Bring Your Worlds to Life with “Inkarnate!”

Until this past weekend I had no idea what Inkarnate was, but out of sheer luck while searching for a specific map of Hyrule I happened to stumble upon it. I wish I had actually found this application some time ago because it would have been really helpful.

A while back I had been researching map-creation software in order to better visualize a fan project I was working on, yet most of the software that came up in popular searches were more expensive than I was willing to pay for an occasional-use purpose. Pro Fantasy, for example, makes Campaign Cartographer 3 and more, though this software begins at $99.

Inkarnate is actually a web-based application and no software downloads are necessary. You set up a free account (yes, it’s currently free in its beta form!) and any maps you design and save will be affiliated with that account. The application actually has a lot of options for you and playing around with it is actually really fun. You can download any maps you make, though they appear to be limited to 1024×768 at this time. At first I felt like that was a pretty limited resolution, but the actuality of it is that for a map of a city or region in a fantasy world that should be plenty. Also, if you want to make a much larger map, you could use some image editing software to stitch multiple maps together at will.

Anyway, this is a really interesting application that I think needs some more attention. Whether you regularly DM sessions of your favorite role-playing game or you just want to visualize a project better, Inkarnate may very well fit your needs – and more!