Treasure Map

I like to have physical props for my players to fiddle with, and one of the ones I've created over the years was this treasure map which I made to go with the opening of a low-level campaign I ran once.

All the characters started out as zero-level farm brats, the McMurdoch siblings, forced off the farm upon the death of their father. This map was found amongst his effects, along with his old sword and chain shirt.

That campaign was at its most fun when the characters were all hopelessly incompetent, but as they gained experience it became a lot more run-of-the-mill — I don't mean it wasn't fun then too, but it wasn't really much different to any other campaign. In the beginning, decisions like what farm equipment to take with them really mattered (they decided to take the anvil, for some reason). Later on, that sort of stuff disappeared. Ah well.

Anyway, I drew the map with coloured ink on heavy rag paper, and then baked it until it became quite fragile so that the players (just like their characters) had to be quite careful about how they handled it.