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Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator?
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➔ Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator website
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My hobby is worldbuilding I see another commented a few things on that but I really like
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ - Super customizable maps, you can change how many countries, how many landmasses, how much water, how much ice, how old the planet is, add rivers, add towns... pretty much anything you could want it'll do. This is actually how I start all of my worldbuilding projects. I like to start from the beginning and work my way from there. So I get a world, then try and logically work out where the first civilizations might rise. What would cause them to fracture, who would rise up after them, how do people spread and how would that effect cultures, where are the trade routes. I keep spreadsheets on all the major cities with populations and wealth, what their main exports and imports are, etc. for every 10 years. Then I can get into individual characters of note. My eventual plan is I want basically an encyclopedia of a fantasy world, not focused on telling a thrilling story but covering the general history of a world, so from there you can start to dig into stories with the history already mostly mapped out. I got way off topic, my apologies.
http://www.oskarstalberg.com/game/CityGenerator/ - This is a good city generator with trees and buildings and roads, it's not overly customizable but it'll do for decent outlines.
http://donjon.bin.sh/ - This is list of generators for pretty much anything worldbuilding related. It can be a pain to use but I think it's got some of the nicest looking finished products, it's highly customizable for the most part, and again it's just go so many different things you can use it for.
You may use my Fantasy Map Generator.
It is still in beta, but already usable. See a quick start tutorial here.
The map of Paradox created with Fantasy Map Generator. Labels (countries) are a bit random. Shape is converted from the Paradox logo (I hope it does not violate any rules). Here is a svg version and here is a .map file.
I feel you have used Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator improperly--you're supposed to regen it at least 213 times before deciding on a map layout, start building the world, then scrap it for another 324 random spins on Azgaar's.
ps-- I love and support Azgaar's map generator. But it is addictive.
There is an up and coming generator that I've been really impressed with so far:
The have a sub:
Hello procGen folk! Quite related to the <strong>Armoria</strong> tool I've posted a while, but today it's an update for the Fantasy map Generator. I have included emblems generation into the main generation flow and not it works more or less fine. Yes, a bit too slow, but seems to not be critical.
One thing that I really want you to try is Armoria API - it can be used to embed heraldry generation into your project.
I'm pretty slow in development, so it all took about 6-8 months together with Armoria. The next big update may be for economics simulation, but not sure how it will go, the codebase is too messy (still on gitHub if you want to check).
For a political world map, I've been really loving https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ There's a tiny bit of a learning curve, but it really only took a few minutes of poking around before I was making really cool maps. I've tried Inkarnate but it's garbage for political maps. I'll be looking into Wonderdraft because of this thread, but azgaar was a miracle tool to me.
Hello! I am happy to introduce my new tool - heraldry generator and editor Armoria.
It's in alpha. For stable version I am going to add much more charges, add custom images upload and fix bugs. The tool is mobile-friendly with minor bugs observed. It is a stand-alone tool, but I'm planning to integrate it with my Fantasy map Generator.
The tool is supposed to be used for Fantasy heraldry, so rules are not strictly enforced. However I have used only historical armorials and implemented basic heraldry concepts. So we can count as historically-adequate tool as well.
Simple forms and charges are self-made and available under CC0. Complex charges are historical, svg renders are coming from WappenWiki and available for non-commercial use under CC3. All svgs are manually optimized. The tool itself is under MIT, so free for any kind of usage.
Lots! Except that there are so many really really great procgen maps already out there, I would hate to reinvent the wheel by trying to make my own.
A couple of my favourites:
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/world/ https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator
Looks good. But I believe Wonderdraft is better for this type of tasks. If you need something procedurally generated, I recommend my tool as well - https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
I used photoshop, primarily using these brushes to achieve the overall terrain.
After that, it was basically using layer effects to build things like the overlays and texture effects!
I used azgaar.github.io to generate a random map I liked some of the features from, seen here.. From there I just followed some of the many tutorials online for building up coasts, and built on top of that layer from layer.
