5 Free Map Tools for Dungeon Masters

[@WASD20]

Correction: Thanks to some of you pointing it out, it looks like Azgaar's DOES allow you to shape your coastlines. It's not 'drawing' so much as choosing areas to raise out of the water (or lower I assume) using the heightmap tool. Map on! :)

[@shiekahfan01]

My only problem with Azgar's is that it gives you an option to load a map but you can't upload pictures or code it HAS to be one of the Azgar maps you've already made which to me sucks

[@RCZY_OFFICIAL]

@@shiekahfan01 you can definitely upload pictures

[@RCZY_OFFICIAL]

and then you can convert that picture into a height map

[@shiekahfan01]

@@RCZY_OFFICIAL really you sure about that? Every time. EVERY. TIME. i have tried to upload a map that i have drawn none, NONE, of my pics on my computer are able to be uploaded

[@lordluxembourg68]

i was gonna say that

[@molonlabe5090]

*me on tectonics watching my continents slowly drift towards each other.* Oh yeah. It's all comin' together.

[@jackielinde7568]

Hopefully, they don't crash.

[@thesleepydot]

Molon Labe 😂😂

[@domenicomoceri9413]

Lich: PULL THE LEVER Skeleton:*pulls pit fall lever Lich:WRONG LEVER

[@kittymowmow12]

@@jackielinde7568 but when they crash you get mountains!

[@Karmanya779]

🤣🤣🤣

[@Sandwhaler]

"Especially if I'm struggling to come up with a shapes that look good" I took a picture of some clouds and used that as an outline for the country. It turned out pretty good.

[@SysterYster]

That's a great idea!

[@statelyelms]

Finding map shapes out in the wild is the most fun for me. I've taken shapes from the solidified cocoa powder on the bottom of a hot chocolate mug, the moisture outline on a cardboard disc for a pizza kit, and caked-on dirt on the bumper of the family van. imo the cocoa powder and the cardboard disc turned out the best (I just outlined it directly for the cardboard one). Real easy, real fun, do recommend

[@ianyoung130]

Actually Azgaar's Map Generator does allow you draw coastline, using the height map tool.

[@WASD20]

Nice! Just tinkering with it now. The only frustrating thing is you can't do much fine detail. You can add 'chunks' of land but not really finely sculpt your landmasses. I suppose "finely" is relative.

[@vazus171]

@@WASD20 Hi. You can edit the heightmap in details. You can also import an image and convert it into a map

[@MetalGamer666]

@@vazus171 Hey, is it possible to add like a "drawing" mode, where cities and mountains are changed to symbols similar to a hand drawn maps (like the Inkarnate style)? Awesome map tool!

[@vazus171]

@@MetalGamer666 Not sure I get your questions. You can add relief icons with a brush and can add cities icons. But obviously it's not like in Incarnate as we should respect underlaying graph and other data. It's not just image, it's complete system, just like a map in games.

[@MetalGamer666]

@@vazus171 Sorry for my poor wording. I know you can add icons. My question was if it was possible to change the look of these icons to be more "fantasy" themed. Like they were drawn by hand. So instead of a dot for a city, maybe with an anchor in it, it could be a small city icon, or a castle icon etc.

[@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece]

Imagine a 50,000 year old elven druid guiding as group and suddenly stopping after exiting a dense forest like: Druid: Oops, i don't remember this mountain to be here, certainly wasn't there when i last visited this place. Group: When did you last visit? Druid: i think i was around 1000 years old or something. Now you can simulate this with realistic plate tectonics. Or a more reasonable example: Earthquake regions!

[@sparkyjohan]

It takes give or take upwards of 100 million years to form from tectonic means, but maybe a volcano?

[@BuggSmasher]

"Now you can simulate this with realistic plate tectonics." . . . . . .My games take long enough without adding another 1000 years to play!

[@Yamismol]

It can also work for animals and races

[@Marquis-Sade]

1000 years is nothing in plate tectonic time measurement. A mountain certainly will not appear in 1000 years, lol Do you really think that in the year 1019 mount rushmore was a shallow hill? Oh boy...

