Hi, everyone! I’m so excited to share my first post of 2024. Some of you may know I am currently running a D&D campaign. Well, my players have just a pirate arc! In honor of that, today I’ll be sharing six great maps for your pirate one shot or campaign. These maps are for personal use only. So, feel free to use them for your home games, but please refrain from using them for commercial projects. I’d be happy to clarify any concerns.
The Docks – Day and Night Variants
The first set of maps I have for you today is of a section of docks. These maps are perfect for a ship heist or a battle with guards. I’ve included both a daytime and a nighttime variant. Feel free to pick your favorite or even have your players visit the docks twice.
These maps come packed with little details, including two merchant stands, various crates, and part of a docked ship.
When using these maps, you might want to think about what objects your players can find if they choose to look through or steal from the crates. Don’t be afraid to get creative with the objects you hide inside them. There are lots of fun pirate-themed items out there, or you can come up with your own.
Additionally, you might find it helpful to create a few NPCs related to the docks, especially if you plan to use this map for a social encounter or puzzle rather than for combat. Some ideas are a bumbling but well-meaning dockhand, a tired captain who just wants to set sail, or an on-edge guard looking for an escaped prisoner.
The Pirate Ships
Next, I have two different ship maps for you to use on your adventures. What’s a pirate story without a great ship? These are both the perfect home bases for your players while they explore the seas.
First, we have the Seafarer, a small sailing ship perfect for a minimal crew. This is the ideal ship to use if you want your players to run it without having to hire additional crew. It has four visible hammocks, but you can always say they’re bunk bed style if you need to fit more players or NPCs.
Secondly, we have the Santiana. This ship is both bigger and fancier, possibly a navy ship or wealthy merchant vessel. It has a total of 19 beds and two prison cells, but again, you can say they’re bunkbed style if you need to fit more people aboard.
In addition to the various bedrooms, The Santiana included a medic cabin and a large kitchen and storage pantry. This vessel is also equipped with four cannons, which might be helpful during combat encounters. I mostly use the Sailing Ship stats for this vessel in my D&D games, but feel free to use whatever stats make sense to you.
The Island – Day and Night Variants
Lastly, I have a set of island maps. This set includes a daytime and a nighttime variant. There are many ways you can use these maps within your pirate adventures, including stranding the party here or having them discover an important NPC living on the island.
The bigger two islands have huts while the small one has a tent. I imagine one of the huts as living quarters and the other as some sort of research space, but again, use them in whatever way makes sense to you.
The nighttime map features a lit cooking fire, as well as beams of light coming from the two huts. Additionally, the two flying parrots featured on the daytime map are missing. Otherwise, the two maps are functionally similar to one another.
When using these maps in your game it might be helpful to consider who built the huts. Were they built by the party or an NPC, or did the party find them abandoned when they arrived? If you choose to use these huts as a research site, what research was being done here? Did the researchers leave behind any useful notes?
Thanks so much for checking out this post. If you enjoyed it, please consider checking out my other TTRPG resources, including Tips for New Players and Tips for New GMs.
Have a Great Day,
Elliot West
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