fantasy novel, take a look at the copyright page; the creative person's copyright should be listed in that location, giving you a proper noun to hunt for and approach for your commission.

Or you could only hire Howard Coates. He'southward pretty good.

You're prepare to start drawing your fantasy maps

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