World Map makers?

[TheKoalaNxtDoor]

Does anyone know any good programs for creating some good-looking, attractive world maps for your campaign? I've looked around, but I can't find anything that's free and doesn't require all sorts of other programs to work well. What do you use to make world maps, besides just pen & paper? Examples of maps would be appreciated. If it helps, I do own a wacom bamboo tablet, but i tend to prefer to draw on paper so i don't have any graphics programs to support it.

[flyingchicken]

What I think is, look at the map for the Western Continent and crib the style, using Inkscape or something similar; it's simple (for ease of production), clean (for information), and pretty (the quintessential element!), possibly one of the prettiest things I've ever seen in OotS.

Here's a quick sketch with shamelessly trying to rip off the style in a very incomplete world cultures expies type of world map:

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You could then make appropriately-styled little icons (for castles and cities and such) and just copy-paste them everywhere.

But yeah I suggest Inkscape; since it saves as a vector, you can zoom in a lot and do the nitty-gritty of a region and zoom out for the rough outline of continents and stuff; if you're masochistic you can zoom in to the details of a room but that's like, silly.

[DonQuixote]

I tend to just start with a random map generator, like this one, and then make changes as I see fit using image editing programs.

[TheKoalaNxtDoor]

Alright, i just buckled down and downloaded the GIMP, and I'm wrestling with it to try to make a nice looking sort of map. Also joined a forum specificly for map-making. Thanks for the suggestions though!