How to Draw Fantasy Maps: Political Borders 🌍

We’re back to nitpick about fantasy map design! While natural borders like rivers and mountains are a major part of how borders get drawn on a map, they’re not the only factor. Adam takes a look at how history has shaped a few of our borders, and how we might be able to use the lessons they teach us in our own fictional maps to make more interesting national borders.
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#fantasy #maps #cartography #writingcommunity
//VIDEO CREDITS//
Script and audio by Adam Bassett: / adamcbassett
Editing and Thumbnail by Cole Field: / acolefield
//ADDITIONAL RESOURCES//
Not sure how to make a map? I was using Affinity Designer, but that’s a little complicated compared to some of the alternatives. We compared a few popular tools: www.campfirewr...
More about map design: www.campfirewr...
A brief history of Romania: localhistories...
More about Enclaves and Exclaves: storymaps.arcg...
The India / Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement: www.brookings....
More about how many of Africa’s borders were decided: africaupclose....
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//AFFILIATE LINKS//
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A powerful spell checker and style editor that works wherever you do your writing!
Bookshop: bookshop.org/s...
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[@AroundTheCampfire]

THE 10K SUBSCRIBER CONTEST IS OVER. The winner has been selected and given lifetime access to all of Campfire's writing modules. Sincerely, thank you all for participating in this little event. We weren't really sure what would happen but you blew us away. I hope you also got something out of the video, whether you've just discovered the channel for the first time or you've been watching us for a few years now. We've got more exciting writing and worldbuilding videos coming soon, so stick around, and thanks for watching! 😄

[@Onzo22]

Question, for the last part of the video what program did you use to draw maps, and is there others you might recommend that are free?

[@Nostripe361]

A good reason for straight border might be just too powerful nations that can’t claim the entire border region so they just draw a straight line between them to make things easier

[@kalistaewer3268]

"Politics both help and ruin everything." Amen. This is massively helpful in thinking deeper about the how and why of borders.

[@inzyniertv9305]

Is it in universe politics?... or real life politics? One is great other ruins everything

[@carkawalakhatulistiwa]

How about Western Europeans drew borders in Asia and Africa using rulers (straight line )and divided a nation into 2 different countries.😊

[@inzyniertv9305]

@@carkawalakhatulistiwa Yeah thats the problem real life politics

[@SpartanChief2277]

bro said amen

[@tarvoc746]

Another thing to keep in mind is that premodern countries often don't even have clearly drawn borders. The further you go back, the less clearly and distinctly the lines are drawn.

[@IDoBeSmarter]

Best comment, I just don't draw borders anymore. Instead I draw power centers, like cities, valleys or forts.

[@nicoliedolpot7213]

imo definitive lines are generally a post-Crimean war concept, since the modern concepts of sovereignty and diplomacy started the practice of making conclusive settlements between parties, which includes creating clear lines of where territory ends and starts.

[@HMN134]

Yep, they were more like blurry blobs. Even more so with tribes.

[@fyeahusa]

Yeah. Where populations were denser you might have more defined borders, or if a country established a series of defenses you might have a pretty clear distinction but in some cases where a country bumps up against a desert, they likely are exerting influence into it but don't really have any fixed boundary defining how far into the desert their country extends, and both these situations could exist at once. On one side a country might sign a treaty demarcating a border, or build a series of forts that de fact establish a border, and on the other side have a desert with no fixed boundary.

[@fyeahusa]

@@nicoliedolpot7213 Eh, the concept of defined borders as well as soverignty and diplomacy existed before the Crimean War as well. The treaty that defined the border between the US and Canada was written and signed by the US and Britain before the Crimean War. And we have other treaties as well, dating as far back as the Bronze Age which seeked to establish peace and borders.

[@Red-in-Green]

The main thing I’ve learned in making fantasy world building more realistic is: Start with a logically consistent world, then sprinkle on some bullsh-t. Draw your maps around logical borders, then straighten some, bend others, and do enough random stuff to make it feel just a little off. Make sure it makes sense, but also that you could to a “Top 5 Weirdest Borders” video in your world.

[@The_Copper_Element_Itself]

2:11 learning about the history behind the borders and geopolitcs of a country helps a lot. Romania for example, is hard to see "ignoring the mountains" like you say because they actually seem to acknowledge in many ways, and is instead just expanding its limits WITH the mountains. There are a lot of subdivisions in the country that let geographical boundaries explicit; and populational differences in transylvania are really bold

[@wladynoszhighlights5989]

Especially with "Trianon" lol

[@exctinnal]

​@@wladynoszhighlights5989 trianon was generally successful

[@wladynoszhighlights5989]

@@exctinnal Caused a lot of peoples life quality to worsen since areas that were once Hungarian were completely neglected after Trianon, the people were surpressed, discriminated and hungered causing many to move to Budapest causing it to be overpopulated and Ghetto areas got more frequent. And the people who stayed had it even worse. Same with other nationalities who lived in those areas like Svabs or Bunjevac

[@exctinnal]

@@wladynoszhighlights5989 did the Hungarians not oppress the Romanians just as much, even more? Ever heard of the hungarian process of magyarization, abducting children from their families and brainwashing them into being hungarian? When trans6lvabia joined romania, a million people rejoiced and some ethnic overlap was inevitable yes, but keep in mind Hungary had lost the war, it wasn't meant to be fair either

[@basil9973]

@@wladynoszhighlights5989 what of the majority romanian areas? they were not much better off under hungarian rule. you must remember it goes both ways, as both nations repressed eachother's peoples.

