Aonbarr Cartography
patreon
The Aonbarr - A Multilevel Galleon Map (40x20, 200px) - Patron Only Version
🕑 Added 2023-02-21 22:27:50 +0000 UTCSomething strikes the hull of the ship from the port side, sending several crew members scrambling across the deck while others fall overboard.
As you rush to aid those bound for the sea, you see a shadow moving beneath the waves - some creature larger than anything you've ever seen passes under the hull.
As you watch, mouth agape, it begins to circle back.
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This map took so much effort to put together, between research, planning, and trying to fine-tune the details, it's probably the most involved map I've made in some time.
This ship comes with interior and exterior decks, and several layers for the sails - from the top to the bottom, we have the top sail, crow's nest, yardarms, poop deck, quarterdeck & forecastle, main deck, berth deck, and orlop deck. That's 8 different layers, and may explain why I decided to stack these assets in Photoshop instead of Dungeondraft this time - there was just too much going on.
I've also provided the ship as a standalone token, should you wish to use it for naval combat, rather than combat or exploration on the ship itself.
This map has been on my to-do list for years - since before I even started making battle maps! I think I was just too intimidated to tackle it, and honestly, even now, it was terrifying. I could not tell you how many hours I spent researching sailing during the age of exploration, nor could I tell you how frustrating it was that most of the answers to my questions would only apply to ships in Sea of Thieves, which wasn't exactly what I was going for.
There is a story behind this ship that relates to Sea of Thieves, though - when I first started running Dungeons & Dragons, my plan was to run a nautically-themed campaign for some friends I used to play Sea of Thieves with. We would hop on Discord once or twice a week, and years before the game gave you the ability to actually name your ship we decided to call ours The Aonbarr, after a horse in Irish mythology that belonged to Manannán Mac Lír, which could cross land or sea faster than the wind. I guess it just seemed appropriate.
When I finally got around to setting up this Patreon for my map-making endeavors, I decided to use the name Aonbarr Cartography for two reasons: The name was connected to the game that started all of this, and because the imagery of a horse that could cross land or sea fit the escapism of map-making so incredibly well. Of course, I never did run a game for those friends in the end - maybe some day...
I was originally planning on doing a ghost ship variant for this one, but honestly, I think that might have to be another project entirely, as this just took so much out of me. I definitely intend on making more ship maps, mind, and I intend on making battle maps you can use the ships as tokens in for naval engagements.
I hope you like it!
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My maps are made with assets from Forgotten Adventures and AoA (bolstered with assets of my own making here and there), and they usually come with day/night, edited/unedited, and light/lightless variants, plus JPEGs, WebPs with transparent backgrounds, and UVTT (DD2VTT) files for Foundry VTT if the map features buildings or interiors.
