Category: Spelljammer

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Spelljammer: The Living Ship

Sometimes the druid or the ranger gets to pick the spelljammer and you end up with a Living Ship. The most notable feature of this vessel is a treant rooted into the deck. Since the ship and the treant are fused together, the treant can repair hull damage and keep the air envelope clean. And, in the event of enemy boarding, it can rip the heads off anything dumb enough to come near it. And, now that I think of it, the treant can clean out the privies, too. Humans do poop plant food, after all.

I know a lot of you play old-school Spelljammer and may be wondering what book this is from. It’s actually a new vessel from the 5th edition Spelljammer: Adventures in Space. It’s a bit different from other vessels and, for DMs whose last campaign started in a Dragonfly, this’ll give you the option of changing things up a bit in the next one.

For patrons, I made a seafaring version of the ship and I’m going to make another one without the treant as well. This ship is a little boring without the treant, but sometimes you need a boring starter ship for your party. They have to earn that ship of the line. Anyway, I’ll have that up in a day or two.

Okay, I’ll see you then. Let me know what you think of the map!

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The Brass Koi: Spelljammer Version

As promised, here’s the spacefaring version of the Brass Koi submarine. I don’t know how many Spelljammer DMs were specifically looking for an amphibious ship, but it does open up a few interesting possibilities. And, in any case, it’s another spelljammer map, which there still aren’t a ton of out there. It’s unfortunate that Spelljammer gets so little support in terms of maps, but I’m trying to do my part.

One thing I wanted to say about this version is that the engines and propeller are only used for underwater propulsion and wouldn’t be necessary for space travel. Now that I think about it, would they be necessary underwater? Could a spelljamming helm drive the ship underwater as well? I’m not sure, but maybe. I’m going with a definite maybe on this one. If you know your Spelljammer physics better than I do, let me know.

Next I’ll be drawing another map from Tir Thelandira. We’ve got 4 left to go, including two which patrons will be deciding on. Which reminds me, if you’re a patron, the vote is open on location #3, so cast a vote and tell me what you’d like to see there. I’ll be drawing the Dhasran colony next, which is a small mining colony that’s producing absurd amounts of gold. It’ll include the colony itself as well as the mines.

Anyway, I think that’s it for now. I hope everybody who was asking for a submarine is happy with the Brass Koi. Let me know what you think!

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The Barre Sinister: A Spelljammer Pirate Tavern

I’ve made some fairly strange maps, but we might have a new champion today. The Barre Sinister is a tavern built on a giant, stone hand… in space. I also made a version with just the hand, which is arguably weirder. I suspect at least one of you has a use for that.

If you don’t play Spelljammer and you’re wondering how this place could possibly exist, allow me to explain the first rule of Spelljammer: Never ask questions about how things work. They just do. That’s a very important rule. No one’s trying to play Spelljammer with Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Of course, not everyone is running a campaign in which the players can escape the gravitational influence of their planet, so I’m going to make an island version of this map next. That shouldn’t take long, since I mostly just need to change the background and draw a bit of land around the hand. Maybe I’ll throw a palm tree on there, who knows. Wait… would that constitute a pun in this situation? Maybe I’d better not.

Anyway, I’m gonna get to work on that and I’ll be back with it in a day or two. By the way, if you’re the person who actually has a use for the empty space hand, I’d love to hear what you plan to do with it!

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Great Bombard: Spelljammer goes brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt

The Great Bombard isn’t a ship, it’s a gun. A really big gun. This gun does has a ship attached to it, though. This accessory, mounted under the barrel, allows a crew to move the gun through space and blow things up in a variety of interesting and exotic locations.

If you allow your party to acquire a Great Bombard, I don’t think that’s unreasonable. But you do need to keep it in mind when planning adventures from that point on. Ask yourself, “Can my players solve this problem using nothing but their big gun?” If so, you may want to make a few adjustments so the party has to put a little more work in. That said, you’ve got to let them blow something up every once in a while. That’s half the fun of having a ship like this, after all.