[@eravas411]

political borders are interesting because for some part they tend to follow natural features like mountains and rivers, but then sometimes you get absolutely stupid shapes for weird political reasons which just adds a whole layer of depth to a world. congrats on the subs, happy worldbuilding!

[@jacobbayless6173]

World building and geography is my biggest struggle when it comes to writing. Campfire has helped me improve in other areas, however, so hats off to the team for all of the inspiration and hard work you put into the platform!

[@QemeH]

When I built the world for my DnD campaign, I sat down and had a little game day just for myself. After making a geographical map without any political entity, I then seeded human population and a few attributes and then started to turn-based develop and fight between settlements, emerging kingdoms or nations and other political forces. Kinda like a game of risk paired with model UN, but all based on dice so it’s sufficiently random. (If you know the system Stars without number you‘ll know the sort of thing I did.) It led to an awesomely diverse political map with the benefit that every time a player would ask „why is this weird exclave a thing?“ I did not just have an answer, but could give three different answers depending on how deep into history the particular NPC went (think asking somebody „why is point roberts a thing?“ - you either give the quick answer of the line on a map or you can go full „let me explain colonization to you“ mode). It took quite some time, but because it was like a second little game for me, I really enjoyed it and it definitely enhanced the immersion of my players who always marvel at the depth of my knowledge about a fantasy world.

[@papagaiofilmes6642]

you should look up Mappa Imperium" then, its kinda like a worldbuilding game that only requires dice and the book to create a DnD world in a fun way just like what you made. it was created by the youtuber nookrium, and he made videos about it. i think you gonna like its idea.

[@Twisol]

One of my friends and I have been building a world for several years now. He discovered Campfire only recently, and he just. can't. stop. telling me how blown away he is by what you've built. I've been too busy with grad school to dig in, but I'm sure I'll be singing Campfire's praises soon enough! Here's hoping for that lifetime subscription ;)

[@marco0445]

Hi political geography major here! Another aspect to consider is that in a medieval like fantasy settings, especially in a feudal system, the concept of borders is very difficult to locate in the fictional reality of the world. We are conditioned by concepts like nation states and clear cut political maps, to intrinsically understand the concept of a border. But for a majority of humanity (before our time) the concept of borders as we know it was foreign, they looked upon borders from the ground, different feudal lords had different fealties, e.g. the king of england was also the duke of Normandy subserviant to the King of France. Nonsensical territories and patchwork bordergore like in the HRE (holy roman empire) came about through political systems, decades long border conflicts were caused by unclarity of land deeds. I encourage you to first place important settlements, think about the political entities, culture and the people living there and then as a result of that one should draw the borders!

[@AroundTheCampfire]

Yeah this video definitely leans more toward the modern understanding of what a border is defined as. Perhaps we'll revisit this topic from a Medieval perspective one day.

[@marco0445]

@@AroundTheCampfire And thats entirely fine too! It might make more sense and might be easier to grasp for modern readers/tabletop groups.

[@oliverstianhugaas7493]

Rule #1: No USA state borders.

[@CallsignYukiMizuki]

S Q U A R E

[@Juan-f4x8i]

Africa exists and also you could add some lore to a country that it was at war with country B and they signed a peace treaty with their new border going through some parrarel or Smth.

[@toyotatacoma1616]

Flat borders tell stories on their own, recent conflicts over territory, resolved by committee and treaty.

[@thewellkownp.i.g.9019]

Straight borders male more sense when the cut through pieces of land with very low populations. Take the border between Namibia and Botswana. It works because the amount of people living on that border is so small it can safely be ignored without many consequences.

[@DixiePixi]

Not only did The Inheritance Cycle introduce me to fantasy it revived my love for it when I lost interest.

[@ReviewSalesmanDan]

Doesn't the example of Romania cut completely against what you're advising? The pre-modern nations that make up current-day Romania appear to have borders following rivers, mountains, etc. For instance, Moldavia's borders more or less followed the Carpathian Mountains and the Dniester River. And likewise, Transylvania drew its borders from the Carpathians and the Apuseni Mountains. For most fantasy series set in worlds without the equivalent of modern nation states, wouldn't we look more toward these pre-modern nations for inspiration? And is it the case that, in pre-modernity, natural borders were less surmountable than they are today?