[@voidling2632]

@@Marquis-Sade its not impossible, it depends on how active the planet is... but if it takes only 1000 years to form a mountain, ...oh boy the poor planet, it will be riddled with volcanoes.

[@dayel11]

As a nerdy paleobiologist, the tectonics one is kinda of a wet dream! :D I try to apply basic concept of geology and paleobiogeography to my world building, and as a result, I spent more time deciding the past of my worlds than the present, and often never actually finishing it! It's a good thing there's a tool that could save me some time! Good call!

[@oz_jones]

Giacinto check out GPlates.

[@snow5772]

@BadPeople1100 enable javascript in your browser

[@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes]

As a mild anthro nerd I also spend months plotting out every single minute detail of the world’a ancient history from the agricultural revolution and I too always give up before it’s finished.

[@ephraimboateng5239]

I have the same problem😅

[@aureusknighstar2195]

This dude looking like Atlas Pro

[@overnightgrowth]

Azgaar is pretty great. You can zoom all the way in, it even places cities and forts and stuff on the map and names them all. It also gives you the ability to change almost everything after the generation, names, place cities, etc.

[@_greenrunner_]

also the addition of population numbers in accordance to the nation area

[@gray_ggk]

I've been having a bit of an issue with it cuz I need to create a map for a futuristic world, I'm trynna find a good map creator for it but I'm having some trouble lol

[@truthserum4662]

I’ve been watching your videos for almost 2 years now, they keep getting better and better. Keep on doing what you do.

[@WASD20]

Thanks so much! :D

[@Snicker433]

You actually can create your own maps in Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator. You can edit the terrain, create entire continents and islands. You use the Heightmap editor, as well as the coastline editor. I made my entire novel map using Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator.

[@Evanarix]

I'm rewatching this video in November 2020 and it's amazing to see how far Azgaar has evolved in two years.

[@pettersonystrawman9291]

You could totaly use the 3D model to take a screenshot and than put in in a background layer of any photoshop-like software and trace the lines, delete the screenshot, than add some details by hand, so it accltually looks like painted street view, instead of some flat generated models. That could give you a picture you can with no shame put in front of your players for visualization, while you don't have to be master artist to create it.

[@Gredran]

It’s funny, how I commented on the wonderdraft video and how it isn’t free, and THEN discover you have a video focused on the free tools. Awesome man! Thanks for these videos!

[@christopherscottc]

There is a few you didn't mention that I think are fantastic.Worldographer, Dungeonographer, and cityographer. Super custom, and make great maps. They are free or you can make the one time purchase for pro. That is what I use, thanks for the other suggestions though I am checking them out right now.

[@NotABot-px7ky]

Thx

[@lesteryaytrippy7282]

This is helpful, thank you 😀

[@EwenHeaton]

“I’d like to thank my patrons for their support” -casts eldritch blast

[@grobanlover292]

I prefer Hexagrapher to Inkarnate, because, while theyre both hex based, Hexagrapher has a customization scale (and larger maximum scale) can randomly generate maps or allow for custom maps, and has more textures for terrains and environments. Plus it's not web based, so you can use it even if the internet goes down.

[@TheFuriousBrother]

Same here, but I mostly use it for a rough idea of what the world looks like and then draw it myself

[@TheHengeProphet]

Inkarnate claims ownership of everything made placed or "displayed" on their website via their terms of service (found via a disturbingly small button on the bottom of their home page). This means that anything you make on your website is under their copyright ownership and you can only use it (for say a book or something) if you maintain their subscription service (effectively considered a license fee).

[@WASD20]

I don't think this should come as a surprise. The notion that you can create something in a program that already gives you the art assets and then publish it without any licensing fees seems a bit farfetched to me. It's not photoshop. They literally give you all the art. It's their art.

[@TheHengeProphet]

What is the surprise is not that you can't publish it with their art assets. You can't recreate it somewhere else with your own art assets, because now they own everything about it, including place names, shapes, and patterns associated with your map.

