Practice and Research - Exercise 3.3: Creating the Map

An example to follow

In the rulebook, each of the campaign frames came with its own map. I studied these frames to look for common elements that made them all fit the overall style of the book.

An example map from the Witherwild Campaign Frame. © Darrington Press [2]

I noticed that each of the maps had a graphic quality. Some used an oblique isometric-esque angle to present geographic landmarks more illustratively. Only essential landmark names were placed on the map itself, with other locations being placed in an inset text box. The intention is that, before setting off on the start of their campaign, a part can work with their Games Master to name other landmarks themselves, using names from the box (or their imagination).

Creating the outline

Coming up with realistic (even if fantastical) maps is harder than you first realise! I researched different ways to come up with coastlines. You can, of course, freehand using reference to real coastlines as inspiration. I felt that this introduced too many biases, as well as the potential for me to get bogged down chasing the 'perfect' map.

Adding some kind of randomness was going to be essential. I found techniques using dice [5] and rice [4], but the game-changer for me was discovering a website that can create procedurally generate fantasy maps at varying levels of detail [3].

Now, for the purpose of running a game, I could have used this tool to create a professionally-looking and very detailed map. However, that would not fit with the 'house style' I was going with, and more importantly, would take all of the fun out of it for me! I looked at all of the settings available to me, and turned off things that were too detailed: settlements, names, provinces, rivers, etc. (there were many other available settings - I disabled most of them!). I left some suggested borders and port locations, as I felt these would be important to my campaign. I even disabled topography so as not to influence my choices. I generated a few different options, iterating the ratio between land and water until I had something that felt fun. This is what I ended up with:

I felt this would work, as it didn't try to be the whole world (leaving room for adventures elsewhere in the future), had a good amount of land and water, some interesting geography, and some landmasses that extended off the map, suggesting lands that could be explored, or even other countries building their own ambitions. I had originally imagined using the borders to stipulate some smaller kingdoms, but once I had this base image, I felt that it would be better to leave those to the players to decide (should they want them). Using Procreate, I quickly sketched some ideas about key landmarks.

Making the map

Now that I had the general idea, I needed to flesh out the map itself. I did this digitally, using brushes, fonts and assets created by a fantasy author who creates his own maps, and has listed his resources and insight for free [1]. He had sets taken from different public map sources and from different time periods. I perused options from the 18th century, selecting assets which I felt fit the tone of the world I was building.

Using advice (and a bit of my A-level physical geography knowledge) on how different physical landmarks would form, I added in mountains, glaciers, and waterways. I then added in other details like swamps, forests, plains and settlements. The smaller cities were added with stamps, but I drew the largest namesake city of Rivenhall by hand. I added period-appropriate decorations to the sea and land, and then created an ornamental title to fit into the 18th-century theme. I added layers to give the map a feel of old parchment.

Making it fit

I really liked the map and was very proud of my efforts. The whole thing seemed to fit my style of using linework. However, when looking at the house style, it felt too far off. I was missing the inset box of locations, and it was perhaps a little too 'old world'. I had been working with a simple grey/white view as I had constructed the map, so I removed the sepia tone and the paper effect. I then iterated the layout, removing the title to use the inset box for locations. For the inset, I deviated from the house style to use a border that was in keeping with the overall 18th-century aesthetic.

I felt that the map had benefited from having an elaborate title, so I opted to remove one of the larger 'here be monster' stamps and used the space to add a frame for the title. You can see the full process below:

Again, I was happy with the result, but something still felt off. When I looked closer at the reference maps, I noticed that at a distance, the bodies of water read as a mid grey colour, but when I viewed them closer, I saw that the water was in fact this graphic, wavy line. To replicate this effect, I was not going to be able to continue using Clip Studio Paint (which I had used to draw the map up to this point). First, I hid the layer with the grey sea, and then exported the landmasses as a PNG file to preserve the transparency.

I spent time studying the pattern and could not find a way to extract it as a separate image that would keep the crisp, graphic (and professional) look. I realised I would need to make my own. While I had some experience creating repeating pattern designs, every bit of advice I could find noted how deceptively tricky wavy lines like this could be to line up perfectly. Affinity Designer also didn't have quite the same tools by which to do this effect compared to the ubiquitous Adobe Illustrator program. So I had to work out my own way of doing it. This took time I had not originally anticipated, but solving this problem was extremely satisfying, despite the output being so simple! Sometimes simple is the hardest thing to pull off - especially when you realise that the pattern wasn't a single tone, but rather alternating sets of lines using two different tones!

Using this pattern, I was able to repeat it across a background layer (reducing the overall size of the file and giving myself a pattern that I could re-use in other contexts) and then placed the map with its transparent water on top. I then added the typography in Affinity Designer, which had more specialised tools for this kind of work.

I think this map manages to fit the aesthetic, whilst also being able to fit into the overall 'house style' of the other campaign maps. I did wonder if I could lean into that a little more, so I added a paper texture back into the image, but at 50% opacity, so it was neither overbearing nor tinted the image to sepia. I feel this second option is stronger, as it seems to add more contrast between the land and sea.

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References

1. Alexander, K.M. (2020). Fantasy Map Brushes. [online] K. M. Alexander. Available at: https://kmalexander.com/free-stuff/fantasy-map-brushes/ [Accessed 3 Nov. 2025].

2. Darrington Press (2025). Map of the Witherwild. Daggerheart Campaign Frame Materials. Available at: https://www.daggerheart.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Campaign-Frame-Materials-May202025.pdf [Accessed 3 Nov. 2025].

3. Ganiev, M. (2024). Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator. [online] Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator. Available at: https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/ [Accessed 3 Nov. 2025].

4. Garrett, M. (2024). How to Make a Rice Fantasy Map. [online] The Cozy Art Teacher Blog. Available at: https://thecozyartteacher.com/how-to-make-a-rice-fantasy-map/ [Accessed 3 Nov. 2025].

5. Rhorik 2 (Rhorik2) (2020). World Building - Episode 1 Map Generation with Dice. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0w6Kj9sSoU [Accessed 3 Nov. 2025].