Explore our step-by-step guide to find fantasy map ideas and discover how to create your own.
Hugely popular, the fantasy genre has captured countless imaginations through its combination of magic, the supernatural and worldbuilding. Whether it’s literature, role-playing or video games, creating a fantasy map as part of a rich and complex world is one of the key parts of the genre.
So, whether you’re penning your first novel, designing a campaign for your next RPG session, or simply sketching for fun, read on to explore fantasy map ideas and learn how to make your own fantasy map.
Fantasy maps, much like their real-world counterparts, are full of distinctive locations and environments. Think of the frozen northern wastes in A Song of Ice and Fire’s Westeros or the mountain ranges that encircle Mordor in The Lord of the Rings.
From sprawling forests to barren deserts, the changing scenery helps lend some appeal and interest to your world. Even if you’re creating a fantasy world map for a universe that is mostly covered in water, like Earthsea, there should still be landmarks to help your audience orient themselves.
Here are some of the key components of a fantasy map that you might want to include.
Even though fantasy maps chart non-existent places, they can be based on real-world locations. They can also take inspiration from previous works, or might even expand on existing maps.
But, even if you’re basing your map on existing material or map templates, it can be tough to know where to start. Fortunately, we’ve put together a step-by-step guide to creating fantasy maps so you can sort your dungeons from your dragons.
All good fantasy maps begin with a solid plan – maybe you already have some source material to base your work on. This could be other maps, or even key plot points in a novel you’re writing that will need to feature on your map.
Think about the location your characters will need to visit and how they sit in relation to each other. If you’re designing a map for an RPG campaign, consider where you want players to go. Ultimately, you need to decide what kind of world you want your fantasy to be set in and imagine one that would support your vision.
It’s best to build on solid ground, so let’s start with the land. Here, you can start to think about how big your map should be and how the general land mass will look. Your narrative should also shape the world.
For example, if seafaring is a key part of the culture, you’ll need easy access to the oceans – this could mean plenty of sheltered bays or islands. If resource scarcity is an issue in your world, then perhaps terra firma is in short supply. Don’t be afraid to draw up a handful of drafts and see which of your fantasy map ideas works best.
Top tip: If you’re drawing your map by hand and want to take a more random approach, try scattering handfuls of rice on a large sheet of paper and then draw around the shapes it makes. This should give you a great basic outline of your world, which you can tweak to your heart’s content.
So, now you’ve got a rough outline of the world, it’s time to fill in the blank spaces. This means designing mountain ranges, plotting lakes and rivers, and digging out the highs and lows of the landscape.
The beauty of the fantasy genre is that you can experiment as much or as little as you like. You can take inspiration from Earth and create a world that looks recognisable. Alternatively, you can create a terrain unlike anything else out there. Perhaps in your world the temperature regularly dips below -40°C and all life lives on the rim of a giant volcano. Or, maybe there are rivers and lakes made of slowly flowing crystal? Whatever you decide, this is a good opportunity to experiment with your fantasy map ideas.
If you already know what’s going to happen in your narrative, you can start to place key landmarks. These might be the homes of core characters, castles and domains of rival factions, or battlegrounds that are yet to be bloodied.
There might be locations that are considered holy or revered. Alternatively, some might be cursed or haunted. You might also want to make note of significant geographical locations – the tallest mountain or the widest river. Realistically, your story will decide what landmarks are worth noting.
You may already have a handful of cities or significant settlements placed, but now it’s time to add to the rest. If you don’t know where to start, try to identify the locations on your map that would support life and allow settlements to flourish. After that, think about how they all join up. Are there significant roads in your world, or rivers that allow travellers to go by boat?
This is where you can double check you’ve got everything you need. You’ve thought up a city called Lakeshore, but is there actually a lake nearby? In the second half of your novel, the characters approach a great plain, but is there one on the map for them to explore?
You can also think about the wider infrastructure of the world. Is there arable land and sources of freshwater close to your settlements? Where do most people live and do the size of the cities reflect this? You may need to return to these details later, but answering the big questions early on can save you some work.
Now it’s time for the fun bit – thinking up names for each location. How you name a location is up to you. You can choose names based on their geography (Riverrun, Winterhold, The Ashen Sea, etc.), locational characteristics (Baldur’s Gate, Faerie Realms, Undertown, etc.), or even through a fictional language (Minas Tirith, Tar Valon, Cair Paravel, etc.). When designing your fantasy map and your labels, explore different fonts and pick one that feels right.
You’ve plotted the edges of your world and populated it with denizens, so now you just need to add the final parts. Think about typographical additions like a compass, or arrows pointing to other continents off-map. You can also think about how you want your map to look overall. Is it accurate and to scale? Does it feature notations from characters? Is it worn around the edges and stained? Essentially, the look of your map and how it ties to the overall world you’re building.
A good fantasy world map will be original, easy to read and should entice the audience. This might be through its naming conventions – after all, who could resist exploring a location named The Lost Dungeons? Another draw might be the design of the map itself – something that might tell the audience about the world at a glance.
One of the easiest places to create a fantasy map for free is with Adobe Express. With simple-to-use graphic design tools and a range of templates to pick from, you can design your fantasy map in minutes.
This all depends on what you want to show. If you’re showing the entire universe, then it will need to be bigger than if you’re setting your narrative in a single fantasy city. It can be tricky knowing how much to include, but a good rule of thumb is to cover everywhere your characters will visit.
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