Dungeon/building: https://www.mipui.net/app/index.html
Towns: https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator
Countries and continents (just zoom in for countries): https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ this is my fave
The other cool thing about it is that it ties into Azgaar's generator, so you can have your world with all the cities consistently generated. There's a lot of parametres to adjust too.
I did all the political borders more-or-less as they should be, considering you can't draw straight lines for borders. All the meta-data stuff, populations, armed forces, religions, ethnicities, are all off a bit. National capitols may also be a bit wonky.
Basically it's just a passable world map, but it's neat and adds to my game, thought it may help someone else too.
Edit: Link to Azgaar's thing: https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
Not sure yet about the theme thing.
I created the map using Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator. It's a free tool anyone can use. Takes a little while to learn how to use it though.
When you load (or refresh) the page, it generates a completely new and random map. If you like one and want to save it, you can click on the arrow on the top left and then click on "Save As" and select the .map option. You can then go back to the site later and load your .map file to begin working with it again. You can also download it as an image (PNG file) but if you want to be able to continue working on it then you definitely need to save the .map version.
One of the cool things is that you can modify the "height-map" and basically regenerate all the secondary material (like rivers, etc.) based on the new heights. Changing the heights can also change the shape of the land masses. I took a randomized map and then modified the height-map to create something that was closer to what I was wanting.
Anyway, definitely something fun to play around with!
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
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Buddy turned me onto this. It is a very beautiful, in-depth map creator. It will randomly generate fantasy maps. m I was in the same boat as you, soon as I found a random map that fit what I wanted, writing stories set on this map have never been easier. You can even save them and come back to them later
I'm pretty attached to the lore I have built into this particular world so I'd rather you didn't, sorry! You're totally welcome to the Fantasy Map Generator maps I spliced together to make this one, though: here they are. (And I'd be open to making you your own map on commission if that's something you wanted!)
I use a few generator sites for inspiration. My favorite is Azgaar Generator. Then I work on my map in Rebelle or Corel Painter depending on the style I want. I tend to not follow the generator 1 to 1 and just use it as inspiration.
J'ai un peu triché, je me suis basé sur un capot de voiture. Ensuite pour remplir, j'ai regardé quelques vidéos en ligne pour découvrir peu la logique des plaques tectoniques et courant d'air et respecter un peu celle ci.
En générateur de cartes, je te propose Azgaar qui n'est pas mal, bien que les formes des continents me déplaisent régulièrement.
This one is my favorite. I like to set my parameters, export the vector, and tweak my map in inkscape for the places that have to have a specific geography of some kind. Having them in vector form is also nice, because you can add continents and islands scale to desired and realistic proportions.
Hey ! Thanks, but I've got this map already :) What am I looking for is a map with a grid, like one of these : https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
It would be useful to calculate traveling time and create a set of new maps for investigation of fighting scene.
I cannot recommend Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator enough ( https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ ). It's a web app that exports .map files (custom text files) so you can save your map and edit it in the generator later, and you can also export your map as a PNG, JPEG, or SVG. The generator can make decent landmasses, biomes, cultures, religions, states, and even cities with the default settings, but you can change any and all of these to suit you, even the database it uses to name things.
Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator (https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ ) is a good one. It generates a map on startup, but you can ignore that and go to Heightmap Customization under Tools, then use the eraser icon in the Paint Brush menu to clear the map and start from scratch. Hope that helps!
Azgaars Fantasy Map Generator is one of my personal favourites for large scale planets as once you get the hang of it you can have some really fun and in depth areas, even designing the layouts of cities https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
Many of these map generators, including mapgen2 and mapgen4, were designed for games with their own stories. Mapgen2 was for Realm of the Mad God, which has an overall story of Oryx the Mad God sending his minions to various locations on the map, and then after you kill them, Oryx himself would come out and cross the map. Mapgen4 was for an canceled game in which each month the game designers would have a new chapter of the story to tell. I released both of these for free on the web without the stories from those games so that others could put their own stories on the generated maps.
