A synesthete that has continents in his head.

[Rivers]

Hello! I'm a midwest transplant living in NYC working in the lowest ranks of television and film. Someday you'll see my name before the beginning of a film but for now, you'll find it at the end.

I guess I've always been making maps since I was a youngling. When the neighborhood kids wanted to go treasure hunting I'd say, "We need a map first." Because, how could you find the treasure without a map? This graduated to hours long sessions on MS Paint where I could make as many mistakes as I wanted without burning through all of the paper in the house. Now I doodle in my notebook on the subway to and from work. For me, it's fun to create the continent, watch the mountains pop up and form rivers, install forests, and imagine the politics of the denizens of my 3"x5" world.

Maps help me understand and clear my head as I'm a synesthete who takes comfort in images and symbols. So I'm here to learn more about cartography and perhaps I'll post some of the ridiculous places I created. I've chosen the name Rivers as they are the most confuddling thing about mapmaking. That and swamps. What is it with swamps?

-Rivers

[waldronate]

Swamps are where rivers get indecisive and lazy.

Welcome to the guild!

[Gidde]

Welcome aboard!

[Rivers]

Thank you!

Makes sense. When I get lazy, my room turns into a swamp.

[jbgibson]

Welcome, Rivers. So are maps tasty, or do they sound interesting, or what?

There's a delightful explanatory thread in the tutorials, stickied so it stays up near the top: "How to get your rivers in the right place". See if that clears up the waters.

Indeed, world creation is well and truly addictive - we look forward to seeing what you devise. Care to do some stuff in public - what we call a WIP (work in progress) thread? You'll get all manner of helpful input.

[arsheesh]

Welcome to the Guild Rivers.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Depassage]

Welcome to the guild Rivers!

[waldronate]

What you get as far as "swamp" depends on your definition of swamp, really. The classic swamp is a drowned forest, usually with wet-adapted trees such as cypress that can tolerate having their feet wet. Another popular view of "swamp" is more of a marsh; that is, it's a wetland that doesn't support much in the way of trees, but still has lots of water. In both cases, the land is nearly flat, meaning that the river will slow down and spread out when it gets to that area. The water moves sluggishly. Thus, the river gets indecisive because all paths are equally good on a flat landscape and lazy because it's moving very slowly.