[@rosiefay7283]

I find it more fun to imagine two neighbouring nations fighting to determine where the border between them goes, and the accident of war leading to something inconvenient. For example the war for control of a peninsula ends up with the border running *along* it. Or one nation ending up with land on both sides of a long fjord, making communication within the country difficult except by crossing that body of water.

[@starhalv2427]

When drawing a political map of my original fantasy world, I first focused on the central province of a worldspanning empire, and then worked my way forward in the timeline drawing different kingdoms and lands that were conquered or otherwise incorporated, until I arrived at the "modern time" of my story. Where it's a huge, continent-spanning empire with a ton of smaller nations surrounding it- kinda like the Roman empire.

[@AroundTheCampfire]

🔥10K SUBSCRIBER CONTEST DETAILS 🔥 It’s wild to think how far this little channel has come. It’s thanks to all of you that we’ve hit this milestone, so we’re giving one lucky subscriber a lifetime subscription to every Campfire module. You’ll be able to create characters, interactive maps, plot the timeline of your story, and so much more without any limits. Plus, you’ll immediately unlock full access to the new Calendar Module as soon as it’s available. Which should be *very* soon. ✨HOW TO ENTER✨ All you need to do to enter this contest is subscribe to the channel and comment down below (tell us about your own maps, talk about your world’s political borders, or just say hi). We’ll pick a subscriber at random and reply to your comment in a week (March 14th), so keep an eye out for that. **If the winner does not respond in a week, we’ll move along to somebody else.** If you leave a comment but do not want to enter the contest, just mention that in the comment. 🥳WHAT IF YOU WIN?🥳 KZbin doesn’t have a private messaging system, so we’re going to take a few extra steps to make this work. We’ll announce the winner in one week, on March 14th. If you win the contest, you’ll receive a notification from this channel saying you won, asking you to email us. Our contact form is here: www.campfirewriting.com/contact. In your email, just mention that you won this contest and what your YT username is. **DO NOT email anyone else claiming to be us, or use anything other than that email form to reach out to us.** We’ll respond with a short code and ask you to edit that into the comment we responded to on this video. That will help us make sure the right person is getting the prize. Once we confirm that you’ve edited the correct code into your comment, we’ll need to know your Campfire account username (the one that includes @ in the front). If you don’t have an account with Campfire, you can make one in just a few minutes for free here: www.campfirewriting.com/signup. Once we have your account username, we’ll get you set up with all the modules for life!

[@BludMokxGaming]

Merci pour le concours ! 😁 Hâte d'utiliser le nouveau module calendrier 😎

[@_dember]

This would be a fun opportunity for me, I wouldn't be able to afford it otherwise. Hope I get a shot :)

[@RomanSnow]

Hello! So, I just received an email about the giveaway, so here I am. I've already been subscribed for quite some time, so here's that comment. The main setting I'm writing for right now is a bit genre-blendy. Well, it's kind of two settings. The one we start with is a relatively conventional fantasy setting. There's magic, humans, and goblins. There may be elves and such as well, but only the goblins are really relevant. A technological city-state called Epoch City has risen up over the past decade, and it's ruled by someone who was displaced from Earth. But it isn't Earth as we know it. It's a post-superhero Earth, taken over by supervillains. That's as much as I'd like to share about it. It's a world (or worlds?) better revealed over the course of the narrative than described all at once. I'll be keeping an eye out for this giveaway. Thanks for the opportunity!

[@Nagytika]

Kawai Desu, Innit? ^^

[@Cordeeceps]

Hello! Thanks for the opportunity. :)

[@Sparksly_]

I hadn't thought about borders like that before, but that's a really good thing to keep in mind, especially if national politics are a main focus in the story. Also, congrats on 10k!

[@toshikudo]

congrats on 10k!!! I wanted to keep the "about my own maps" bit short. but it's not everyday that i get an opportunity to drop lore about my project so enjoy pfft Since the post apocolyptic setting is a very important factor to the plot, i’m going for a setting that’s very inspired by the real world, but with the cultures more merged in. The basic historical divisions in the story’s world have slowly faded over time since some areas are more unsafe than others, so i’m aiming towards “districts” instead of nations. With the lack of communication options and well just lack of safety in travel so there’s no full map any charcters could refer to (at least not in the start). In the end, instead of using clear historically set borders, what’s left of the government and authorities use borders according to mutually benificial pacts between districts to protect each other, or they have natural borders due to geography or just inhabitable regions. Most of the map making is still a work in progress since the story is more character driven, but the relavance of divisions is pretty important. Areas surrounding ones usually work with no goverment or real division and are generally unsafe since the land there is free to take because no authorities see profit in managing them. At the same time there are regions with historical borders still implemented since they aren’t unsafe. That all said, There is a very major role of the development, expansion and erasure of certain districts, in fact a major conflict revolves around the violent expansion of a country into a district formed by mutual interests all because it was the safest. Unfortunately the area does become unsafe which slowly turns the entire country into ruins because all the resources and trade were concentrated in that one district to assure that no calamity leads to losses (never realised until now that i may have accidentally made karma a canon thing 😭). Anyways, aside from that mentioning politics and borders of the major districts is too big of a spoiler! This is my smaller project, my main project with proper extensive world building with several species and stuff, but that's a shared project and a life goal so i'd rather reveal that world's setting with the story itself :) tl;dr : i love lore dumping

