How to Draw Fantasy Maps: Political Borders 🌍

[@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

[@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.

[@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

[@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.

[@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.

[@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!

[@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!

[@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. :)

[@DragonflyDoodles]

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

[@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 ;)

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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

[@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.

[@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

[@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.

[@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.

[@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 ♥

[@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!

[@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.

[@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.💜

[@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.

[@Aerofaux]

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

[@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.

[@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 !

[@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.

[@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

[@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.

[@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!

[@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

[@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.

[@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.

[@dBlace89]

Definitely some really interesting points made here. I have always just followed along natural features when designing borders, sometimes even adding features that didn't really have any explanation other than existing to be a border. I have gotten a couple of interesting ideas to rework a map from some of the points brought up in the video.

[@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.

[@Dragon74-25]

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

[@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!

[@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

[@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!

[@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

[@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!

[@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 ^^

[@mocaxe]

I've been just keeping nebulous ideas of areas in my brain for a long time now and would love to get into drawing my own little maps, both for campaigns I run and just to invent fun little worlds and consider how much of us goes into the way our world is shaped :)

[@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.

[@maddiem4779]

I’ve always loved maps at the beginning of books and coming up with how everything should lay in the world I’m building (as well as keeping all of the world building aspects in mind when writing) is always such a hard part of the process

[@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?

[@ezekielzuriel]

Congrats on 10k!!! Also, I'm not only excited about the giveaway but the fact that these map tips are super helpful for a world I've been working on. Thank y'all for all you guys do for the writing community!!!

[@Kaza0kun]

I've been using y'all for over a year now and I'm excited about the new changes and the new calendar module! I have several maps that I want to put up at some point. My most loved one is actually a side view of several caverns I designed for a probably forever work in progress novel around vampires that live underground like Drow, and how they unearthed some kind of evil god-like entity that nearly destroyed them.

[@KentoKei]

Honestly, It's always good to hear that my interest in the history part of my world building project has helped to make the borders feel more realistic. For example, a lot of the borders in the "Barltad" "Tahnt" and "Fent" regions don't follow most natural formations because of the messy break up of larger states in the past that ended up lasting to the present also p.s. "Ahikto" has over 240 countries in it... which is a far cry from the 2018 version of the world where there was only like, 35

[@AlethiaMezaSantiago]

The map for my current, overarching project is based on a really old map I made on regular paper over 20 years ago 😅 There are no hard borders in the main world as travel is free and aided by portals. Some areas are only accessible through portal or boat because they are islands. In another world, there *are* very clearly defined borders as travel is restricted and regulated. Mountain ranges help with this, as well as several rivers and other bodies of water.

[@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

[@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!

[@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!!

[@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.

[@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

[@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.

[@DamenPeterson]

I love historical maps and enjoy seeing what causes borders to exist. Thank you!

[@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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@macer941]

Congratz on 10k, best of luck everyone! As for maps, I tend to make a decent number of fantasy maps, though it takes me a while as I like to start from the ground up (pun intended) with plate tectonics, figure out my land masses/mountains, etc and let that inform my climate.

[@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.

[@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! 🎉

[@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!

[@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.

[@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.

[@arammurpg192]

I have been a subscriber and fan of Campfire for quite some time now so it's great to see someone out there will get access to all their wonderful modules. Personally I find the relationships and systems modules are the most useful. The other features are great but organizing the dynamics between a multitude of different assets in a story has really helped make campfire worthwhile for me. It doesn't just have "good bones"; it actually has many extra features that make it easy for me to keep thing in one place. Although in my case I didn't use it for just a story; I made a board game and I'm using it to script various events of a computer game I am working on now. Thank you for the wonderful program; especially for making a desktop version I can use on the go since I tend to be on the move quite often for work.

[@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!

[@louwebber6289]

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

[@Taukingur]

the bit about Romania ignores how Romanians as an ethnic group originated in the mountains as shepards lol they weren’t nations around it

[@littleladybugdraws]

Congratulations on 10K Subscribers (consider yourself having +1 more permanent subscriber). Thank you for hosting this contest. :) To all, good luck! When I started to create my map (for a fantasy story), I didn't consider much about borders. This video has helped me a lot. It helped me to think of how border are important. The history of how the border were made/decided. This really helped improve my story. Can't wait for more videos. And yes please, enter me into the contest. :D

[@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.

[@Nahuman]

I've been doing my regional maps for rpg sessions with the idea that they are inherently limited by the mapmaking tech and access/biases the mapmakers have. This has meant that I've been able to surprise my players a few times by springing new map features on them, for example by finding a mosaic in an ancient temple that shows roads through an impassable mountain range.

[@AroundTheCampfire]

I love this.

[@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.

[@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.

[@carolynbrunsdon1564]

Hey there! Loving Campfire and all the excellent learning channels provided. Well done! As a new user I’m finding my way around and your guys make it easier. Thank you, Much success to you all.

[@hilloo56]

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

[@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.