[@old_geeky_Michael]

@@WASD20 Hi Nate - bit late to this comment, but worth pointing out that the ProFantasy (paid) tools, like Campaign Cartographer, allow precisely that. You can create maps, use them, share them, publish them etc. with their programs and art without paying any license fees (though there is a "fair use" clause). Just thought I'd stick this here for anyone who didn't know!

[@lunarbeetlejuice9768]

I think what HengeProphet is getting at is, your own material, place names, cities and territories, belong to Inkarnate if you even use the tool once. It is a VERY shifty copyright model which sounds a lot like deviantart and their known business practice of selling an artists work to third parties with no notification or royalties to the artist, since the fine print dictates that once you agree to upload (or in this case, input data) all of that material no longer belongs to you, and they can legally do whatever they please with it, including selling it back to you for an incredibly steep price. Its a well known legal loophole scam that is abhorrent on creative platforms.

[@olivierdastein2604]

@@lunarbeetlejuice9768 That's not true about Deviantart. There was a couple issues where people *believed* that the terms of services was giving Deviantart the copyright of your material. It's not correct. In one at least the complainant had sold the copyright to a third party himself, but didn't realized what he had signed, assumed that Deviantart, not himself, had done it and went on to misunderstand the terms of service.

[@nna575]

We all know Dwarf Fortress is the ultimate world generator

[@oz_jones]

N N A praise Armok!

[@shadow1910]

I liked this comment because I saw dwarf fortress but not because it's a map generator but I love dwarves and I imagine a fortress made by them.

[@MoodyWeatherASD]

Strike the earth!

[@lukplumbob3092]

I think we ALL know

[@Giganfan2k1]

I need a better computer because I really want to play an RPG with DF map and history.

[@aureusknighstar2195]

Another thing that gives me inspiration for maps. I am the home dishwasher in our house. Most of the time I get bored washing dishes and just messes with the bubbly clutter in the water, as the water moves, so does the bubble "islands" or "continents". It actually works pretty well simulating tectonic movement, and the best fact is, its easy and cheap

[@Bwbyars]

Azgaar's will now let you create a heightmap in Photoshop (or Gimp or whatever) and import it into Azgaar's. This is an incredibly powerful feature, because you can set the units (how many miles to the pixel), set the prevailing winds, the latitude, temperatures at the poles and equator, etc. Then Azgaar's will work out the rivers, terrain, settlements, etc. for you. What's really amazing, if you click on the settlements, they are linked to the Medieval Fantasy City Generator and a heraldry generator so you can then see maps of the individual settlements. Azgaar's has been adding so many powerful features (how many military units are stationed at your settlement? where have historical battles been fought? Where are the current insurrections happening?). Definitely worth re-visiting and digging into how powerful it really is.

[@WASD20]

Wow. Got to do a video on that at some point.

[@jakeand9020]

Also you can position the map on the globe and adjust the size of the globe, this also affects all the factors it should. Such as you mention generally using smaller climate zones, just make the globe smaller and the zones shrink accordingly. You can edit the heightmap right in Azgaars, as well as the coastline directly. If you choose you can have your heightmap changes not effect anything else, but warnings do pop up telling you that's not a good idea. The link is to randomly generation tools, Azgaar's will not remember the town or coat of arms generated by them. Still pretty cool, also the different settings in Azgaar's for the town (walls, fortress, port, temple, population, shantytown etc) are all automatically put into the town generator's options, so you get appropriate towns. Not sure if it will account for rivers or not, I haven't played with that feature too extensively yet. The only major weakness I've seen with Azgaar's is the cell format, it really limits what you can do on the micro level.

[@dashlaru2]

One of the neat hidden features of Azgaar is each city generated on the map has a little folded map icon in it's drop down menu. When you click on the icon, it takes you to Watabou's fantasy generator, and the link is consistant. You can save it as a .json file and the links are preserved!

[@huntercrisel4921]

I've been GMing for almost a year and I make random maps all the time. Your videos have made my life so much easier and my map making more enjoyable. I can't wait to try out some of these tools!

