After seeing the many amazing maps on here and loving to see the steps people go through to create thier maps in long threads I decided I wanted to try creating a map for my world and posting the status as I go along. Feedback and commentary will be greatly appreciated and encouraged.
I am trying something a little bit different for my world. I just started scribbling some ideas down and then expanded a lot on backstory as I created the map. My original plan was going to be beginning with just the center part. I had one continent split down the middle with an island at the center of the channel. The backstory is a powerful being was ripped from another realm at that location. The power sundered the continent into two pieces and left an island at the middle that is now guarded by an order devoted to protecting the portal.
I then decided that I wanted a larger world to play with. So I doubled the map in both directions to turn my original map into the center of a 9 square board. I plan to work on each square as a separate project with the goal of combining them. I have always hated the edges of maps. I hate having water just going off into nothing and I hate seeing land the just ends. It honestly bothers me. As a fan of Terry Pratchett I thought about having a disk shaped world and began working toward that goal. As I kept thinking about it I decided that as ridiculous as it sounds I like the idea of a section of the world being torn from the ground and flung into the sky when the world was shattered. I want to get rid of the round edge and make it look more like it was torn from the ground.
The strange section to the left will be a landmass that is fracturing and falling off slowly. I am imagining having floating islands hanging off of the edge with cities of people devoting magic and effort to holding onto this chunks, whole cites just trailing away, connected by magical bands.
This is just my rough sketch I threw together. I plan on using a lot of the great tutorials on here as I work on the subsections. Any opinions are encouraged.
Note: I do realize that some of the ideas are a little cliche in a fantasy setting but I think it will work and give my players enjoyment still.
World Map.jpg