Oh yeah, and I'm thinking about swapping the two deserts around. The Samaan Desert is supposed to be a North American-style desert, while the other one is meant to be an Egyptian-style desert.

Nice middle earth you got there, shithead

Color... I can't even tell when and where the deserts starts and ends.

City names might be nice too. Maybe even borders.

city names, scrap the colour and make it black and white or some dump in some faded parchment underlay or something

More lakes and rivers. Ripple up the map a bit with details.

City names:
*Sorrow hill
*Tangore
*Lysserof
*High wind, City of silkweavers

MY EYES

GREEN IS RAPING MY EYESOCKETS

MAKE IT STOP

Better names. Aside from Sal Zastra and Saman Desert I find myself cringing at them.

GET OUT OF HERE TOLKEIN

Use something that isn't MS Paint, dumbass.

>>6534933

>>6534933

Beat me too it.

Less mordor ripoffs would make your maps more believable. Also, go get Campaign Cartographer. Even without putting a ton of time going past the 'novice' plateau and climbing the sheer difficulty cliff ('curve' doesn't describe it) to 'advanced user', you can make some very good looking maps.

If you are already using CC, as the coastlines look similar to how it is made, simple things like using colors to represent the desert, swamps, wastelands, etc.

For less shit from the ground up, read some descriptions on how land features are formed ala tectonic plates and such. Your mountain ranges are illogical.

http://forum.cartographersguild.com/forumdisplay.php?f=48

Don't forget to download photoshop or gimp or something.

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=854

On names in campaigns....

>>6535068
>Campaign Cartographer
http://www.profantasy.com/products/bundle.asp
Wow for only $571 look what I can own!

The Middle-Earth Ripoff is intentional

>>6535035
/tg/ are the ones who came up with the names in the first place.

>>6535048
Used AutoRealm. But yeah, it is the shitty MS Paint of mapping programs

>>6535068
I'd like to, but that shit costs money I don't have.

>>6535098

Then go find it on a torrent or /rs/. Frankly I think they overcharge for the fucking thing anyway. 50 bucks for just campaign cartographer? And they don't even provide helpful tutorials.

>>6535098
>/tg/ made the names in the first place

Doesnt mean they don't suck and are shit. Just means that some of us idiots had a hand in it.

>>6535123
it also means WE HAVE ONLY OURSELVES TO BLAME

Firstly, what's the scale? Some features like forests are really only visible on smaller (map of Middle Earth scale rather than map of continental USA scale).

General tips:
- use a paler green for the base colour, it's easier on the eyes and looks more neutral (for plains etc. as well as arable land)
- think a little on names. Try and keep them cohesive for particular nations and cultures unless you have a reason for them to be different (last bastion of an old empire, named after an eccentric noble etc).
- assuming the world is like earth, put the forests to the west of mountain ranges (or the side closes to the non-east coasts) as that is where the rain usually falls. Similarly, that's where the rivers usually run. Mess with this rule if you want, but be sure to have a reason such as magical wastelands in case you get a smart-arse geography major as a player.
- unless they are very new or in a region that is particularly dangerous or low in resources most nations will spread as far as they can. This is a good source of conflict. Again, break this rule if you want, but have reasons in case people ask (disasters or wars depleting population are common fantasy tropes).
- settlements should be along rivers, lakes or the coast. If none of these are available, there should be a reason why they are where they are (they are on a trade road, there used to be a river there that dried up, they grew up around a fortress etc).

>>6535098

Alright then, pen and paper map, black and white, obviously, you draw it by hand. Once you're satisfied with your job, scan it, apply a sepia filter.

first of all, get http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9wk5ugqy.
It's a million times better than the shit you're using now and comes with tutorials.

>>6535134
The map is supposed to be an entire continent, which is why only the major rivers and cities are shown.

