Forest Region Cartography
Stable DiffusionAn SDXL 1.0 prompt for a forest region map on aged paper — dense tree-canopy clusters, a winding river with tributaries, a central clearing with a cabin and well, a trail, a northern lake, a hunter's camp, and elevation contours in ink and muted watercolour.
Last tested: August 2026 with Stable Diffusion SDXL 1.0
Part of the Stable Diffusion prompt library · see more fantasy prompts .
Prompt
A hand-drawn forest region map on aged paper, dense woodland drawn as clusters of small green tree-canopy circles filling the centre and eastern areas, a winding river crossing from the north-west to the south-east with small tributary streams branching off, a clearing in the centre with a tiny drawn wooden cabin and a well, a trail marked with thin dashed dots winding from the clearing south to the map edge, a small lake in the north drawn in pale blue with a ripple pattern, a hunter's camp icon in the north-east with a tiny tent and campfire, elevation contours drawn as faint concentric brown lines on the western hills, a compass rose in the lower right corner, no text, no letters, no place names, no labels, hand-painted cartography style with visible ink linework and muted watercolour wash
Negative prompt
text, letters, place names, labels, modern roads, photorealistic, 3D render, gradient mesh, digital painting, neon colours, deformed trees, oversaturated greens, blurry lines
Settings
- Model
- Stable Diffusion SDXL 1.0
- Aspect ratio
- 3:2
- Steps
- 30
- CFG scale
- 6
- Sampler
- DPM++ 2M Karras
How to use this prompt
The tree-canopy circle is the cartography convention for forested areas, and naming it as "small green tree-canopy circles" tells SDXL the specific icon to use rather than rendering a painterly forest texture that would read as an illustration, not a map. The elevation contours as "faint concentric brown lines" are the detail that makes the western hills read as terrain rather than a flat zone, and "faint" is the word that keeps them as background information rather than competing with the tree clusters. The dashed-dot trail is the one human route through the wilderness, and it is the storytelling element that makes the map useful for a game master or a fantasy writer planning a journey.
Variations to try
- Add a hidden elven treehouse village drawn as platforms among the canopy circles for a fantasy forest
- Replace the cabin clearing with an ancient stone ruin covered in vines for a mysterious forest map
Explore collections
What to do next
Adapt it →
Open this prompt in the Stable Diffusion builder, pre-filled, and change one layer at a time.
Explore more →
Browse the full Stable Diffusion prompt library — every entry tested with its settings.
For developers — copy this prompt as JSON
{
"title": "Forest Region Cartography",
"prompt": "A hand-drawn forest region map on aged paper, dense woodland drawn as clusters of small green tree-canopy circles filling the centre and eastern areas, a winding river crossing from the north-west to the south-east with small tributary streams branching off, a clearing in the centre with a tiny drawn wooden cabin and a well, a trail marked with thin dashed dots winding from the clearing south to the map edge, a small lake in the north drawn in pale blue with a ripple pattern, a hunter's camp icon in the north-east with a tiny tent and campfire, elevation contours drawn as faint concentric brown lines on the western hills, a compass rose in the lower right corner, no text, no letters, no place names, no labels, hand-painted cartography style with visible ink linework and muted watercolour wash",
"negative_prompt": "text, letters, place names, labels, modern roads, photorealistic, 3D render, gradient mesh, digital painting, neon colours, deformed trees, oversaturated greens, blurry lines",
"model": "Stable Diffusion",
"model_version": "SDXL 1.0",
"settings": {
"aspect_ratio": "3:2",
"steps": 30,
"cfg": 6,
"sampler": "DPM++ 2M Karras"
},
"style_tags": [
"fantasy",
"watercolor"
],
"use_case_tags": [
"fantasy-maps",
"illustration"
],
"source_url": "https://promptkoi.com/prompts/stable-diffusion/forest-region-cartography/"
}The whole library is available as an open JSON dataset · developer docs.
