KhorasForum

I'd like to start by saying that what you have done with Khoras is incredible and nothing short of miraculous. I absolutely love Khoras and I check it out regularly for inspiration for my own stories. I'm even one of the nerdy fans who e-mailed you way back when and received a copy of the map (when it was just Khoras). I still have that map, and I'm still grateful for your generosity... Anyway, enough of the gushing fan boy. Heh.

With that said, I had a question about how you created Khoras. I'm making a fantasy world of my own, for use in fiction that I write, and perhaps with roleplaying with friends. I have many cultural ideas, a magic system, etc... But whenever I try to get anything going I get bogged down on the very first detail: creating a map of my fantasy world. What I struggle with is making a realistic map. Something that doesn't look like some guy just drew it up... I won't make a map unless I know how where I put the mountains and rivers will effect the land around those features. I guess my question is, how did you handle this with Khoras? Have you read a book that helped suggest how the geological features would effect climate and such? Are you just brilliant and knew all that already? (;-D) Any suggestions of places to look for tips, or tips of your own would be awesome. Thank you ahead of time for your help.

-Dan

well its hard to say....i'd say shop around somemore look at others planets look at a map of good old earth
then just start drawing...

some idea's(my opinion, not nessecarily fact)

look at the globe overall and think BANDS of terrain
how big are your artic regions? how big is your equator region?

is your planet a cool planet? warm? dune? waterworld?

a globe generally has these bands:
northern artic
northern tundra-- few trees generally only 4 foot birch/willow
moderate region-- fir and leafy tree mix
temperate region-- mainly leafy tree
equatorial belt -- wet jungle like trees
temperate region -- same as above
moderate region --ditto
southern tundra -ditto
southern artic

rivers(water) always run from high areas to low
they generally run south/east/west directions
rivers generally start in hills or mts or lakes then empty to the sea
if they are in hills/mts they are deep and narrow
if they are in woodlands or plains they are wide and shallow

deserts are generally inland or in pockets inside mt/hill ranges
where there is less chance or weather getting over the mts.

mts run in chains, also rememeber mts can run in chains
accross multipile continents in a chain with gaps here and there...
look at the PACIFIC ring of fire there is a mt chain that loops
around the pacific "underwater in some places" pops up other
side and continues....

look at the aouth pacific if you look real hard
you can see its made of 3 chains of mts
under the water...2 run east/west and 1 runs north/south

what kind of land do you want
1 big mega continent?
a few small continents?
lots of islands?
combination of all of them?

look at khoras even if dave was not trying to
you can see it was all 1 mega continent at one time...
so your continents will kinda match shapes a little in some
places...NOT ALL...but some...

when you determine how wind and currents affect(you get to decide)
then it will also shape your land, windward side of land is always more
broken up by bays(fjiords) and islands(direction wind blows from). The leeward sides
(winds blows away from or calm side) are smoother and have fewer islands...

winds generally go east/west west/east but NOT ALL....
currents go north/south/east/west in a generaly circle/arc
like motion....but NOT ALL...

the PACIFIC ocean generally goes in a big circle north/south/east/west
then accross it alternating are winds going east/west in BANDS...

then above all YOU CHOSE the rules of your planet...like on mine....
i say the sun rises in the west and sets in the east...one side(hemisphere)
is cluttered with land the other side is more waterworld like...

if you want all the rivers to flow north..then so be it...

you gotta put something down on paper even if its
now how it looks in the end...otherwise you wont
get anywhere but watching other people making
worlds...DRAW DRAW DRAW! i've made 7-8 worlds
now..none in great detail...but it got me going and thinking...

and above all...dont worry about being 100% realistic
there will always be someone who says..."thats dumb"
"thats wrong"...so what...let them ake thier own world
you make yours!

i hope this helps...ask more questions if you want...

Wow, those are all helpful tips, sid6.7. I guess you can never know enough.

I have to say, though, personally, that I don't give this issue any thought at all when creating fantasy worlds. I like it when others have put a lot of thought into their worlds and their maps, but I don't do it myself. I don't know enough, geography doesn't interest me, and it doesn't matter to the stories, in my opinion. I have some basic ground rules, but nothing fancy.

The most important thing is nations and politics and all that. I generally create the landscapes to fit the ideas I have for my nations. If this nation needs to be situated near mountains I create mountains, if this country controls a big river and thus a trade in the area then I put the river through that nation. I know that in the real world terrain comes before nations, but I find it easier to do it the other way around when creating my own worlds.

Dan,

That's a good question. Both Sid6.7 and Kristian have valid points.

First of all, Sid has some good tips and advice and he's right on all that. Mountains generally run in chains that occasionally fork. Continents usually start out as one super continent and then split up so the shorelines sometimes match up. (Good job noticing that about Khoras, Sid... you're the first person to notice/mention that. And for the record, it was intentional. ).

Generally, shape your mountains and continents first. The mountains determine where your rivers flow. Which determines where lakes will go. And this all determines where the nations will form, etc. However, Kristian has a point. If you know you want a nation to control a river, you can work backwards and put a river there. And then work backwards from there and shape the mountains such that they would have created that river. In fact, that's how I built Khoras. I knew what kinds of nations I wanted. I arranged them and then worked backwards, placing the mountains and rivers and such to create the effect I wanted. In Khoras, the nations and geography kind of evolved together that way rather than the terrain strictly dictating the cultures and nations.

And both Kristian and Sid bring up a good point. It's YOUR world. Don't get bogged down in technical details. If you don't want to do a ton of research into geography and plate tectonics, then don't. It isn't necessary to have an absolutely geologically correct world. There will always be someone who challenges the validity of your world. And if you'd rather focus on story and character, then do that and don't sweat the geology and geography that much. I say, build your world however you want and screw the naysayers.

