How To Draw A Game Island Map

Have you ever came across a beautifully designed earth map (perhaps in a fantasy novel or RPG) and thought to yourself, "I want to exercise that for my D&D campaign"? If you're like me, y'all've excitedly grabbed a bare piece of paper and a pencil and gotten straight to work on your masterpiece. Later on an hour or so of diligent work y'all take a pace dorsum and. . . fuck. Somewhere along the line things got a scrap jumbled up between 'thinking information technology' and actually 'doing it'.

Frustrated from my own struggle, I decided to put together How to Make a D&D Globe Map: A Non-Artist's Guide. This multi-serial post will walk you through the basics: from choosing the shape of the land and placing terrain features, to placing cities and establishing "end-game" cloth for your party to piece of work towards, every bit well as converting your earth map to a digital copy.

How to Make a D&D World Map: A Not-Artist's Guide

Part i: Introduction & The Lay of the State (you are hither)

Why Brand a D&D World Map?

Software Options

Full general Shape of Landmass

Large Bodies of Water

Terrain Features

Role two: Civilizations & Regions

Office 3: Roads, Transportation, & Unique Features

Part 4: From Paper to PDF

By the end of Function 1, yous'll have created a map similar to this one:

Why Make a D&D World Map?

There's a handful of reason that yous might want to brand a world map for your D&D campaign. 1 reason to brand a world map is so that you can give a copy of the map to the players in your party. I know when I'm a player I admittedly beloved getting physical items, particularly maps. This gives your players something to huddle around (err… stay 6ft apart) and programme out some of their bigger upcoming moves for the campaign. Having admission to a world map is especially benign if the campaign is existence ran in an "open-world, sandbox exploration" style.

Another reason that you should make a D&D world map is considering the process will improve your worldbuilding skills, both in general and for the specific campaign. As civilizations are being placed, for example, information technology might go clear why 2 kingdoms are at war (proximity to resources, limited room for expansion, etc). Additionally, having a map volition brand your world feel much more complete and physical than if you didn't have an established map. It volition give the illusion of a fully developed world, while in reality you may merely have a sentence or two description for each area (until players start heading there, that is).

Above all else, you should make a map if yous enjoy it. I'thou a big believer that the purpose of TTRPGs is to get a break from the real world and accept some fun. The purpose of tangential hobbies (miniature painting, worldbuilding, map making, terrain crafting) is also to have fun! I detect the act of 'creating' by itself is enjoyable, rewarding, and relaxing. Don't feel like you need to limit yourself to only creating maps that will get used. After all, the more than practice the better!

A Quick Note

Equally the proper noun of this series suggests, this post will be geared towards people like myself who are only mildly creative. Maps created by following this guide will probably not exist beautiful or realistic. However theyvolition give players a sense of the globe they're exploring, and that is the chief goal nosotros'll be trying to attain here. Aesthetics and realism will come with continued do and constructive criticism. Consider this guide a jumping-off indicate for your map making endeavors.

Software Options

Although the rest of this guide will focus on how to make a D&D world map past hand, I feel that it's important to give a run-down of different software options that tin be used to create maps. As a fellow non-artist, you lot may feel pulled towards using software and so that your maps are polished and professional looking. There's admittedly naught wrong with that, and in-fact I'd encourage you to use the software rather than not accept a map at all. The major do good is that you can create high quality maps for your D&D entrada settings, without much artistic power of your own. The downside is that you may be limited by the software itself and the learning curve associated with information technology. Additionally, maps made through software will share aesthetic styles with maps from other users, but this isn't a bargain-breaker for most people.

Inkarnate

Example map made with Inkarnate. Image obtained from https://inkarnate.com/#gallery

Inkarnate is probably the near popular map creation tool used across the internet. There is a costless version, too every bit two different paid versions (Pro version is only $25/year). This tool can be used to create world maps, regional maps, town maps, and battle maps. Check information technology out for yourself atinkarnate.com and be sure to head over tor/inkarnate.

Donjon Fantasy World Generator

Case of a Donjon generated map. Image created using https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/world/

Dammnnnn Donjon, back at information technology again with the useful DM tools! Seriously if you haven't e'er used their site, become bank check information technology out. There's loads of useful generators and tools for both new and experienced Dungeon Masters. Specifically, today, I'1000 talking nearly their Fantasy Globe Generator. This free tool gives you a hex-grid earth map filled with cities, ruins, and features of the land. Give it a try andcreate a earth map here!

Worldographer

Example of a D&D globe map created with Worldographer. Image obtained from http://worldographer.com/examples/examples-world-kingdom-maps/

Worldographer falls in-between Inkarnate and Donjon's generator, with the power to sculpt and create your own maps but maintaining the hex-grid aesthetics. There is a free version available to try, as well every bit the total version which can exist purchased for a one-time fee of $30 (check it out here). I honestly haven't used this program earlier, but information technology ofttimes came up as a proffer when I was doing some searching so I figured I'd include it.

Speaking of searching, feel complimentary to expect around (ie: Google) if you lot're assault using software to build your D&D world map. For at present, though, I'll be proceeding to the principal outcome.

General Shape of Landmass

First things get-go, grab yourself a bare slice of newspaper and some writing utensils 'cause we're about to go onetime-school! I'll exist using blank printer paper and pens/markers, just feel free to use any you prefer. Just keep in listen that in Part 4 of this series, we'll be converting your D&D earth map into a digital format (ie: using dark crisp lines volition brand this process easier).

