Getting started

This walkthrough takes you from a blank canvas to a saved scene in under two minutes.

Open the Foundry

1. From the Scenes page click New scene, then choose Map Foundry when prompted.

   You can also go straight to /app/scenes/foundry or, if you want the result attached to a specific world, /app/worlds/[id]/maps/foundry.

2. Wait for the first preview. A continent generates automatically on a random seed the first time you load the page — sub-second on a modern laptop.

Find your way around the canvas

The map sits on a blurred, darkened copy of itself, so it reads as a map lying on a table rather than an image on a flat colour — the same treatment World Maps and the battle map get.

At the top of the screen is the toolbar. The first three buttons are the tools — Build, Paint, and Decorate — and the rest are actions (reroll, save, export, and so on). Picking a tool opens its panel; you can drag the panel anywhere by the grip above it, and close it with the ✕ or by clicking the lit tool button again. Closing every panel leaves you nothing but the map, which is the best way to judge one.

Tip

Only one tool is open at a time, and leaving a tool puts its canvas away with it — switch off Paint and your brush is no longer armed, so you can’t paint by accident while you’re doing something else.

In the bottom-right corner is the view controls cluster, identical to the one on boards, World Maps, the links graph and the VTT:

• The tall column is always about the view — Zoom in, the current zoom as a percentage, Zoom out, Fit to view, and Centre the map.
• Under the mini map sits Layers, and — once a map has generated — the live-preview toggle.
• The chevron at the foot of the column folds the cluster away and brings it back.

The mini map shows the whole map with a bright window marking the part you’re looking at. Drag anywhere on it to move around.

Note

On a phone the mini map is hidden — it would cover too much of the map — but every button stays.

Pick a map kind

Build is the first tool in the toolbar at the top of the screen. The Map kind select drives the overall shape of the map. The eight kinds are:

• World — multiple continents separated by ocean.
• Continent — one landmass with rivers, mountains, and a coast.
• Archipelago — chain or cluster of islands.
• Region — a more zoomed-in section of land.
• Coast — half land, half ocean, useful for sea-faring campaigns.
• Inland — no ocean at all; rivers run to interior lakes.
• Mountain — a single range fills the canvas.
• River valley — one carved river with tributaries.

Each kind unlocks its own settings further down in the Build panel — it only shows knobs that apply to the current kind.

Pick a style

Below the kind select is Style. Seven baked styles ship with the app:

• Parchment — warm cream, hand-drawn feel.
• Antique chart — sepia mariner’s chart.
• Atlas — modern reference style.
• Painterly — soft brush textures.
• Clean digital — high-contrast, flat.
• Dark fantasy — moody ink-and-shadow.
• Cosy hand-drawn — Ghibli-inspired soft pastels.

The style affects palette, line weights, hand-drawn texture, and label typography. You can layer your own colour tweaks on top — see the custom palette guide.

Reroll until you like it

The Reroll button in the top bar generates a brand-new seed and re-renders. The Variations button shows nine candidates side by side so you can compare without committing — see the variations guide.

The seed history strip across the bottom remembers the last eight previews of your session. Click any one to load its seed back into the controls.

Save it as a scene

1. When you find a map you like, click Save as scene… in the top right.

2. Optionally pick a world. Leaving it blank works — you can attach the scene to a world later.

3. Give the scene a name. The default (“Generated map”) is fine; you can rename later.

4. Choose what generated features to convert into editable map objects. The toggles are bucketed by category — see the save guide for the detail.

5. Click Save scene.

   The save runs a high-resolution server render, composites any chrome decorations on top, and creates a real world_map scene. You’re redirected straight to the editor.

Tip

Save the seed somewhere private. Every generated scene stores the seed and the full settings — pasting the same seed and settings back into the Foundry reproduces the exact same map, even months later.

Where to go next

• Lock the bits you like. Locks let you keep the coastline and reroll only the rivers, or keep settlements and re-skin with a new style.
• Save it as a preset. Hit Save preset in the top bar to remember this combination for next time. See presets.
• Add decorations. Open the Decorate tool for compasses, titles, illustrations, and custom uploads. See the Decorate guide.