Hello all,

I'm working on a graphic novel in the fantasy genre and I am in the world building stage at the moment. The thing is, I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to creating maps and land masses. Design work isn't usually an issue for me, but how exactly do you go about designing continents? Especially continents that are realistic and believable? I guess it would be helpful to have some basic rules to follow in terms of how to design the shape of continents, how to decide where the mountains go, etc. Those are the two main areas I seem to be stuck on.

Also, I have a more specific question, though, I'm not sure if this is the right place for it, but here goes! I don't know a great deal about military history (especially in the ancient world) and I am looking for examples of cities that were never successfully sieged due to natural defenses. If I could get a few examples, that would be great. I'm looking for more than the obvious 'cities/castles on top of mountains were harder to siege'; where there cities in other types of terrain (snow, desert, forest, etc.) that were also hard to siege because of the terrain?

Thanks for anyone who takes the time to read this and respond!