Going to try mixing the colours up a bit.
The names of each country contain the name of the ruling god. Which is why the all sound so retarded.
Pretty much everything east of the central mountain range is a desert, so that seems to be kind of covered. And most of the rivers flow west too.
All the countries pretty much get along. Except for those assholes in the southeast in the swamps and blatant mordor.
The settlements are supposed to be on the coastline of river nearest to them. Except for the onesi n the middle of the deserts, one of which is a major mining city, and the other is built around a cluster of oasises. And of course the mordor city in the middle of mordor, they get their water from aqueducts.

>>6535152
>Fractal Mapper v8

ok that looks totally awesome I am so re-making the map in that

>>6534919
- Think of the culture you want your setting to emulate
- Find out the placenames that culture uses
- Steal them outright

- Watch nobody care

Why does every fantasy world look like Middle Earth somehow?

Did someone say

map?

>>6536243

Because of one continent with a designated EVIL AREA.

>>6536269
I like what you did to goatse.

Hey /tg/, please suggest how I make my map less shit.

Also, suggestions for cat names would be accepted.

>>6536330

Add more penguin lands and make penguins the overlord race.

>>6536313

... I don't see it.

>>6536346
Yeah, they're already doing that...

>>6535134
truthathon 4k

>>6536330
Why did I think Ginormo Sword?

... But feel free to add some of that.

Problem with Fractal Mapper, at the least the version posted here, it that it gives an error when trying to Save/Load. Yay.

>>6536625
And now it doesn't. What the fuck this program

Thread hijack, but how do /tg/ feel about the following scenario:

A setting where the planet it takes place on isn't wider than it's high/tall (high/tall being the pole-to-pole axis) like our earth is, but instead taller than it's wide. Maybe I'm stupid or something, but I figure this would result in the poles being the hotspots of the planet, because they would be the closest to the star the planet orbits and the equator would instead be a belt of ice and snow. Keep in mind this is a fantasy-esque setting so some suspension of belief should be warranted. Or is it just too big a leap?

>>6536243

The ocean is always to the west, with the east of the map just leading to more lands (like Europe). The mountain ranges seem to just be lines drawn in the middle of nowhere, with no rhyme or reason as to why the mountains are there. There is a area of wasteland that is totally encircled by mountains, with volcanoes in it. In the upper right of the map there is a mountain which, mysteriously, seems to be there in absence of any other peaks nearby. There is also an area of swamp or corrupted land right next to aforementioned evil wasteland.

Apply this to whatever fantasy stories you can think of. I was thinking of this, LoTR and one other. See if you can guess what it is!

>>6536708
That makes no sense at all. The equator is still closest to the star.

Unless you make it really fucking stretched, and then you're going to have gravity problems and an arctic that moves from one side of the planet to the other every half year

>>6536708

In order to be like that, the planet would have to be rotating along a 90 degree axis as to what we are used to.

in such a case, I dont think the north/south poles would be cold, instead I think the bands of heat/cold areas would just run east/west. I'm not sure how it would change things magnetically, though so I'm not 100%

>A setting where the planet it takes place on isn't wider than it's high/tall (high/tall being the pole-to-pole axis) like our earth is, but instead taller than it's wide. Maybe I'm stupid or something

>the world is flat

>Maybe I'm stupid or something

>>6536724

There's _a bit_ of that in WHFB, I guess, but that's more of a fantasy-ised world map.

I guess Myth II's map was a bit like that.

1. Take your landmass
2. Cut it into seventeen pieces
3. ?????
4. Rearrange!

>>6536756
>>the world is flat
That is not what I said.

Here's a suggestion: a planet that's temperate at the poles, and fatally hot deserts at the equator.

Go to the Cartographers Guild website:
>http://www.cartographersguild.com/

Sign up for a forum account, and browse the various boards for inspiration and tips.

Look at tutorials for different mapping styles, get some art programs, and experiment with them.

It's easily one of the best sites for this kind of thing.

>>6536778

Maybe, but you also said "I figure this would result in the poles being the hotspots of the planet, because they would be the closest to the star the planet orbits"

unless you can somehow bend time and space to ridiculous degree, there's no way in hades that can occur.

>>6536795
That could work, since what I'm after is basically having the planet being split in two parts that has basically never been in contact, except some legendary tales that everyone think is just fairy tales (and maybe they are).