Second things 2nd (as they say…), you're going to want to determine the general shape of the landmasses that will be on your map. There'south no right or incorrect way to exercise this. If y'all already accept an idea in mind, perfect! Don't worry if not; I'll lay out a couple of dissimilar options to get the creative juices flowing.

Moving forwards, it can be useful to have a moment to consider "how yous want the world map to wait", geographically speaking. Do you want a single large landmass surrounded by vast oceans, a few medium sized continents, or maybe your globe is primarily an archipelago of small-scale isle bondage? It really just depends what y'all're trying to build!

Method A: Tiny Objects

This method is great for brainstorming, as it allows you lot to play with the shape of your world without locking anything in place. Substantially accept a agglomeration of tiny objects (aspirin, dry beans, elbow noodles, skittles, etc) and dump them onto your paper.

Motility them effectually until you're satisfied with how the world looks. It's easy to make modest changes, or add and remove islands as you see fit. Once yous're feeling comfy, trace the outline of your landmasses and remove the tiny objects.

Method B: Stains

This method utilizes stains as the primary shape of state in your world. These stains tin come from annihilation really. For example: grease stains on a pizza box, java stains on a napkin, or h2o stains from a leaky pipe. Once you've picked out your stain of selection, try to recreate its shape to the all-time of your ability on the blank piece of paper. Every bit you're doing this, experience free to change annihilation that you lot encounter fit. Remove a splatter here, add a peninsula in that location. Any feels skillful!

Method C: Real Life Inspiration

By using this method, you volition be taking regions of places from real life and reshaping, resizing, and rearranging them to make your D&D globe map. You wouldn't be the first to do this! The unlike regions in Pokemon games equally well as Westeros from Game of Thrones are (supposedly) based off of existent-earth regions. Selection somewhere with a coastline that you lot like and change the perspective a chip until it's unrecognizable as the original location.

Method D: Signature Outline

This is the method that I'll be using equally we go on through this guide. Substantially y'all will be tracing the outline of your own signature. Of course, you will only exist able to generate a single world map using your signature. However if you similar this method, yous can always write out short phrases or words in cursive an reach the same effect.

To brainstorm, start past largely signing your proper noun on the blank piece of newspaper. Be sure to fill up at least 60-70% of the page. Adjacent, trace the outline of your signature. This shouldn't be a super precise outline, as we don't desire the continents to be recognizable as your signature.

You may want to add in an island or create a suspension betwixt some of the letters in your proper noun. One time yous're satisfied with how the outline looks, trace over it with anighttimemarker. The reason for doing this is that we'll be overlaying a blank slice of newspaper over your outline and retracing information technology. This gives us the outline (now the shape of the lands), without having to worry about erasing your actual signature.

Large Bodies of H2o

The side by side step will be to add together in some large bodies of water. Primarily, this includes whatsoever big lakes as well every bit filling in the surrounding bounding main. Keep in mind that this is aworld map, then information technology doesn't necessarily have to include every single lake that exists within your realm. Feel gratuitous to exclude some smaller lakes from this map; those belong on smaller, regional, maps.

I don't have whatever specific tips on where to place lakes. Honestly I just picked a couple of dissimilar places and drew a small oval-y shape at that place. I chose to fill in the lakes slightly with a pencil to make them stand up out from the land. However, in the end any of the coloring (and honestly most of the details) that we do in this footstep won't matter since in Part 4 nosotros will be touching-up the map with Photoshop.

Next, yous'll want to begin shading in the body of water that surrounds your continents. Begin past lightly shading around the shoreline, and as you get further from the shoreline make the shade a bit darker (deeper water = darker). Over again, this is mostly functioning equally a placeholder until we get to the final section of this guide.

Terrain Features

Finally, you desire to add some terrain features to your D&D world map. You want the players to take an idea of what the earth is all near, afterward all. I'm going to be showing you how to use a few very basic symbols to correspond different climates and features of the land.

Hills/Grasslands
Forests (trees)
Mountains
Deserts

When adding in these features, less is more than! Remember that we're non going for a realistic await, but rather just a representation of what's there. 3-v trees may represent a medium sized woods, while 7-10 trees could stand for a giant woods. Additionally, be sure y'all don't fill up the entire map! Exist sure to leave plenty of bare white infinite. We nevertheless have a lot of things that we'll be adding later on; this is only office one after all!

Hills/Grasslands

Hills tin be represented by trivial 'bumps' actualization in the land

Forests (trees)

I use three different types of copse in my maps to represent different climates and ecosystems: pine, palm, and (possibly) maple. You can make these as complicated as you lot'd like, but I prefer to proceed them relatively simple since they'll be pretty pocket-size on the world map.

Mountains

To brand mountains, I commencement off past making a single peak (/\). Then, create another full peak slightly to the correct of it (/\ /\). In-betwixt these ii peaks, draw two smaller peaks (/\^^/\). At present, for each summit describe a jagged line from the summit to the base. Color in i half of the mountain face for each acme, just exist sure to color in the same one-half every time (always the correct, or always the left). This volition requite your mountains a bit of depth, while still being very simple and easy to draw.

Deserts

When adding deserts to your map, consider using a elementary cactus and a tumbleweed. In Part 4, these areas will likewise be differentiated by adding in a sand colored background.

Now all that's left to practise is put it all together and add together some of these symbols onto your map. I mostly put things around sporadically where e'er it "feels right". It might not exist the best theory, only I've yet to have any players mutter about map details breaking immersion.