Every world created started out as nothing but a vague image in somebody’s mind. The problem has always been taking that image and making it a reality.

I’ve only just dipped my toe into the art of world building, and I can see now that it’s a lot harder than some make it out to be. I found that I couldn’t keep track of the details of the world I wanted to build, and there was no single place that was easy for me to start from. That’s when I found something called Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator.

An open-source tool that takes the stress out of world building and leaves you with nothing but fun!

The first thing it did for me was limit what detail I could provide for the basic generation of my world. Instead of feeling restricted by it, I was relieved! I didn’t have to flesh out every single part of my world at the beginning like I thought I did.  I was creating a foundation for things to build off of. The details would come later.

A single click was all it took for the world to blossom, and suddenly it was there in front of me! It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but it was something. It was kind of overwhelming how much detail there was. I glanced at the layers I could filter through and realized that this generator did more than make a map. It was still a lot think about, so I decided hide all of the layers and go through them one at a time.

I spent the most time getting to know the different states that inhabit my world. Each one was unique in geography, culture, size, influence…truly the list goes on! There was so much detail to each state that they already felt alive. All I had to do was tweak things to make them exactly how I wanted them.

Until this point I had looked upon the world I had created from a birds eye view. It was great to see the scale of it all, but I wanted to connect with the world. I wanted to see how deep this miracle generator went.

 So I zoomed in…

I zoomed until all I could see was the capital city of the Rurian Empire: Karmome. I saw roads leading from it to other cities, and could imagine being there in that tiny bit of land…unaware of the size of everything around me. Karmome was small for a capital, but it was pretty far north - where most of the people lived and thrived in the country. I laughed and smiled at this small detail because it meant that the size of the capital, at least in this instance, reflected the culture of the peoples who lived there!

I spent a lot of time smiling like I did in that moment. I can see now how exciting world building can be! The generated didn’t do the work for me, but it has given me a platform to create exactly what I want. It has been my saving grace.

There is still a lot of work to do in this virtual world of mine before it is completed.  That’s the beauty of it though. I have something to write about – something to build up and call my own. I haven’t felt pride in my work for a very long time, but Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator gives me the feeling that I will find that pride soon!

Lucas McBride

Lucas is a student at Algonquin College. His favorite past times include playing tabletop RPGs, writing, and hosting virtual collaborative world building projects.