Last week I was trying to catch up on my Google Reader feed, when a post by ChattyDM caught my eye.  "The Briarthorn Needle, Gnomish Airship" was a neat mini campaign he was rolling out.  In the post found here, he inserted some photos of the game's battlemap depicting the aforementioned Airship.  It got me thinking, since we at the Lords of Tyr use MapTools, what would our map look like?  So I took Chatty's pictures, the Great Cloud Caper, and cracked open Photoshop to see what could be done.

I started building the Main Deck, since I needed a place for spatial reference. 

I flushed out he captain's quarters a bit and modified one of the cannon rooms.

I then added the Aft Deck and the Fighting Tops to give some verticallity to the Main Deck.

I looked back at Chatty's battlemap images and realized that the central portion of the deck said: "Open to Middle" so I made the grating and timber grid optional.

As you can see I had already built up the next layer, the Middle Deck.  I really liked this layer and may add some more to it in the future.  There were all kinds of little details that were fun to execute.  All in all the is my favorite deck to look at, the Armoury has some magical weapons in it.  I also really liked the galley (that's a kitchen for all you non-sea faring folks out there).  This deck also called for some rooms that had a lot of beds in them.  I took that to mean, bunks.

After this, I thought I was done with all the little set pieces.  Whoa!  Was I wrong.   This deck actually has more little parts then all the previous decks combined.  Chatty blithely had a note that said "Engine Room".  Well, what the heck does that look like.  So I took some cues from his post and added in some fun clockwork gears.  You can see them on the Middle Deck hiding under some safety grating.

I did dress up the Feast Hall a little bit.  Added in some tables and bedding that I really liked.  Thanks Dorpond and Torstan for all of your hard work! 

The last bit thing I added was a Hull Deck...for no other reason then I plan to have an optional Ruined Hull Deck for an interesting combat map.

Here's the Hull:

Oh yeah, I threw in some water and clouds and there you go!  Thanks Chatty for posting about your campaign!

And thanks A Hero, I'm sure you'll figure out a way to incorporate the maps into an upcoming session!  I can think of a halfling pirate that would be very happy to add an Airship to his ever growing Fleet.