Ship Templates

I was just starting a new chapter of my long-running campaign - a chapter that would mostly focus on maritime adventures. One of the characters owned a ship and the majority of his party would be the officers and some veteran characters from earlier portions of the campaign.

Knowing that ship to ship combat and hand-to-hand fighting during boarding actions would play an important role in the game, I spent the afternoon laying on the floor with pencils, Sharpies, scissors, and poster board drawing deckplans for various ships.

A Caravel - this was the primary type of vessel in the campaign. Foremost among them was the Blazing Cutlass with the Siren's Reach, Ethereal Blaze, and Wayfarer serving alongside the flagship.

(Left to right: fore and aft cabins, main deck, passenger deck, cargo deck)

The group eventually established a lumber camp on the Chultean Peninsula to support a shipyard they had built in Tethyr. They constructed massive barges to haul wood from the jungle to the mainland. A standard-size river barge is shown for comparison.

A pair of fishing boats serviced the settlement. One had been a mobile base-of-operations for newer party members undertaking their own missions.

That group eventually upgraded to a Keelboat, dubbed the Midnight Special, complete with a diving bell, and handcrafted Gnomish Submersible, the Scarlet Marpenoth, made by two of their party members. The diving planes would fold up while the submarine was being carried on the stern of their ship.

(Left to right/top to bottom: Sub interior, Sub Exterior, Aft and Fore Cabins, Main Deck, Cargo Deck)

All of these ships were made to scale with each other (1 inch = 5 feet). There are a couple of others (most notably a longship and a cog) but these are the best ones I think.