But still, huge icebergs blocking the path feels more inaccessible than vast deserts for some reason. Unless maybe they're so hot as to actually fucking burn. But that's over the top in reverse, I'd think.

>>6536795

In one homebrew I made once, I did the opposite, it's a world kinda just coming out of an ice age a millenium or so ago. So the equator is temperate the rest of the world is chilly and once you get anywhere near the poles, there are vast Arctic deserts stretching for miles and miles.

These kind of things are very small simple changes which really make your world feel VERY non-Earth-like

>>6534919

Have an island suspiciously shaped like a penis.

See how long it takes for your players to take notice and how soon they decide to investigate

>>6536832
Well I see what you mean, but I guess if the planet would rotate differently somehow, maybe it could work? Looking into something right now that might lead to something...

>>6536795
>Here's a suggestion: a planet that's temperate at the poles, and fatally hot deserts at the equator

>>6536867

Fun fact: even at glacial/ice age highs, the equator stays at about the same temperature.

>>6536884
Khrak is burning.

>>6536855

If you dont mind going over the top? Do what I do and just crank this harsh weather up to 11. The desert is not only extremely hot then extremely cold, there is no moisture, at all and the desert is HUGE. Alos, wind is your friend, have massive storms constantly swirling around the equator, storms that never let up and never stop. This also helps because you can manage this approach without making the whole equator covered in land mass or ice. If you try to sail south, you reach horrible ship-annihilating storms with waves hundreds of feet high and constant lightning, rain and other shit.

This can also be used to influence the culture of your world, this kind of natural force can easily be the focus of countless myths and legends.

>>6536900

Well, yeah... but man, science is all well and good, but sometimes you have to just go with artistic licence.

Also I just bullshit this with any players who ask by explaining massive cloud cover cause by a meteor impact. And, if I have to, I just say that the planet is further away from the sun than earth and there's less CO2

Hrm, I looked into alternative axial tilts, like that of Uranus, but it seems they still have cold poles and a warm belt, it's just all tilted. Meh, could have worked.

any smar/tg/uys have any better solutions?

>>6536928
and inevitably the equator is where the most fertile land, the best recourses and the tastiest animals are

>>6536917
Khrk s brnng.

Okay, maybe no one cares anymore, but how about this? Say the planet in question is orbiting around a huge, huge star. So huge, in fact, that it has even trapped a far smaller star in orbit around it. This might fuck up physics real bad, but bear with me (or not). Say our hypothetical planet was initially a frozen wasteland, now it's trapped in perfect sync between the two stars. So far so good (eh). Now this is where I hit dilemma. So should I apply some really, really sketchy form of rotation, basically I think it would have to rotate in several directions, so that two polarly opposed spots gets the most sunlight and in the middle there's a cold arctic belt, or is the planet being tidally locked a better explanation? The problem is I still want night/day cycles (though they would be very alien to ours).

Fixed that faggy LotR map for you bro

sick so i gave up before i got to the mountains, but i can fill them in later if you -really- want.

I made a messy sketch
>>6537257

Could work like this. I hope the picture is clear enough, but at the moment I don't feel like my English is up to explaining it.

>>6537400

That looks exactly like what I want, but everything is not clear. Please at least try me. I can be understanding when I really want to.

>>6537364
thats disturbingly better than the one i've been working on in fractal mapper

also note to self, never use the built in export to jpeg again. my god, the artifacting!

rolled 1, 4, 3, 5, 3, 6, 6, 3, 6, 3, 5, 3, 1, 5, 5, 4, 3, 3, 6, 5 = 80

>>6537257
If the planet is orbitting in between two stars, one of which orbits around the same inner star, then there wouldn't be a day/night cycle. More likely a day/twilight cycle if the planet rotates on axes that are somewhat perpendicular to its orbit. Think of summer on the north pole.