[@DarthKiptcha]

I never thought about the concepts of enclaves and borders that end up kinda fuzzy when you sit down to design, but it was a great watch. Keep up the good work on campfire ♥

[@ishelbe10]

Maps have usually always been at the center of my stories, so it was pretty psyched to find campfire which has not only writing software but the ability to bring the maps that live in my head and the backs of notebooks to life

[@SilentShayShores]

I'm working on a passion project based around a sci-fi setting, and I recently made a map using Krita. I've been struggling with making borders, so I'm glad I stumbled across this video.💜

[@fastjacobeagle7792]

I've been doing fiction writing for a while now but just got into worldbuilding for a fantasy world that I've been working on within the last year, and because of that I've been looking around for writing tips and have been watching this channel quite a bit for the last few weeks, (quite a lot of good stuff on here). Just got into map making recently and have been loving it. While it can be very difficult it can be super gratifying aswell.

[@iWriteWithPride]

I'm still learning how to make maps but I'm absolutely LOVING it. Worldbuilding is my favorite part of writing and it's a joy to be able to see the world that I'm making.

[@DoomsdayDuck_]

I’ve been playing D&D for years now, and have been coming up with stories since before then. Campfire has been a saving grace when it comes to writing and organising those stories into playable adventures. All of that to say: Campfire is awesome.

[@Kiwru]

After this I feel there's alot more I can do with my worlds Worlds Map, especially since there's so much strife between the different countries in my world, yet the boards at pretty flat. Particularly the Bangladesh/India board example gave quite the flash of inspiration. You've given me alot to think about, and a Massive congratulations on reaching 10K subs!

[@sappholopod4829]

Something I think is crucial to keep in mind when looking at "just a straight line" borders is that they tend to be expressly colonial occurrences. Geographic features are much more prevalent determining factors when it comes to actual on-the-ground disputes -- after all, if you're going to claim land with the intent of holding on to it, you usually want it to have strong natural defenses for when your neighbors come back a few years later trying to retake it. Borders that completely ignore geography tend to be born from politics done at a distance, e.g. monarchs sitting in palace meeting rooms trying to decide how to "share" land a thousand miles away so their colonists don't start a thousand wars over it. If you look a little closer at North America, you'll notice something important: the borders are a lot more complex to the east of the Mississippi River than to the west. The 49th-parallel line between Canada and the U.S. suddenly starts squiggling, the field of giant rectangles defining the different U.S. states gives way to a jumble of various shapes and sizes, and the lines all seem to pay more heed to natural boundaries like rivers and mountains. This is largely due to the fact that these borders were drawn when there were barely any colonists west of the Mississippi, so all the land claims were decided with more of an eye for distant economic necessity rather than local geopolitical sensibility. While it's true that having every border perfectly follow obvious geographic boundaries makes for bland fantasy, throwing in random geography-ignorant borders with no consideration for why such a thing would happen i.m.o. makes it even worse.

[@brettpersson]

I already have a lifetime to all of the Campfire modules. Just wanted to say thank you for making such a great tool for writers. I appreciate it.

[@Sa-chat]

I didn't know Campfire had a channel! I am terrible at making maps. They always follow too closely something I already know. But if making maps is difficult, what I find most difficult is to decide on the climate there. Climate depends on so many things: the land itself, mountains, forests, seas, oceans, landmasses across aforesaid ocean... it's so delicate. Plus, climate influence how people live in a given region, and therefore culture, politics, history and maps too!

[@somewhereelse1235]

This video is over a year old now, but it's something that I just came across. This is something that I've struggled to try to explain to other people getting into worldbuilding, about how natural boarders are a good start for nations but are not the end all be all, how nationalism or colonialism may make a nation that's typically locked to one region expand elsewhere, or how migrations of the past can lead to situations such as the Uyghurs of China or Kurds of Turkey/Iran trying to get their own independence and form "ugly" boarders. Granted, I tend to be the "more is best" approach to worldbuilding, and how events 200 years in the past can influence claims of the present and all that, and she just doesn't comprehend that scale of nation building.

[@Aerofaux]

I get so into the weeds with cultural details of my characters, and I love it every time.

