HYPERBOREA / Carrack or other ship deck plans?

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 7/01/2020 8:13 am

So...my group decided to by a boa to fulfil a quest (related to the Fane and the Lemurian Remnant).

It is really hard to find deck plans for carracks.

So far I've dug one some for the Santa Maria which I don't think had any malware in it.

I know that Rats in the Walls and Other Perils has plans for a war galley (Berg Breaker).

So...once I whip something up I'll share but I'm also interested in what the rest of you might have.

**Posted by francisca** 7/01/2020 4:52 pm

0one's product Blue Prints #35, Pirate Ship, might do it for you.

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 7/01/2020 9:54 pm

Right after this I decided to a few more searches, one of them being of the K&K Ale House.

It was there I found some more resources.

At least more ideas to borrow from.

**Posted by Caveman** 7/03/2020 6:02 am

Found a few deck plans on my computer Giz.

Hope this helps...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nialldubh/albums/72157714954989767

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 7/03/2020 8:36 am

Caveman wrote:
Found a few deck plans on my computer Giz.

Hope this helps...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nialldubh/albums/72157714954989767

Of course you did :-)

Thanks Caveman!

**Posted by Caveman** 7/03/2020 12:59 pm

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 8/18/2020 1:20 pm

OK, so I finished making a rather crappy version of an Amazon Carrack.

http://i.ibb.co/30bdyZx/amazon-carrack-deck-plan.png

Amazon Carrack Deck Plan Key

1. Forecastle
2. Aftcastle or Sterncastle
3. Galley
4. Officers Cabin
5. Captain's Cabin
6. Passenger Cabin
7. Passenger Cabin
8. Officers Cabin
9. Crew Quarters
10. Crew Quarters
11. Passenger Cabin
12. Passenger Cabin
13. Passenger Cabin
14. Passenger Cabin
15. Passenger Cabin
16. Passenger Cabin
17. Crew Quarters
18. Cargo Deck
19. Steerage Deck

EDIT (2020-08-28): As noted by Monkeydono, oars haven't been accounted for. I didn't find historical (Earth :-) evidence of their use, but hey, this is a game. Later is this thread it was determined you can put them anywhere. If you put them on the main deck then nothing really needs to change. If put on the lower deck then some port holes will be needed. This will be fine since it only should inconvenience the crew. The crew cabins might have to change a bit to accomodate this. Maybe the interrior walls aren't there and it's just a series of posts that they hang their hammocks on. This will let the huge oars get manipulated into the port holes as needed.

Last edited by gizmomathboy (8/28/2020 8:11 am)

**Posted by Chainsaw** 8/18/2020 1:33 pm

Looks good enough to me, man. Thanks!

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 8/18/2020 4:38 pm

Chainsaw wrote:
Looks good enough to me, man. Thanks!

"Good enough" is my general criterion for just about anything :-)

**Posted by Caveman** 8/19/2020 3:07 am

Nice 1, looks good!

**Posted by Ghul** 8/19/2020 6:02 pm

Great job!

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 8/21/2020 6:33 pm

Ok, I made some maps of some of the decks to be more useful on Roll20, and maybe other VTTs. The instructions are for roll20. I have a license for fantasy grounds but I haven't really used it. So, if you are a FG user you'll probably figure it out before I do.

Most of my maps on roll20 are 25x25 squares of 70pixels.

After uploading it I put it in the map layer.

I right click on the image, select Advanced -> Set Dimensions.

Set the dimensions given for the image (see below).

Right cick on image, Advanced -> Align to Grid

Click and drag a square, it doesn't really matter how big.

Then select the grid cell size to 35x35.

This should then align the grid of the deck to the grid of the vtt map.

Also, each grid on the deck plan is 5 feet, which is what I usually use for my games.

First, a mashup of the castles and main deck. The practical surface area for combat.

This map is 700x210 pixels.

This map is the main deck. It is 665x210 pixels.

This map is the lower deck. It is 665x175 pixels.

**Posted by Monkeydono** 8/28/2020 4:03 am

Hey Joe,
On an Amazon Carrack would you place the oars and oarsmen on the Main Deck?
(Players are currently on such a boat and this is an awesome resource to find!)
Thanks!

Last edited by Monkeydono (8/28/2020 4:15 am)

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 8/28/2020 7:12 am

Good question. I forgot about that feature.

I would assume the water line is at least at the top of steerage/bottom of cargo, but I could see it going to the top of the cargo deck/bottom of the lower deck. That might depend on the load of the ship.

They could easily go on the main deck. They could go into the lower decks, too. It would f*** up the crew cabins, but it's the crew so the captain probably doesn't care too much.

I'll go see what I can find about oars for historical carracks.

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 8/28/2020 8:07 am

I didn't quickly find and historical evidence of oars on carracks.

So, put them wherever :-)

If, not on the main deck then there would need to be some ports for them. The lower deck would be good for that.

Later carracks in history were massive beasts, but for this one I went with a simple 2 mast since it had low hull points (18 I think).

For higher hull points maybe I'll make a bigger one that is closer to some of the historical carracks. Add a deck, make the aftcastle HUGE, 3 masts, and all that.

Sources:

https://www-labs.iro.umontreal.ca/~vaucher/History/Ships_Discovery/#carrack

https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/86071/Wells.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y (pdf file)

Reference images:

**Posted by Monkeydono** 8/29/2020 1:33 am

Appreciate your sources and opinion, as always.

I also found no historical examples of this 15/16 century Portuguese boat with oars.
My crew craves the minutiae more than I and I’m currently DMing by remote direction with the PCs rolling their own encounters on their way to the Anthropophagi of Xambaala...

Thank you for all of the maps/plans/views, they are very helpful for a guide.
I’m thinking a two deck open set up on the Main deck and the Gun Deck with three tight racks of oar benches on either side of a central walkway like seen in the Ben-Hur trireme scene.

They also wanted to outfit it with everything they could.
I limited them to three ballista: two stern, one bow.
No ram (rigged for fast sailing) and no Catapult (again, too much rigging and sails).
Definitely, carracks can be modified differently but this is Her Queen’s vessel and is built as decreed.

Last edited by Monkeydono (8/29/2020 1:48 am)

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 8/29/2020 8:19 am

Yeah, I think changing the gun deck into the "rowing deck" makes sense.

My party went with 2 ballista (1 fore and 1 aft) and 1 catapult (aft). They can fire things wherever they want but they are usually aware enough not to fire into the rigging and such. At least I will ask them if they are sure they want to do that.

For the most part however I will just say they can fire at something without hitting the ship or something.

The damn things are too fast to make most of the random encounters at sea be that engaging. Unless the monster appears close enough to swim to the ship and/or gets lucky initiative rolls to get to it.

Also, giant octopi are some damn tough things if you can't toss a fireball into them before they attack the ship.

I did a blog post about this where the link/image of the full deck plan is an svg file so it should be easy to change it about. You might have to "ungroup" things to be able to manipulate the individual decks.

https://opensourcegamer.com/blog/blog/2020/08/25/hyperborea-amazon-carrack/

**Posted by BlackKnight** 8/30/2020 12:13 pm

Very Nice work!