D&D 5E Hep with art

[Oofta]

I can't help much with the anatomy, but for map drawing something that always bugs me is the attitude a lot of fantasy cartographers that "I'll put a desert here because I want a desert" with no consideration of why there would be deserts.

The best way to understand what climatic zones exist and why we can take a look at what happens on earth. Obviously the earth is warmer around the equator and between 30 degrees north and south of the equator is considered the Tropical zone, the next 30 degrees are the temperate zone (which encompasses most of the US and Europe) and then finally the polar zone. Newer climate models break that down even more - but you can check out wikipedia for that.

The big question of course, is what causes climate zones? The short answer is distance from the equator, oceanic currents, and mountains (or lack therein).

Distance from the equator: there is a lot of moisture at the equator, but there's a band of general dryness on either side which in part explains the Saharan desert and why Australia is so dry. Go far enough away from the equator and moisture picks up again because of the way high pressure zones tend to form. You may want to google Prevailing Winds to get some ideas on how this works.

Oceanic Currents: did you know that palm trees occasionally grow in Ireland? It's because there's something called the North Atlantic Current which pulls cold water down from the poles where it forms a current deep in the ocean that gets pulled toward the equator. The cold water eventually warms up when it hits the equator, rises to the surface and goes back north bringing warm water with it. By doing this oceans convey warmth from the tropics to temperate zones, and in general large bodies of water have a moderating effect on climate.

Mountains: when warm, moist ocean air hits mountains it rises and gets cooler. As it cools it can hold less moisture and it rains. It's why there are rain forests in Washington state along the coast. After dumping much of it's moisture on the ocean side of the mountains, there isn't a lot left which is why many deserts are in the rain shadow of mountains. But the opposite can also be true. Part of the reason the interior of Australia is so dry is because there are no mountains so the moist air just bypasses much of the continent.

There are of course, also microclimates. Read up on the climate of the Hawaiian islands for examples of that, but it's mostly caused by the islands being so mountainous. One side of the island is wet, the other is practically desert because of the volcanoes.

So when I designed my world, I took all of that into consideration. Add in a little bit of thought of how rivers flow (and figuring out where the logical places for divides) and my maps are logical and consistent.

Hope that helps!

 

[Jester David]

For drawing maps, there's also this:
https://www.amazon.ca/How-Draw-Fantasy-Art-Maps/dp/1440340242

 

[77IM]

I more meant Cartography tutorials/How would a world realistically form.

EDIT: Sorry for the short original response, was a bit rushed. I know of a few of the mapping programs that exist, but was looking for tutorials on how a world realistically grows and such.

You know, I've read a bunch of good articles about that, and for the life of me I can't find any of them now!

Let me try to recreate the rules I follow for my own process:

Mountains. Mountains tend to come in chains. These chains tend to run parallel to the shoreline. Many of them end in peninsulas and then island chains -- imagine the mountain chain gradually descending into the ocean. Mountains are surrounded by foothills.

Plains. Foothills are surrounded by flat coastal plains, unless the mountain range is so close to the coast that it's rocky cliffs. Sometimes these plains can be so huge that they cover most of an entire continent. It's easily possible to have an area of plains in between two mountain ranges.

Land Masses. Small islands tend to come in chains (remember an island is just an underwater mountain) or small clusters. Larger islands and continents tend to have a mountain range on one side or on multiple sides. I don't really worry about plate tectonics; as long as the mountain ranges are in the right place, the map will look OK.

Coastlines. Near the poles, where it is colder, coastlines tend to be much more jagged due to glaciers. Otherwise, you should have a mix of smooth coasts and squiggly coasts. When a mountain range is parallel to the coast, the coast tends to run straighter, unless the mountain range is right up against the coast as coastal cliffs. When a mountain range is perpendicular to the coast, or diagonal, the coast gets much squigglier, with peninsulas and inlets, and often small islands.

Volcanoes. Volcanoes tend to be in mountain ranges that are very near the coast line or on island chains, as these areas are more tectonically active in the way that forms volcanoes. However there are a lot of exceptions too, as an isolated volcano can appear as a kind of fluke just about anywhere.

Rivers. Water flows downhill. I know it sounds obvious but you'd be surprised how many RPG mapmakers mess that up. This means you will never* see a river flowing across a mountain range, only away from it. Rivers tend to flow along the bottom of valleys, from the mountainy/hilly side, down towards the flat/plains side. Often, all the rivers on one side of a mountain range will flow in basically the same direction, eventually merging into one big river, or just being a bunch of parallel rivers that run to the ocean. Rivers never* fork! This is a pet peeve of mine regarding RPG maps.

Depending on the scale of your map, you may not want to draw rivers at all -- most maps of the earth are too far zoomed out to effectively show any rivers. However, the effects of rivers might still be visible in the form of valleys, river deltas, or vegetation.

