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Message: <blockquote data-quote="77IM" data-source="post: 6993421" data-attributes="member: 12377">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!</blockquote>

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