Fantasy Maps

[thescaryworker]

Post and discuss and fantasy maps (be they from Civ, other games, the internet, or your own)

Inspired by the Altered Maps thread.

Here are a few maps of a "world" that I created recently. I call it Tanriac. I've been playing with it for a few months, and am contemplating writing a book that takes place in it.

EDIT: Let's keep this thread for non-earth maps. Altered earth maps already has a thread. (see above link)

Satellite:

Spoiler :

Made in Vue 6 Infinite:

Self explanatory.

This is the original picture that I made the other maps from.

Continental:

Spoiler :

The continents (white), subcontinents (blue), and large islands (purple)

Mixed:

Spoiler :

This picture has a lot in it.
- Cities (colored dots) In order from smallest to largest by population: orange, green, blue, purple.
- Water trade routes (dashed white lines) The thicker the line, the more active the route.
- Country borders (thick pinkish purple brown lines)
- Country names
- Satellite terrain
- Rivers
- Roads (continuous white lines) The thicker the line, the more active it is
- Mountains
- Hills

Political:

Spoiler :

Note the differences between this and the Mixed map. Old & New Adon are one country. Anything simply labeled as "K.C.S." on the mixed map is under the rule of the "W" or "E" K.C.S. faction that is closest to it.

The names that go with the abbreviations:

Spoiler :

K.C.S. = Kodol City States (W = West; E = East)
R.A.S. = Royal Allied States
C.T.S. = Confederacy of Tribal States

If you want to know anything about the history of this world, just ask.

 

[TheLastOne36]

How did you make the maps?

 

[Stevenpfo]

What did you use to make the satellite map? I used to enjoy making fantasy worlds. No idea why. It was just fun to me.

 

[Perfection]

MY WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111!!!11oeneoneoenejdkrgsdfgsdk fgnjsldkfjg lserjg,wqn rjg k.ae gfae

World name: Awesometopia
Time: Forever and a day

*Note Only one side visable because the other side coincidentally bears strong resemblance to a naked woman using vegatables for something other then a salad.

History of world: One fine day there was a freakin' huge supernova and it like caused stuff to condense or coalece or one of those sciency things. Anywhoo like this world came out of it, and then for some odd reason humans ended up on it and one of its moons.

---NATIONS---
GDR -
Population: A lot!
Government: Crappy communist thing
Army Size: huge (at least according to the propoganda)
Army Quality: Who knows
Economy: craptastic
Biggest Threat: Falling apart
History: A bunch of people started hearing about how awesome GDRs are but they didn't know that GDR meant "Giant Death Robot" not a backwards soviet satalite state.

Banana wax pepper -
Population: None
Government: None
Army Size: None
Army Quality: N/A
Economy: Spicy
Biggest Threat: being turned into salsa
History: Not an actual nation just a huge pepper grown out of control.

We're not gay but we really like pink-land -
Population: 1,000,000,000 manly macho men
Government: Rule by the man
Army Size: Huge like our...
Army Quality: Pure kicking ass
Economy: Excellent, especially in the houseweres department
Biggest Threat: Raging self-loathing
History: To be perfectly honest, noone knows how the hell this travesty came to pass

S-Land -
Population: 1 guy, but he's really long and skinny
Government: dude, it's just a guy
Army Size: 1 guy
Army Quality: long and skinny
Economy: Pretty decent for just one guy
Biggest Threat: a bunch of short fat guys
History: There once was a guy who wanted a nation that was long and skinny as he was so they gave him a nation 7 feet long. He turned this into a tax haven made a bajillion dollars and hired a mercanary army to claim him some more space.

Silver Coast -
Population: one less then the Gold Coast
Government: slightly inferior to the Gold Coast
Army Size: one man smaller then the Gold Coast
Army Quality: slightly untertained compared to the Gold Coast
Economy: one less dollar of GDP then the Gold Coast
Biggest Threat: noone taking them seriously because the Gold Coast is slightly better at everything
History: They declared independance just one day after the Gold Coast

I'll tell more tales of the other nations later

 

[Annex]

What is spacalm? It looks like a blob of tapioca pudding. In space.

 

[Perfection]

It's a Space almond.

 

[mangxema]

Can't entirely take credit for this myself, but here's the map from the aborted Model Parliament I was working on...

Spoiler :

 

[thescaryworker]

How did you make the maps?

I used Vue 6 Infinite for the original satellite photo, and later did the other maps using powerpoint.

Vue is basically a 3D art program.

For Vue 6, I:
1. Created a hollow sphere, with the camera and a point light in the center.
2. Created a texture that followed a 3D Perlin fractal. To get the texture to look "right", it took me about 8 hours.
3. Rendered a spherical image to get the distortions on the poles.