On the other end of the spectrum, Dwarf Fortress has a rich history generator, with kingdoms, armies, cultures, trade routes, cities, etc. Those maps are only available inside the game as far as I know.
In between, you may enjoy Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator, which places nations and towns and trade routes and military forces and religions. It doesn't have the stories themselves but it gives you some ingredients. Watabou's dungeon generator also places ingredients for stories without generating the stories themselves.
There are people working on procedural story generators but I can't remember any that also generate a map. It's a hard problem :-)
What elements does it need to have? Are you looking for world maps? There are some good generators out there, like this one. Would that work for you?
All I have is this which hasn't helped me a single bit but was really amazing to look at and I'm glad it exists.
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
It's a map generator for inspiration and may help you draw simple maps.
For world maps, the very best I’ve found is Azgaar’s maps, https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
Can’t recommend highly enough. Massive customization, high detail when you zoom in, and he’s consistently adding new features to it.
If you don't mind tinkering with something for hours on end until it's almost close enough, this is a pretty good map generator. The names it spits out are godawful, but the geography is on point. It places settlements along coasts and rivers, rivers where they're most likely to form, and routes connecting the settlements in a logical and consistent way. I personally find the heightmap to be far more useful than the political or cultural maps, but YMMV
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
Remember to save your map so you can upload and continue. I also store my lore and wordbuilding articles for this project on World Anvil
I just started Running my own campaign after months of on and off development. /u/SurrealSage has you covered on conversion material and specific resources, but here are a few things I'm using in my campaign to make my life easier:
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ - Azgar's fantasy map generator. Use it to make worldmaps for random worlds. Extremely useful if you're going planet hopping.
https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator - Watabou's random city generator, much like the map generator lets you make and cusomize towns and cities rapidly. Good resource for a sandboxy campaign where you need to gen up towns and ports of call.
https://2minutetabletop.com/ - 2 Minute Tabletop, a great online store with tons of free and paid content to grab, modular tilesets for map making doodads tokens etc.
Another reccomendation I might make is get Tasha's Cauldron, it might seem like it's just bonus material but I've found it has one major feature that is insanely useful and that is the 'group patrons' material. It provides rules and frameworks for groups organizations and individuals that can act as patrons for your party which slot really well into the structure of spelljammer, because spelljammer's 'society' such as it is is more or less broken up into multiple interrelated and competing power groups with different motives, spheres of influence, and operational methods. Tasha's group patron system will let you portray that really well.
You can try Azgaar's, it's not that easy to use but it looks great and has a lot a layers. Or you could look into Wonderdraft , great tool for world maps but it isn't free. I think it's about $20.
You can also use Azgaar’s Fantasy-Map-Generator, I can’t speak too much for its accuracy but it’s better than nothing for sure. I certainly had no idea how to work a climate. But his app gave me something to work with
I’m lazy so I like to generate cities with this. https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator
It has a link to a world generator that uses this. https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
I then take them into photoshop and add my own stuff.
If you want to go full homebrew, but don't have much time to build from scratch, you could explore random generation. It has its limits, of course, but I found that generating many things for a task and curating the best results can yield very nice outcomes.
For instance, take a look at Asgaar's Fantasy Map Generator. You have countries, cultures, religions, rives, routes, etc, most of what you need to build kingdom's politics. Play with the parameters, generate load of maps, and save the best. You can end up with a pretty solide base.
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/?refer=scabard.com
Generates landmass, political separations, cultural groups, religious distributions, cities, roads, and the politics between countries.
https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator
City-level generator
https://rollforfantasy.com/tools/population-generator.php
Population generator
You might be interested in Azgars fantasy map generator. Can even mark out nations, alliances and religions if you feel so inclined
this is also pretty good and you can rename cities and everything in it. You can also click cities/villages and there's a button to open the city map like here
I use https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ for my world maps, it can be as detailed as you like with trade routes and roads etc, it’s not visually stunning like some other map generators but I find it suits my games perfectly as I put more details in the micro over macro
The cheapest would just be to use https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ Go to the options tab under the drop down in the upper left and change map template and chose the option and click new map in the lower left of the dialog. Pretty Sweet. You can change the names of the areas.