>>6537433
drew it by hand with a tablet.

it'd look better in ink and watercolors, but the thread'd be gone before i was finished.

shame i didnt get the details down

>>6537478
that would explain it.

its a pity my hands are more jittery than a crack addict's, making anything i draw by hand look like shit

>>6537456
Well that is kinda-sorta the point. But because the planet is actually close to two stars, it'd have to be alot farther away from each than earth is from the sun not to be roasted, so the light that does hit this planet would be fainter than what we are used to. Maybe, I could be missing something here. At least maybe that means twilight there would a lot darker than our twilight, albeit not as bad as our nights.

rolled 4, 2, 3, 1, 3, 6, 6, 4, 6, 1, 5, 4, 1, 1, 4, 1, 2, 6, 3, 5 = 68

>>6537517
Yes, the light would be fainter, and the twilight could be darker than our twilight (I doubt it though), but the difference between the planets' normal daylight and twilight would be very small, because it has a light to light twilight instead of our light to dark twilight.

Organisms on that planet would most likely have adapted to (using earths rotation of 24 hours/day with about 8 hours or required sleep) sleeping around twilight, for 4 hours or something like that, and they'd have basically 2 days in one full rotation of their planet.

>>6537400
better sketch

The planets rotation axis spins around a straight line between the two stars (M1-M2 line).

>>6537456
It depends on the angle of the axis if the angle Alpha and radius r increase in size nighttimes increase.

>>6537517
>>6537691

That could be the result but remember stars can also have different luminosities.

rolled 4, 2, 2, 6, 6, 6, 6, 4, 1, 4, 2, 5, 3, 6, 4, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3 = 74

>>6537692
>It depends on the angle of the axis if the angle Alpha and radius r increase in size nighttimes increase.
What night times? It will never become night when you're right in between two suns. In that new sketch only the blue bands would see some form of twilight. Perhaps cloud cover could do something, but I know none of that.

>>6537795
Of course, I forgot about differing luminosities. The darkness of twilight would still be minor to a full day/night cycle. Temperatures would be more stable, though lower due to the larger distance from the sun(s).

Darn it /tg/, now I wish to see someone simulate what would happen in our universe if such a solar system existed. I know we know off binary stars, but stars orbiting stars with planets in between them...

>>6537847

Ah see it now, you are right, I forgot the sun on the other side, shame on me.

Also if both stars have different luminosities the two halfs could be wildly different which provides many adventure hooks.

Bump, also requesting any smar/tg/uys to report in here. Imma try my hands at some SCIENCE.

So, regarding this seemingly impossible hypothetical planet...
I was thinking if the primary star would be a blue star and not that much larger than our sun, say 3 solar masses. Given this increase in luminosity and temperature, my estimate is this planet would have to be as far out as Neptune, and that is giving it some leeway for another smaller star on the "other side" of the planet. This star would have to be smaller, let's say 0,5 solar masses, and for it to not heat up the planet far too much, let's say it's a much colder red star. I'd say this is believable enough.

>>6537993 cont'd
Now, as for rotation. For simplicity, say the revolving speed for the planet and the secondary star match each other relatively to their distance to the primary star, meaning the secondary star will never outrun or lag behind the planet. Now, let's take three directions in which this planet could rotate. X, Y and Z. X rotation would mean it rotates like most planets in our planet system rotates, that is along the "up/down" axis. Y rotation would be rotating like Uranus does, along an imaginary axis going from the primary star to the secondary. Imagine it's a ball rolling along it's path of orbit. Finally Z rotation would be rotation along an imaginary axis that goes parallel with the path of orbit. Imagine it as a ball that would be rolling towards the sun (yet eternally fixed in position).

Now, for the desired climate to occur (Two hot spot poles with the equator being an arctic belt), I gather the planet would have to revolve around two of these rotations and at differing speeds. As far as I can tell, it seems if it rotated at Y rotation, we'd get that, but at the cost of night/day cycles. Now, say that this Y rotation is the trice, or more, the speed that Earth rotates. If we also had a secondary rotation along the Z axis, and that speed would be the same speed that Earth rotates, then we would get a night day cycle, yet the planet will get the most sunlight at these two spots.