[@milesanderson2412]

I've struggled so much trying to build an amazing map for a giant futuristic city. Landscape design for skyscrapers and such, not easy. But I've had a wonderful time each time I do it

[@uhoh8489]

Another thing I’ve noticed is that fantasy countries tend to be around the same size as each other, which doesn’t always happen in practice

[@MartijnVos]

Another issue is that in the past, borders weren't always as strictly defined as they are today. During the Middle Ages, some borders would shift constantly, and in ancient times, they could be very vague. What matters is who controls which town or village, but some piece of swamp in the between two countries might not be so important. What ultimately matters is the resources you control.

[@powerist209]

And one thing you could add. Mandala model of medieval South East Asia. Basically, the idea that geopolitical extension came from a sphere of influence from nearby areas beyond its core region and the ability to extract tributes from said relations. Kinda like feudalism but much more apparent as political philosophy in South East Asia

[@amelialoyselle2123]

Congrats on 10k! 🎊 When I started worldbuilding the nuances of climate, biodiversity, agriculture... etc. But borders have been one thing I've been stumped on the whole way through.

[@gonzalocs6757]

I am making a DnD setting, currently my map area is one part of a continent, and a smidge or another (think Europe and Morocco), with more continent (ie: Asia) off-map. This is exactly the kind of thing I needed to try and build my borders in the area. This was great, thank you!

[@kayladunaway7101]

I think expanding on this, its also good to look at available maps from eras where the avalible technology of the time may be analogous to your setting. Natural barriers are easier to overcome and negotiate/trade/unify/conquer your neighbors up over the mountains if you have access to aircraft - or big ass dragons. Also think of resource distribution/access (and if that resource is, was, or will be something that would be usefull given tech level, past, present, and/or future) and how that might effect what specific land/river/coastline may be fought over. Food cultivation is very important to consider as well! This is why some of the first recored human civilizations where in river valleys - fertile soil good for larger scale agriculture.

[@TamaraNikolic8892]

Hii! Came to say hi and give a shoutout to what you guys are doing at Campfire! I am still pretty new to writing my ideas out and don't have any experience with worldbuilding but I am feeling pretty inspired looking at the updates you're cooking up! Love you guys

[@psyche8017]

I drew my first map recently using rice to make the geographical borders organic. It's just a small town, but maybe I'll be able to use this advice for a bigger project someday.

[@victoriamendez5733]

as a kid i really loved drawing fictional maps just for fun, and eventually they made their way into my barbie movie stories (lol). i've been toying with the idea of fully throwing myself into the story idea that's been living in my head rent free for the past few months, and honestly i'm so excited to create maps and begin world building for it!! i found campfire a few weeks ago and it was like a blessing !

[@hilloo56]

I've loved this software since I discovered it a few years back, hope to win and hope this channel grows even more

[@persephoneklein]

Honestly, setting borders is the one aspect of world building I’m actually decent at, but I always love learning more about it and world building and writing as a whole.

[@minscus]

I always struggle a lot with drawing fantasy maps. I never thought about making borders like in the video, so this video was very helpful! And even tho my newest map has only borders along rivers (which is important to the story) I am sure it will make my future maps so much more interesting! And congratulations to the 10k!! Its sad that I only found out about campfire a month ago, but the Campfire moduls have already helped me a lot, so thanks for that ^^

[@ZayZoot]

You do realise that most fantasy maps depict medieval nations, meaning that strait lines and large panhandles were likely not to last regardless of whether they split a single country in half or simply separated two otherwise neighboring countries.

[@infinitenex8165]

Also, enclaves dont make sense in a medival setting too. If a nation captures land and creates an enclace, it automatically becomes part of its territory.

[@cumunist2120]

But if you’re doing a map of internal vassals of a kingdom you can go as fucking crazy with it as you want enclaves, exclaves and enclaves in exclaves whatever irl medieval Europe had some crazy shit

[@MarcoCaprini-do3dq]

Actually I think enclaves​ would make a lot of sense in a medieval inspired world, because in the Middke Ages a lot of times you'll see enclaves that are caused by war, dynastic disputes and mainly marriages.@@infinitenex8165

[@xellis8434]

A mostly straight line worked well enough for the Eastern/Western Roman Empire division, and imperial estates of the Holy Roman Empire often had enclaves.

[@jeremymolina7852]

World building and maps go hand in hand, as creating a detailed and immersive world requires a clear understanding of its geography and topography. When designing maps for my world, I always consider factors such as climate, terrain, and natural resources to ensure that the layout makes sense and feels realistic. With campfire, the process of designing realistic and detailed maps that reflect my world's geography, climate, and natural resources is such a blast! Thank you guys for creating such an amazing tool.

[@cosmosyn2514]

one argument against river borders (some, but not all) is that in many cases rivers arent the borders of a civilization, but it’s heart. a good example of this is hungary. the danube river, the second biggest european river, runs straight through the middle of hungary, and it’s capital budapest sits right on that river.

[@infinitenex8165]

And further down the river is the border between Bulgaria and Romania. So a single river can be both the heart and the divider of nations.

