The first attempts

[Ascension]

I speak better with images than words so I drew something based on what you have. It's just an example.

[Mark Oliva]

Rivers always flow straight downhill.

Sorry. Gotta disagree. Rivers always flow downhill, of course, but they seldom do it in a straight manner. We'll disregard those rivers on seacoasts that sometimes flow upstream and sometimes flow downstream near the coast, based upon the tide.

So start your rivers at the highest ground (mountains usually) and wind them around hills until they reach the sea.

Sorry. Gotta disagree again. There are many rivers that never reach the sea. In the U.S.A. you could think about the three rivers that flow into the Great Salt Lake and end there. Nothing flows out of the Great Salt Lake. Or you could think of the Truckee River in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Northern California. It flows out of Lake Tahoe down the mountains to Lake Pyramid in Nevada, and the flow ends there. Nothing flows from Lake Pyramid to the sea. There are many more similar examples.

[Chick]

Sorry. Gotta disagree. Rivers always flow downhill, of course, but they seldom do it in a straight manner.

Straight downhill always. It's just that the direction of straight downhill does not always make a straight line.

Sorry. Gotta disagree again. There are many rivers that never reach the sea. In the U.S.A. you could think about the three rivers that flow into the Great Salt Lake and end there. Nothing flows out of the Great Salt Lake. Or you could think of the Truckee River in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Northern California. It flows out of Lake Tahoe down the mountains to Lake Pyramid in Nevada, and the flow ends there. Nothing flows from Lake Pyramid to the sea.

Whilst you are correct about the rivers you mention, lakes such as the Great Salt Lake and Pyramid Lake (Nevada) (and the Dead Sea, Caspian Sea, and Aral Sea are other large examples) are actually "Closed Seas" or technically "endorheic basins". They are salt water bodies with no outlet other than evaporation. They are also fairly rare and not usually a big issue on fantasy maps.

[basilshotgun]

Start by reading this tutorial on How to Get Your Rivers in the Right Place: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=3822

Wow! I was looking for something like this yesterday, but did not find:-)
Thank you so much!

I speak better with images than words so I drew something based on what you have. It's just an example.

Wow! No... WOW! That's better! I just can not find the words to thank you enough! Half the night thinking about these damned rivers! I agree sometimes much easier draw, but draw at night in the dark is not a good idea, and wake up light travel companions...
So the postponed the decision until the morning, and suddenly such an unexpected surprise! Thank you very much!

[Mark Oliva]

Straight downhill always. It's just that the direction of straight downhill does not always make a straight line.

Gotcha. I think. They should be straight, provided they aren't straight. Was that it?

Whilst you are correct about the rivers you mention, lakes such as the Great Salt Lake and Pyramid Lake (Nevada) (and the Dead Sea, Caspian Sea, and Aral Sea are other large examples) are actually "Closed Seas" or technically "endorheic basins". They are salt water bodies with no outlet other than evaporation. They are also fairly rare and not usually a big issue on fantasy maps.

Gotcha. I think. You mean I'm correct, but I'm not right, and you're right but you weren't correct. Was that it?

Wow! And some people say, Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache!

OK. Nix für Ungut!

[Chick]

Yes, I think you've got it!

[Deadshade]

Gotcha. I think. You mean I'm correct, but I'm not right, and you're right but you weren't correct. Was that it?

!

No you probably didn't get it. What Chick meant was that water bodies without outlet are always out of equilibrium temporary structures. So they exist in the sense a pencil standing on the point may exist too. But not for a very long time. So when one describes a typical environment (f.ex a map) , extremely low probability features should appear rarely or not at all as a rule. Of course one can always evoke magics but it has its limits too.

Same for the rivers. They go always straight downhill at every point. That means that they always follow a geodesic. But a geodesic is not synonymous to a straight line. So going straight downhill at every point (following a geodesic) and following a straight line are 2 completely different things. Rivers do the former but generally not the latter.
And that's why we have a river police

(Wasser fliesst immer gerade nach unten, einer geodetischen Linie folgend. Dies bedeutet aber nicht dass die geodetische Linie eine Gerade ist. In der Regel ist sie es auch nicht.)

[Chick]

Closed seas do last long enough to be on a map, and they are often called "lakes", so I think (I hope anyway), that Mark's and my comments are a lot of tongue-in-cheek semantics

We all know rivers run downhill, and my use of the term "straight downhill" could certainly be misinterpreted by people less well versed in river dynamics.