Based on that screenshot, it looks like it currently has a .map extension. Your computer/device just thinks that it is a .txt file (probably because that's the application it was associated with).
In order to use the .map, you can open it in the Fantasy Map Generator. Open that link, then click the pop-out menu on the left and choose Load at the bottom of the menu. Navigate to the directory where the file is saved, and click it and then click the Open button, and the file should open, if we did everything right.
Good luck!
r/dndmaps is a good starting point
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ Azgaar's is my favorite, totally free tool. I'm not very artistically inclined either, so something that's easy to use is a big plus. The toolbar is pretty easy to learn and you can do a fair bit with it. Don't forget to save often though!
I think what you're looking for is Azgaar's fantasy map generator.
If not, then here's a very large list from /r/DnDBehindthescreen of other map-making resources, both random and designed - look under "Maps and map-making tools".
Best of luck!
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
I kept generating until I find a world that is close enough to what I am imagining.
I actually really like the randomly generated aspects. My current map is of an island grouping. Most of the islands are one county per island, except one looked like it was split in half between a north/south country, but the north country was further divided and had a small costal country on the NE border. It helped add to my story - now that small costal country is a colony of a larger empire, and now tensions there are very tense since the natives were kinda living there but had to give away the land due to superior technology and knowing they would get wiped. I would of never thought of that on my own.
Inkarnate has some good free map-making tools plus exclusive tools you can pay for.
Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator is also an ok choice.
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ has done an awesome job for my game. You can even save the edited map data somewhere online -- we used Github -- and give people a link to it: e.g. https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/?maplink=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OhMyTallest-Productions/Arthian-Map/master/Arthia-main.map&x=700&y=350&scale=5
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
This was a posted to hackernews a few days ago, it's a fantasy map generator, but it must have similar math to what Valheim uses.
Hackernews discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29205001
Me like
I like the concept of Atlantis (working on something similar myself) as well as a moon with an ocean and the unique resource. I can recommend a map generator (and editor) If you need one.
If what you're looking for is a skeleton that has just enough details to improv off of, I have a resource I personally love to use.
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
You can remake and customize a map in this as many times as you want, they also have some ways for you to customize the kind of landmass it creates and gives you the full ability to add markers and make notes about anything and everything you want to. It's great to both have something pre-made and to add notes about new things you make on the fly. Sometimes it takes a little bit to get used to, but once you do, you realize not only is everything made for you but it's all original and all customizable.
Yup, i used this online tool:
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
Sometimes it can get quite slow to operate because it has a **ton** of customization options, but it is good for that reason ^^
Here's the online version of the program so you could help out or try it out: https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
And here's my world seed so you can mess around with it: 794161281
I'm fond of using Azgaar's Map Generator to help flesh out a new campaign world. It'll build a realistic-feeling map of a fantasy world with all the town names and layouts and all that, so I can prep for where I think the party will go but still have something already made up to improvise from if they veer off the beaten path.
I also find "here's a map, what makes sense here?" a great prompt for me as GM to build a sandbox from. Instead of writing an adventure path where I expect players to go from A to B, I'm just picking a starting town and filling in what ought to be where based on the factions that exist in the world. Sometimes you end up finding some unexpected connections or new factions that need to exist that make the world feel a bit more populated and lived-in that way.
I got a few options for ya.
If you want cheap but good, Inkarnate and WorldAnvil paired together can be used to make GREAT stuff. I don't have anything I'm proud enough to put out there yet, but I have had a couple of DMs make GREAT use of it. It'll come out to about $130 a year, if that's a low enough price range.
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For free, you can't beat donjon and https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ . Azgaar will be faster, but I like the details you manually put into donjon.
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
Azgaar! It's a bit clunky but it has so many options!!!, including temperature maps, state borders, custom biomes, a 3D map feature, and glacier mapping and more!