[@mattwestjohn603]

Geography is one of my favorite parts of building worlds. This was very helpful though when determining how to set up borders that aren't strictly geographical though, and instead to take up a more political mindset to map making.

[@AceAlistairAvery-yk1ry]

i am currently writing a ten book series... none of in chronological order for the fun of it for the reader... that way i can drop in clues, easter eggs, red herrings, etc... one of the most important parts of the process has been creating a world map... starting with longitude & latitude... adding continents & islands... seas & lakes... ocean currents... wind currents... upwells... mountain ranges... biomes... natural resources.... country borders (which will need to change about seven times throughout the series)... cities & port cities each with trade routes... i also want to create continent, country, region, and city maps for the different settings that are visited in the storyline... it should be a lot of fun as i write to see what all needs to be created... wish me the best in my endeavor...

[@robertlongtin5003]

Love this, I actually had the exact same thoughts in my creation of a fantasy world I'm working on creating published works for. I'll describe a couple of the bizarre borders that actually makes sense given context and defy some of the standard ideas in fantasy maps. So I have enclaves/exclaves that were formed out of peace negotiations between two bordering nations. There is a mountain range that forms a considerable length of their border, but at the time of the war one part of their border is a corridor that exists between the mountains and the sea that is fairly traversable by armies, but both sides had built opposing walls to repel enemy attack and control trade and immigration. Of course walls are not a perfect defense and one side managed to overcome the other, making considerable wartime land gains and threatening to end the other nation's existence. The winner desired one thing in particular that would have been worth a peace treaty and after some back-and-forth they got it: exclaves around valuable iron mines and forests prized for their lumber on the other nation's side of the mountain range. The loser did not have to give up very much land (compared to what the enemy conquered), had other sources of iron and lumber available to them, and recognized that safe passage and the construction of roads from the enclaves to their home country was profitable if the other nation would agree to pay for it. And they did agree to it as the extension of protection through the region would have been much more costly for them for the distance covered than if they just paid the people that lived there for protection. So the peace treaty resulted in the creation of enclaves within the loser's borders, but on a very basic level it was in essence little more than a forced trade agreement that the loser was in a position to reneg on should they feel confident in their ability to wage war against the victor in the future. The other part is how borders work above and below ground. In my world dwarves reside underground (the result of war that robbed them of their former above-ground nations) and specifically beneath mountains. In practice surface nations claim the surface regions and everything underneath all except for mountains where new borders are formed with dwarves regarding the territory underground. The dwarves negotiate for surface-level territory to create ventilation shafts, access points for trade, and defenses for those access points and in exchange give up mining rights in areas beneath the surface, resulting in regions like the iron mines from the surface war I had mentioned previously. I've attempted to tie borders to politics much like how the real world works. I have other interesting border practices elsewhere that I could talk about but I'll save that for my published works (when that finally happens).

[@robertlongtin5003]

Of course I forgot to mention borders that include water. Those can get tricky, but they're also an element that I looked at. Has a winner been selected? I didn't see a comment to that effect.

[@haydntimms905]

I find building the world to be the hardest part of any story but also the most rewarding when you have an idea where it is going.

[@riskhaj]

This was such a fascinating video! it hadn't occurred to me to work trade routes into my country borders or to have countries made up of former smaller countries. Worldbuilding is such a rabbit hole, isn't it? Congrats on the subscribers!

[@AroundTheCampfire]

Yeahbsolutely. 😄

[@TheLordZian]

I have the age old habit of using geographic features to help establish borders in my work. I find that mountains forests and rivers often work but so e of my favorite have been rival or contested borders due to resources or even moderate to large bodies of water.

[@Morgan-sp4uz]

I've only ever considered self map design for D&D and such until starting to write but, I confess I may have to actually venture into the political climate (and its history) of my systems more now.

[@JordanSedai]

I've been using Campfire for a while now and would love to have unlimited access to all of its features. This video was quite helpful and was pretty timely for me. I'm right at the stage of worldbuilding on my current project where this is relevant. I've gotten the geography and different species/races figured out and have used that to determine a lot of the basics of where people would settle and how movement would occur and so on, but I feel like keeping in mind the impacts that various political pressures can over time will help to really help make things feel more interesting.

[@IbaNDia]

Great advice. I'll add that you often don't need precisely drawn borders at all to build a great setting. Sharp, defined borders are a pretty modern invention. In the middle ages, borders between political entities were often fuzzy, even between established and powerful ones. You don't have to draw every border take your world fleshed out.

[@jasonporter7934]

My story series I'm working on is based on earth of ~10,000 years ago with slightly different landscapes. I'm excited to see how I can utilize the maps feature to enhance my realism.

