Pirate wavecrawl - map handouts

Prep work for a possible pirate campaign: I'm going over Skerples' overview maps for his pirate wavecrawl and am turning them into player hand-outs and DM summaries.

I aimed for a yellowed paper style map that has been annotated by a later owner to spell out profitable trades and possible adventures. Will expand this into a trading system in a later post.

Like any rumour you'd do well to take these notes with a pinch of salt. Check out Skerples' notes and the original adventures for what your group will get themselves into.

DOWNLOAD THE HELL OUT OF THIS

Get all the images in this series here, in versions with and without notes.

USE, MODIFY, DON'T SELL

This is available under CC by-nc-sa/4.0, which means feel free to share and modify as long as you attribute me. No commercial use, please get in touch to discuss if you're that interested. (In any case, the original maps and module summaries were not put together by me but by Skerples!)

Map icons: mountains/volcanoes by Red Blob Games, palm trees by FreeVector

MERABAHA ISLANDS

Written up by Skerples. A Caribbean-like archipelago where Old World countries fight for the best colony sites. Much is unexplored and there is enough room for pirates to slip between the cracks or even topple the local powers.

With notes, all islands, all ports and settlements

Add your own notes

With only the main named islands

CHULT

Based on Forgotten Realms' Tomb of Annihilation but with the supernatural dialled way down and overarching plot removed. Skerples has done a fantastic job reflavouring Forgotten Realms powers as Old World countries and reskinning to fit the pirate sensibility. Chult is now a powder keg of ambitious lordlings, greedy merchants and oppressed commoners, waiting for a match...

This map again adds notes that hint at what sites are all about (useful for players as well as the DM) and adds one or two hints taken from the broader Realms lore. I've hunted through the module and online sources to get a list of favoured imports and exports.

Below are versions that don't show the location of the pirate triad nest; the google drive folder has versions that proudly fly their three-boned flag.

With all the bells and whistles except the pirate anchorage

No pirates, no notes - pristine map for your group to mess up

Even more basic; left out the mountain / jungle icons.

OW, MY CRAMPED FINGERS

"It'll be easy", I said. "Just have to pull the original maps into Illustrator and reskin a bit", I explained. That was a week ago. Sure, Illustrator can convert jpg outlines into vector shapes...including holes where map icons or text sat, which then all need to be patched and smoothed. Happy with the result though!

NEXT UP

Yoon-Suin, the Ape Archipelago, and the Island of Dread!