I have no idea how this would affect global magnetic fields or tides however.

>>6538005

We need the axis to spin around so there can't be a moon that stabilizes the axis like it is on earth, right?

With no moon to influens tides there wouldn't be any recognisable. Maybe constant high tide on the poles because of the suns but nothing that is important for the setting.

As for the magnetic field, it originates from the poles, which are orientated towards the suns, so the planet would get his fair share of solar wind and north lights would be visible from the most inhabited parts of the world.

Thus the poles could be the "evil" areas with the cosmic radiation having negativ effects on the resident lifeforms.

Take alot of ritalin

Also stop ripping off Tolkien

>>6538206
Holy fuck awesome. By the poles I assume you are referring to the hot spots in this case? I was already thinking of making them fuck as all fuck hot, at least at the very, very middle of it. Like ever lasting burning lava hot. Add radiation to that and you literally have hell on earth!

Also, what other cosmic phenomenon are there out there that would make this planet a more awesome setting? I know you could lessen the effect of a sun by a lot by having it be in a cosmic cloud of dust.

bump for awesome smar/tg/uys thread

I like this hypothetical planet of our's.

>>6538274
Yes I meant the hot spots.

Well gas clouds would only lessen the luminosity I think, but it would certainly make a quite interesting night sky. The red sun would optically blend a bit in this gas cloud, giving the colder half of the planet this diffus red cloud with a more intensiv core as light source. On this half the glaciers of the polar regions would reflect red light, must be spooky for adventurers of the hotter half, this red twilight.

cosmic phenomenon...

I said there would be no moon before, but maybe there cold be also a moon, this place is already so improbable, that a improbable moon couldnt realy hurt. It's a question of the style and flavor.

But back to the moon, the moon would be -like the planet- totally stationary and in line with the planet and the sun, there could be a everlasting solar eclipse.

But maybe that's overdoing it. Just messing around a bit more.

archived for awesome
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/6534919/

>>6538439
Fuck awesome! Not that I think the light would be that RED. Oh, except at sunrise/-set, and I guess that's when this would apply. So yeah. But there'd be distinct difference between day1 and day2.

Also, what would the days/nights look like? Say we slow the rotation so that the short nights are at least 8 hours, how long would the days be?

>>6538552
That does sound a little over the top. But I think moons would be fine, they just have a strange as fuck orbit. Not that it matters for people in any non-enlightened setting. Except perhaps for tides.

>>6538688

This double rotation is messing with my head...

brb deconstructing globe and spining around under a lamp.

Mount Gungadin
Mount Gungadout
Mount Gungashakeitallabout

The Abbreviated Mtns.

Spiky Spiky Mountains
Humpy Humpy Hills

Upsn Downs

Mykyurwood

>>6538688

Hold on a second, maybe I'm wrong, but haven't we again forgotten, that we can't possibly have a night because there is always a sun in front and always a sun behind the planet?
Or do you mean day2/cold red sun day with night?
(Getting late around here)

>>6539035
There'd be night, just short compared to what we are used to and not so dark. In fact we would call it twilight but since the inhabitants of this planet know nothing else, it is indeed night for them.

That's why I asked if we slow the rotation of the planet so this short period of darkness becomes 8 hours, how long would the days be?

Haven't got a solution yet, but I'm at it.

I'll make a new thread tomorrow if I fail to figure it out today. Just in case.

>>6539065
the closest there'd be to night would be at the equator, and even then both suns would be on the horizon

>>6539315
I guess that is true, and we can't have that. What if the secondary star wobbles ever so slightly?

Did someone ask for names?

http://www.kalimedia.com/Atlas_of_True_Names.html

(it's time like this I'd like to have a simple vocabulary for languages like dorfish elfish and shit for DND)

>>6539553

Then my head explodes.

I don't know how the times could be predicted.
The result would be a crescent shaped wandering night stripe in the equatorial region I assume.

We need some Astrophysicist up in this motherfucker.

>>6539637
Fuck those are some of the most retarded names I've ever seen.

>>6540064

I really like a lot of them, myself