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator
The first one is editable so you can use it as a base and then make smaller customisations. There are a lot of settings there that can be easy to miss for example the landmass type setting that people often miss lets you change things from pangea to archipelago and others
Thanks i used this website but im still learning how to use it. Im hoping to get a more detailed version done soon. And some variations with different info etc.
Hmm, it does look a bit like that. I used this https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ to generate the landmasses and as a starting point for biomes, etc.
Just posted in on another thread but it fits here too: https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
The cool thing is you can tinker with what gets generated including the rainfall and the heightmap. By changing little things there you get the coastline that you like including fjords, cliffs, deltas or whatever.
Story > rules. And fun > everything I haven't spent a dime and I'm a forever dm, most of the base stuff can be found for free online with quick Google searches, and dndbeyond and roll20 are amazing sites with free options as well as some cool paid features if you want them.
Free map generator: https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
Free battle or dungeon map maker: http://pyromancers.com/dungeon-painter-
Ok...
Option #1 - How about just geography? If you are not a drawer just take a map generator like Azgaars and keep using it until something clicks.
When you got a map, Just make borders, not names or anything, just borders. See if Something clicks. https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
Option #2 - Start with the feeling and theme. Do you like it to be strict or wondrous. (FMA VS Tolkien) What tech do you like to have in, What kind of stories you need to be told. Dark, hopeful, brave ETC
Option #3 - Write something, anything. a two or three page short story, see if that inspires you. I can send you and example of what I wrote a while back if you wish. For a story you need some information and that will feed to other subjects. You can use pictures for reference and see if it inspires you.
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---PS; Tell me what do you like of those settings.
Just in case you didn't know, the map generator you used lets you paint landmasses in, and draw/rename political borders, so if you wanted to recreate your world and save the .map file for ongoing tweaks and updates, you could.
Good tool that one of my friends really likes https://www.worldanvil.com/
What I used to make my homebrew map https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
Don't know alot about the first tool as I only used it for about 3 hours, but there's a lot of customization that you can do with it.
The second tool I used extensively, going so far as to create lists of town and city names that could be loaded into the world. Also let's you save the map so you can load it later or save as an image that you can modify to your liking. I used it until it updated and I could no longer load my map files, so I recommend it but with a cautionary warning that you may need to start over if you get unlucky.
I use Azgaar's map generator https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ It is mainly a random map generator, but it can be customized very deeply and you can use it to make your own maps or edit the generated ones.
For character nanes I use fantasy name generator.
It has a ton of other generators for places to, but I've found the names generated in Azgaar's map generator for places to be top notch. It's a great tool for maps, and recombines provided words for places into new one.
It works on cultural spread too, so it might generate two countries with the same culture and similar names, next to a third different culture with write different names, or have multiple cultures within the same country.
Try r/worldbuilding for more in-depth discussion on this and plenty of inspiration.
Creating a world is not something you can do in a weekend. Many people spend years doing it, constantly adding to it as they go. It is also totally feasible to create a world in DnD as the players explore but if you don’t have a backbone upon which to do this, the world will feel lacking and the story will suffer.
If in need of a unique but pre generated world there are a number of resources. The most impressive of which is Azgaar’s fantasy map generator:
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
Based on criteria you set it will create a world complete with nations and cities and links to other resources within the map such as medieval fantasy city generator:
https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator
If you add in things like a fantasy name generator you can do a lot of the leg work more quickly.
You simply need to flesh out the world that has been created for you with a bit of imagination and you’re ready to go.
You can try this map generator, it is amazing: https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
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Another thing you can do is to take a screenshot from a place on Google earth and just modify it to the shape you want. There are nice filters in Photoshop or other softwares for that.
This a map of the world of the Avatar: the Last Airbender show. Due to the constantly changing borders of this world, this particular map is that of the world at the moment of Sokka and Katara finding Aang in the iceberg during the first episode.
