"Consider, for example, the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir, lying between Indian, Pakistan, and China. Both India and Pakistan claimed Kashmir, once a separate monarchy, and went to war over the area in August 1965. [A] U.S. State Department map shows the cease-fire line of fall 1965, which placed Pakistan in control of northwestern Kashmir and showed India in control of the southern portion. (China occupied a portion of northeastern Kashmir.) Nonetheless, Indian and Pakistani maps continued to deny political reality. A 1984 Pakistani government tourist map, for instance, included Kashmir in Pakistan, whereas a map in an Indian government tourist brochure ceded the entire territory to India.... And for years publishers found it difficult to export the same books on South Asian geography to both India and Pakistan."

How to Lie with Maps, Mark Monmonier.

Maps in gaming are cool things. First, the why, then the how.

Why? Multiple reasons. First, the map gives the players a (perhaps biased) view of the world. Players can use maps to see what their options are, where they can explore, and what the boundaries of knowledge are. Just like a battle map gives combat focus, a world map gives players focus when looking at the next step. Maps in real life have a purpose. For example, maps were originally made to describe military formations, to guide people, and as an aide for mining operations. Does the map outline altitude and topology? Is it focused on natural formations or political borders? Do you include sea currents and maritime routes?

If maps have a practical purpose, they are also symbols and representations of what the world is like. Is the map detailed and with high resolution? Or is it sketchy and filled with unknown areas? We read maps, but we also look at them as art and atmosphere, and what is "behind" your campaign should be reflected in the map. Reading a map is not linear; you can hide clues and treasures in a map. Parts of the map will stand out; you can turn your map into art and a statement. You can challenge the players by using non-traditional symbols for buildings and terrain.

And of course, the maps may not be correct. Someone may purposefully want to mess with the player characters. Trails and roads may change, borders may be incorrect. Less nefariously, no map has all the detail you need. Map projections (and check out this xkcd comic for a fun summary) can distort the map, whether or not your world is a standard shape or not. If topology is not indicated, a simple five mile jog may end up being five miles horizontal and a thousand miles vertical. More non-traditional worlds present their own difficulties; one of the campaigns I ran included a three dimensional cave network, so I needed to indicate vertical distance in shading and hash marks. You also choose what is the "center" of the map. Usually, the center of the map is the most important, most civilized area. Home base, as it were. Tradition in Western cultures is North is Up; you can change this convention to make the world more alien.

And now the how. Something I learned is it is difficult to create a nice map with just one program. Here are your options:

• Fractal Mapper (http://www.nbos.com/products/mapper/mapper.htm). Solid mapping tool. I could not get it to create a stylized map, but it is great to generate coastlines and import it into another program.
• Campaign Cartographer (http://www.profantasy.com/products/cc3.asp). Very powerful mapping tool. It is CAD-based, and there's a significant ramp-up time in using this.
• Dundjinni (http://www.dundjinni.com/default.asp). Another tool, but seems to be focused on tactical maps, not world maps.
• AutoREALM (http://sourceforge.net/projects/autorealm/). Unlike the above, this is free. Like, Dundjinni, it is mainly focused on tactical maps, although you can do a pretty good wilderness / world map.
• Visio. Very easy to use, but everything is going to look "blocky." That's cool for modern maps if you want that look.
• Video game editor of choice. This is where I plead ignorance. But, there are a lot of games out there with edit packs, where you can generate maps. Any ideas?
• Google Maps / Google Earth. If you want to map out a real place, you can't go wrong with, you know, a real place. Again, the maps generated are very distinctive.
• Other resources. I myself am partial to my alma mater, the UIUC Map Library. They have a nice selection of online resources, and like most libraries, is open to the public. You can either use a map in its entirety for your campaign, or use them as inspiration for your own map.
• Photoshop / GIMP / Paint .NET. No matter which tool you use, you may want to consider importing the map into a graphic editor. All of these programs have layer capabilities, which I highly recommend using. This allows you to add GM-only copy that you can undo when printing maps for players, and you can undo major changes easily just by removing / hiding that layer. You use this program to make the map more suitable to the campaign — more stylized.

I am so not a graphic designer, so any comments and tips on how to make a better map are appreciated.

And I leave you with these immortal words:

He had bought a large map, representing the sea,

Without the least vestige of land:

And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be

A map they could all understand.

"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,

Tropics, Zones and Meridian Lines?"

So the Bellman would cry; and the crew would reply

They are merely conventional signs!"

The Hunting of the Snark, Lewis Carroll

And, this is my final article for this series. It gave me a nice excuse to exercise the local university library. But, other pressures, both work related and other task related, are pressuring me. Writing this, I'd like to look back to the first article, where I now noticed I shamelessly broke my promise to talk about trees. I stand by my statement that for some people, some groups, having a pre-built world helps with games, and for other groups, it's better to make your world "on the fly," as it were. Like I said, creating a world is fun in of itself, and creating these articles to talk about creating a world was also fun. I encourage others to try their hand at articles (contact columns@rpg.net if you are interested).

Thanks for reading, everyone.