As for salt "lakes", there really aren't very many of them, and long lasting or not, probably aren't a big factor in fantasy maps, so my point there was that they can be safely ignored unless there is a compelling reason to create one in a fantasy world.

[Mark Oliva]

No you probably didn't get it.

Jo mei! Failed again!

What Chick meant was that water bodies without outlet are always out of equilibrium temporary structures. So they exist in the sense a pencil standing on the point may exist too. But not for a very long time.

No. I don't think she meant that. And if you read her last posting, I think she told you so herself. Besides that, what you state above has little to do with reality. The Great Salt Lake, Pyramid Lake and quite a number of inland lakes that are river terminals have been around for a long, long time and will continue to be around for a long, long time, if the world survives that long.

Same for the rivers. They go always straight downhill at every point. That means that they always follow a geodesic. But a geodesic is not synonymous to a straight line. So going straight downhill at every point (following a geodesic) and following a straight line are 2 completely different things. Rivers do the former but generally not the latter.
And that's why we have a river police

Then maybe we need language police too, because straight means straight. Nothing more and nothing less. It's true that a geodesic is not synonymous with a straight line. Only a churl would argue otherwise. But rivers do not always (flow) straight downhill at every point. Some of them zigzag downhill like a drunken bumblebee. Farther below you use German. It may be that you are somewhere else and have only studied German. You list your location as Berlin and Paris. So maybe you know something about Germany too. You might even know something about Bavaria, and if you do, you probably know something about Franconia. In that case, you know what the Main River is. The Weißmain (White Main) has its source in the Fichtelgebirge (Spruce Mountains) in Northeastern Bavaria near the Czech border. The Roter Main (Red Main) has its source near Bayreuth. The two young rivers flow downhill zigzagging here, there and everywhere until they flow together near Kulmbach, forming the Main, which then zigzags insanely westward to Mainz, where it flows into the Rhein (Rhine). Along the way it forms the Mainschleife (Main Loop) and the Mainviereck (Main Square) and over a stretch of several hundred miles, there's hardly anywhere a point where one who knows how to use the English language properly would apply the word straight. It simply doesn't belong there.

Of course, one might argue that this is an exception to the rule. But that isn't true. I know quite a number of rivers in many places that twist and turn and reject the word straight. The Main, like most rivers, twists and turns downhill and almost never flows straight downhill.

(Wasser fliesst immer gerade nach unten, einer geodetischen Linie folgend. Dies bedeutet aber nicht dass die geodetische Linie eine Gerade ist. In der Regel ist sie es auch nicht.)

Ja mei. Und wenn Du Deutsch benutzen willst, dann sollst Du auch wissen und verstehen, dass es in der deutschen Sprache so was wie Deine ungerade Linie nicht gibt. Die deutsche Sprache ist die Sprache von Goethe und Schiller. Man soll sie richtig benutzen!

So ... why is all of this worth debating over? I think all of us who have English as our mother tongue and who participate in discussions here really ought to pay attention to the growing number of people coming into the guild who have another mother tongue but who obviously are excited about getting in here despite their possible embarrassment about not being perfect in English.

When we give advice here, we want people to be able to understand and use it. When we have someone who already has trouble with English and we use the language poorly, our attempts to enlighten are likely to confuse instead. It seems to me that the list has a growing number of new people who have difficulty with English but who are forging ahead anyway. I can say only Bravo! Brava! (Jo mei! That's Italian!) This guild is about cartography, not about mother tongues! Let's be kind to them! Let's use our English well and not confuse them by trying to explain to them why crooked things are straight. Let's do it right!

[Mark Oliva]

As for salt "lakes", there really aren't very many of them, and long lasting or not, probably aren't a big factor in fantasy maps, so my point there was that they can be safely ignored unless there is a compelling reason to create one in a fantasy world.

Well ... ja (ya) ... sorry. I don't see it that way. The exceptions to real world "rules" can make a fantasy world glow, and I do believe fantasy worlds are what most of us here are mapping.

The river police here are doing a pretty good job, I think. To succeed, police have to know what the law is that they're supposed to enforce. I've seen a number of wrong definitions of river laws here to date, but so far, as far as I remember, I haven't seen any that come from the river police.

Rivers that start inland and end inland can be good elements in an RPG setting. And I think our river police understand that. And I think that most of us also understand that such rivers, like a number of other things, shouldn't be overdone.