One of the most exciting things about universe building is creating maps for your world. Today we're going to look at what it takes to build a believable map – particularly one for fantasy RPGs like In doing so, we'll go into the different types of maps you need 🀅to think abo⭕ut and, most importantly, how to get started.
Fans of The Hobbit will remember the first time they cracked the spine and flicked through the first few pages, resting on their first glimpse in🐽to Middle Earth. It set up the story in a way words couldn’t. Ever since, every great fantasy novel has had a map or two somewhere within their pages and they are the mainstay of all roleplaying games. After all, without a map, how do you know your way there and back again?
Hand-Drawn Maps
To begin with, we're going to look at hand-drawn maps. How you draw is up to you. Many enjoy the tactile feel of putting pencil to paper, but while there is an authentic aesthetic🍸 that this can bring, you may prefer to capture your vision digitally. We’ll look at some tools that can help in a future article. In the meantime, grab your coloring pencils or fire up photoshop, and let’s get creating.
It's good to learn by example. Grab all the fantasy novels and roleplay adventures you have. These are a great source of inspiration as the maps have weathered the scrutiny by readers and players the world over. Another good s🧸ource is trail maps and town plans. Even house layouts can be important, get some of these f꧙rom realtors or home builders. Finally, if you are looking to craft entire continents and planets grab a good atlas. These bring an indispensable outlook on geography and geology.
Get Organized
Making sure your reference material is organized properly will save you lots of time further down the line. You can use apps like Pinterest to catalog assets. You can use folders on your computer and even physical document folders, regardless, remember to store things in an order that makes sense to you. Create a lo☂g sheet so you know what each folder contains and use tags to categorize, this also makes life a bit easier for someone else should they need to work on something map related.
Size And Scope
How big is your map? What area does it cover? And how are these maps going to be used? Think of the maps you need to create and how zoomed in you want to be. You’ll need to think about scal🌄e as well, but we’ll cove🌜r that next. World maps should be fully zoomed out, and house plans or dungeons as fully zoomed in. Each map serves a different purpose but the common factor is that the map limits the places a player can go. They can’t step outside the map boundaries.
As a world creator, you will want to create maps of all ‘zoom levels’, as these will help you tell the overall story. Your players only need a zoomed-in map or two relating to the tasks at hand. Don’t over complica🌱te in-game actions by providing a map too large in scope.
Scale
You may t𒉰hink that scale is the same as size and scope, but when we look at maps, 'scale' has a specific meaning. You can think of scale as to how much the map maker must shrink their representation of the world to get it to fit into a given size. Don’t worry if you are still confused, it will all make sense as you go. Scale is usually presented as two numbers separated by a colon i.e. 1:60. This means for every 1 unit on paper, we travel 60 units in real life, i.e 1 inch : 60 miles or 1 inch to 60 miles. Using this scale a map of the United Kingdom could fit onto a 🧸standard sheet of paper. The higher the second number, the more zoomed out we are.
Don’t get too caught up on thiᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚs, the main takeaway is that the scale should be somewhat realistic. Think of the area you want the player to be limited to. Using a standard sheet of paper and a scale of 1 inch to 5 miles gives an approximate world area of 40 miles by 55 miles or a total of 2,200 miles squared.
Map Key And Symbols
Maps should avoid the over-use of te💜xt, one way to get around this is to use symbols to represent features. You should use the same﷽ symbols for all features of the same type and build a “key” to help you remember what symbol means what. You don’t have to think of everything now, but add new symbols to the key as you need.
Designing Your Map
Now comes the fun part – drawing the map. But where to start? Your map should be a faithful representation of the world you have created. Start off by sketching a couple of landmarks and towns. Add roads and waterways, and move onto hills and mountains. Don’t worry if you reach the edge of the paper, grab another sheet. Our aim here is to create a solid foundation to build upon. You will redraw this a couple of times as you refine your ideas, record🌠 and label everything. And finally, create new maps for key landmarks, towns, events or where something important should happen when building campaigns and adventures.
Quick Tips On Map Making
Add some registration marks to line up any additional pages later. Use diffꦬerent markings on each edge to avoid confusion and adding a sheet number will help with larger maps.
Label your maps with a name, date,💫 and revision number. Chances are you will always want to work with the latest versio💖n, but being able to backtrack easily or look something up will pay dividends later and avoid frustration.
Maps should feel full. Just like in real life, a land with multiple civilizations probably has lots of water, plants, and other bountiful natural features. So don’t leave empty spaces, fill in areas with trees, lakes, rock formations, and other neutral landmarks. You can always come back later and add more details. If you plan carefully, some🍸 o🎃f these assets can be reused.
NEXT: D&D Homeb💦rew Tips: Creating Maps For Your Woꦉrld Part 2