[@BEAUTIFULTHING12]

I’ve been trying to write my book for over a decade now, I’m so happy I found this app. It’s helped me so much and I’ve gotten so much done, makes me think I might actually finish. Plus these helpful videos and everything that they make ❤️

[@lexbuchanan2257]

Ahhh this is exciting! Thanks for the chance to win! I haven’t used the mapping feature yet, but I have enjoyed the beginning stages of developing timelines and languages for my Fuetellon demon characters.

[@lukewarmyeti4248]

Been using Campfire's PC app since late 2018 and it's been indispensable for countless projects! Congrats on 10K, and hoping I get that total access ;D

[@Wendy-005]

I've been creating worlds in my head since I was very small, but it's always been hard to put into words or drawings. Campfire has really helped me figure out ways to build the worlds and be able to look back at what I've created. And hi :)

[@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.

[@spi6455]

They also allowed prostitution and rampant drug use. It doesnt mean we want it in our fantasy world. If the criticism is that we didn't bring realistic problems into our fantasy world, stfu. The point of fantasy is to add an element of change to what we want to. I don't have any weird enclaves or jutting peninsula. I also have defensible reasons why my borders are what they are. No one is going to defend a straight line when it will cost them their life ... and any leader throwing their people's lives away for said border should be overthrown. Natural borders are more likely between countries at war unless they have been fortified. Even then, those fortifications will often reflect natural landscape, such as hills, coastlines, and more importantly...water sources.

[@AceAlistairAvery]

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...

[@Sadodosah]

Been using Campfire for my novels and now for the tabletop RPG I am creating! Love the tool! Now getting more into mapping so these videos are useful!

[@BigTuk]

Well this was interesting and gave me some ideas. Cyurrently working on two series where I've had to get pretty creative with maps. Why? Because in both series in some way the maps are literally being drawn. One is a fantasy story dealing with an expedition to found and settle a new continent. The other is a sci-fi story where a region forms it's own breakaway sector. Mapping gets really crazy when you factor 'spaaaaaace' since you are dealing with absurdly large regions and you don't have much in the way of natural borders. The ideas of enclaves and exclaves will help me make that one a little more 'spice'. Where as the concept of ever changing and evolving borders will do the same for the fantasy. I will say the rule of maps following natural lines tends to boil down to troop movement. This is why rivers and mountains, and deserts make such handy de facto borders. Anything the impedes or bottlenecks the movement of troops is going to by default determine how well you can hold on to a region, it also limits how far someone else can encroach into your region. There are limited spots where one can cross a river or mountain. And even if you have a strong miltary force on the other side of a bottleneck. history tells us thats how you get breakaways.

[@AroundTheCampfire]

Yeah troop movements, trade, and communication barriers are huge obstacles to an empire/nation. Not to mention cultural differences. Mountains, rivers, and deserts are a great starting point for where to place your borders!

[@defneecemeroglu9655]

I'm always looking for more convenient ways to cook up maps for my campaigns and while campfire doesn't help me make the base map itself it does something equally helpful: Marking up the map *and* making it hold more information than first seen. It's a treat! Anyways, congratulations on the 10k, you guys deserve it.

[@NozomiGirlOriginal]

My map world is based off the book I'm working on. I'm still deciding on borders, but the major areas are based on the different groups of people, like humans, elves, changeling, etc. It's still a work in progress, but I'm happy with it so far.

[@runic6724]

Campfire has been an absolute blessing when it comes to writing. Been using it for a couple years now. Happy 10k! 🎉

[@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.

[@messofgeckos5524]

Maps are critical, I know exactly what I see, but making attractive, legible, and helpful maps for my series has been a struggle. The area where the magical events occur is described as a somewhere that has never been mapped accurately, the borders within the area are not only different than what the government maps show, its borders change. I love how Campfire allows me to keep my maps accessible. I too admired Aragon's maps.

[@shayfortheday]

hi, i recently found campfire and i love it! i can’t function my story without it now. i hope to see it grow and develop well in the future!

[@humortv439]

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

[@knkbigelow]

This was a great dive into map making and I didn't find it long at all. In fact, I wanted a little more. Great examples as well that helped make the point. And congrats on the subscriber count. I need to dust off my maps again and take another look.

[@Liara333]

I think there is a great opportunity for the naming of regions as well. In my story's world, there is a narrow strip of land that's part of the country of Shenga. When Shenga was fighting one of its many wars with one of its Eastern neighbours, these neighbours reached out in secret to an old ally in the North. They launched a surprise attack on the narrow strip of land and only needed to hold one pass against a country that was already at war far away from there. This strip was named Suðrlönd, the South Land, by the invaders. When Shenga finally won it back, many years later, the name stuck with the people that lived there, but over time changed to The Sudderlong, which is more in line with the language spoken in Shenga. It remained a province with a proud sense of autonomy until Shenga was eventually destroyed.

[@vanessapburger]

I haven’t really worked on the map for my fantasy novel yet, but I’m excited to start building maps in Campfire. I’m sure it will be useful during the writing process

[@ladygrayish114]

Hi! I'm not good at making maps but it's a skill I need to develop because I'm starting to run into blockades since I can't actually picture how far away things are from each other. So this video is wonderful timing.