I need good books to help in worldbuilding geography!

[blackshirt5]

OK, while I consider myself somewhere in the range between decent and good at coming up with story, characters, and the like for my homebrew(most of which isn't done), I'm not very good at geography or mapping. I'm looking for any books that'd be good for helping out a DM with coming up with geography, kingdom details, etc. for a fantasy campaign. Any help is appreciated, thanks!

 

[Voadam]

Are you looking for one to help you make your own or good geography you can just steal?

There are plenty of good illustrated guides to fantasy worlds or fantasy world atlases.

I own the Warhammer Illustrated Encyclopedia and the Illustrated guide to Robert Jordan's Wheel of time and they are both excellent. I have not seen the Terry Brooks Shanara one or the Middle Earth Atlas or even the Kingdom of Kalamar Atlas but they are probably good as well.

 

[diaglo]

C.S. Lewis

Mary Stewart

Marion Zimmer Bradley

JRRT

Douglas Adams

Philip K. Dick

Ray Bradbury

Stephen Donaldson

Robert Jordan

etc...


edit: basically every writer/story teller develops a world for their story. you need to tell us more about what is in your world.

does weather play a role? how about time travel? how about machines? or magic? or aliens? or ?

 

[blackshirt5]

i'm looking to design my own stuff; I'm writing up a homebrew and eventually hope to have it published, so I don't wanna steal anything from anybody.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Not really a book but...

http://www.io.com/~eighner/world_builder/world_builder_index.html

 

[Emiricol]

For the kingdoms part, I've heard good things about A Magical Medieval Society, available in both print and PDF.

For tips on mapping, try a google search for "mapping +tips +DM" or somesuch, that might show some good results.

 

[Hand of Evil]

This is a link off the link I posted...

http://www.hut.fi/~vesanto/world.build.html

 

[clark411]

I'd recommend hitting the library and sitting down with one of the new Atlases. Usually the first few pages are devoted to defining and illustrating valleys, rivers, mountains, plateaus, etc and in some ways show their relationship.

Also, National Geographic and National Geographic Explorer are absolutely STUNNING with their photography of landscapes. Its disgustingly easy to look at a verdant valley in south america and let your imagination just start putting ancient elven towers and things. Also, they're great for showing how ecosystems work when untamed (tough to get a decent notion of how things like this work in civilization, at least up here near boston).

 

[jgbrowning]

I'd recommend a good book on physical geography to help with the land forms. Take the time and read it from cover to cover and you'll be one happy world builder.

joe b.

 

[Starman]

I'd recommend a good book on physical geography to help with the land forms. Take the time and read it from cover to cover and you'll be one happy world builder.

joe b.

Any recommendations?

Starman