Excellent Map Generator

Create a whole Island with a click
For those that are interested in world building projects or are just looking for inspiration for their next RPG campaign, I found the right tool here. It randomly generates polygons that are transformed into biomes, depending on altitude and moisture. Surprisingly, you can find volcanos, ice lakes and swamps, but more often just a nice island with a central mountain and grassland/forests below.

Radial 2D view

Shape parameter

More importantly is the ability to shape the island randomly. I used the Radial and Perlin randomisers to give a wide and exciting shapes of islands. The Square and Blob shapes are too limited. Almost never you'd find a square island (or continent for that matter) a realistic build.

The Views

Biomes and Smooth shows the island without it's polygons and with a bit of blur. I like the Smooth view the most as it feels the most map-like.

2D slopes transforms the polygons into rendering height in 2D scale. It gives a very nice look to the whole map. It's only drawback are the sharp edges that may work on mountains, but not on rolling hills. The 3D slopes are even more impressive, and it makes the island rotate. It suffers the same drawback as the 2D slope.

What is trully amazing in this nifty widget is the ability to view it elevation and moisture in colorcode, but more importantly the watersheds in a polygon view. This view enables you to determine wich regions contribute to which rivers. Impressive feature.

Remarkable Examples

Perlin seed 51808-8 gives a continent with large lake inland. Strange enough, the lake connects to the ocean via 3 rivers. It cetainly is an interesting landmass if you consider this particular build.

If you let my imagination run wild, I see a world with many watertribesn with their respective strongholds around their connecting rivers.

In the snowy mountains some kind if disaster can unfold (heavy rain/snow, no snow at all, polluted snow, etc...) so that the lake is rising/lowering/poisoned.

 

Another example I'd like to share is the Perlin 76151-8, which has the particular set up of a snowed mountain side to side with a volcano. On the other side of the bay lies a peacefull forrest nation, while on the main continent the forces of good (united under the snow mountain) are in conflict with the forces of evil (united under the volcano). Not only the inhabitants are fighting eachother, also the geological terrain tries to conquer the other by means of thunderstorms (snow mountain) and lava flows (volcano). Unsurprising, you would see soldiers with a lighting mark fight those with a fire mark.