WIP - Region of Relath

[Arlièn]

This is a region I am working on currently for a new pathfinder game I am starting up. It will be a fairly standard medieval fantasy world, with a large amount of lush forests and towering mountains. Further down the line I will also add kingdoms and such but first I am setting up the basics. One of the things I am working on is trying to add hight and hills to regions without resorting to mountain ranges straight away.

As I live in the northern hemisphere, I decided for a change and flip it around so that we are now on a southern one. For a rough size comparison I added a the British Isles up on top. Any sort of feedback or criticism is very welcome!




In the end it will have a similar feel to it like this one I made for a friend at one point. Personally I was not very fond of the way it was set up:

[edit: Changed the old image around because I believe it distracts from the main image.]

[bartmoss]

Some of your rivers need a lot of work. The second map is worse in this rgeard than the first one, but I understand that is an outdated one anyway. Do look at maps of real countries and pay attention to how rivers flow.

Also, and this is really a fairly minor thing; Anatolia is a real place, so I'd recommend renaming your fictional one.

[xpian]

Not to mention "Valinor" and "Trondheim," if we're talking about names we've seen before. It's not exactly a cardinal sin, but if you're going through the trouble to create your own lands, you might want your names to be as fresh as possible.

I agree with bartmoss about the rivers, too. There's a shadowy organization around here called The River Police, and I believe they are going to want a word with you about those rivers on the lower map. ;-)

I'm liking the shapes of the land masses in the upper map, and some of those upper rivers are pretty cool as well.

[Arlièn]

I agree completely with the both of you. The thing is that I did not have much of a say in the design of the land, I purely translated his hand drawn image to a digital one and already changed some of the rivers around quite a bit without deviating to much from the original. Either way, I changed the image in the original post to better reflect my intention for style.

Also, update on my map! Added in some colours for the forests. I will probably add in some more smaller forests and open spots in the large sprawling forests. It occurred to me that this isometric style might not be the best for the span of this world, but I am suborn and like the style. I still need to review my rivers and especially the ones in the top forest should be changed.



I have been messing around a bit with conifer forests, but found them a tad more difficult then deciduous forests. The angle of the lines should be steeper when I draw them I believe.

[xpian]

I just posted a conifer forest tutorial over in the tutorials forum. Might help.

[Arlièn]

Great, that is exactly what I was looking for! The mountain tutorials also are impressive, I shall see if I can apply those to my own mountain ranges.

[Arlièn]

Lil' update, have not really been able to spend a whole lot of time on it lately. I have been looking to incorporate Xpian's tutorial into it, and has worked out fairly well. So the forests in the southern parts have been getting some attention.

I included two versions, one with the different kingdoms and the other a clean version so that the underlying image is better visible.

[Arlièn]

I didn't really get all that much sleep last night, instead spent way to much time on this:





And for rivers and the like:

[Arlièn]

It is nearing completion! Just a few things on the lands themselves that I should find a solution for and then I will have to make it all pretty with a border, legend and maybe some isometric town icons?



These parts however should receive a bit more attention, and I am not entirely sure how to handle it. The fjords and Lagoon(where a meteor struck and blasted away a part of the mountain) pretty much share their difficulty where the mountains and highground suddenly change into water.



The plateau here just doesn't feel right. Maybe I should add another mountain to justify its hight, add a bit of variation to the cliffs?

[Josiah VE]

I like the look of it, but to me, the forest colours seem too neon, especially the conifer forest, it looks way to blue. Love that giant mountain.