Mountains, glaciers, and (most importantly) a combination of the two affect coastlines.

Land sorts into large continents from a distant enough perspective, and tidal flats and beaches complicate matters when zoomed far in.

*īut there are some quirky exceptions to the fractal behavior of coastlines, and some places where the shore may look distinctly different: In fact, if you aren’t feeling very inspired, you can take a zoomed-in island from Earth * and make it your fantasy continent, or vice versa. This fractal nature means you can focus on the coast of a small territory or examine the margins of a continent, and the contours * should be about the same. And at any level of magnification closer than a full global picture, coastlines will have a similar, fractal look. Plate tectonics sort rock into lighter and heavier, and clumps the lighter rock together as continents. When water is poured over a landscape formed of continents and mountains, what does it do? Land isn’t arbitrarily arranged on a planet. Then for your coastlines, just add water. Any contour line on a topographic map or any depth line on a nautical chart could theoretically be a coastline. An island is just a mountain surrounded by ocean, and a mountain is just an island with the water drained down. On human timescales (thousands of years or less) water is largely irrelevant to solid land.

But a planet’s rock is stalwart and little concerned with its surroundings, whether gaseous atmosphere or liquid ocean. * CoastlinesĬoastlines appear to be the singular, end-all defining feature of any landmass – and to human experience, they are. Most individual mountains are only discernible when the map is zoomed in to the scale of a small European country or U.S. If your goal is realistic topography, remember that mountain chains look like long fused ridges at continental scales. The occasional lone mountain is okay it’s probably a volcano or the central peak inside a mountain-ringed impact crater. A few ranges of lone hills (old, worn out mountain ranges) are a good idea. On land, their foothills should be visible: scatter a few hills here and there at the margins of the mountains. If you’ve already drawn your coastlines, extend the mountain chains past them, forming peninsulas and island chains.

* Hill country, worn plateaus, badlands, and other rugged-but-not-mountainous terrain is typically the eroded remains of ancient, “dead” mountains. Lone mountains are rare and almost always volcanic in origin. If the crater is big enough and the world is Earth-like, it will likely be a lake or sea.Īll four of these methods form chains, ridges, long plateaus, or rings. Sometimes an impact crater boasts a second ring or lone peak at the center of the crater. Impacts between planets and asteroids form circular rings of mountains.These eventually form chains of mountains as the plate slowly moves over the hotspot. Plates burning themselves as they migrate over mantle plumes * deep in the planet can also give rise to volcano-blisters.Volcanoes are formed from the recycled remnants of the bottom plate. Volcanic mountains can form near the edge of the top plate during this long, slow collision.Even when one plate slides beneath the other, the friction and pressure send mountains shooting upward. The surface crumples upward where the plates collide. Most mountains are the children of lusty continental plates, birthed from scandalous collisions between landmasses too attracted to each other for their own good.They take their shape from their creation: * Mountains back each other up and form chains, ranges, and ridges. Unless you already know the exact shape of your continent or island, sketch your mountains before your coastlines. Mountains are the skeletal system of your world. If you’re building a sizable chunk of continent on an Earth-like world, * you’re going to need to keep geology in mind. But some mapping concerns go beyond mere aesthetics. Building a map for a fantasy setting involves a lot of details – most of them fun! Art styles, fonts, and icons need to be chosen.

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