The 3-Map World-Building System

Making a Map that Doesn't Feel Like Every Other

Have you ever felt let down by a map? Maybe you’re a fantasy writer, and you want a magical map to show off your world building, but it feels anti-climatic—a little bit the same as so much that came before it. It doesn’t have to be that way.

The key is how you use the map in your world-building.

Whatever you use, be it Inkarnate, World Anvil, or just pen and paper, the process is the same.

Begin with your map as it was before civilization.

There are no town, no roads, and no names, just an untouched landmass.

But to do that, you need to think of your landmass as it was before people, elves, or aliens—whoever the future inhabitants will be. What should the map look like in its natural state? You have no cultivated fields and the forests haven’t been cut back. No rivers have been dammed except by beavers.

If you actually draw this up, it’ll be Map 0. Congratulations, you’re an overachiever. If not, know these things in your head.

Map 1:

How did people arrive? Did they evolve in the area? Who were the first to migrate to the land? Were there colonizers?

With the first two, begin with an early history map. With the latter, you might begin with the land as they found it, with names and settlements of the indigenous people.

Early place names are going to be very straightforward with potential religious implications in chosen areas.

There may be some forest clearing and land cultivation but no more than is required for the population which is likely sparse and scattered.

Or you may be inspired to build your civilization on the bones of a greater civilization that came before it. Wonderful. This just became the 6-Map World-Building System because you’ll want to work your way through building up the original world. The Map 0 of the second round will be the land after the first people have died or vanished. Nature takes back over, to the degree that materials and time allow. Whether names are preserved will be determined by how much writing is left and if it can be deciphered.

Map 2:

Some settlements have succeeded; others failed. New roads exist. Fields expand. Forests shrink. Some names change. Other names are kept even though their original significance is lost.

Battles have been fought and people displaced. New peoples have encroached, introducing a mixture of languages. All of that is reflected in the map.

Repeat as necessary. 

Map 3:

Old alliances have failed. New alliances reign. Settlements in the buffer zone between enemies have vanished, leaving only their names behind. 

Towns have grown into bustling cities, and new towns have sprung up nearby.

People tell stories to explain the artifacts of histories they’ve forgotten.

The 3-Map System addresses the pitfall authors face with their maps feeling like every other. The organic processes of history come into play as you…

Build a land with a memory of what's come before. 

Examples:

Maybe the earlier peoples built cities in the mountains that were forgotten with time.

A settlement at a strategic point on the bay was destroyed by unknown forces, leaving it unoccupied for centuries by a people who believe the land to be cursed. With the new peoples settling, the ones-who-remember fear a great doom will befall them all.

Colonizers pushed the indigenous peoples north, but foreign enemies arm the displaced peoples, preparing them to reclaim what was formerly theirs. Nothing they build in the north reflects an expectancy they’ll be there long.

Centuries ago, people migrated to a land once inhabited by that great-but-lost civilization. They live in peace among its ruins until colonizers arrive and begin claiming land and fencing it off. The indigenous people strike and overwhelm the upstart occupiers, who escape into formerly undiscovered, subterranean levels of the lost city.

The artifacts of the lost people are the only remnants of magic to remain in the world.

Now, you need to…

Determine how the map impacts your story.

There are two theories, and both are likely to come into play. There are aspects of the land’s history that will directly impact the story you’re telling. Other aspects will only be seen in unexplained place names and in relics of the past which show themselves from place to place, a very Tolkien flavor of world building.

Until next time,

I’m Thaddeus Thomas