
Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator (2018) - harperlee
https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
======
doomlaser
If you like these country maps, you'll probably also appreciate:
[https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-
generator](https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator)

> This application generates a random medieval city layout of a requested
> size.

Likewise, it is web-based and interactive

~~~
amitp
Even better, the cities on Azgaar's maps link to Oleg's (watabou's) maps!
Click on a city name and then click the "folded map" icon. It will create a
city that matches the environment on Azgaar's maps (e.g. port city vs inland,
rivers, etc.).

~~~
retpirato
Where is this "folded map" icon? I don't see it anywhere.

~~~
retpirato
nvm. I found it. in fantasy map generator click on a burg name, & the folded
map icon is the third icon in the row at the bottom. You can click "overworld"
in the bottom-right corner of Watabou's map to open the corresponding Azgaar
map. I don't remember seeing that before.

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cjhveal
I really like the maps this generates. For me, plausibility is really
important when creating any fictional map, because it's possible to create a
map that looks beautiful but depicts a place that doesn't really make sense
even with fantasy elements incorporated.

The color scheme of the political map is highly distinctive but feels
cohesive. There's a decent phonetic/orthographic consistency in the naming
within a state. The religions layer doesn't feel particularly integrated with
the political one, for instance I found a theocracy without an organized
religion.

The geography is also pretty good. Rivers are one of the telltale signs of
poor fantasy map building, but this makes pretty believable rivers, though I
did find a case of an inland sea draining into itself. It's good the mountains
form ranges, but it would be interesting to have some more evidence of
volcanism. I found one map with a huge area filled with mountains in an
unrealistic way but I had a fun time imagining how it may have gotten that way
in a fantasy world.

I really like that it has some climate generation and I'd love to see more,
things like prevailing winds, winter/summer variation, and more of a Köppen
climate classification[0] than the biomes currently listed, but I know this is
a fantasy map generator and those require parameterizing more the nature of
the planet being mapped.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Köppen_climate_classification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Köppen_climate_classification)

~~~
cobbzilla
> an inland river draining into itself

Like this?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_River)

~~~
cjhveal
You've misquoted me. I was talking about a large body of water that had a
river leaving it, looping around and draining back into it. That's a very
peculiar behavior for a river.

The Jordan river flows through the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea before
proceeding on south. Nothing strange there. The situation I'm talking about
would be like if a river left the Dead Sea from the south, looped around and
immediately flowed back into the Dead Sea from the north.

~~~
cobbzilla
Thank you for the explanation, but I did not misquote you, I misunderstood
you. I didn’t see the same random map you saw, so I asked a question and
quoted you verbatim.

~~~
cjhveal
Didn’t mean for it to come off as hostile— I meant that your misunderstanding
may have come from misreading what I had written, as I don’t think I wrote
about an “inland river.” But even as I wrote it, it’s not particularity clear
unless you are already familiar with that kind of map making mistake, so happy
to explain. Either way, hope this clears up any confusion!

------
_Microft
This blog is amazing as well:

[https://heredragonsabound.blogspot.com/](https://heredragonsabound.blogspot.com/)

The latest entry is about the mentioned map generator by the way. Make sure to
check earlier ones!

~~~
amitp
That amazing blog is one of the inspirations for Azgaar's map generator:
[https://azgaar.wordpress.com/2017/03/30/first-
post/](https://azgaar.wordpress.com/2017/03/30/first-post/)

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udkl
Can anyone help me understand our facination with fantasy maps ? Why do I feel
inspired or awesome when looking at them ?

Is it because of the anticipated dopamine hit from the expected discovery of
the complexity of the terrains, stories, cultures, races etc ? Is it because
of the endless possibilities that an open map presents ?

Is it why I was crazy about skyrim, Baldur's, Fallout & open worlds back in
the days ?

~~~
codezero
I think it is that feeing of discovering the unknown.

Somewhat related I’ve been reading the original Mt. Everest reconnaissance
journals, and it’s just so fascinating reading someone describing their awe,
joy, and disappointments as they try to find a path to Everest, not even a
summit route.

I never thought I would get so engrossed in reading this kind of thing.

[https://archive.org/stream/mounteverestreco00howa#page/n10/m...](https://archive.org/stream/mounteverestreco00howa#page/n10/mode/2up)

~~~
scarejunba
I believe it. Arc'teryx had a photo essay a few years ago about a journey up a
previously unnamed peak [https://blog.arcteryx.com/greenland-photo-
essay/](https://blog.arcteryx.com/greenland-photo-essay/)

Oh, I get chills reading it again. It's slightly different with a nice good
fantasy world though so there's a little bit more there than the feeling of
that discovery.

