Maps

Draw maps of your world from scratch or on top of an image, then pin the places, people and things that matter.

Create a map

1. Click Maps in the sidebar, then New Map.
2. Give the map a Name.
3. Choose a starting point:
   • Blank Canvas: pick a Paper color (White, Parchment, Aged Paper or Vellum). The canvas is 2000 × 1500.
   • Background Image: click to upload an image of up to 12 MB, such as a scan or a map made in another app. The canvas takes the image's size.
4. Click Create Map. The map opens in the editor.

The Maps page shows every map with a thumbnail and its number of pins and strokes. Use Search maps... to find one by name.

The map editor

Tools

The tool palette on the left has:

Tool	Key	What it does
Hand / Pan	V	Drag the map to move around. Drag a pin, the protagonist marker or a stamp to move it.
Pen	P	Draw freehand lines on the active layer. Choose one of eight colors or a Custom color, and a size of 2, 4, 8 or 16 px.
Eraser	E	Drag over lines to remove them from the active layer. Sizes are 12, 24 and 48 px.
Stamps	S	Place images from your stamp collection. See Stamps.
Add Pin		Click the map, then choose an entry to pin there.
Set protagonist marker		Click the map, then choose a character.

Press Esc to go back to the Hand tool.

Layers

The Layers panel on the right has four drawing layers: Terrain, Rivers, Roads and Annotations. Each starts with its own pen color and size.

• Click a layer to make it Active. The Pen and Eraser only affect the active layer. Number keys 1 to 4 select the layers in order.
• Hover over a layer and click the eye to show or hide it.
• The Stamps and Pins rows under Special layers show or hide all stamps or all pins, and show how many there are.

Layer visibility is saved with the map.

Pins

1. Click Add Pin.
2. Click the spot on the map.
3. In Pin which entity?, search by name and choose a character, location, thing, lore entry, faction or creature.

Pins are colored by type. Hover over a pin to see its name, and click it to open the entry. Drag a pin with the Hand tool to move it. Deleting an entry removes its pins from every map.

Protagonist marker

Each map can have one protagonist marker, a larger yellow star that shows where a character currently is. Click Set protagonist marker, click the map and choose a character. Click Move protagonist marker to move it, or Clear protagonist marker to remove it.

Stamps

Stamps are images you place on the map, such as trees, towers or icons.

1. Click Stamps and pick a stamp from the panel. Use Search stamps… to find one.
2. Choose a Size: 32, 48, 72 or a Custom size up to 500 px.
3. Optionally flip it with Flip horizontal or Flip vertical.
4. Click the map to place it. Keep clicking to place more.

With the Hand tool, drag a stamp to move it, or hover and click the red × to remove it.

Adding your own stamps: stamps come from the customStamps folder in Realm Lore's app data, shared by all your worlds:

~/Library/Application Support/realm-lore/customStamps/

Copy PNG, JPG, SVG or WebP files into this folder (subfolders are fine), then click Refresh stamp list in the Stamps panel. The stamp's name comes from its file name, with dashes and underscores turned into spaces.

Generate a landmass

Click Generate to draw a random outline. Choose a Shape Type (Island, Continent, Archipelago, Region or Coastline), a Size and a Complexity (Simple, Medium or Complex), then click Generate Shape. The outline is drawn on the Terrain layer in the middle of the map, and you can undo it like any other stroke.

View controls

Control	Shortcut	What it does
Zoom in / Zoom out	+ / −, or scroll	Zoom between 10% and 800%. Scrolling zooms toward the pointer.
Fit to view		Fit the canvas in the window.
Zoom to fit all content	F	Frame everything you've drawn, stamped and pinned.
Reset zoom	0	Go back to 100%.
Show alignment grid	G	Show or hide a grid.
Enable snap to grid	N	Snap stamps to the grid when you place them.

The badge in the bottom-left corner shows the number of pins, stamps and strokes and the active layer.

Undo and history

Press ⌘Z to undo and ⌘⇧Z to redo, or use the buttons in the toolbar. Undo covers drawing, erasing, clearing and generating strokes, and adding, moving and removing stamps, up to 80 steps. Pins and the protagonist marker aren't part of undo. History is kept until you leave the map. Click History to see the list of steps.

Clear all strokes removes every line on the map but leaves pins, stamps and the background. You can undo it straight away with ⌘Z.

Rename or delete a map

Click the map's name at the top of the editor to rename it. Press Return to save. To delete the map, click Delete map in the toolbar or hover over it on the Maps page and click the trash icon.

Press ? in the editor to see the keyboard shortcuts.