Pirate Cove

Todays map is the massive Caves of Gold, the pirate cove of many biomes and encounters! This map was also very much inspired by the Isla de Muerta or the "Island of Death" in The Curse of the Black Pearl, the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie where the Black Pearl’s crew hides the location of the Aztec treasure that has cursed them and turned them into undead. 
 
One of the things I really like doing with my maps, is pushing the limits of what I can do and trying new ways of doing things. For this map I zoomed out and worked at a much larger scale as I wanted to create a battlemap that could be used for larger battles and encounters. Needing more space to move tends to happen more at higher levels of play in ttrpg’s, when players get spells and abilities like fly, so you could say this is a high level map but it doesn't have to be! 
 
Originally this map was going to be the lair for the Sea Dragon token that I made a while back. You can still use it for that but now it has a dual purpose as a lair and as a hideout/encounter for pirates and all manner of aquatic or semi aquatic monsters! 
 
I’m really interested to see what people think of this map as it took ages to colour and ink but it does provide many different locations for encounters, it even has a village/settlement area for NPC’s. Making a map like this is really awesome but it does mean making other things slows down even more :)