Cartography in Writing

[cnroddball]

In worldbuilding, sometimes you might want to map the world in which your story takes place. It's common to draw it yourself. I'm not good at drawing by hand, unfortunately, so I use Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator. It doesn't just generate a map for you. You can remake it completely. Everything from terrain, temperature, oceanic trade routes, countries, biomes, rivers, lakes, cities, population per city, and it works in conjunction with Watabou's City Generator for even more detail! This isn't an advertisement for either of those, however.

So, I toyed around with some novel ideas. First, I made a planet that was one big land bridge:


The entire world is connected as one giant land mass. It has a lot of writing potential. People could make long pilgrimages across the world for one reason or another, archaic humans or other primitive species could trek across it to migrate, and with the vast polar shelves, there's also a lot of potential for things like sailing in icy seas, as well as exploration of the polar regions themselves.

Next, I made this island planet. The idea is that the entire planet is composed of islands. There are no large continents of any kind, so naval travel is paramount in such a world. It's perfect for a pirate story.


This next one is a bit extreme, but perfect for an apocalyptic story: a planet with a super massive volcano!


Is it dormant? Is it active? There's room for caves all around it. Naturally, this makes for a tropical environment across the entire planet. The volcano has lakes on it as well, which could be interesting.

This desert world is less quirky than the other maps, but I added one lake with a few rivers extending from it, which form a hand, reaching out to the dry sands, as if welcoming others to this rich oasis. Sitting in the center of the lake is an island, which could be a small country. I added an underground lake as well, far away from the visible oasis.


This one is interesting as well. It's a world where the land mass is filled with so many rivers that traveling by small boat, rather than by car, is the more convenient form of everyday travel.


It's certainly a different kind of society! Store fronts, houses, even food stands, all riverside! Taxis, deliveries, etc, would be done predominantly by boat. Instead of learning how to ride a bike, kids might learn how to row a boat.

Now, for cities, I don't recall much freedom in the customization. You can increase or decrease the population, choose whether or not it has a castle, a citadel, a religious building, alleys, roads, whether the towers are circular or square, if there's a river running through it, trees, fields, farmland, shanty towns, names of the districts, etc. You can't control the placement of the houses, I think. The larger the population, the more houses there are. You can change the colors as you see fit. So, it can be made to seem more futuristic for cyberpunk settings as well. It comes with presets as well.

The classic black & white:


It's great for tabletop gaming.

The vivid preset really accentuates all of the different landmarks, buildings, and separates the districts, and whatnot:


This is an old preset they don't seem to have anymore, which I recreated from an old city map, Night!



I think it looks pretty cool.

Anyone here use any other sources, or hand-draw maps?

[cnroddball]

I started with two-dimensional layouts, but for sci-fi stories, a more 3D portrayal can further supplement one's writing and make the story more immersive.


For example, this 3D height map could be used to portray a geological scan.


This 3D globe with the map's biomes could be an orbital scan used to determine the planet's habitability.


This 3D globe, featuring the planet's various nations, also shows markers indicating landmarks, volcanoes, ruins, battlefields, and such. It could be used as if one were surveying a primitive culture from orbit, marking important areas of study.

Now, of course, you can't use an animated GIF in a book, but still images do very well. If you do roleplaying, you definitely could use animated GIFs, in which case something like this would be phenomenal!

[Nhasasite]

wow bro this is so detailed! I have always wanted to write a story set in a specific world, but I never get arouns to doing any worldbuilding at all

[Onio]

I wanted to comment on these earlier, these are absolutely gorgeous! I set up a little writing and literature board if you'd like me to move this topic in there.

[cnroddball]

I wanted to comment on these earlier, these are absolutely gorgeous! I set up a little writing and literature board if you'd like me to move this topic in there.

Absolutely! I'll endeavor to make appropriate use of it.

[Emil]

I love maps in fantasy - I run a TTRPG and I find it quite difficult to set the scene without one, be it a small town or a forest, the itch for the map struggles to leave me alone.

Now, I would show some of the maps I made but, turns out, I am a "noob" at the whole digital websites thing, so I have no clue as to how adding an image works...

Instead...
The plot for my RPG is basically all around Cartography, the main prophet of the land was a man called the Cartographer -
Insert epic narration for this next part:

Long ago, in a world so absudly vast not even the elven races - nor dwarves or constructs could manage to cross even a fraction of it's land within their lifetimes - there lived a man who, one day, decided to map it all, a feat seemingly impossible to any civilization, let alone a mere human. Still, the man (now called the Cartographer) in only one year, crossed the land, built trade routes and pathways, spread peace around the world and enligthned the people. Quickly it became apparent that this was no mere mortal, something was at play something, some scheme must exist!

But it did not, everywhere anyone went there were sightings of the Cartographer, every nook and cranny had a small little signiature carved with a dull knife, somehow the human had crossed it all - and made a map!

Eventually, after his year long pilgramage, the Cartographer ventured to the golden city of Orpheus, the biggest powerhouse of one of the many, MANY continents the world had to offer. There he sought to speak to King Ozymandias. And so they spoke - the whole city watching (along with the now legion of followers of the Cartographer), yet - something was off, for when the Cartographer showed Ozymandias his enormous map, something darkened on the kings face, and soon, the all benevolent Cartographer climbed the stairways of Orpheus's golden castle, and looking out at the sunset and all his people, King Ozymandias launched the Cartographer to his death below.

Later, when the smoke had cleared from this absurd act, Ozymandias spent 10 years traveling the continent, searching for the greatest wizards, scientists and warriors the world had to offer, eventually building an army called the "Noble hunt", together with his comrades the king issued his final command to his people: stand by and wait for my return, for I shall seek the dark truth at the center of the world, the truth the Cartographer wished to keep hidden!

The king never returned, the RPG takes place 1000 years later!
So yeah, the basis of the story is map-making! In specific one map maker that caused a looot of trouble for everyone for a very very long time!