u/Ok_Philosophy_7156

Ignore the region north of the Scarlands, I’m just focusing on this southern country at the moment.

I don’t want to go crazy overboard with ‘features’ here, the country is largely quite flat and with lots of open plains. I’ll add forests and such once I’ve got the primary features all worked out.

Settlements and Forests will be going in once I’ve got the full shape of the land and its features and structures out so they can inform the settlement placement.

I really liked the idea of one big long river spanning the width of the country and I had a rough reference for where I wanted the capital (marked with the star symbol) to go but beyond that this country is a bit of a blank state and I’m struggling to find ways to add detail and interest to the map without just clogging it with *stuff*.

I’m aiming for a ‘realistic at first glance’ kind of vibe with this area - nothing that immediately stands out as artificial or unrealistic, but also not so beholden to realism that I’ll sacrifice the elements I *do* want for it.

Thanks to some help from the sub on a previous post, I’ve been figuring out the geography of this region a little more.

For context from the previous post: this is for the setting of a D&D campaign I’m running and while there’s a lot of high fantasy goings-on, I wanted this region to be quite grounded and realistic. The giant inland lake is supposed to be of similar size to the Great Lakes and measures about 300-350 miles across (1 hex being the equivalent of 50 miles).

The canal marked with anchors on the west is a man (well, Dwarf)-made canal, considered one of the wonders of the world.

There will be a large free-standing city at the heart of the lake (both above and below the water) that is the nation’s Capital, and some other populated islands, though the majority of the population are going to live on the surrounding landmass, divided into regions based on the different in-and-out-flows of the lake.

Does this all feel coherent and ‘realistic’? Anything that stands out in a bad way?

The idea is that this is a giant inland lake (Lake Arunn, hence the country’s name of Lakarunn) on par with the Great Lakes - about 300 miles across at the widest point (1 hex being approx. 50 miles). The river running out to the west is a man-made canal that’s considered one of the great wonders of the world. I’m not dead set on the canal being there but it looked like a nice spot for it.

Terrain-wise, the only thing that’s set in stone is the mountain range that makes the border with the Nation to the southeast. I’ve not got huge amounts written about this country yet, certainly nothing that would have a significant effect on its geography so there’s basically nothing off-limits.

While I’m not limiting myself to strict realism in the setting (classic high-fantasy D&D campaign), there already a lot of areas in the surrounding continent where magic and natural disasters and ancient titans have shaped the land so I like the idea of this area being more grounded and ‘believable’.

So it’s obviously lacking any terrain features at the moment but I’m just trying to get the layout of the continent itself fine-tuned first. I’m mostly pretty happy with it (minus a little bit of finer detail needed in the south) but something about these two ‘corridors’ I’ve highlighted in red just looks really wrong to my eye and I can’t put my finger on why, or how to fix it.

I could split the landmass on the one on the left but would prefer not to if there’s ways to make it look better without. The more central of the two can’t be split for narrative reasons.

Any thoughts/tips would be appreciated!