The ironclad raider is probably a ship best suited for one of four things:
- The big bad guy in a naval campaign, who you want the party to have to run away from (because if they roll well and sink him in session five, what then?)
- Gnomes
- Dwarves, if your dwarves are into boats
- That one kingdom in your setting that’s way more technologically advanced than everyone else
When I drew this, I tried to capture a bit of that “brought to you by the designers of the cybertruck” look that early ironclads had, but a touch less derpy-looking. And let’s be honest: early ironclads were super derpy. The mid-to-late 1800s truly were the awkward teenage years of naval warfare.
I made a few alternate versions of this map for patrons, including ballista-armed and unarmed versions, as well as a version of the ship sailing on lava. This map came from a Cartographic Congress proposal and the original idea was for a ship that sailed on the elemental sea of fire. I think the water version will probably be more useful to most people, but hey, if patrons vote for a lava ship, I’m gonna deliver a lava ship.
Speaking of patrons voting on ships, I posted a vote to decide on the next spelljammer map and patrons chose the Living Ship. This is from the new 5e Spelljammer book and it basically looks like a sailing ship with a treant growing out of it. I’m drawing that next and I’ll make a seafaring version as well for DMs running monoplanetary campaigns.
Anyway, that’s it for the moment. If you’ve got any questions or thoughts about the ironclad, let me know!
This is a fun toy, but it looks really top-heavy and lacks a bilge.
Top heavy ironclads were surely a thing, so its NBD but it might be fun to encourage the PCs to flip it or somehow stop a sea monster or storm from flipping it.
Lacking a bilge is just sad though. So much fun adventuring can be stuffed into a bilge. Treasure, monsters, PCs, important stuff that looks like garbage (I’m fond of smuggling gold in lead covered bars that look like ballast), disease, parasites, gates to the nether realm, Trevor (you know what you did), etc.
The hull is a tumblehome design, which gives a ship a low center of gravity. As far as the bilge, I figured the pumps would be incorporated into the engine rather than being manually operated.
Tumblehome gives a lower center of gravity but look at how much of your ship is above the waterline vs below water. Now imagine that waterline is on a big wave that tilts the entire ship 45 degrees to the side.
As for the bilge I’m talking about the “space below the lowest desk” bilge, not the “bilge pumps” that drain excess fluids out of that chamber. It’s a gross, cramped, filthy, wet space full of adventuring wonder.
I’d absolutely love to see a land version of this, which is something my player’s are trying to get built in our campaign. Do you happen to do commissions?
Sorry, but I don’t do commissions. I’d never get any big projects done if I did.