A few weeks ago, just before I got the chance to play in the Charm City Gameday Fourthcore Team Deathmatch, I emailed C. Steven Ross with an idea to make a deathmatch map on a ship sailing in a sea of lava. I had so much fun playing in the deathmatch that I decided to realize that map myself. Of course, I love making the deathmatch terrains, and I really believe they add something great to the deathmatch experience, so I wanted to make the map resemble something that could be made and used in a match.
So this ship map is an exact replica of the Fat Dragon Games “Sea Dragon.” I have used this map before, (and here too), but this time I used Dundjinni to map it out.
The side view of the mast is there to serve as a tracker of where a PC might be in climbing the mast. The wider base of the “I” shape represents the deck, and the narrower top of the “I” shape represents the crow’s nest. If a character is climbing the mast, they can simply put their mini somewhere along the vertical to show how high up they are. When they get to the crow’s nest (or main deck), they then move their mini back onto the top-down map.
At one point, I had considered using the lower deck as well. In the end, I decided that simpler and smaller is better. Adding another level would add all sorts of complexity without adding any more fun. However, I do realize that this map could also work well as an in-game encounter map, so I will be adding the lower deck sometime this week, and I will post the complete map here next Thursday.
Check out the post on the Fourthcore Team Deathmatch site!
If you want a PDF of the terrain powers and treasure for the map, click here.
If you want a large map suitable for printing, it’s here.
Roving Band of Misfits 
