How many mountains is too many? ^^;

[Mapsburgh]

I think "wouldn't it be cool if..." is a totally valid way to approach creating a map.

One thing to think about is who, in your world, is drawing this map, and how much do they know about the places they're mapping? A lot of things that might seem geomorphologically implausible if we assume high accuracy can make sense as a stylized way of representing something the mapmaker doesn't know much about. For example, the roundish blob of mountains in the southwest isn't something we see on the real earth -- mountains are usually in linear ranges -- but if all the mapmaker knew was that this land had mountains in the middle of it, that's a fair way to draw it. If this is for an RPG you can even work that into the campaign -- some areas may get "clarified" once the PCs actually go there.

[Nettle]

As it should. 8) Clearly resupplied with meltwater from those undoubtedly glacier-clad mountains to the north, keeping its water cold and fresh.

Oh they are, it's very cold up there :)

I think "wouldn't it be cool if..." is a totally valid way to approach creating a map.

One thing to think about is who, in your world, is drawing this map, and how much do they know about the places they're mapping? A lot of things that might seem geomorphologically implausible if we assume high accuracy can make sense as a stylized way of representing something the mapmaker doesn't know much about. For example, the roundish blob of mountains in the southwest isn't something we see on the real earth -- mountains are usually in linear ranges -- but if all the mapmaker knew was that this land had mountains in the middle of it, that's a fair way to draw it. If this is for an RPG you can even work that into the campaign -- some areas may get "clarified" once the PCs actually go there.

Hi hi. Well just as long as I don't completely bypass all laws of nature ^^' It is for my DnD campaign and while that might give me a bit of leeway I want it to be as accurate as possible! Just how impossible is it for something like that to occur? Could, for example, 3 continental plates crash together to form something like this? The area is a big source of raw magic but I don't want to use magic as an excuse to just do whatever - I want to use magic as a flavour for worldbuilding but not the building blocks!

[Rossbert]

In the XKCD What If? section there was a bit that delved into the topography of Mars and how it would change as the water level rose that might be a bit interesting along with this topic.

[Khadrim]

I think "wouldn't it be cool if..." is a totally valid way to approach creating a map.

One thing to think about is who, in your world, is drawing this map, and how much do they know about the places they're mapping? A lot of things that might seem geomorphologically implausible if we assume high accuracy can make sense as a stylized way of representing something the mapmaker doesn't know much about. For example, the roundish blob of mountains in the southwest isn't something we see on the real earth -- mountains are usually in linear ranges -- but if all the mapmaker knew was that this land had mountains in the middle of it, that's a fair way to draw it. If this is for an RPG you can even work that into the campaign -- some areas may get "clarified" once the PCs actually go there.

Wouldn't mountains the Ahaggar Mountains be a good model for the blob of mountains.

[Quikdraw7777]

That map looks awesome.

[Nettle]

I'm back on this map after working on a couple of other projects. Thoughts on how much of this is inaccurate as far as mountains go? This is going to be an area affected by magic but I want to know what obeys our rules and what would be obeying magical rules :')

Screenshot 2020-09-02 at 15.10.59.png

[MrBragg]

Realism would depend a bit on the scale. If this is a relatively small island, it's perfectly reasonable to have a bunch of mountains more or less centered in the middle. If, on the other hand, it's a 3000 km wide continent, a huge mountainous plateau in the middle would need some very specific geologic conditions in order to arise naturally.

[Bedwyr]

Honestly it does a decent job of replicating the terrain characteristics of Hawaii's Big Island (at least from memory of driving around it).

[Nettle]

Realism would depend a bit on the scale. If this is a relatively small island, it's perfectly reasonable to have a bunch of mountains more or less centered in the middle. If, on the other hand, it's a 3000 km wide continent, a huge mountainous plateau in the middle would need some very specific geologic conditions in order to arise naturally.

So I still need to work out my scale properly - thats a whole other learning curve - but I can say it's big. Like... 1000miles? ^^'

[Greason Wolfe]

Based on that scale, your mountains look as though they cover more area than the Himalayas. Not necessarily a bad thing, just something to consider. Artistically speaking I do like the way they look.