Now, having said that, I'd like to point out that there is a difference between a realistic map and a good looking map. Your post seems to indicate that you want it to look good and be technically correct. It's possible to have a very accurate and realistic map that looks very poorly drawn. Likewise, it's possible to have a wildly inaccurate world (with rivers flowing uphill, mountains that don't follow the rules of plate tectonics, etc) which looks beautifully rendered. Which are you having the most trouble with? Figuring out where to put mountains and rivers? Or how to create the map so it looks good?

If you want realistic mountains and rivers, then get a shaded relief map (those are the maps that show the bumps and ripples of the mountains) and study it. If you google "Arizona" or "Iran" or something like that, you'll probably find some very good, detailed shaded relief maps. Study those. That'll give you a good feel for the way mountains shape themselves. In long chains. And erosion forms the ripples that fan out from the center like forking rays.

There are some good pieces of computer software for this stuff too. There are fractal terrain generators that can whip up whole continents. There's a 3D terrain generator called Bryce which has a nice terrain lab in it. Let's you play around with mountains, erosions, etc. Vue d'Esprit and Terragen are also two very good terrain generators. Vue is probably the best, but it's expensive. There's also one called World Builder. Don't know much about that one except that it's very spendy.

Here are some interesting websites for you to explore that related to mapping and such:

http://edcsgs9bb.cr.usgs.gov/glis/hyper/guide/1_dgr_demfig/states.html - A library of DEM (Digital Elevation Maps). You can use DEMs to render realistic 3D mountains and then overlay them on maps using image editing software (such as Photoshop). Essentially, you use DEMs (which are really just long lists of numbers) to create "shaded relief" maps. These can be used to create hyper-realistic maps.

http://www.planetdesigner.org.uk/ - Good science and astronomy info on designing planets. "Distance from sun" and that kind of info.

http://www.profantasy.com/ - The makers of Campaign Cartographer - a map making program specifically for role playing game worlds. However, I should warn you that this is a vector based program and creates very "computerish" looking maps that are easy to identify as a "CC map". All maps created with this software have the same look and feel. I don't like CC maps that much. I find that hand crafting maps gives it a more organic look.

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/6902/terrain.html - Advice and instructions for generating fractal terrain.

http://www.math.montana.edu/~nmp/materials/ess/rs/index4a.htm - Online Resources for Landscape/Terrain Rendering

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarble/ - High resolution satellite photography of Earth.

http://edc.usgs.gov/geodata/ - US Geological Survey - Data Download

http://www.lysator.liu.se/~johol/fwmg/fwmg.html - A fractal world map generator.

http://users.tkk.fi/~vesanto/link.maps/maps.html - A good list of programs for creating maps for role playing worlds.

http://gw.marketingden.com/planets/planets.html - High quality image maps for rendering.

http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/intro.html - Info our our nine planets.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/terranova/terranova.html - A planet a day. Ficitional planets.

http://www.ridgenet.net/~jslayton/wilbur.html - An old program for fractal generation.

http://users.tkk.fi/~vesanto/world.build.html  - Good advice on world building in general.

That ought to keep you busy for awhile. I guess you first need to determine 2 things - how realistic do you want your world to be and how "beautiful" do you want the map to be. The first requires a little bit of study into geography and science. The second requires a little hard work using a good graphics program.

Ok, I could go on for hours on this topic. Crafting a map is both an art and a science and everyone has their opinion on what makes a good map. I'll just wrap up here and wait to see if any of this mad rambling is helping you. Feel free to follow up with more specific questions.

David

excellent resourses dave...very cool...and helpful to anyone wanting to make a world...

kristian is right, i to generally know what i want and force the map to reflect
that or at least certain parts of the map...such as my nation of diijmiut
i wanted an iniut like nation in the north so i looked real hard at
greenland/iceland/north europe and alska...then drew something a long
that line to force a nation to have that kind of character...

another nation i wanted to kinda reflect america so i made a continent
with a wide open plain in the middle, mountainous in the west and
hilly/forested in the east....then i evolved rivers and forests and deserts to
reflect that...i put a large mississippi like river to control trade and make
a obstacle to travel and make a natural nation border.

all very good tips here for you ...but again keep asking questions if you
have more...

Thank you, everyone for your responses. This has far eclipsed my hopes for help.

I was thinking about this all day today before I came home and saw these replies. I had pretty much decided that instead of trying to buy a book, I would just do what Sid suggested: check out how things worked in the real world and use that as a model. Also, I think if I do the research on my own, I'll be more proud of the work I put into it...

You're all very right about building from nations up to the geography. I do have a basic concept of what kind of land areas I want, based on what nations I have in my head. I just want to try to realistically represent the geography as well. Even though no living soul other than myself will probably ever see my work, I still like to do things RIGHT. Just my obsessive compulsive personality, I suppose. Heh.

Thank you to both Sid and Dave for the small "rules of thumb". I'll check out some maps and see if I can come up with some other handy pointers and just start sketching from there. Dave, lots of great sites there. Thanks a bunch for those links.

Edit to add something I forgot: As for making a beautiful map, Dave... Well, I'd sure love to, but that's not really a goal of mine... See, I know my limits and I know that art is truly a limit for me. Perhaps I'll hand my sketched out map to an artistic friend of mine and see if he can spruce it up in Photoshop or something... But thank you for those tips as well.

Once again, I'm truly blown away by the responses I've received. I do believe I'd like to stick around here and hang out with you folks. Stimulates the creativity, you know? 

-Dan