There are a lot of generated burgs, rivers, routes and notes that I haven't changed or removed because it would be too much time to effectively amount to nothing spectacular. Places that were visited are named as they are on the show's wiki, with notes that describe them.
I might add a bunch of markers later on.
Start here You can upload graphic files of your hand drawn maps and edit, or create from scratch. There's also a subreddit at r/FantasyMapGenerator that's very helpful.
This is an illustration of the potential for human selection and computer generation and how it might be used in a worldbuilding context. The only art was made by selecting it from generated lists. Tools are /r/symbolgen and Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator.
Context:
Genre: Fantasy
The world, named Seligere, has four humanoid groups with high-level cognition:
The Almost are elflike with bioluminescent garments made from mushroom like plants in the area. They are named "The Almost" because of their near-miss when attempting to align the planets.
The Stringere, meaning strain, are tough miners that spend their days pouring over minerals looking for absolute perfection. Their brightly colored armor is made of metals exclusive to the area.
The Allwells are the dominant race and are often warring with the other factions. They have purple markings and effects that they gain when turning the age of 13.
The Stonehide lords are strong, brutish folk with large tusks. They're cities mostly border the lakes within their lands.
All four races worship the three gods. The nightprowler, the sunflyer, and the oceansleeper. Their totems are pictured on the right. Many are skeptical over their influence.
Finally, pictured are 6 dangerous creatures that live on the continent; Greenbeaks, rabbiroos, woolfoxes, lizardmen, redtalons, and skullasaurs. Through there are many more. The four nations are united in extinguishing these monsters for good.
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I'd recommend World Anvil as an online world building tool. It's great and looks really neat, but I'm not gonna lie, it's a bit tedious at times. It might work for you, it might not, I'm just pointing it out as an option.
As far as the actual process is concerned, I usually start with the layout of the world (using this as inspiration and using Inkarnate to draw maps) and zoom further into the detail (world - continent - country - region - city). Only go into as much detail as you think you'll need. I try to get to a point where, if someone asks me what's going on in a certain part of the world, I can answer them.
Somewhere in the early stages, I also develop ideas planes of existence and the pantheon, if such things exist in the world, but I don't go into detail, because usually, these don't come into play until late in the game. I also try to find some interesting ideas (places, people, species, monsters, conflicts) and build around them.
Good luck in your endeavor and have fun world building!
In addition to the other good suggestions, there are a few published campaigns, plus the Jihad Hotspot books all had Chaos Campaign tracks in them to follow along with the action.
If you want a story seed, Solaris VII was invaded by the Blakist and had an active antiBlakist insurgency that was made up of former gladiators, with a lot of infighting between rival resistance groups loyal to different houses. There’s a lot of potential there for fun action, and all your players really need to know is “You’re a freedom fighting gladiator, go beat up the mystical technofascists.”
If you need to make a map for a planet that doesn’t already have one, I suggest https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator.
Only sorta Dnd related but maybe someone can help. I found this cool website for making maps. https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
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And I want to save them with all those juicy details. But I don't have anything to open .map files. So does anyone know a free one?
A mag generator for anything from a small island with a single nation to complete multicontinental worlds: https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
It won't give you any DND related things, but once you have the map, you can plot things on it and dictate campaign locations.
I use it pretty often, and although my group doesn't use combat maps, I think you can still get some good use of it.
Also, if you want to join a DnD server on discord, here is a link: https://discord.gg/yx9VsyU
I mostly create my maps using the program paint.net and draw them from scratch but you could use campaign cartographer or dungeon painter but I think both cost money. There are plenty of online random ones such as my favorite: https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
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As for general worldbuilding advice, I like to start with either the overarching systems of the world, such as how the gods or other beings interact with the world, or with one smaller area and expand out. Another good way to approach it is just to draw a map and fill it in as you get ideas, then keep adding detail as you go.
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If you are creating a world for a D&D campaign, I would recommend that you build out an area for the players to explore that is more detailed but don't forget to put in the work so if they leave that area you will have at least an idea of what they could find. I find some of my best worldbuilding comes on the fly while I am actively GMing and need to fill in some blank or improvise.
