Creating Treasure Maps

[@stephenorr6636]

Great Video!

[@DDHomebrew]

Thanks!

[@BanditsKeep]

Great video! I am a huge fan of treasure maps so I look forward to future installments.

[@DDHomebrew]

Glad you liked it! I can't wait to create some.

[@gentleandkind]

I ran a treasure hunt based on Edgar Allan Poe's Gold Bug short story, challenging the PCs to travel to new places in the world. I used it to both deepen a PC's backstory, but also provide a lore item that the group are tracking down. Great fun. Maps and riddles and pirates. I even used clips from the audiobook as part of the 'oral history' around the treasure. I produced the document the characters in the story look at and sent it to my PCs in UK and Australia.

[@DDHomebrew]

Great stuff here colpow11! Audio clips is a very cool idea. We all loved pirates as kids, and it never really goes away.

[@mattnerdy7236]

Hello Kevin, great video and great topic! In AD&D days, I think every adventure started with a map of some kind. This is why Rumors were so important. Gave you glues to the location entrance and it give you an idea of what your up against. Like the idea of underwater treasure, but it should be a watery trap. Let's say Three Hungry Giant Bass are guarding the treasure. The party keeps getting sprayed by different monsters, plants and traps in the dungeon, all acting like a Musk to attract the Bass at the end of the adventure. Nothing beats watching your companion get swallowed whole, lol! Looking forward to your next video. Thanks Kevin you have a wonderful day!

[@DDHomebrew]

You are right on the importance of maps in older editions Matt. I like the idea of giant bass: you can use the swallow rules given on the giant catfish but make them faster, ambush hunters!

[@SonOfSofaman]

Another great video! I like your ideas about treasure maps. I should use them in my game more. I have one player whose character spends a lot of downtime hanging out in libraries doing research. I've been able to share a lot of lore that way and its been a great source of quest hooks. I think it may be time to have his character find a lost treasure map wedged into one of those dusty old tomes...

[@DDHomebrew]

Great to hear from you Joel! Nothing better than a player who uses downtime to research. It gives you as the GM a chance to give out information in a logical way, and the player gets a leg up on rivals. Try the "two pages glued together" trope to give him that long lost treasure map!

[@SonOfSofaman]

@@DDHomebrew Ooh! I'm not familiar with that trope. Tell me more! Please :)

[@DDHomebrew]

@@SonOfSofaman Here's one version: your research player finds a history of an expedition that claimed to have found a great treasure and buried it. Most of the group died before they could recover the treasure. The last member, let's call him Sam, wrote the history when he was an old man, and said in the preface that the key to finding the treasure lay between the islands of X and Y (you pick the names). Adventurers have searched the areas between these two islands for a hundred years, yet have found nothing. There are many copies of this legendary history, but of course only one original. First your player has to determine that this is the original, hand written by Sam himself. With no printing presses, the book is hand written on parchment, one page a side. When one reads the book, the Isle of X description is on page 129, while the Isle of Y description is on page 130. And pasted between these (on the back of page 129) is Sam's map, which shows the treasure in a location no where near island X or Y. And off they go!

[@SonOfSofaman]

​@@DDHomebrew Oh, cool. A bit of a puzzle for the players to work out. Thank you! This is going to be fun.

[@guitart4909]

Thanks for making this!

[@DDHomebrew]

Glad you liked it!

[@HowtoRPG]

Thanks Kevin.

[@DDHomebrew]

Thanks back.