Since the new Spelljammer was recently released, I’ll probably draw another spelljammer map sometime in the next two months. I’ll hold a vote to let patrons decide which one you’d like to see.

But first, I’ll be drawing India’s Akshardham Temple. Then, I’ll be drawing the map chosen by last month’s Cartographic Congress: the Indian island fortress of Murud-Janjira. I’ll be drawing it about how it is in this photo: overgrown and in ruins. Personally, I think that’s much more interesting (and it also gets around the problem that the only labeled floor plans I’ve been able to find are in Hindi).

Well, I hope you like the Great Bombard. I’m gonna get started on this Indian double-feature. Let me know what you think!

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Whaleship-Class Spelljammer

The whaleship is a spelljammer for people who want to go to space, but don’t want to leave anything behind. ANYTHING. Not the billiard table, the pool, the tavern, or anyone they know. It’s all coming. Hell, bring the whole village. It’s fine, there’s room for everybody, sheep included.

The whaleship is designed as a passenger liner and cargo ship, but some DMs may want to use it as a player vessel, so I included a few versions of the ship retrofitted with weapons. Here’s the lightly-armed version and here’s the heavily-armed version (aka “the Whalehammer 40K”). Also, here’s a token of the ship.

Next, I’ll be going back to the Black Loch and drawing the drow settlement. After that, I’ll be drawing last month’s Cartographic Congress winner, “a multi-level village built in and around the branches and trunk of a giant tree, with the buildings of the village connected by bridges.” After that, I’ll probably be working on the Black Loch for the rest of the month.

All right, I’m gonna get some sleep. Let me know what you think of the whaleship!

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Whaleship Spelljammer (Work-in-Progress)

You voted for the biggest spelljammer and this is all the art for it. This thing has five decks with 17 private cabins, 12 bathrooms, a 2-floor lounge, a billiards room, a poker room, a pool and a harpsichord.

The whaleship is a passenger liner, but I suspect some DMs will have other things in mind for it, so I’ll be making three versions of the map: unarmed, lightly armed, and Whalehammer 40K.

I’m about to start coloring all this now, so I’ll be back with the map in a few more days. Hope you like it so far!

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Man-O’-War-Class Spelljammer

Here’s a version of the map with extra crew quarters. And here are some tokens of the ship and the weapons.

There’s a time in every Spelljammer campaign when the party has finally committed enough crimes and looted enough corpses to afford a new ship. Maybe not the Doomlord-Class Planetary Sterilizer they’ve always wanted, but something better. They’ve been cruising around in a stylish, but poorly-armed bugboat for about eight levels now. They used to love it, but now… well, the decks are stained with blood, they’ve got three NPCs sleeping on the floor, and there isn’t a square inch of the ship that the wizard’s familiar hasn’t peed on. So they head down to the shipyard to buy themselves a big boy spelljammer.

The Man-O’-War is an elven-designed light warship with lots of cargo space, seven officers’ cabins, and enough firepower to hold its own against most of what the old ship had to run away from. The four ballistas are fairly standard, but the catapult is a little more interesting. Instead of using rope and wood to launch a projectile, this catapult uses a high-pressure boiler that builds up steam, which can be released to fire the weapon.

But the best thing about the Man-O’-War is, arguably, the rear cargo doors. They can be used to load or unload cargo or passengers, either on land, or *ahem* mid-flight. An excellent way to prevent overcrowding in the brig.

Earlier, I said I was planning to draw another spelljammer later this year, but I think I’m going to make it at least two, with the next one coming in three months or so. It’ll be a bigger ship than the Man-O’-War, something beefy to use as a late-game vessel. I’ll probably hold a vote on which ship to draw when I’m ready to get started on it. I know there aren’t a lot of maps out there for Spelljammer and I want to draw a few more for those of you running games in the setting. With the Dragonfly, the Man-O’-War and the next one, that’ll give you an early-game, mid-game and a late-game ship, which at least covers the fundamentals. After that, I’ll see where you want me to go from there.