Lakes. Most lakes drain into a river that reaches the ocean; if a river terminates in a lake that doesn't go anywhere, then eventually that lake becomes a salt lake. A lake never* drains into multiple rivers (that would be the same as a river forking) but some of them drain into swamps which are effectively super-wide, super-slow rivers. There are lakes large enough to be seen on maps of the earth, but it is rare for an area of swampland to be large enough to see at a global level.

Vegetation. Within broad latitude bands, wind tends to travel in a particular direction -- either east or west, it depends on the rotation of the earth and some other stuff I forget, the point is to be consistent across the horizontal. And the way you show this consistency is vegetation. The way weather works is, water from the ocean evaporates, gets carried over land, and rains on it, growing plants. ("Rain, the thirst quencher. It has what plants need!") However, when the weather hits a tall mountain range, the moisture can't make it over the mountains, so the far side of the mountains is often much more arid, or even a desert.

So the rule is: if you have a north-south body of water (like a sea) or a north-south mountain range, one side will have more vegetation than the other, based on which way the wind is blowing. Like if the winds are blowing towards the east, then the eastern coast of a sea will be greener, and the western slope of a mountain range will be greener. This is a gross oversimplification of some very complex phenomena so don't sweat it too much. Just make sure your deserts have a mountain range and/or sea to either the left or right, and be consistent about which side.

Settlements. Cities and towns will always* be situated along a river or lake. It will provide a steady year-round supply of drinking water, but more importantly, transportation. Floating goods up and down rivers is way faster and cheaper than dragging them overland in wagons. Villages sometimes are situated away from water and closer to farmland, if a well can be dug that can support the population of the village. Major cities tend to spring up around natural harbors; at the mouths of large rivers; and at the point where a river emerges from the foothills. In all three cases, these are points where goods may be transferred from one type of vehicle to another. A river flowing through the foothills is often too rough (too many rapids and waterfalls) for boats bigger than a canoe.

Forts. Forts are built to guard cities and towns, and also strategic locations. A mountain pass, a strait, or a place where a trade route crosses a major river are all good places. Forts not build around a town always have a town spring up around them, to supply the fort.

Farmland. Humans tend to cover every inch of arable land with farms. Depending on how realistic you want to get, you could just turn all your plainsland into farmland. Hills and mountains are impediments to farming and may remain wild, and some plainsland is't well suited to farming because of the soil or climate. People will still live in those areas, but more sparsely populated; villages will be spread out a lot farther.

You'll never* see a city or town that isn't surrounded by farmland. I'm not going to pretend I know anything at all about medieval demographics (there are whole books about it), but my rule of thumb is a 10:1 ratio; for every person living in a town or city, there are 10 people out working the fields. (Realistically it was probably even higher but hey, we got magic, right?) On a map, cities and towns both look like dots, but the farmland will be proportional to the population. The entire purpose of villages is to house farmers close to the farms. Thus an expanse of farmland will be dotted periodically by villages. Hilly areas are harder to farm and tend to be turned over to livestock, like sheep and cattle. Another pet peeve of mine in RPG maps is the "isolated village out in the woods" without any farmland nearby -- what do they eat? Why are the people even there? It takes a LOT of hunting and fishing to supply food for an entire village.

Roads. Roads are used to connect major cities and towns that aren't connected by waterway. Most major waterways and coastlines will have a road along them, too. Often the motivation for building roads is swift troop movement between allied cities, towns, and forts. Overland trade routes may also spring up where there are no convenient rivers or seas. The point where a river emerges from the foothills is often a place where goods transfer between boats and wagons.

Political Boundaries. In medieval times, there wasn't really any such thing as a "country" the way we think of them today. Instead there were city-states and fiefdoms. Borders were quite fluid, as towns could switch allegiance due to new ownership, or conquest; there was no international law, just what the nobles could get away with. So I tend not to draw political boundaries on maps, so much as political areas of influence. These tend to be quite arbitrary, but often form along natural boundaries like mountain ranges, coastlines, or places where the climate or terrain changes abruptly. Note that major rivers make poor boundaries because major cities will be situated along them; but minor rivers, or rivers that are too rough for good transportation, work just fine.



* There are exceptions, but they are rare and exotic. A wizard did it!

 

[Lanliss]

You know, I've read a bunch of good articles about that, and for the life of me I can't find any of them now!

Let me try to recreate the rules I follow for my own process:

Mountains. Mountains tend to come in chains. These chains tend to run parallel to the shoreline. Many of them end in peninsulas and then island chains -- imagine the mountain chain gradually descending into the ocean. Mountains are surrounded by foothills.

Plains. Foothills are surrounded by flat coastal plains, unless the mountain range is so close to the coast that it's rocky cliffs. Sometimes these plains can be so huge that they cover most of an entire continent. It's easily possible to have an area of plains in between two mountain ranges.