There were probably easier ways to go about doing this, though because I did this the extremely hard way I can create trillions of unique worlds from the same equations. For example:

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Note how these all look similar, but different enough to be told apart. Because I used equations, each map can be denoted by a point in space. These maps have a progression because they are close together in the equation. The original map was (0,0,0), while these are (0,1,0), (0,2,0), etc.. I can create a new map by just entering in new coordinates. I can also change landmass size and frequency by changing different aspects of the fractal's equation.

 

[thescaryworker]

Other "types" of worlds possible with the equations I use:

Pangaea:

Spoiler :

Archipelago:

Spoiler :

Tiny Islands:

Spoiler :

Well, the quest event to "settle on 100 landmasses" shouldn't be that hard ...

What happens when the worlds are mapped with the "West" and "East" poles at the top and bottom instead of North and South:

Spoiler :

Note that this is the same exact map as the one under Pangaea above. The distortions are due to the exaggerated stretching of maps near poles.

What a world actually looks like when mapped onto a sphere.

Spoiler :

This is a different world than the ones above (they did not map well).

Also, note that "trillions" was a gross underestimation ...

 

[North King]

Maps are just about the coolest things ever...

It's the current political map for my NES (link in sig). It's neither my best or most interesting map, but it's the one that's most easily linked to right now.

My better maps tend to be hand-drawn, but those are rather hard to get onto the internet, since I'm lacking a scanner.

EDIT: Here's a simpler version:

 

[scherbchen]

Post and discuss and fantasy maps (be they from Civ, other games, the internet, or your own)

Inspired by the Altered Maps thread.

Here are a few maps of a "world" that I created recently. I call it Tanriac. I've been playing with it for a few months, and am contemplating writing a book that takes place in it.

are you contemplating because you have always been contemplating or does the map inspire you in some way? meaning: do you think you have a book in you and were just looking for geography or did something else in your brain fire when you made that map?

 

[Winner]

Other "types" of worlds possible with the equations I use:

Also, note that "trillions" was a gross underestimation ...

The shape is OK, but where are the deserts, mountains, rainforests, steppes etc.?


It's the thing I like the most about making my own "fantasy" (or should I say sci-fi?) maps. I try to simulate the sea currents, air flows, glaciation etc. to produce a plausible climate maps.

 

[LightFang]

Here's Daftpanzer's map (it's from an NES). It shows the alliances before the long-awaited paradigm-shifting WORLD WAR!!!!

Spoiler :

Key:

DARK BLUE = Countries that have publicly announced their neutrality in recent conflicts, at least for now...

CYAN/AQUA/TEAL = The Furotocas, the Tezan Empire, the Xanto/Panto, and friends. Or at least most of them, since some have declared neutrality. (this alliance needs a suitable name)

BRIGHT RED = The Aarut-Varakan alliance and their allies involved in the immediate fighting. (this alliance also needs a name)

BRIGHT GREEN = the Triple Alliance of Tiandishi, Yanshi and Huiyan, as well as their dependent territories.

DARK RED = Theoretical allies of the Aarut and Varaka, but ones not yet directly involved against the Furotocas.

DARK YELLOW = Countries with an ambiguous stance towards the main alliances, since they probably have several enemies, or have internal divisions which prevent them from joining any major alliances.

Here's that map without the alliances so you can appreciate the countries better.

Spoiler :

And I'm controlling the Tiandishi Empire! A veritable heir to the empires of old in East Asia, it's technologically a bit behind , but it makes up for it with a huge populace.

 

[Dachs]

That is an Altered Map, not a Fantasy Map.

 

[LightFang]

That is an Altered Map, not a Fantasy Map.

It's fantasy in the sense that it's made up.

Isn't it?

Or are we talking like, elves and wizards and stuff?

 

[Dachs]

It's fantasy in the sense that it's made up.

Isn't it?

Or are we talking like, elves and wizards and stuff?

This is for non-Earth maps. That is Earth. Hence, it does not qualify.

 

[Tee Kay]

This is for non-Earth maps. That is Earth. Hence, it does not qualify.

Doesn't say so in the OP though.

I've been working on some of these myself. Might upload it someday.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Here's a map I spend many many hours on.

Night has fallen and the foul are aboad, the bloody sword of battle brings death in the domain of ...

And the squary one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Midnight

He stands at the tower of the Moon, looking North to the downs of Shadows.
It is dawn and Ziggy is utterly invigorated. The Ice Fear is quite cold. Ziggy is utterly bold.

He thinks again ...

 

[thescaryworker]

are you contemplating because you have always been contemplating or does the map inspire you in some way? meaning: do you think you have a book in you and were just looking for geography or did something else in your brain fire when you made that map?

I think I have a book and just needed geography.

 

[thescaryworker]

The shape is OK, but where are the deserts, mountains, rainforests, steppes etc.?

Working on it. The current texture for land is a placeholder. I've been working on a better texture for some time now, but it will take me a few weeks to get it right.