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petargyurov
I like this one more:
[https://ui2.worldspinner.com/](https://ui2.worldspinner.com/)

The process can seem a bit lengthy but you can skip most parts (e.g.: culture
generation) and just get to the map bit.

Here is a map I made last night:
[https://i.imgur.com/HYMrbjx.png](https://i.imgur.com/HYMrbjx.png)

I turned off all cities, roads, rivers, etc, as I just wanted a plain map.

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mysterydip
Are there any modern/future/sci-fi map generators out there? All the ones I've
seen have been fantasy-focused. Something that generates modern sounding
names, vehicle roads, airports/seaports/spaceports, that kind of thing?

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bovermyer
In addition to the awesomeness of this tool, it links to several other tools
as part of its flow.

One of those is my heraldry generator, visible directly here:
[https://ironarachne.com/heraldry](https://ironarachne.com/heraldry)

~~~
BerislavLopac
BTW, silly question -- do you by any chance have the opposite of this tool?
I.e. something that would parse a blazon and produce an image? Thank you!

~~~
bovermyer
I'm afraid not. That is a MUCH harder problem, since parsing blazon of any
complexity has more than a little nuance to it.

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japanoise
This is excellent! I'll be using this for my OSR sandbox campaign for sure!

Note that if you want to use this for a hexcrawl, the hexes it generates are
50mi on their short diagonal - this means they fit five (four and two halves)
6 mile hexes on their short diagonal, if we go by
[https://www.welshpiper.com/hex-templates/](https://www.welshpiper.com/hex-
templates/)

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rogual
Pops up this error on Safari 12.1.2:

elevateLakes@main.js?version=1.0:1103:10 generate@main.js?version=1.0:593:17
generateMapOnLoad@main.js?version=1.0:198:11
checkLoadParameters@main.js?version=1.0:170:20 global
code@main.js?version=1.0:171:2

Console says: TypeError: undefined is not an object (evaluating
'religCells.sort((a,b) => b.pop - a.pop)[0]')

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Tepix
I love it! Has anyone built something on top of one these maps?

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chrispauley
I've seen maybe a dozen similar map generators, however this is probably the
most customize-able one I've seen; an impressive toolset. Even more impressive
that the entire tool seems to be built without any templating or view
framework. jQuery is used to some extent but for the most part the entire app
is built with plain old vanilla DOM manipulation.

The codebase could use a few comments and cleaner structure, but overall it's
quite easy to poke through.

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ajuc
Slightly related - I needed a generator for maps of encounters in the
wilderness for my d&d campaign, and the ones I found weren't working well for
me, so I made my own - very unpolished version, but maybe someone will find it
useful:

[https://ajuc.github.io/outdoorsBattlemapGenerator/](https://ajuc.github.io/outdoorsBattlemapGenerator/)

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kuroguro
Oddly hitting F5 doesn't regenerate the map on ff/windows for me. Have to do a
full reload with ctrl+shift+r.

~~~
CGamesPlay
You can also regenerate without reloading the page by pressing F2 (there is
also a button in toolbox).

------
kebman
Very inspirational. Actually I think I'll send it to a fantasy author friend
of mine!

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sidcool
Very impressive. What does it use?

~~~
amitp
Code-wise, it's mostly using d3.js to generate SVG. You can browse it at
[https://github.com/Azgaar/Fantasy-Map-
Generator](https://github.com/Azgaar/Fantasy-Map-Generator) .

Algorithm-wise, it's built on Delaunay+Voronoi:
[https://azgaar.wordpress.com/2017/03/30/voronoi-
graph/](https://azgaar.wordpress.com/2017/03/30/voronoi-graph/)

The project started after Azgaar was inspired by Mewo2's map article and Scott
Turner's amazing map blog: [https://azgaar.wordpress.com/2017/03/30/first-
post/](https://azgaar.wordpress.com/2017/03/30/first-post/)

~~~
sidcool
Thanks for a detailed response.

