Making “1st Edition” Style World Maps

We’ve gone over the steps of making a 1st Edition D&D style world map using Worldographer in a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1KEhLl6LOo But sometimes it helps to see the steps written out. Also we added more ways to import extra icons (see step #1) since the video was recorded.

1. Worldographer comes with a handful of 1e World Style icons.  But for more, get an add-on icon pack and add the icons to Worldographer. Either:
   a. If you want them available/loaded every time you start Worldographer, add the 1e terrain icons to the [user folder]/worldographer/features folder. Even though they are terrain, we have to treat them as “features”. You probably want to put them into a “large area” folder in features so they are easier to filter in the features drawer.
   b. Or add them to a subfolder of the worldographer user folder so you can choose when to load these. Ex: [user folder]/worldographer/1e-icons/features Then in Worldographer go to the Configure menu and pick “Add Configuration Subfolders” and pick the 1e icons folder to add them. As in 1a, you probably want to put them into a “large area” folder in features.
   c. Or add them manually using the Configure menu’s “Add Custom Features” option when opens a file chooser.
   (In any case, the icons used in a map are saved into the map file when you save the file. But any icons not on the map somewhere aren’t and if you want them available when the map is reloaded you’ll have to do 1a, b, or c.)
2. Create a world/kingdom map–even if just for trying it all out.
3. Go to Configure Terrain on the Configure menu and pick “Classic” from the drop-down for which icon types to edit. Turn off the icons for the types that don’t belong on 1e style maps. (Mountains, hills, grassland, forests, etc.)
4. Place the terrain as desired (without icons). The 1e style icons for mountains for example still use a color similar to the built-in mountain terrain background color.
5. Go to the “Features” drawer, and check the “Place Freely” checkbox on so the icons aren’t forced to have their center in the middle of a hex. Then filter the list of icons by “Large Area” and select a 1e mountain (for example) and place them on the map. It is best to work back to front. If you need to you can select an icon on the map and then use the “Change Z-Axis” buttons to move it up or down the list of icons, but that can get tricky.
6. You can add a shape if you want the terrain background color to not honor the bounds of a hex. On the Shapes drawer, pick polygon, set the stroke width to 0 and the fill color to the color that matches the terrain color. (The common built-in colors are on the bottom of the grid of colors when you click the color box/picker.
7. Repeat that for other mountains and/or hills, forests, etc.