Land Masses. Small islands tend to come in chains (remember an island is just an underwater mountain) or small clusters. Larger islands and continents tend to have a mountain range on one side or on multiple sides. I don't really worry about plate tectonics; as long as the mountain ranges are in the right place, the map will look OK.

Coastlines. Near the poles, where it is colder, coastlines tend to be much more jagged due to glaciers. Otherwise, you should have a mix of smooth coasts and squiggly coasts. When a mountain range is parallel to the coast, the coast tends to run straighter, unless the mountain range is right up against the coast as coastal cliffs. When a mountain range is perpendicular to the coast, or diagonal, the coast gets much squigglier, with peninsulas and inlets, and often small islands.

Volcanoes. Volcanoes tend to be in mountain ranges that are very near the coast line or on island chains, as these areas are more tectonically active in the way that forms volcanoes. However there are a lot of exceptions too, as an isolated volcano can appear as a kind of fluke just about anywhere.

Rivers. Water flows downhill. I know it sounds obvious but you'd be surprised how many RPG mapmakers mess that up. This means you will never* see a river flowing across a mountain range, only away from it. Rivers tend to flow along the bottom of valleys, from the mountainy/hilly side, down towards the flat/plains side. Often, all the rivers on one side of a mountain range will flow in basically the same direction, eventually merging into one big river, or just being a bunch of parallel rivers that run to the ocean. Rivers never* fork! This is a pet peeve of mine regarding RPG maps.

Depending on the scale of your map, you may not want to draw rivers at all -- most maps of the earth are too far zoomed out to effectively show any rivers. However, the effects of rivers might still be visible in the form of valleys, river deltas, or vegetation.

Lakes. Most lakes drain into a river that reaches the ocean; if a river terminates in a lake that doesn't go anywhere, then eventually that lake becomes a salt lake. A lake never* drains into multiple rivers (that would be the same as a river forking) but some of them drain into swamps which are effectively super-wide, super-slow rivers. There are lakes large enough to be seen on maps of the earth, but it is rare for an area of swampland to be large enough to see at a global level.

Vegetation. Within broad latitude bands, wind tends to travel in a particular direction -- either east or west, it depends on the rotation of the earth and some other stuff I forget, the point is to be consistent across the horizontal. And the way you show this consistency is vegetation. The way weather works is, water from the ocean evaporates, gets carried over land, and rains on it, growing plants. ("Rain, the thirst quencher. It has what plants need!") However, when the weather hits a tall mountain range, the moisture can't make it over the mountains, so the far side of the mountains is often much more arid, or even a desert.

So the rule is: if you have a north-south body of water (like a sea) or a north-south mountain range, one side will have more vegetation than the other, based on which way the wind is blowing. Like if the winds are blowing towards the east, then the eastern coast of a sea will be greener, and the western slope of a mountain range will be greener. This is a gross oversimplification of some very complex phenomena so don't sweat it too much. Just make sure your deserts have a mountain range and/or sea to either the left or right, and be consistent about which side.

Settlements. Cities and towns will always* be situated along a river or lake. It will provide a steady year-round supply of drinking water, but more importantly, transportation. Floating goods up and down rivers is way faster and cheaper than dragging them overland in wagons. Villages sometimes are situated away from water and closer to farmland, if a well can be dug that can support the population of the village. Major cities tend to spring up around natural harbors; at the mouths of large rivers; and at the point where a river emerges from the foothills. In all three cases, these are points where goods may be transferred from one type of vehicle to another. A river flowing through the foothills is often too rough (too many rapids and waterfalls) for boats bigger than a canoe.

Forts. Forts are built to guard cities and towns, and also strategic locations. A mountain pass, a strait, or a place where a trade route crosses a major river are all good places. Forts not build around a town always have a town spring up around them, to supply the fort.

Farmland. Humans tend to cover every inch of arable land with farms. Depending on how realistic you want to get, you could just turn all your plainsland into farmland. Hills and mountains are impediments to farming and may remain wild, and some plainsland is't well suited to farming because of the soil or climate. People will still live in those areas, but more sparsely populated; villages will be spread out a lot farther.

You'll never* see a city or town that isn't surrounded by farmland. I'm not going to pretend I know anything at all about medieval demographics (there are whole books about it), but my rule of thumb is a 10:1 ratio; for every person living in a town or city, there are 10 people out working the fields. (Realistically it was probably even higher but hey, we got magic, right?) On a map, cities and towns both look like dots, but the farmland will be proportional to the population. The entire purpose of villages is to house farmers close to the farms. Thus an expanse of farmland will be dotted periodically by villages. Hilly areas are harder to farm and tend to be turned over to livestock, like sheep and cattle. Another pet peeve of mine in RPG maps is the "isolated village out in the woods" without any farmland nearby -- what do they eat? Why are the people even there? It takes a LOT of hunting and fishing to supply food for an entire village.

