Shipyard Battle Map - Launch

Hello adventurers! I’ve just finished our next map, the Shipyard, which should work well for any dockside encounters. There are a fair number of environmental obstacles on this map, from elevation, to mud creating difficult terrain. The cranes can be used to swing things about the map, while the half built ship could work as a battlefield within the larger map.

I’ll be moving onto the next map for the month shortly, this will be the Forest Shrine, a small shrine nestled into the landscape of an overgrown forest. It should be a fun one to work on! For the end of the month I’ll be creating a Causeway map which should be rather useful for travel encounters on the coast or near large bodies of water.

Thank you for your support, have a wonderful weekend and as always happy adventuring! Now let's get onto the map notes!

Introduction

The Shipyard at night is quiet, the usual hammering and shouting is absent as you make your way between the stacks of lumber and coiled rope. Cranes loom above you, their heavy stone counterweights swaying slowly in the sea breeze. Ahead is a slipway, a half constructed carcass of a ship lies abandoned at its centre, propped up by scaffolding haphazardly constructed around it. Even at this distance you can hear the chittering of creatures, a disturbing tweeting clicking sound that makes your skin crawl.

As you make your way down the steps into the shadows of the slipway the smell of rotting seaweed and harbour mud becomes overpowering. Planks have been strategically laid out across the mud, making it easier to navigate the slipway's floor. With a few careful steps you make it across the mud to an unfinished section of the hull, it's dark opening leading to the ship's interior. 

As you step into the ship it reminds you of a giant wooden cocoon, the strange clicking sounds only enhancing the effect. The interior is dark and seemingly empty, the decks yet to be constructed. The wooden outer hull is mostly complete, creating a large enclosed ship shaped room open to the heavens above. As you move further in you notice something odd about the walls, they seem uneven and catch the moonlight strangely. You hear one of your companions strike a flint, a torch flickers to life, lighting the interior clearly for the first time.

The walls are covered in giant insect-like creatures, their hard chitinous armour glistening in the torchlight. Feelers wave alarmingly above pincer like mouths, black eyes glint in the torchlight. First one, then another drops from the ship's hull and advances on you, until a wave of nightmarish creatures threatens to engulf your party.

Hints and Tips

• 30x45 grid map
• Docks are notorious for crime, and are a great place for nefarious meetings!
• Dock workers are a hardy bunch ready to fight if needed.
• Use the elevation to make for a more interesting encounter, have mobs or the party climb scaffolding or the cranes!
• The cranes can swing around dropping lumber onto the party.
• The cranes counterweights can be cut loose to drop and roll onto combatants!
• That mud looks rather thick, imagine what horrifying sea critters could be living there.
• Have a sea creature or nest of critters set up home in the ship's interior.
• Thieves could be using the ship's interior as a drop off point for some ill gotten goods.
• The dockers could be using the ship's interior as an unofficial fighting ring.

Variants

Night lit and unlit variants of all the maps

A Harbour version for someplace to part your pirate ship!

And if you didn't know we have a great big Man of War ship map in the back catalogue. I've taken the liberty to add it to the harbour. The Man of War has a number of decks as well! Go check it out in the Map list!