[@WASD20]

Well thanks! Enjoy!

[@TheWampam]

Out of some reason i decided to come bakc to the Azgaar map tool and after somem hours of playing around with it i am finally at a point, where I understood most of it's functions. I would claim that it is a very usefull tool for starting a map, since it combines a very strong auto generator with the ability to change the map at your wish. The more complex features are probably most usefull for that fans of super hard fantasy worlds, since it gives you the information about how your biomes should be, about the amount of people that live in the kingdoms and theír armies etc. But for me who already has the ideas about how the map should look like and wants some creative freedoms it is a bit annoyng, that you would have to change everything manually, since there is no function to change some thing and then let the rest autofill. But it is still a very good tool.

[@thevoidcritter]

I love Azgaar's tool! Usually I just choose to have the names filed off so I can fill them in myself, but I let it handle most other things for me. I'm good at making manmade landmarks and settlements, but I absolutely hate trying to draw landmasses myself or figure out how to place natural features in a way that looks realistic. One thing I like about it in particular that wasn't mentioned: it also maps out roads for you, and places settlements in areas that are pretty realistic (near running water or major trade routes).

[@ismaellavallee7675]

i discovered azgaar recently, and it is by far the most indepth one i've ever seen when it comes to world building. the only thing missing is a dungeon generator but you can generate your dungeon in another web application and put a link on a marker or even put the dungeon itself in the notes.

[@stumpy1495]

This sort of video is what KZbin is made for! Excellent source of information.

[@TheUnhousedWanderer]

8:45 this app has greatly improved in the last 4yrs. I'm not technologically savvy at all, but even I understand this

[@captainsidekick3333]

My favorite tool is to throw a lot of dice on a large piece of paper and the larger clusters of dice are continents and the dice dictate terrain and city placements.

[@somesz83]

We made maps by hand using coloured pencils back in the dawn of the '90s. I also made cave maps using real map signs used by real caveman. Time passed. This was more than 20 years ago. We also build our own RPG system and world. I miss those nights.

[@piotrwalewicz7106]

Thanks! I've never thought about searching for GMing apps on Steam.

[@lukazz1270]

Azgaars map is interactive with the medieval Fantasy City Generator. As in you can enter a map on the fantasy map and then you will be redirected to the city generator where you can save that and it will be saved on the fantasy map. So you can change and sculpt the fantasy map way more than you would expect since you can change the individual town as well. You can make a small hamlet into a large city if you so desire and it would reflect that on the big fantasy map as well

[@redforest9269]

It may have changed since the months I've been gone from Azgaars, but it didn't save changes to the city, it'd just use the same randomly generated seed every time you opened it on the map.

[@lukazz1270]

@@redforest9269 yeah you need to save the map

[@redforest9269]

@@lukazz1270 The city generator doesn't have an online save button. And even if it did it wouldn't translate to Azgaars (at least not yet). After I left my previous reply I tested it and the closest thing to the city saving is the overworld button sending you back to your map if you didn't change the city whatsoever otherwise it generates a new map.

[@lukazz1270]

@@redforest9269 a friend of mine did it. Can't tell you how but he saved cities on the map

[@redforest9269]

​@@lukazz1270 Interrogate and/or threaten him.

[@bonbondurjdr6553]

You can also use Excel to draw your dungeons. Super cool concept!

[@TheErusPrime]

I know it's 2 years old at this point but Talespire.com - it's a beta VTT but it's so pretty and I really hope it's the future of rpg's online. Also I'd love to see these generators get some worldanvil integration. I just recently started on the idea of building my own living universe to cover multiple games. Really the only part of being a DM I like is the worldbuilding.

[@TheAgr08]

This video was published right when I was looking around for map making tool recommendations, so I'm very grateful for the timing. I've liked other videos I've seen from you as well, so I guess now I'm subbed :D

[@amandakarlsson2343]

Thank you so much for sharing this info!! It was the best! I was ranting to my mom literally yesterday about how I couldn't find any good map-building sites online!!

