Duniya - original announcement

Call for help! (Original posted at: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/mwbdgu/new_project_to_create_a_fully_zoomable_world_as/ I'm starting to make a fantasy world map that is as vast & richly detailed as our own Earth, viewable at all levels of zoom in Google Earth or using OpenStreetMap tools.I’m currently using this tutorial www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/..._fantasy_globe_with/ It's a kindava, sortova alternate Earth - which allows use of a wealth of real-Earth data, which provides the zoomability. The idea is to rotate, flip, rearrange & shift parts of the real Earth's to attempt to make it look like a different world, even if the data inspires a lot of the detail Existing real world maps is that you get a supreme richness of map detail, full zoomability, & the ability to measure distances easily to get a sense of scale Altering the existing real world maps - by reflecting, rotating, moving & distorting the real-earth's data prevents it being too same old, same old.
The idea is to give enough of a twist to make it seem new and different, and full of wonder, while providing rich mapping at every level of zoom. The world is a mashup of analogues of pre-industrial places & cultures from the real Earth, with various places being anywhere in the range 0 AD to 1500 AD, plus fantasy races, and all the monsters and creatures from all the world's folklore, myths, legends and fairy tales It's intended for swords & magic games, & to be system agnostic Because an actual world is so vast, there should be plenty of room to stick every one-shot adventure ever written somewhere on the new globe. Different RPG systems could easily each have their own parallel earths, with literal additional effort, by using additional data layers. And individual GMs could then have cloned personal versions of the reimagined Earth (called "Duniya" an existing word for "Earth" on our own Earth)  

Is anyone else interested in helping to create this world? 

A project to use OpenStreetMap data to create a fantasy version of the Earth

I like to play fantasy RPGs

I like to provide a richness in the settings - it provides a real sense of immersion

Drawing detailed maps, especially maps at many different levels of detail for different levels of zoom on the same area is a lot of work.

There is a wealth of detail already available in public domain maps.  But using a detailed map with the existing place names & a 21st Century built environment can lose that valuable sense of immersion.

So I want to be able to re-use existing detailed zoomable maps as campaign maps in fantasy RPGs, but I want to transform them sufficiently that they remain evocative, otherly places.

There are many different words for Earth in the many different languages used on Earth