Marcania

[rrando]

This is a fantasy map for a DnD realm, me and my friend are GM'ing. I myself am the cartographer of this particular campaign so here is the land of Marcania. I did this with the help of Saderans Tutorial

[krasimir]

Map looks very nice for a first try, even if you followed a tutorial! I don't like the labels very much, maybe you could use a font that complements the fantasy setting a bit better.

[rrando]

@krasmir , thanks for the quick feedback. The font , in my opinion fits to the map since its clear and understandable, nothing fancy.

[Sapiento]

Looks fine. Have some rep.

[rrando]

Looks fine. Have some rep.

Thanks mate !

[jbgibson]

It's nice, rrando. There's at least three places where you've got rivers that branch as they flow seaward - real ones don't do that for more than a short stretch (think big midstream island, rather than a pair of channels per se), or the case of an outright delta. To form a delta, it takes a bunch of carried sediment, and shallow enough waters for 'new land' to build up, instead of being swept away by ocean currents. Too, a delta is likely to stick out into the sea, rather than occupying a 'wedge' of inland territory. OK, if there was a bay prior to the delta buildup, there's some chance for its outer end to sort of match the coast.

Really, as to your rivers in general - they're maybe too scarce. One assumes the forested areas are pretty well watered - yet we don't see rivers there. Your style of super-emphasized city symbols looks OK, but it obscures nearby detail. Like - are there rivers adjacent? If you have a back-story why your world would have major population centers away from water, that's OK. But it would be more 'natural' for towns to grow into cities into megalopoli when the people have water to drink, farmers have water to irrigate with, industry has water to power its mills, and transport is eased by water.

Most of your landforms and land cover is apparent, but what does the blue tint mean above and below the S of Stonemarsh?

I get what Krasimir was saying - the fonts you've picked are formal enough to look typeset. I had to stare at them a bit before I realized another thing that could be improved. You used a different font for the curve-set forest names, didn't you? Either it's a more typewriter-like font or the process of laying it along the path altered it to where it's just a *little* different from the others. A principle of type layout or design could be stated '"make different things different". The eye is drawn to the subtle difference yet it takes study to realize what doesn't match about those labels. Particularly since you're wanting clear no-nonsense labeling, it would work better to use something a little less similar. Maybe a plain sans-serif font, or do those in all uppercase, or kern them differently - space the letters out a bit.

If you picked the slightly modern font for clarity, there's other choices that are both clear and do convey a bit 'older' aura. I don't think the one you use is *bad* though. I like the map. There's a lot of good stuff going on, stories to be told, nice palette - it just looks pleasing. Good work!

[rrando]

@jbgibson , first off, I'll go with wow. Your critique is of great help and I will certainly look into these matters in the future. As for the blue tinting, it's marshland or.. swamp. For the curved font, I didn't use any other font then before. The illusion lies in the arc, I'm sure. The rivers, again thank you for these pointers. This map does not go into deep detail on rivers. I have only marked out major rivers not smaller ones. This map lacks also smaller settlements etc. This is meant to be a a general overview map with not too many details if you catch my drift.

All in all, thank you a lot !