# Question on Map Building



## BWFoster78 (May 3, 2012)

Any one know of a good place to learn how to create a realistic topography for a fantasy world?  

I'm mainly talking about a guide or something tellling you where deserts make sense in relation to mountains, where the fertile farmland is found, etc.

I appreciate any help.


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## SeverinR (May 3, 2012)

Commonly barren deserts are on the down wind side of large mountains. Rain shadow.
This is a good question. Is there a place to get small bits of information like this for world building?

I posted a site I found on world building earlier. Work computers now link it as a game website so I can't check.

World builder project:
http://hiddenway.tripod.com/world (i hope this is a link, if not google brings it up first)

It has compiled alot of links to sites that help in world building.


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## zizban (May 3, 2012)

Also, just look on a map. For instance Great Plains in the US would be desert if not for the Gulf of Mexico. The Sahara is the result of the Atlas Mountains and the descending air from a tropical Hayden cell.


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## BWFoster78 (May 3, 2012)

SeverinR said:


> Commonly barren deserts are on the down wind side of large mountains. Rain shadow.
> This is a good question. Is there a place to get small bits of information like this for world building?
> 
> I posted a site I found on world building earlier. Work computers now link it as a game website so I can't check.
> ...



Thanks for the link.  A quick perusal didn't find exactly what I wanted, but it seems worth exploring further.


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## BWFoster78 (May 3, 2012)

zizban said:


> Also, just look on a map. For instance Great Plains in the US would be desert if not for the Gulf of Mexico. The Sahara is the result of the Atlas Mountains and the descending air from a tropical Hayden cell.



Unfortunately, my knowledge base isn't that detailed in the areas of geology and geography.  I'd like to gain a better understanding of why the great plains would be a desert, etc.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (May 3, 2012)

zizban said:


> Also, just look on a map. For instance Great Plains in the US would be desert if not for the Gulf of Mexico. The Sahara is the result of the Atlas Mountains and the descending air from a tropical Hayden cell.



Good grief. I thought I knew a lot about geography, but I don't think I'd ever even heard of the Atlas Mountains. TIL.


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## Caged Maiden (May 3, 2012)

The Rockies force all the westerly winds to drop their rain on the west side.  When the clouds try to climb to pass the mountains they get colder and can't hold as much water.  The result is that Washington state for example is waterlogged on the west side, but the east side is the Yakima desert.  Same here in Albuquerque.  We get rain here right next to the mountains, but I live about 25 miles west and see  much less rain, than the other side of town which is in the foothills (where the clouds have to begin rising to cross the Sandias).  Actually, Albuquerque is an interesting place, it's high desert (we're about 5500 ft.) so we have a very unusual climate, let's stick to more common things.  So anyways, that's why when you have a mountain range, the west side of it is wet and the east side is dry.  However, if your winds came from the east, you could realistically change that.  

I assume then the Great Plains sees rain enough to grow grain from the hurricane-causing microclimate of the Gulf of Mexico.  

Also one thing when world building, is charting the course of water.  Of course it will flow down from your mountains (where seasonal thaws will melt the snow) and flow with gravity until it ends in the sea.  Taking a look at a few major river systems ought to help you with that.  Not everything is the Amazon, of course, but some rivers are wide and shallow while others are fast and full of rapids.  Just for the sake of travel you might want to plot that out.

Another thing about mountains...  Altitude is a big thing.  Take Washington, for example.  Mount Ranier is surrounded by green forests, lakes, rivers, and Puget Sound, but I live in the Sandias, which are the same height as Mt. Ranier, but we have no lakes, no green trees (except right on the Rio Grande, which is a rio trickle if you ask me) and pinion, juniper and succulents and cacti abound.  The plants here are cold-hardy to -20 F because we have the same growing season as Wisconsin and Minnesota despite out latitude.   In fact, I'm leaving for a show in the mountains tomorrow and every year we get snow at it (we camp at about 10000 feet).  The thing is, when you plot your map, altitude will play a major part when you map your towns, because the climates of areas, while connected, are sometimes very isolated and you get micro climates.  The Cascades are the range that bisect Washington state, and when you drive through them, it's just a big wall of Granite.  Nothing but stone for a ways and it's a lonely desolate feeling.  I remember that from when I was 7.  Just rock and mountain and no life. 


Then there are the mountains of Tennessee, which are green and lush and humid as all get-out, but they're low-lying and the altitude isn't as high, so even though our mountains are only 5000 feet above ABQ, they're still 10000 ft altitude.  Even here at 5000 ft above sea level, the air is thinner and you burn quickly in the sun, and the houses and cars and things take a beating from the HORRIBLE wind, often carrying sand and pollen and all manner of crap in it.  Sometimes you feel sand-blasted when it blows.  My roof is only 4 years old but we just made a wind damage claim because it got all ruffled up in a wind storm a couple weeks ago when the gusts were about 80 mph. throughout the day.  I remember last year, when Arizona had that awful wild fire.  We live  about 500 miles from it, but every night, Albuquerque was thick with  smoke, and the sky was greenish because a stream of wind carried that  smoke all this way when the wind shifted every night. 

So I've lived and traveled all over this country, and there's something different about everywhere I've been.  I love it though, because no place is like any other.  If you want to do some research quickly to inspire some interesting settings, I'd recommend you read a little about: Olympic National Park | National Park Foundation , Great Smoky Mountains National Park - Great Smoky Mountains National Park , Sandia Mountains - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , and Cascade Range - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia .  That ought to get you started with mountains and they're all different.  The Olympic national forest is just so awesome I threw that in for fun.  I've never been there, but I would like to go.  

So anyways, best wishes on your mapmaking.  Hope that helps a bit.


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## BWFoster78 (May 3, 2012)

Anihow,

That does help.  Thanks.


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## ThinkerX (May 3, 2012)

Another thing to keep in mind would be ocean currents.  These can make a big difference in the overall climate of a given area.

Southern Alaska, where I call home, has much more severe winters than does much Europe, even though they're at about the same latitude.  The big difference is Europe benefits from the warm water current of the Gulf Stream.


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## Justme (May 3, 2012)

have you tried this?

ProFantasy Software - map making for fantasy, modern and sci-fi games and for historical cartographers​


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## SeverinR (May 10, 2012)

Justme said:


> have you tried this?
> 
> ProFantasy Software - map making for fantasy, modern and sci-fi games and for historical cartographers​



looks nice, do you have it?


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## shangrila (May 10, 2012)

SeverinR said:


> looks nice, do you have it?


I've used it. It's...different. I struggled with it, to be honest. I think you have to have some idea of how to make a map, unless you're happy with the simplistic, D&D type maps that the inexperienced (ME!) will end up making.


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## Twilight Flyer (May 10, 2012)

It's interesting how much you can learn by just looking at our own world's topography maps.  If you're not using software and free-handing it, instead, the way I have done it in the past is just look at our own world and start imagining different borders and land mass shapes.


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