[@arionnagonsalves7245]

I’m writing my first novel and it’s a sc-if apocalyptic, survival horror and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite passion projects. Every day I’m falling more and more in love with the characters and plot I created. But that world building aspect is a BITCH. I’ve been struggling so much on what makes sense to create and what just seems so outlandish. But I’m also loving the challenge it brings me. It’s really forcing me to think about the bigger picture and how environments heavily influence people’s culture, their view on politics, and their perspective on the world. I think your video really helped me to think about how natural borders can both help and hinder my characters on their journey and how it influences the overall plot

[@ReddwarfIV]

Worth noting that the points raised in the video very much depend on the time period. Drawing straight lines on maps requires that you care about what a map border says. That was very important in the colonial period because big empires needed to agree on borders to avoid fighting each other. But a pair of medieval kingdoms fighting for territory won't care what a map says, they'll fight until they can hold their territory or they'll lose and be absorbed. Natural barriers are very helpful for that. Outside of natural barriers, the borders are likely determined by which fiefdoms are under a king's control.

[@WallNutBreaker524]

3:19 When it comes to this topic I find what the Colonial Powers did the South East Asia most interesting. They basically made it so, that the borders of some countries in ASEAN would be in conflict with each other even after they were gone. Like Philippines vs Malaysia for Sabah.

[@louwebber6289]

Maybe one of these days I’ll get around to actually drawing a map and make use of all these lovely tips!

[@jrpipik]

Perhaps looking at how borders were drawn in different eras from our own might be more useful for use as models for borders in fantasy worlds, especially (for many if not most fantasies) in the middle ages.

[@hannacorner18]

Personally, I found the map very visually pleasing. Good job man!

[@emmortalv]

Man, I am horrible at making maps. I started a new fantasy book that I desperately need to make a map for, but I’m honestly not sure where to start. This is going to be an amazing resource for me!

[@jakobfel2]

I'm not currently writing a fantasy story... well, my in-the-works historical fiction short story leans into fantasy but it ties into my sci-fi/space fantasy series. Anyways, I did write fantasy back when I was a teenager; it was always quite corny, basically just ripping off of whatever I was most into at the time. Nonetheless, I found it extremely fun to design maps as they allowed me to come up with stories about kingdoms, factions and territories. Probably one of my favorite aspects of working with fantasy, honestly!

[@Dragon74-25]

I always found the different ways fantasy maps are drawn fascinating.

[@braingreatadventures8077]

It's so nice to see good on a good looking map

[@bobjones564]

World building is really interesting because it forces you consider more about how our own world formed, in a sociopolitical sense.

[@gloria_amy]

Very refreshing to see a well-thought out world with a rich history showing itself in even the shapes of the regions and nations/peoples.

[@FrozenShadow007]

I think a fear of border gore plays a part in the “perfect borders” most fantasy maps seem to have. They are fantasy for a reason and if you take everything about fantasy and try to make it realistic, you will end up getting something dangerously close to reality, something that can work in certain contexts but won’t fit most worldbuilders creations.

[@thenewbygamers]

Been working on a map for the better part of 5 years now, and this has simultaneously made it much easier, and much more difficult to be satisfied. Thanks!

[@nicht-registrierternutzer4464]

I use campfire mainly to keep my long running ttrpg campaign organized. Having all the information always one click away is a game changer in a campaign that runs for over 10 years. 😅

[@aliquida7132]

Also consider that in history, there were many cases where there were no defined borders in the first place. In North America, many of the nations overlapped on the same territory. They didn't think of it as "this is your land, this is my land", since for most of them the concept of "owing" land didn't exist. BUT there were cases of "you have access the the resources in this area in the spring, and we have access in the fall" or something like that.

[@alexbarrett3832]

Also, a lot of fantasy aims for a "medieval" feel, but forgets that there weren't really nation states as we know them todat. Countries were defined by feudal relationships. Baronies who followed the same king got stuck together, and empires grew haphazardly through conquest, alliances, and inheritance. If a german Prince becomes king of England they don't lose their german territory. That's how you get complex borders like the Holy Roman empire.

[@MarcDonders]

maps are fun and a great addition to a fantasy world. It gives the reader another part your vision as a writer that words cannot convey. I'm still working on my own map, but the subjects talked about in this video are great. I would've probably picked only natural borders as political borders without thinking about geopolitics. A fun layer to add to the world. A big thank you for your work

[@Jasonwolf1495]

At least one of my nations is thoroughly lacking any major dividing natural barriers on its borders. Its modern borders are defined by its massive array of forts and outposts. It defined its borders by proving it could hold them better than anyone else on the steppe.

[@humortv439]

Congratulations on reaching 10k, I am so very happy for you 💖 It truly feels like we’ve been on this journey together!!

[@tylertonjum9944]

I love campfire, I’ve been using it for quite some time now and you all work so hard to make it better and better. Keep up the good work!!

[@meiyo_hakobune8692]

On my map, certain events made it so that a chunk of landmass floated away from the mainland and became an island. It was hell configuing that in my drawing program to make sure that their edges lined up so they'd fit like a puzzle piece.

