Our Cartographer Matt Francella wants to build a pirate city something akin to the Spanish fortress at Tortuga. The Island of Tortuga had a Spanish fortress on it as well as wild hogs that the pirates could live off of. Pirates gathered there with impunity until the Spanish took it back, and later Captain Morgan assembled an fleet of pirate ships to take it back.

Matt and I imagine this as a four piece poster map so there won’t be room for everything, but I want to at least have a good list of starting items and whittle it down to the essentials.

So what does a Criminal Underworld look like?

There’s usually;

A bar, it doesn’t even have to be an evil bar, just somewhere to blow off steam and the occasional fight to break out.

An Arms Dealer for you to get all the big bad weapons you need.

A Black Market for you to buy all the illegal stuff.

A Den of Iniquity which probably includes gambling, drinking and possibly a brothel depending on your tastes. A den of iniquity is not necessarily a public place, but if the whole  pirate hideout is a secret then the distinction between this and the Bad Guy Bar gets narrower.

A fighting pit for Blood Sports which should be big enough for bioengineered fighting beasts as well as bare knuckle boxing and gladiator games. Probably ripe for spectator casualties.

A Drug Den isn’t the place to get a drink and maybe get in a fight, it’s for people to indulge addictions in a broken down slum or high tech medical facility.

A Dungeon or Torture room, pirates might keep hostages for ransom, they might have been betrayed by their crew and need to lock someone up for a while.

A moving no-limit card game, some folks won’t want to be constrained by the limitations of ordinary casino gambling or the small stakes of friendly games in a bar. These gamblers need a game, but with all the money that will be there, the game needs to move between secret well guarded locations. So there should be some locations on the maps that aren’t set for any other purpose and could be used for different types of encounters.You need some sort of Underworld knowledge, a high Gather Information check or Profession Gambler to find this game.

It probably won’t have a supervillain lair, but might have some of the trappings.

If you have any feedback about this post or our books please feel free to contact us.

Paul

Evilrobotgames at Gmail.com