Roads. Roads are used to connect major cities and towns that aren't connected by waterway. Most major waterways and coastlines will have a road along them, too. Often the motivation for building roads is swift troop movement between allied cities, towns, and forts. Overland trade routes may also spring up where there are no convenient rivers or seas. The point where a river emerges from the foothills is often a place where goods transfer between boats and wagons.

Political Boundaries. In medieval times, there wasn't really any such thing as a "country" the way we think of them today. Instead there were city-states and fiefdoms. Borders were quite fluid, as towns could switch allegiance due to new ownership, or conquest; there was no international law, just what the nobles could get away with. So I tend not to draw political boundaries on maps, so much as political areas of influence. These tend to be quite arbitrary, but often form along natural boundaries like mountain ranges, coastlines, or places where the climate or terrain changes abruptly. Note that major rivers make poor boundaries because major cities will be situated along them; but minor rivers, or rivers that are too rough for good transportation, work just fine.



* There are exceptions, but they are rare and exotic. A wizard did it!

Thank you, a lot. This was all the sort of basic rules I was hoping for on that.

 

[Harzel]

Yeah, 77IM has described most of what I can think of. Just a couple of additional notes.

Rivers. Water flows downhill. I know it sounds obvious but you'd be surprised how many RPG mapmakers mess that up. This means you will never* see a river flowing across a mountain range, only away from it. Rivers tend to flow along the bottom of valleys, from the mountainy/hilly side, down towards the flat/plains side. Often, all the rivers on one side of a mountain range will flow in basically the same direction, eventually merging into one big river, or just being a bunch of parallel rivers that run to the ocean. Rivers never* fork! This is a pet peeve of mine regarding RPG maps.

One exception (not due to wizardry, so far as I know ) is the Columbia River in the NW US. It cuts through both the Cascades mountain range and the Coast Range. Basically this is because the river was there first. Another somewhat similar situation is in the SW US where the Colorado River cuts through the highlands known as the Colorado Plateau. Although the Plateau is not a mountain range, it is quite high terrain. This is another case of the river being there first.

Vegetation. Within broad latitude bands, wind tends to travel in a particular direction -- either east or west, it depends on the rotation of the earth and some other stuff I forget, the point is to be consistent across the horizontal. And the way you show this consistency is vegetation. The way weather works is, water from the ocean evaporates, gets carried over land, and rains on it, growing plants. ("Rain, the thirst quencher. It has what plants need!") However, when the weather hits a tall mountain range, the moisture can't make it over the mountains, so the far side of the mountains is often much more arid, or even a desert.

At a global scale, latitudinal distribution of precipitation is strongly influenced by the jet streams and the associated atmospheric circulation cells. (At least on this planet; your planet may vary. )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_stream

 

[Lylandra]

At a global scale, latitudinal distribution of precipitation is strongly influenced by the jet streams and the associated atmospheric circulation cells. (At least on this planet; your planet may vary. )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_stream

Damn those Jet streams, they brought us the super-hot Omega weather pattern last year!

But from a world-builder's perspective, currents and high altitude streams can be a source of inspiration, especially in a world full of magic. What if an unusual "jet stream" is a rift to the plane of air? Or a dormant, sleeping, giant elemental? What if your strange ocean current is influenced by a group of aboleths who simply don't want guests in their underwater underdark caverns?

 

[MichaelArkAngel]

When I create my maps, it's a mixture of dundjinni and photoshop. Photoshop is your best friend and like others have posted, the cartographer's guild have some great tutorials that will get you started.

Btw...if your ever in a pinch, IM me, I can help you out!

Here's a link to some of the maps I've made:

http://michaelarkangel.deviantart.com/gallery/

Sent from my SM-G930T using EN World mobile app

 

[Beleriphon]

On the note of anatomy it isn't just about gnomes skeletons, its about knowing in general a skeleton structured in X way will move in Y ways and look normal, while an A skeleton will look normal in B poses, but X looks weird when doing B. This is general. For example if you know how a lizard moves, you can adapt that to a multilimbed creature by extended the body. Dwarves for example tend to broad bodies compared their height, which means its a matter of figured out how many heads tall you want them (typically 5 versus the human 7), while a halfling has more or less normal human proportions just much smaller.

In fact understanding human movement and anatomy along with a few different kinds of animals (horses, lizards, birds, and fish) can let you design all kind of wondrous things.

If you're up for a good show to watch for the idea behing anatomy is Face/Off on Syfy channel (or Space in Canada). Its a show about physical effects makeup artists but it does a good job of highlighting how good anatomy can make or break a design.

 

[KahlessNestor]

I often use Hexographer for maps. Not artistically pretty or what have you, but free version does the job.

Sent from my SM-G900P using EN World mobile app