Azgaar's lovely online map generator with a great subreddit: /r/FantasyMapGenerator/
For generating random maps of landmasses, Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator is pretty ideal. You can customize the random generator settings or edit specific maps. You can go ham and make it generate everything, including routes, populations, biomes, precipitation, etc but I like to make heightmaps with rivers and edit elsewhere.
Really happy with how this is going so far, and thought I'd share.
Tools used:
- Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator: Fiddled with some settings to get a land shape I liked, then modified the height map and world characteristics to generate a variety of biomes. Exported a handful of different views of that map as PNG files for later reference. I also leveraged the culture and state name generators in Azgaar's to help label all of the nations on this continent. I'm not *that* creative, so a quality name generator really helps.
- Wonderdraft: The easiest to pick up and use mapping tool I know of. Buying it has been one of the best decisions I've made for solving the problem of not being able to draw worth a damn while needing to create good-looking maps. By removing the coastal effects in Azgaar's generator and exporting the landmass, I was able to directly import the shape of the continent to Wonderdraft. Then all I had to do was refer to the heightmap for placing mountains, and pick and choose which of the randomly generated rivers I'd add myself. I also colored the terrain based on the biome Azgaar's came up with for each region of the map based on the settings I used.
My plan is to use this for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign (well, probably more than one) inspired by the setting of Pillars of Eternity. Some kind of Age of Sail meets Sword and Sorcery thing.
Honestly, being the DM takes a lot of preparation, but at the same time half of that preparation can go into the trash. Players have a way of making your plan go into disarray and derailing everything. It's a lot of on the spot thinking and many times the best way to do so would be to read a lot of books or stories set in the type of world your campaign is. Knowing how the world would react to different events is key.
When building the world, I would suggest possibly using a map generator. My favorite one is https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/. Then look through the world and decide possible types of culture and/or races for each country. Keep it simple, and honestly dont plan each country out too much, you may never actually use some of them. Decide the basics and let ideas come to you as you play.
The story is the hardest part. Honestly, most of my campaigns have just been me giving them some sort of event to push them into the world and letting them decide what to do, and then I know what to plan for the next session.
In addition to what everyone else said, I definitely advocate for a post it note next to you. I'm also ADD(i) and have the same issue of starting on one simple room and finding myself prepping the type of wood the table is made out of thirty minutes later. Plan firstly the major things you need to prep - for example: I know they are starting in this town but the npc is going to direct them to this other village. On the way, I want them to meet a traveling merchant and get attacked by monster x. Write out the big prep pieces on the post it - plot hook for npc to direct them to the next village, traveling merchant and stock, monster x encounter, finally the ending village location. Keep that post it note as close to your center of focus as possible so when you start getting in too deep with any one piece, pause, tick off one of the other major prep pieces, and then come back. Helped me significantly. That and donjon as others have mentioned. For maps, I love https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator for city maps and https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ for bigger region maps. Encounter maps I usually just find on Pinterest and only draw if I can't find anything I like. Keep that for last cause that's a easy way to trigger inattentiveness. Finally, like others mentioned, random tables are your friend - encounters, npc names, location names, ect. Even if you never use them, it'll make your life a lot easier knowing they are there.
Happy DMimg! Feel free to message me if you have any other questions!
Н утогда держи еще эту) Они вроде как от одного автора, но карта мира немного багнутая, бета все таки, но в целом прикольно, именно по ней в будущем хочу рисовтаь карту мира)
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
I mash the "new map" button in Azgaar's generator a few times ntil I see something I like, then use that as a guideline, messing with it a bunch to make it look less rectangular.
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
This generator is 100% more in deapth. It spawns a continent, countries. Overlays the cultures of thebworld sonyou can see where things have shifted and each toen thats placed you can click on, see a map of and if need be shift things around
here's another fun one for when you dont feel like figuring out where you want your countries and cities at
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A work in progress photo of my homebrew world of Terra
This map was made using azgaar's fantasy map maker which can be found here
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
Any feedback and constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.