[@VanillaV4]

Azgaar fantasy map generator has a good additude within the community and actually lets you make a fantasy mediocre but definetley alot better than other generators

[@vlads3283]

A quick shout out, to all those currently looking over the comments the Azgaar FMG shown in this video is an older ver(0.6). The current version (1.2) and the beta version( 1.3) allows for everything WASD20 acknowledged the program doesn't allow and some more.

[@benweinberg3819]

I've used the fantasy city generator for a few years now, they always load for me in a couple of seconds. I love how you can implement edits and then undo them to go back to an old one if you like it better. Cheers!

[@WASD20]

Once I loaded it the first time, each new city or town loaded nearly instantaneously.

[@chiefgully9353]

Not sure if you got into plate tectonics yet @WASD20 but artifaxion has a good bit on this. Gplates Also techtonics help with mountains ridges and general elevations. Combine this with atmospherics and you get fairly detailed weather and eco systems

[@KashlinKoneko]

Worldspinner is a lot of fun to play with as well

[@alsitte]

Azgaar's Fantasy Map would be my fav spent hours fine tuning the map and now I'm importing it to wonderdraft and fine tuning my map.

[@Tounushi]

I use Inkscape for my dungeons, the Medieval Fantasy City Generator for cities and Wonderdraft for my continents.

[@overryans]

Where was this a week ago? I was useing Microsoft paint too make maps!

[@WASD20]

Lol

[@aureusknighstar2195]

Bruh thats painful to bear

[@captainbadassitude1845]

@@aureusknighstar2195 I’ve made several in MS paint. Why are we here, just to suffer?

[@aureusknighstar2195]

@@captainbadassitude1845 OOOF

[@elliotjohns8534]

Thank you for these map makers, I will probably be using one of these to rebuild my D&D games map

[@kamuelalee]

Thank you greatly for this. Woke up this morning worried about making a fantasy map for my novel...now, I can begin!

[@jakobsiegel8682]

For anyone considering azgaar, it has updated to 1.2 by now and has over 3x the amount of options and features as it does in this video.

[@ZombieKiLA1871]

I just used it today and god it was awful for what I was trying to do

[@dennis_duran]

Inkarnate does have a brush that makes randomly shaped edges.

[@WASD20]

They do now, yes. But for the first year or two it didn’t.

[@dennis_duran]

WASD20 Ah ok I understand. it’s not perfect because depending on what bruh size you use the level of detail in the random coasts changes.

[@heruca]

Thanks for the brief mention of MapForge, Nate! I saw a recent uptick in downloads and I can only assume this video had something to do with that. Slight correction, though: You mentioned that MapForge was still in beta, but it's actually been released since March 2018. What might have confused you is that the most recent release is currently marked as being "in beta status" while the kinks are being worked out of that rather large update (which, coincidentally, added support for Donjon-generated maps). Anyway, I'm really looking forward to your next video that will take a closer look at battlemap/encounter-scale mapping apps.

[@WASD20]

Ahh! Thanks for the correction. I will make sure to apply that new knowledge in any future mentions. :)

[@OffTheShelfGameReviews]

Any word on why the software is triggering Windows Defender? I was about to click that buy button until Windows Defender piped up.

[@heruca]

@@OffTheShelfGameReviews MapForge might be asking for internet access to use the "Check for Updates" feature that triggers shortly after launch.

[@OffTheShelfGameReviews]

@@heruca It is during the install. It won't even install unless I drop the Windows Defender.

[@heruca]

@@OffTheShelfGameReviews Then I don't know why. Perhaps because it's not code-signed? I don't know much about Windows Defender, TBH.

[@davidcashin1894]

OMG you are becoming my favorite GM dungeon master aid. And to think I started in 1976 by drawing chalk dungeons on my ping pong table! Admittedly I dropped out of RPG's in 1982....but still, WOW.

[@MyRkAcc]

For cities/towns in azggard you can also let it generate a city map with that whatabout one by a simple button click(in azgaard you can also edit things like population of the town/city and then it makes a small-medium-large town depending on the population).

