The Campaign Builder's Guild

The thing is that I'm totally unexperienced at drawing on computer and I'm too perfectionist for my own good. Also I want a beautiful map like one you get from a campaign setting book. So yeah... CC seems to be the best option for me. Still, could anyone show me how a campaign setting map from gimp looks like? I couldn't find any good example from google.

I've been looking for a program to help me draw my campaign's map. So far, campaign cartographer seems nice enough, but its not free. So I want to know your opinion about it, guys.

In my setting I take a "chaotic neutral warrior" approche with the orcs. They love the thrill of battle, its unwise to anger them and they are generally boorish. They don't really care about philosophicals question such as good or evil. That doesnt mean they are a bunch of grotesque brute, they want it their way. Across the ages, the orc fought so many battles that they are now rafined in war in general. Many orcs warlords have been famous for being cunning on battle. One of the orc territory now reclaims to be a kingdom. The other human/dwarve/elven kingdom, doesnt like that, but no one want to mess with them. The warrior-king of that orc kingdom aim to rise his kingdom's economy with mercenairy army contracts. The orcs from that kingdom are pretty much like the goth peoples during the roman empire age. Well, that's one of my orcish culture for example.

I never liked the "stupid chaotic evil savage" stereotype, personnally. If they were like that, I couldnt conceive how that race would not be exterminated by the other races

@Newb -A Gamera!? Clearly, I'd better not mess with turtles here!

@Ghostman -Thank you, that's quite interresting and that's the level of twist I want to put on my dwarves.

That's how I could create other orcs and elve culture, by twisting them. For my tastes the races still have the classic feels, but yeah, I know what you guys mean. And by the way, the orcs are actually more a warrior race than a blood thirsty savage one lol. Well, both versions are there in my campaign.

I got no problems with turtles, so its cool, okay? :P

The industrious dwarves are an excellent example. You makes me realize that even if the dwarves loves so much the mountains they still need ressources that could be only from outside of their kingdom. Already I can now see why now the dwarves would have more interrests on exterror politics. By example, if the dwarven kingdom have a good trade exchange with a human kingdom and that one goes to war with another, the dwarve haves the best interrest to get involved and try to best as they can to make the allied kingdom win. Now that I'm able to get my dwarves to be more involved with their neighbour's, I think it'll be easier to think about new dwarven cultures. Thank you for those examples, Seraphine.

As for the monoculture trap, I know what you mean. That's why in many campaign I find that the humans are only interresting race, because they are not mono cultural, in most time.

For some reasons it has been easier to find other elven culture. Well, of course one of the elven kingdom a high elf classic one. Another is good old wood elf fashioned kingdom. One of the other kingdoms have a japan like culture where spirituality, respect, honor, stoism and warrior thinkings is prominent. The last elven kingdom developped its culture by being annexed by a now fallen human empire. Their culture has been half assimilated by the empire. These elves are now known to be great artist in many ways and to live like human to a certain degree. Soon, I'll gladly make a post about details of "how" and "why" the races have differents culture.

Greeting everyone. First I got to say that I'm impressed  by the many settings that has been showed here. I definitly feel that I'm at the right place to get what I need to finally finish my setting that I've been working on since 10 years ago. I'm looking forward to learn, exanges ideas and having fun within that guild.

To briefly describe my setting, it's a world relatively inspired by the western europe during the middle age. By example, most human kingdoms are born from the ashes of a fallen empire. Also there's a monotheist religion that have a great influence over the kingdoms. While there is nine human kingdoms, there's about four elven kingdoms that are not neccessairly allied and have all their own distinctives cultures. Also there's two orcish kingdoms, without mentioning the orcish territorries that can't be called kingdoms or nations. Finnally, I have three dwarven kingdoms. Most kingdoms, empires and nations have its own culture or feel. I can say the themes of that campaign are politic intrigues, wars and faction rivalties.

The thing I've always been stuck to is actually the dwarves. My dwarvens kingdoms are way too generic to my tastes! I'm having hard to find something else than the beer loving warriors clichés, lol. I know too much there's a lot more about them. Its not because I don't like the dwarves nor that I don't care about them. On the contrary, I love them, but I always lacked the inspiration to do something about them. Also I'm tired of the dwarven isolationist kingdom stereotype, but I can't see why they would not be. Thanks in advance for your advices and tips. My english may not be perfect, sorry about that.