Really tortured islands

[DagobahDave]

I tried everything. Meteors. Magma plumes. Ice ages.

It's not entirely successful, but I worked out a lot of ideas about terrain-building and creating the illusion of mountain ranges.

http://www.davesgames.net/cartography/map-test-01.jpg

[Baziron]

Looks good to me. Did you have any scale in mind? It's almost inspiring to whip up a small D&D campaign, in where the player, living there, come to realise it's nothing but a small (in size) demiplane - a true bubbleworld.

But why? And what does that incur? Stay tuned!


Oops, forgot: I have some drawing to do. So this'll have to wait.

[jfrazierjr]

That's very nice. I like the mountains and that is the effect I am trying to get for the current map I am playing with. Kind of a psuedo artistic-psuedo shaded relief sattelite view.

Heh... for a minute, I thought some of the islands had cone trails like an airplane. Then I realized they were volcanos. Very cool map.

Joe

[RobA]

Is there a reason the two west volcanoes plume in a different direction?

Very nice map btw...

-Rob A>

[Sirith]

I like the way the islands really give the feeling the sea has been beating upon the rocks for a very long time, the way it seems to have eroded, the bays and lakes.
The smoke from the volcanoes is a nice touch.

I do have the same questions RobA asked: why are the plumes not all going in the same direction?

[DagobahDave]

Thanks for the feedback, gang.

These islands are about the same size as England and Ireland, Japan or New Zealand. This was a test to see if I liked the scale and the level of weathering, and to see if I could create decent-looking mountains without using triangles.

The smoke plumes do look silly going in different directions, but I had something in mind for that at the time. I intended for this part of the world to be very windy and stormy. Some of the plumes follow eddies where warm winds from the southwest collide with cold winds from the northeast. I wanted to reinforce the idea that the weather can change without warning. Shy of including wind-direction arrows, I decided to install some active volcanoes and use their smoke to suggest that sailing around this island would be a real challenge.

Notice how I avoid any comments about rivers by not including any? More maps to come.

[Sirith]

The smoke plumes do look silly going in different directions, but I had something in mind for that at the time. I intended for this part of the world to be very windy and stormy. Some of the plumes follow eddies where warm winds from the southwest collide with cold winds from the northeast. I wanted to reinforce the idea that the weather can change without warning. Shy of including wind-direction arrows, I decided to install some active volcanoes and use their smoke to suggest that sailing around this island would be a real challenge.

Notice how I avoid any comments about rivers by not including any? More maps to come.

I knew there had to be reason . Nicely thought out.

And I have to say, I kind of missed the fact there were no rivers. Now that you mentioned it, they are indeed missing .