[@timonelson6499]

Watobou's city generator has a .svg export option which means you can open the generated maps in a vector graphic editor like Adobe Illustrator, which completely opens up the possibilities. Not a lot of people seem to know this and I find it super useful!

[@Squanto22]

I used Azgaar's to create my groups map! You can download it and bring it into whatever you use to draw (like Clip Studio Paint) and go wild with it as a baseline!

[@Maxamillios]

oooOoo that's cool, I didn't think of that, that's a good idea thanks!

[@mistereiswolf70]

Im no Artist but for my fantasy world story i had a special formed continent in my mind so i refreshed azgaar many times and found a kontinent im now using for my story and its looking so freaking good so i prefer azgaar

[@Gannon2145]

The example map for Azgars in your video is straight up Tamriel

[@BrianWilkersontheAuthor]

Wow! This is fantastic stuff. I had to "is this stuff really free to use?" While all it looks amazing, the "toy town" thing is what blew me away; walking through a constructed town would be tremendously useful.

[@BennysGamingAttic]

Donjon is great. I made a map that spanned thousands of years. I got it so the icecaps melted and I raised to Sea levels, completely changing the coast (just keep your map seed and tweak the ice/water percentages).

[@benlol3023]

TY so much! i personaly loved azgaar map maker, it is so pretty, also with a lot of easy tools for newbies like me haha, thank you so much !

[@RobertWF42]

I'm using ProFantasy's Campaign Cartographer, City Designer, and Dungeon Designer packages. They're expensive ($99 for all three) and take time to master with the weird CAD-like drawing tools, but DD can produce truly creepy & evocative dungeons, complete with lighting effects and shadows. Thankfully the ProFantasy forum is an excellent resource when you get stuck drawing a map.

[@Midaspl]

It's been some time since the video, but definitely you should revisit Azgaar's. It has so many options right now it would take a full video. The only option I miss is making zoomed divisions to the map.

[@teejaykaye]

I've made all my combat maps for my game in Dungeon Painter Studio, it's a great program! You can find a lot of free png assets online that you can incorporate into your maps as well, but even the basic provided selection of assets is more than enough for your average DND map.

[@Pit_Wizard]

Watabou! That guy/gal must be a fellow Dragon Quest Monsters fan. Their stuff looks very intriguing and so different from what you normally see. Nice find!

[@grim789]

I have a industrial laser engraving machine. Learning DND is gonna be so much fun and finding out what kind of things I can create with it so exciting.

[@roobs2976]

thank you so much! this helps out alot when im thinking of locations to add into the worldspace of my campaign!

[@larsdaemelt9272]

Thanks dude. Just started playing dnd with friends. And this is a really great help!

[@guh___]

Very much happy to see a video like this! I'll check a few of these out. Thank you!

[@DarkWallay]

My friend... your eyes... they're HUGE, they pierce my soul!

[@aspektx]

As always a thumbs up for your vid. I believe "Don Jon" is a French word so the pronunciation should probably reflect that. Donjon is the generic term for a medieval Keep and is used as one of the two words in the French version of Dungeons and Dragons.

[@xiconp1993]

Funny thing is that I always pronunciated it the "french way" but because I thought it was some funny way of saying "dungeon"

[@WASD20]

It is sort of the word for dungeon. I believe it is where the term came from. A Donjon was where the prisoners were often kept, in a high tower at times. It was a very secure location. Over time people started moving prisoners into underground cells, thus the donjon moved underground. just recalling some thing I’ve read in the past. Might be right. :)

[@Xerxes2005]

@@WASD20 In medieval time, the "donjon" was indeed the tower in which the lord of the castle lived, in other words, a keep. The word comes from the Latin "dominus", meaning "lord." For some reason the English changed its meaning for a prison. Probably because, as you said, some prison cells could be placed underground in the keep.

[@Halrawk]

I'd highly recommend DungeonFog, it's fantastic and the new stuff they are working on looks incredible! The only down side is the free version is rather limited, but still very usable.

