MapDrawer
A draw-first take on Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator: start from an empty ocean and draw the world yourself, with
fast tools, instead of generating a random map and editing it.
Live: apcaruso.github.io/mapdrawer
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Blank start: a new map is an empty ocean; the last saved map reopens on start-up.
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Tool palette on the left, one key per tool:
| Key | Tool | Key | Tool |
|---|
| V | Select | S | States |
| B | Land brush | P | Provinces |
| E | Sea brush (lakes inside land) | C | Cultures |
| L | Lasso (Alt carves sea) | R | Religions |
| H / D | Raise / lower | G | Biomes |
| F | Smooth | I | Relief icons |
| M | Mountain range | W | River |
| U | Burg | O | Route |
| T | Label | K | Marker |
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Map views at the bottom left (Physical, Political, Provinces, Cultures, Religions, Biomes); the view follows
the tool.
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Painting states, provinces, cultures and religions: drag to paint, "+ New" founds one, the swatch changes its
color, Expand grows them over unclaimed land.
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Undo and redo for every tool: Ctrl + Z, Ctrl + Shift + Z.
Economy, markets, trade, military and journeys are kept out of the interface. The fork's plan and progress are in
docs/fork/ROADMAP.md (Italian).
MapDrawer is based on Fantasy Map Generator by Max Haniyeu
(Azgaar), released under the MIT License. It is an independent project: report its issues here, not upstream.
The original README follows.
Fantasy Map Generator
Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator is a free web application that helps fantasy writers, game masters, and cartographers create and edit fantasy maps.
Link: azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator.
Refer to the project wiki for guidance. Development is tracked on the FMG dev board. Some details are covered in my old blog Fantasy Maps for fun and glory.
Join our Discord server and Reddit community to share your creations, discuss the Generator, suggest ideas and get the most recent updates.
Report bugs with the bug report form, suggest features in Ideas discussions, and ask usage questions in Q&A. Search existing reports first. For bugs, include your FMG version, browser/OS, reproduction steps and an affected .map file in a ZIP archive when relevant. For ideas, explain the problem and your use case.
In Discord, use #fmg-bugs or #fmg-suggestions; the assistant's /bug and /idea commands, when available, open forms for moderator review before GitHub submission. Asking the assistant a question does not file a report. See reporting instructions and examples.
Contact me via email for non-public suggestions. For performance problems, first check the performance tips.
You can support the project on Patreon.
Inspiration:
Desktop app
Installers for Linux, Windows and macOS are attached to each
release. Nix users can build
the same app from the flake instead — see Install with Nix:
nix run github:Azgaar/Fantasy-Map-Generator
Contribution
Pull requests are highly welcomed. The codebase is messy and I will appreciate if you start with minor changes. Check out the data model before contributing.
The codebase is gradually transitioning from vanilla JavaScript to TypeScript while maintaining compatibility with the existing generation pipeline and old .map user files.
The expected future architecture is based on a separation between world data, procedural generation, interactive editing, and rendering. The application is conceptually divided into four main layers: world data and styles (state), generators (model), editors (controllers), renderers (view).
Flow:
settings → generators → world data → renderer
UI → editors → world data → renderer.
The data layer must contain no logic and no rendering code. Generators implement the procedural world simulation. Editors implement interactive editing tools used by the user. They perform controlled mutations of the world state. Editors can be viewed as interactive generators. The renderer converts the world state into SVG or WebGl graphics. Renderer must be pure visualization step and not modify world data.
