Your region needs a map? Make it like this

This is a translation of a post originally published in 2013. More posts in English here.

(If it is medieval fantasy, only for the DM eyes and if you want it to be of use to other people, pf course).

Source. Click to behold it in all its glory.

That's it, there is barely anything else to say. Look at it and do it like that. What you say? Ok, I will bother you for the rest of the post telling you why you should.

• If it isn't a map for tourists, it looks like it. Think about it, what PCs do in a RPG is not that different to what tourists do. For the players, it is practically the same without having to walk.
• It combines very elegantly geographical and political features. It gives you a good idea of the elevation and it includes the administrative frontiers and important settlements. But it especially...
• It includes rivers and roads. If you are traveling through a place where, in addition to bad weather and brigands, there are orcs and the undead, you'll be thankful about not getting lost. What is the easiest way to achieve that? Rivers and roads.
• It shows places of geographical or ecological interest: nature parks. In our case, it would be something similar, but the parks would know how to defend themselves.
• It shows archeological sites. It shows archeological sites. It shows archeological sites.
• It shows international airports. In our case, unless you are playing a Final Fantasy rip-off that's not very useful, but it gives us an idea of how to use icons for ports and fortifications.
• The distinction between a simple town and the capital of the province should be made clearer, but it is obvious which one is the capital of the whole region, right?
• It uses different color and typography for different elements, which is common in "real" maps, but not as much in game maps which is a shame. Seriously, it makes everything easier.
• In that regard, the index of nature parks to the right also helps to make everything look less cramped.
• All colors contrast enough to make it legible enough.
• It has scale, which is nice, but if I used the map, I would take advantage of the measurements to put some hexagons on top of the map... Which I have already done...

And I think that's mostly everything. Thanks for reading. Valmar Cerenor!