[@marcusfridh8489]

I made a tabletop roleplayinggame myself called Terra Tribalis, mostly based on sendboxing and leveling up your own skills. It all started with that i drew instictivly the Worldmap, letting the hand drew without thinking to much, vaguely resembling the IRL worldmap, and i did the same thing with the citymaps. only deciding what facilities would excist in the cities. and every continent has a diffrent climatezone an historyinspired cutlure. all from the natufians, ancient egypt, steppenomads, vikings, sami and inuit, chinese, inca, and so on to highfantasy. all drawn cruedly to hand

[@galahad-7634]

Nobody ever mentions Civ V's World Builder! I've been using it almost exclusively for DMing

[@twycross3]

Love the medieval city creator link you put in the description!!!

[@pzalterias5154]

Great video as usual ! Another subject, but I am currently worldbuilding and I wanted to share something I find really immersing. ( I’m french, so my exemples may sound really cringy in english but you’ll get the point). When I name places, I often name them because of their location, for example a little town named « crossroads » or a town between two rivers named « between the waters ». But it’s a little bit too obvious and boring. So I look at some medieval french words to translate it and give it a medieval taste. The player can understand half of it, and it gives a feel of history to each place. At least if he doesn’t understand, it sounds medieval. The other way around, I look at some trekking map on internet, find interesting name of streams, mountains and towns and search why they were named like that and take what I like. I guess this method is only interresting if your country has a medieval history... I don’t know if they are any equivalent in other countries, but on geoportail you have the entire country in high quality trekking maps. Another thing, you can add layers and see for exemple all the rivers over the geological map, so you can understand what shapes have rivers, how they go together, etc. Very interesting.

[@dougsundseth6904]

When you get to a dungeon tools review, I'll suggest Inkscape, which is to Illustrator as GIMP is to Photoshop.

[@grahamward7]

I’ve been using Inkscape for about 10 years. Amazing free program.

[@clockworkpotato9892]

IbisPaint X is good too

[@ditrixgenesis781]

I'm DMing for the first time and I used Donjon and Kobald Fight Club to make the whole thing. I don't know if it works yet, but it looks like it'll work. I'm excited

[@BigJyeTV]

What's cool is if you make a map you can use a program called Planet Generator that will wrap your 2D map around a globe.

[@WeTheFlock]

Awesome, super helpful video! You just made a D&D game that much more immersive

[@bearcat1868]

The plate tectonics one could make for a lot of fun in a time travel-based adventure.

[@Hawke1230]

Thank you Inkarnate was exactly what I was looking for

[@inspector3010]

"Songs of the Eons" is an upcoming Fantasy 4X game however the only thing out as of this moment is the world generation which does plate tectonics wayy better than the one you showed considering it has multiple other well-made features such as hotspots and erosion

[@GlobalCooldownxx]

I actually bought the steam version (full version) of Dungeon Painter Studio, worth every cent!! Especially with the steam workshop content and being able to add your own assets!!!

[@jameslarkin276]

Wow..the last few were really cool. I like to draw my own, but I am not as good as you yet so its nice to have stuff like this. Thank you!

[@lynnskelton7971]

Inkarnate also has a $25/year Pro Plan. Much cheaper than the $5/month Pro Plan if can afford to pay $25 up front. Definitely has a learning curve to figure WHEN to do what in regards to placing land, colors, trees, mountains, cities and such. Have to work from a layering approach. So best to work with the Free version first and then when satisfied with how it works go for the paid. Also looking forward to checking out the other tools you mentioned. Thanks for the video.

[@TeddyXGarm]

thank you, I always look for realism ... still looking for something with ocean current, but the tectonics site is helpful

[@seanathaalexand]

I used DonJon to build a city, but didn’t realize how many other generators there were. I just spent about a half an hour building the calendar I meant to build ages ago.

[@alexsgamingshow2474]

Thinking about running an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons second edition campaign set within a fictional but believable fantasy world! This was a lot of help! :)

[@ruben77]

Thanks for this. Many useful tools. I tried Donjon's several times (about a dozen or so) and was disappointed each single time the resulting map was made up of only one single landmass despite playing a lot with the settings. The others look more flexible in terms of creating more continents.

