The World Rivers
This is my first serious attempt to make a map with CC3. I just got CC3 2 weeks ago and have been learning as I go.
to give some background, this map is a continental map, not a world map (contrary to the title). the denizens of the region believe that it is the entire world and have not been able to explore beyond the ocean. It is roughly the size of North America (4000x3000). It sits south of the planet's equator thus the northern part is warmer than the southern part. The continent was created by a super volcano which first erupted over 30,000 yrs ago creating the main landmass and re-erupted about 1000 years ago which carved out the 5 main channels which the denizens have named the World Rivers (even though they are about 50 miles wide and not much of a current to speak of). It is based on a series of hand drawn maps which I have had for nearly 20 years and I plan to use it in an RPG campaign.
A note about the compass. I re-aligned the compass in the no-text picture after I saved the pic with the text. the No-Text version is the more accurate.
If anyone is interested in seeing closeups I will be glad to post them. I am interested in comments, but, since this map is integral to many of my games main plot points I don't have much of a luxury to change it. I do plan on creating more detailed regional maps eventually, but, this is as far as I have gotten.
to give some background, this map is a continental map, not a world map (contrary to the title). the denizens of the region believe that it is the entire world and have not been able to explore beyond the ocean. It is roughly the size of North America (4000x3000). It sits south of the planet's equator thus the northern part is warmer than the southern part. The continent was created by a super volcano which first erupted over 30,000 yrs ago creating the main landmass and re-erupted about 1000 years ago which carved out the 5 main channels which the denizens have named the World Rivers (even though they are about 50 miles wide and not much of a current to speak of). It is based on a series of hand drawn maps which I have had for nearly 20 years and I plan to use it in an RPG campaign.
A note about the compass. I re-aligned the compass in the no-text picture after I saved the pic with the text. the No-Text version is the more accurate.
If anyone is interested in seeing closeups I will be glad to post them. I am interested in comments, but, since this map is integral to many of my games main plot points I don't have much of a luxury to change it. I do plan on creating more detailed regional maps eventually, but, this is as far as I have gotten.
Comments
Like the way you did the coastline in the south east and middle north.
Also like the general layout and the story behind it.
Think however your rivers could be better.
In real life they tend to turn and twist a lot more then in your map.
And the lake in the south of Creaconia has no river going out.
But all in all, Like the map. Great map for a campaign.
this is a very nice first map.
I still have a comment on the continent. It follows the map border to much. Therefor it looks a bit rectangular. Sometimes its nice if there's some open sea or if a continent goes beyond the map border. I would also fractalize the rivers a bit.
But the shape of your landmasses are really impressive. I know that it takes forever to draw these.
I am aware of the 'rectangular' nature of the map. it was based on a 20 year old design before I knew much about geography or cartography and with over 100 pages of back story already written I kind of have to keep it this way for now. I couldn't really call this area the "known" world if there was visible land mass going off in some unknown direction. There would be too many questions... Also there is a very thick mist that surrounds the continent and no one who has traveled into has come back...which will all be explained when the players have reason to explore it.
another thought I can use as defense for the shape is that it was created by a super volcano so the entire continent is essentially a volcanic island in the middle of the ocean
I missed that southern lake in Traeconia (the T is hard to make out I guess with the font I used), thanks.
as for the rivers, it was a conscious decision to make them less wavy. I took a look at Google maps at the same zoom level that my map would be at (500 mile scale~4000x3000 miles, pretty much all of North America on the screen at once) and even the mighty Mississippi River seems fairly smooth at that level, even though when you zoom in you can really see it meander a lot more. In satellite view I can barely see the Mississippi, Amazon or even the Nile river. No my map, these rivers are over 5 miles wide as it is which is wider than most rivers on Earth (I think the amazon is about 6.8 miles at some points and its only barely visible from that zoom level.)
When I zoom in to do regional views I plan to add more meandering. Although I do agree that I should have used fractilized lines instead of smooth lines.
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I redid the maps with fractal rivers and added the one river.
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