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Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator (2018)

470 points| harperlee | 6 years ago |azgaar.github.io | reply

36 comments

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[+] doomlaser|6 years ago|reply
If you like these country maps, you'll probably also appreciate: https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator

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

Likewise, it is web-based and interactive

[+] amitp|6 years ago|reply
Even better, the cities on Azgaar's maps link to Oleg's (watabou's) maps! Click on a city name and then click the "folded map" icon. It will create a city that matches the environment on Azgaar's maps (e.g. port city vs inland, rivers, etc.).
[+] cjhveal|6 years ago|reply
I really like the maps this generates. For me, plausibility is really important when creating any fictional map, because it's possible to create a map that looks beautiful but depicts a place that doesn't really make sense even with fantasy elements incorporated.

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

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

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Köppen_climate_classification

[+] snagglegaggle|6 years ago|reply
Do you have an opinion on the Dwarf Fortress world generator? If I am not mistaken it simulates some limited volcanic and geoogical activity.
[+] udkl|6 years ago|reply
Can anyone help me understand our facination with fantasy maps ? Why do I feel inspired or awesome when looking at them ?

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

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

[+] codezero|6 years ago|reply
I think it is that feeing of discovering the unknown.

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

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

https://archive.org/stream/mounteverestreco00howa#page/n10/m...

[+] bovermyer|6 years ago|reply
In addition to the awesomeness of this tool, it links to several other tools as part of its flow.

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

[+] BerislavLopac|6 years ago|reply
BTW, silly question -- do you by any chance have the opposite of this tool? I.e. something that would parse a blazon and produce an image? Thank you!
[+] mysterydip|6 years ago|reply
Are there any modern/future/sci-fi map generators out there? All the ones I've seen have been fantasy-focused. Something that generates modern sounding names, vehicle roads, airports/seaports/spaceports, that kind of thing?
[+] japanoise|6 years ago|reply
This is excellent! I'll be using this for my OSR sandbox campaign for sure!

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

[+] Tepix|6 years ago|reply
I love it! Has anyone built something on top of one these maps?
[+] chrispauley|6 years ago|reply
I've seen maybe a dozen similar map generators, however this is probably the most customize-able one I've seen; an impressive toolset. Even more impressive that the entire tool seems to be built without any templating or view framework. jQuery is used to some extent but for the most part the entire app is built with plain old vanilla DOM manipulation.

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

[+] ajuc|6 years ago|reply
Slightly related - I needed a generator for maps of encounters in the wilderness for my d&d campaign, and the ones I found weren't working well for me, so I made my own - very unpolished version, but maybe someone will find it useful:

https://ajuc.github.io/outdoorsBattlemapGenerator/

[+] kuroguro|6 years ago|reply
Oddly hitting F5 doesn't regenerate the map on ff/windows for me. Have to do a full reload with ctrl+shift+r.
[+] CGamesPlay|6 years ago|reply
You can also regenerate without reloading the page by pressing F2 (there is also a button in toolbox).
[+] sus_007|6 years ago|reply
On the latest Nightly release, and it does generate new map on my end.
[+] kebman|6 years ago|reply
Very inspirational. Actually I think I'll send it to a fantasy author friend of mine!
[+] sidcool|6 years ago|reply
Very impressive. What does it use?