[@Makakikishk]

Before I found this video I had my map hand drawn by me and made over 60+ pages of lore for the land and its people

[@3rdDimensionFox]

azgaar lets you paint and edit ANY type or terrain. maybe it didn't back then but it does now

[@danielwarren4382]

This was a great video. It really helped me get some tools to work with

[@iquaniqua]

Itch is a digital store like steam and whatabou is a developer, what you visited is his creator page on itch, that's why the link is like that.

[@danieldosso2455]

I would recommend Hexographer. I use the free version myself, and am looking to purchase the full version.

[@purplesam2609]

I.... uh.... I use Minecraft World Painter. It's an external program to Minecraft and, although it can lag greatly if you make the file too big, you can add biomes and other things as well as make annotations that can be exported into a Minecraft world as well. You can also create a height map externally to use it overlay an image. Really nice if you want to make a map with a chance of populating it with Minecraft builds as well

[@ESC_Samu]

Adzgard let’s you create your own world, building the continents, the coastline and many other things

[@TheArbiter10]

The map at 7:26 is basically Canada if a great lake decided to visit the prairies and Alaska drifted off to become its own island because it's not technically ours.

[@lindsayschnittger9698]

Plate tectonics can also effect ecological evolution. For example the plate Australia is on broke away from Pangea first so the evolutional development of the species there is different than the rest of the world. I plan to consider this when world building but I like to make a reason for a lot of stuff. My dungeons have a reason for the layout and an ecology. This preys on that and so on. That is if the dungeon is one that has gone wild and depending on what the dungeon was before hand the creatures may be effected by magical influences.

[@JettKuroi]

Thank you for this video. I do prefer programs where I can control, rather than randomly generate a map that may look good but lacks flavor and context because it does not feel alive. I have ideas in my head for a world, and desperately want a program that can help me make a better looking, nice map for the worlds that exist in my head. I'm not that good an artist, so even using Gimp, Photoshop, or other programs like that, I cannot make a good looking map.

[@Jetmech1781]

Have you ever tried RPTools for dungeon/town mapping? Totally free, A LOT of additional content, plus the ability to add your own textures and tiles.

[@travelwell8098]

Nice overview! Thanks for the video!

[@seanathaalexand]

I use the Watabu town generator a lot, but I don’t have a PC. I use it on an iPad. It’s fun, but not really mobile friendly. It crashes while I’m in the middle of using it all the time. But it still looks good, and is fun to do.

[@Konjugation]

Have you ever used a GIS? The most sophisticated one i used was ArcGIS which is a licensed product i got from my university. There is also an opensource alternative called QGIS which i also like. There a some neat tools you can use in those. Once i just scanned a small fantasymap i made to digitalize it with a GIS. It was pretty basic, and i didnt used those fancy models you got like in your recommendations. Anyway. I'm looking forward to see your Mapvideos as i'm currently drawing a big 1.2mx1m Fantasymap with my girlfriend and need some inspirations and ideas. Keep up the good work.

[@TheOmen04]

Found your videos while looking for a way to start world building with my daughter. Thanks for making this video and the one about inkarnate vs wonderdraft. I'm still deciding which to get, but I was wondering what you know about worldanvil? It's another one I found, its membership based.

[@WASD20]

I don’t know about that one, but I do have it on my list to check out at some point.

[@mr.paperbag771]

I don't have a lot of experience with any of those but I can tell you the basics Between Inkarnate and Wonderdraft it's 100% Wonderdraft. It's just so much better and you will save money in the long run But Worldanvil is more used as a pen and paper notebook for fantasies, stories and game campaigns. The map building tool is good but really basic. It's mostly a single color hexacon map which you can draw lines on. If you want to make stories or game campaigns draw the maps with Wonderdraft and write the stories with the free version of Worldanvil. But if you just want to be artistic with maps, just buy Wonderdraft.