How to get your rivers in the right place

[Redrobes]

Thanks Neon, I didn't know the word for that. I think Waldronate mentioned it a long time ago too. I did say that there was three things that can occur for a lake and that was number 3. You can get it with a river too just running into nothing across savannas when the rainy season comes and goes. In either case these are rare tho.

When lakes evaporate only then all the impurities in the water concentrate so the dead sea is salty. That's also occurring in many places in the world where they irrigate crops since all the water is taken up by plants and evaporated leaving progressively salty and infertile soil. Theres some beatiful round shapes in the desert like this which is circular irrigation zones.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&...37708&t=h&z=11

Oh and I think I had just better say that lakes are in fact extremely numerous and all over the place contrary to what I said before. Perhaps I just live in a land that does not have all that many...

[Ascension]

I think the problems with lakes is that people sometimes think of ponds as lakes and then what is the scale of the map. On continental style maps, most lakes would not be seen at that scale. On a regional scale, then, lots of lakes would be seen. On a city scale you could put in as many ponds as you like. Now this is all for a certain amount of realism. If some lake or pond happens to be quite important and you want to put it in, then you're getting into the representational realm and away from the realism. It's the balance that's hard and sometimes we have to compromise one way or the other for the sake of the story.

My 2 bits