Found a stat that says 87% of fantasy maps use the same mountain symbol style

I was scrolling through a cartography blog last night and saw this breakdown of 500 fantasy maps from published books and indie projects. Apparently almost 9 out of 10 use those little triangle ridge lines instead of shaded elevation or contour marks. Am I the only one who thinks that number is way too high or does it just not matter for storytelling?

2 comments

2 Comments

rayc8923d ago

Triangle mountains are the fantasy map of map styles.

river_rivera4523d ago

Real talk @rayc89 - triangle mountains work fine for regional scale maps where you need to show a whole mountain range in a small space. I've used them in dozens of D&D campaign maps and they actually help players spot terrain at a glance. The problem is when people draw them one by one like a child's doodle instead of clustering them into proper ridgelines. 90 percent of fantasy maps look bad because the triangles are all the same size and facing the same direction. That's just lazy cartography.