The continent of Odrian (Fantasy Worlds style)
kevbeck43
🖼️ 13 images Surveyor
I posted this long enough back that I am posting again with some of the changes I have made. Its not done yet but its getting there and should be done this weekend. I like it so far. I am looking for little things that I could add to bring spice to the map at this point.
Comments
Is this from a particular style template?
The forests don't look too natural, as their borders are a bit "blocky". A little bit of blend on the edges of the forests might to a long way to make them fit in better. However, it looks like you are creating a "regional/political" map so that "blockiness" might be by design.
Keep it going.
The map has a very nice feel to it and I would love to explore it which, to me, is a major goal for any map. Bravo!
Thanks for sharing — again!
Cheers,
~Dogtag
There is one thing, however that... it's throwing me off, and I don't know if it's just me... it probably is... but the mountains. I don't know if it's the fact that there are two long, seemingingly unbroken, same width mountain ranges that almost mirror each other in width and length....
Maybe it's just the terrain fill behind them. I don't know, but it looks to me as if someone took a paintbrush and 'drew' a line, then stuck the mountains on top. Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be... but mountains aren't supposed to be that.... uniform, I guess I would say.
Or maybe it's just this particular style, and I don't know what I'm talking about. It really is a beautiful map.
Nice overall map!
I cannot help but to notice that some of your trade routes (for ships) appear to cross land.
You may limit the ports of call since most ships would usually just stop at the larger ports instead of individual villages.
It would make it less busy and identify your major trade centers.
Just a few things to think about:
Why do your rivers split as they go downstream? Usually, streams combine into rivers as they go downstream. Lakes usually have a water source(s) that brings water to them, and an outlet that allows the water to travel on to the sea/ocean. Some bodies of water have no outlet, such as the Dead Sea.
Why is Zhoolat a major city? It is not on a major waterway (for trade inland), it is not located in hills or mountains where it could be a mining center, nor is it located on key terrain such as an island at a narrow part of the sea or controlling the route between mountain ranges.
Just some food for thought.
:-)
The lakes are the source for tributaries that feed the larger rivers. The tributaries are to small to put on the big map though. I will represent them when I go into making the regional maps of each empire. I might just move them to the mountain sources for the bigger rivers though since you are right about rivers usually springing from some kind of lake body.
Zhoolat is a major city because it is at the center of a magical nexus that extends 100 miles out from the city center. On my world these nexus are all over but only a few are powerful enough to recognize as a nexus. Zhoolat is the capital of The Magocracy of Negrax, an empire ruled by the ancient wizard of the same name. (That is the plan anyway.) The nexus is not marked on the map because very few people outside of magical circles know it exists.
That is why I like to include text descriptions with my maps. It helps to frame it, especially for areas that are magical in nature. Now I understand what you are trying to depict.
My Shrouded Isle map required a good "story" so viewers would understand what they were looking at: http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=5887&page=1#Item_23
It is a "Bermuda Triangle" type place with all kinds of strange happenings. Without framing the viewers expectations first, they would have been hard pressed to understand such things as the "Green Ship" and "Waterspouts" just to name a few - LoL!
Thanks again for taking to the time to share your world with me. :-)