Next, I’ll be making some things for the Black Loch. Since a campaign in the loch would probably be a naval campaign, a water map and some ship tokens would be helpful for a lot of people. Someone pointed this out to me recently and I’m going to go ahead and make them now. It’ll take a day or two at most and, afterwards, I’ll probably get started on another Black Loch map.

Okay, that’s it. Let me know what you think!

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Dragonfly-Class Spelljammer – “The Mid-Priced Toyota of Fantasy Spacecraft”

I’ve never run a Spelljammer campaign, per se, but I have run campaigns where some mild-to-moderate spelljamming did take place (including my current one). If you don’t understand the appeal of the setting, let me try to explain it.

First, picture the show Firefly. Now, imagine that Kaylee is an elf. Imagine Wash is a wizard. And Shepherd Book is a priest of Tempus who always tries to solve people’s issues by asking, “When was the last time you purified yourself in the holy flames of battle?” That’s basically Spelljammer. Oh, and the Firefly would probably look like an actual firefly.

There’s some freaky stuff out in space, too.  For example: a giant skull full of mind flayers that are torturing beholders. Or how about a clump of pirate-infested asteroids held together by a giant plant? Or, my personal favorite, a big old cloud of wild magic shaped like a boat. For the record, that last one gives you, the DM, license to do literally anything. “Siderion, you are now neon yellow. And your arm turns into a sheep.” What? Are you serious? “You fall down. The sheep is heavy.”

I’m not sure what I’m drawing next, but I’ve got a few things I want to announce about some stuff I’m planning over the next year and I’ll let you know in a day or two when I post about that. I don’t want to hype this up like it’s some huge thing, but I think most of you will be into it.

Anyway, I hope those of you running Spelljammer games approve of my choice of ship! I don’t think I’ll be doing another spelljammer soon, but I may draw another one later in the year. I’m thinking it’d be something a bit bigger than this. Like, the kind of ship your party graduates to after this one. Maybe an elven Man O’ War? If you’ve got any suggestions, let me know and I’ll keep them in mind. In any case, tell me what you think of the map!

There’s an annotated version of this map and DM notes available to patrons.

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Mind Flayer Dreadnought Spelljammer

You’ve gotta love Spelljammer. Want to travel into space? Just duct tape a spelljamming helm to the deck of a stolen fishing boat and you’re off to explore the stars.

Mind flayers, however– former masters of the universe that they are– tend to be a bit more sophisticated about interstellar travel. Dreadnoughts are the capital ship of the illithid fleet and they weren’t built for catching seabass. In addition to carrying a variety of weapons on board, the dreadnought also holds a fleet of boreworms, small attack ships with a single crewman. Boreworms aren’t fighters, they’re actually boarding ships, designed to crash into the side of a ship, punch through the hull, then eject the illithid pilot into the enemy vessel.

If you find some things about this ship unusual, remember that mind flayers are a little different than the rest of us. As a brain-eating species, they don’t need a dining table or a kitchen. And illithids love pools. That might be their main motivation to rule the universe: more time in the bath.

As I promised, I’m going to spend the day doing the dynamic lighting for Brazenthrone. I think I can get the rest of it finished by tomorrow. I honestly thought this would take longer and I’ve never been happier to be wrong.

Next up is the aarakocra village, the second-to-last of the Great Vote maps. The last will be the Deepspire, a fortress city in the seas of the Underdark, carved into the sides of a massive column of rock stretching from the sea floor to the roof of the cavern. This is going to be a part of the Black Loch and will be pretty huge, so I’m going to do the next Cartographic Congress map before I get started.

That map will be a dark, surreal estate on the plane of shadow. I hope you like weird, because that is going to be WEIRD. I’m going for “Salvador Dali plus MC Escher plus your worst childhood nightmare.” We’ll see how that goes.

There’s an annotated version of this map, DM notes and other stuff available to patrons.