Thread: Ice Bridge Map

Here's the finished map from the first encounter of the Breaking of Forstor Nagar. It's an encounter where the adventurers need to stop a ship laden with explosives and reavers from reaching the front gate of the lower docks.



This was created for a commission so it's rights reserved, but I have got permission to post the map turnovers - so you can see the progress from start to finish!. Here are the original map turnovers from Ben McFarland:



These are a good example of an easy map turnover. The different features are clearly labelled and I could see at a glance what the important details were. The text defined the distances, and he also sent over this lovely piece of style inspiration (from Guild Wars):



From this I put together the sketch for the early design:



The most important consideration was the timing of the encounter using standard longship speed to give the players enough time to have a shot at stopping the ship without giving them too much of a fighting chance.

The height of the ice bridge provides an interesting problem for low level characters, opening up options like leaping onto the ship’s sails or swinging down on a rope. Nothing gets the blood racing like some proper swashbuckling action at the start of the adventure.

If you'd like a version without the ship movement and labels for vtt use - or for poster printing - there's a map pack available on RPGNow and Paizo.