[@sentient_dinosaurplush]

I'm currently trying to design my first map and it's so goshdarn hard cause I don't know how to make any of the features look natural or how to draw the political borders. TwT I think I should binge every video on this channel about maps after I watch this one.

[@AroundTheCampfire]

We only have a couple videos on this channel about mapmaking right now, but I'm hoping we get the chance to do more! For now though I've written a few articles on our blog, links to a few of them in the description.

[@gorlithia]

I have my world's borders determined by a nation's certain geographical trait. I have two northern nations that are both very cold but I used the great mountain range in the middle to divide them (but as I progress in my story, one of them is pushing more into the other's territory through raids, going beyond the mountains). I also have a nation that has a lot of hills on one side, and then another nation with lots of river tributaries that make up one giant river. I also have two nations divided based on their climate, where one gets more rain and storms while the other is more sunny and fertile.

[@timhawthorne5307]

I use inkarnate for designing my maps, love that you can upload them into campfire, so you can do world, than town and keep the maps ordered and intermate.

[@Unkillable365]

Congrats on the 10k! Stoked for the giveaway, you guys are beyond generous. These map tips are perfect timing, too; my first attempt at a map for my series is so sad it hurts.

[@mollyjbooks]

Ooh, this was cool. Definitely gave me something to think about next time I try to draw a map. They're usually pretty dry and uninteresting. Thank you!

[@rosieshilo-virtuallyyours]

Hello! I’m about to create my first map - I’ve started writing with only a basic handwritten map but excited about how campfire will help me create something WAY COOLER!!!!

[@littleaes]

The fantasy world in my current project has two distinct countries separated by the sea. I need to map it out still. I use Inkarnate. I'd love to have more campfire modules for life! I have many already, but... I'm super excited!

[@cutie_gahyeon2290]

I've discovered your app last month and I'm very excited about the news to come

[@oliviamorrow-payne9758]

I’m in the process of building my imaginary world knowing I want coastal lines and different boarder types. This is very helpful in taking consideration of what I should think of! Love this!

[@McNoogett]

The contest to win a lifetime subscription drew me in, but this channel actually has a tonne of super useful worldbuilding tips so I'm really glad I checked it out!

[@MareElias]

Never thought about borders this way... Thanks for the inspiration 😁

[@yolkonut6851]

Something else people seem to forget is that barbarian peoples would also exist as semi-nomadic tribes with no discernable borders, or in some cases the areas were simply uninhabited.

[@Rolzhey]

This is possibly the words "lets begin with Romania" have ever been spoken

[@notsostealthmission5184]

The thing is, all those straight lines on maps didn't really exist until recently. So in medieval fantasy, they probably did actually have geographic boundaries, because it's possible they don't even have real maps in that world yet.

[@multifandommari]

I love drawing maps. Campaign Cartographer is my go-to program. The UI looks ancient but there's still a lot you can do with it, and they have nice assets.

[@Lady-pt7ji]

Not the world building rabbit hole! Congrats on 10k!

[@ashleyRR]

My map has so many types of terrain, and though different species to congregate in the natural habitat they harness energy from (like rock, ocean, forest, etc.), there is also a way that some of these geographical features can separate political or even cultural subsets of the world/Map! Thanks for always considering the ways we can tell richer stories through deeper understanding of our worlds, characters, and maps!

[@suzettehopkins5734]

I enjoyed this as we can use this for future books as the new land is not explored. At the end of first novel Characters are settling with multiple races in one area.

[@Zalodowialy]

I always thought to make most of the borders along some rivers, or mountains, but not all of them

[@РайанКупер-э4о]

I will add a detail about strait borders - what do you think they tell about people who drew them? They had the means to do so. They had not just maps but precise mathematical model of the Earth. And to put it in place in material world they had positioning system that would allow them to draw a straight line across all the hills and mountains, across all the river valleys. This something like Chinese square cities, something that defies complex natural order of things and states simple order you can't overlook.

[@dajo1373]

Also it's important to remind that the modern definition of borders is pretty new. For centuries it was more important who your leader is and those leaders often had to pledge their loyalty to another more powerful leader. Also borders weren't as much of a boundary than nowadays you mostly could cross them without trouble. Languages and cultures also doesn't have as much of a break than nowadays they shifted slowly and you often could understand the villages around whether they are in your nation or not, but understanding a outsider from the other side of your nation was often very difficult. If writing a medieval setting it's important to remind one self that the world worked completely different to today.

[@AroundTheCampfire]

Yep, that's a totally fair point and something that we probably should have mentioned in the video itself. There may be another coming based on the way this keeps getting brought up in the comments, haha!

[@katrsmeow]

I’m excited to start building maps in Campfire. Right now, the whiteboard has been a good visual tool but it gets complex when needing maps in two different centuries. Thanks for creating such an incredible tool for writers! 🎉