I was in the same situation as you some time ago. I found Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator to be the great tool I've been looking for. Hope it helps you too. There also is a dedicated subreddit to the map generator, if you have any questions about it or bugs to report. Azgaar is working on it very hard, fixing bugs in the matter of hours and adding new content all the time.
VIsual aids are very beneficial. Ordinary maps are good. Political and territorial maps as well. The fantasy map generator by /u/Azgarr is very nice. In addition timelines mapped out with plot elements penciled in save a lot of time. If you have an idea about how your characters appear, use the information to look up somebody that has those characteristics. The same goes for animals. People who write westerns need to know what a horse looks like in detail if they are going to describe one, comedy writing excepted.
Here's google search for a naturally red haired swedish singer on a pink background.
I'm very new to worldbuilding, but one of the things that has got me quite excited about the world I am building currently, is creating the map. But it wasn't just creating the map, it was the site that I was using to create it. It's a map generator, where you can randomly generate a world map, but then you can manually edit it and build on it. It has allowed me to have a picture in my head of my world as I work on the actual worldbuilding. The map got me excited about my world. But maybe that's just me.
I thought I would give making a fantasy map a go, I used a tool called "Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator" (https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/)
it allows you to generate a map, and change countries, cultures and capital cities as well as other things. If you lack the artistic skills to make a map (like me) this is a fairly simple and fun alternative!
Made with Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
It's very simple and easy to use. This took me about 45 minutes including some minor additions (legend, compass, bridges, roads) in microsoft paint
My D&D 5e Character, Zorig Draltus, is from Emerald Falls, and my DM asked me to help with some content ideas for future quests. I gave him this map of my character's homeland along with my character's backstory.
Leave it incomplete. Look at ye olde maps prior to the 15th century
https://www.bl.uk/picturing-places/articles/world-maps-before-1400
https://www.bl.uk/picturing-places/articles/maps-of-the-15th-century
They're, rather shite. A general outline at best and entire continents missing. If you want realism, you want maps that have one area that's somewhat detailed... then the general outline... then 'here be dragons'
only in dnd, there might well actually be dragons there...
Here:
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
Continent 1 and 2, done, easy.
Now focus on the stuff that matters as master blue berry mentioned.
I used https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ for my term paper in international economics. :-)
PS: The Menu is confusing because it says new map when hovering over the > symbol in the top left corner, click it to get the actual menu with load / save and a ton of useful options.
And also, when updating images in Scrivener, I started by linking files but found it easier just to copy and paste the image each time. (Scrivener uses absolute file-paths, so all links to images fail when syncing with the IOS version or just moving to a different directory). I hope this will improve in future releases of Scrivener.
a proper balance is important. you can point out that you are trying to manage a game, not a full world.
but you should be ready to deal with a handful of situations. if you are not good at making stuff up on the fly, have a handful of key personnel that they are likely to come across. caption the the guard, receptionist for the mayer, the mayer, each shop owner. you don't need one for every town from the beginning. just have a handful so you can attach them to a town when it is called for.
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ go in to the settings and turn the number of places down by a lot. including units under to tools tab so that the distance between the fewer locations is reasonable.
here is a question. why would those people be interested in telling your player any personal information about themselves? why would every town have an interesting backstory?
a player asking if you have set some backstory or history or other interesting information if they know that the dm likes to make that sort of detail is fine. expecting a dm to do that is not fine.
I would use the svg as a standard image, apply a mask layer on top of it, then add tools to manipulate the image inside that bounding box. I had this problem when working for a video game website many years ago - Evolve was the game (I know it failed to meet expectations sorry it got me laid off) - and I remember there being a plugin which helped this - like a custom map solution. Hardest part was finding the right map plugin because the space is really crowded with boring Google map implementations.
Side note: while trying to find what I used, I came across this which is barely related but pretty neat!