Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 8288057" data-attributes="member: 5142">I got stuck here as well, partially because one of the main things that trips me up about world-building: maps. I like having a basic sense of the geo part of the geo-political and cultural landscape, but I don't have the greatest map-making or artistic talent. I noticed the map in the one WWN world-building video I mentioned, and so I just flat out asked them what mapping program they used. It's apparently Inkarnate, so I've been toying with that the past day or so. As a side note: (1) islands are a lot of work and (2) no matter how weird or unrealistic you think that the shapes of your lands look, the real world produces far weirder and more varied geography. I'm beginning to think that one reason why fantasy maps look unrealistic is simply because people don't make their geography look weird enough. Agreed. This is the other thing that I find challenging. There is a reason why I often find myself reusing names. Right now, I'm just putting placeholder names and flagging them so I can come back to this point at a later stage. I do try to apply certain guidelines for name generation though. For example, one naming guideline that I put in place for this current project is "no 'th' sound." I am having a different sort of issue. Fantasy adventure often imagines these incredibly varied landscapes: e.g., small islands over here, mountains here next to the "blasted lands," desert next to the jungle, grasslands next to the ancient farmlands, etc. But in my case, I know that I'm basically dealing with a large tropical mega-archipelago with volcanic mountain chains. I'm impressed with the guidelines in this book. As you say, if you follow the advice, it forces useable content creation. I may be overstating how riled their feathers were as they took it in good humor. I believe they were reacting with bemusement to the part in the book about players generally not caring about your WB, don't WB for things that you won't need, how it's often gratuitous, etc.</blockquote>

Verification