Steam Locomotive
Added 2019-08-29 07:28:05 +0000 UTCSeveral years ago my friends and I sat down to play a Wild West one-shot with high mortality homebrew firearms, a "death & dismemberment" table in place of death saves, and three character sheets per man for when the inevitable happened. Our heroic gang would intercept a train to the tune of the William Tell Overture Finale in an attempt to steal an invaluable gattling gun. They were not successful, but we still had some of the best TTRPG fun we've ever had along the way.
Ever since I sat down to prep that game, I had wished for a decent steam train map. Well, I've finally got around to making it, years later! With it, I hope that you might be able to experience some version of the Wild West fun we had.
Alternatively, steam trains make for an interesting dwarven invention, or ancient-precursor artefact. Because, why not slot in all the fun of train heists with a little genre bending?
The rest of the train will be coming soon, by the way. I have a pack of passenger cars and another of cargo lined up. In the meantime, please share your encounter ideas, stories, or genre-bending lore in the comments, I would love to hear it. :)
Thanks to you, this map is released under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license.
Comments
The Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron came out in July, so this is timely for those who like that D&D setting.
Robert Guthrie
2019-09-02 05:49:52 +0000 UTCMUCH better. So many maps just look bad because it's just 3D modeled assets layered on photorealistic textures. It ends up looking like a bird's eye view of a 2000s era FPS video game. Hand-drawn maps like yours are so much better for roleplay because it adds a bit of .... It's hard to describe. It stops feeling like a game and more like a world.
Marianne Rogers
2019-08-31 16:02:18 +0000 UTCI'm just seeing this now, haha. I'm glad someone has drawn a roof before I have! I intend to slot one into the cargo cars pack, or the decoration assets pack, but those are weeks out...
Ross from 2-Minute Tabletop
2019-08-31 09:14:42 +0000 UTCWeird sketchy look is much better, right?
Ross from 2-Minute Tabletop
2019-08-31 09:12:28 +0000 UTCI agree completely! I'll be sure to work trains into my next campaign.
Ross from 2-Minute Tabletop
2019-08-31 09:11:47 +0000 UTCAlec Helwig did a nice passenger car interior and exterior that would go well with this! https://forums.runehammer.online/t/need-a-fantasy-train-car/2345 its on the Runehammer forums, and he also has a Instagram.
Aaron Hedrick
2019-08-29 21:02:44 +0000 UTCAw HELL yeah! I've been thinking about making a train heist adventure but I didn't have any train assets that weren't that weird 3D modeled look.
Marianne Rogers
2019-08-29 17:47:46 +0000 UTCOh damn please do an arcane variation
2019-08-29 17:04:52 +0000 UTCThis will be put to good use and it will not end well!
2019-08-29 15:29:46 +0000 UTCPleasant surprise.
Aaron Hedrick
2019-08-29 15:14:29 +0000 UTCOh Wowwwww!!! You have no idea how cool this is! The very first time my friends and I played D&D a few years ago I was the DM because I wanted to try it the most out of our group. I thought Lost mines of Phandelver needed some SPICE after reading it and updated Faerun's wandering"trail" to be a railroad track and they had a goblin ambush on a train instead of a dusty trail. This is so cool! I've included trains in a lot of my games because of how much fun we had in that adventure and two of my current games I run have train tracks and no suitable good train token for them. Thanks Ross!!!
Charlie Williams
2019-08-29 13:25:23 +0000 UTCBLASPHEMY! I love set pieces, they're my favorite. It's a perfectly useful name for a category of things that are neither battle maps nor map tokens.
thelibraryghost
2019-08-29 11:59:09 +0000 UTCWell... here I am thinking how I would roleplay Back to the Future Part III scenario :)
Jack Noron
2019-08-29 09:08:19 +0000 UTCOr an arcane-powered train, billowing ethereal blue smoke. All sorts of fun combos present themselves. :o
Ross from 2-Minute Tabletop
2019-08-29 08:51:34 +0000 UTCI used to call them "set pieces" but I've come to realize that that term really doesn't make a lot of sense. You're right though, it's somewhere between a map and a token. Just an "art asset" I guess?? When all the pieces are finished I plan to put them in a convenient pack along with a base map. I'm working on it front-to-back, then an asset pack.
Ross from 2-Minute Tabletop
2019-08-29 08:47:42 +0000 UTCas i said on fb, combine with airship assets to make flying trains! though lot of these train pieces work nice with that to make more mechanical like ships
Jelle
2019-08-29 08:42:18 +0000 UTCI mean is it really a map at this point? Kinda just a Train Token That is big enough to double as a map. Like even just Rails over grass would make it a map lol.
Austin Cirillo
2019-08-29 07:36:31 +0000 UTC
