"...the most wicked and sinful city in the world"
No Caribbean campaign is complete without a visit to the pirate haven Port Royal! The home base for Sir Henry Morgan and hundreds of pirates and privateers, this place was a real port of legend. At its peak, it was more populated than New York and Boston, and it even rivaled London in size and importance. You might remember it from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie… or have heard it mentioned in almost every pirate fiction or story since the age of the buccaneers...
But you may not have heard the fascinating true story of this amazing place and the catastrophe that destroyed it. On a hot summer day in 1692, half of the peninsula was sucked into the sea from a massive earthquake that liquified the sand: first-hand reports tell of people being sucked into the sand up to their heads, just to be eaten alive by dogs! A tsunami hit shortly after, causing even more chaos and destroying everything in its path. Many considered the quake to be the “terrible Judgement of God” for all the “ungodly debauched people” of the port.
The British relocated across the harbor to found Kingston, Jamaica, but the damage had been done and they took years to recover. Part of Fort Charles, one of the six forts in the port, remains to this day, though modern Port Royal is a sleepy fishing village and hardly a shadow of its former self. I beefed the fort up a bit in size… this is fantasy roleplaying after all!
I’ve included versions of the map for both pre- and post-earthquake… as recreating this epic event inside your games is almost a must have.
Plot Hook: The Ghost of Henry Morgan
A few years ago I ran a short ghost pirate D&D campaign where the player characters were all various undead pirates. Sir Henry Morgan, who died 1688, was buried in a small cemetery in Port Royal that was sucked into the sea during the earthquake (this is true). My adventure centered around Morgan’s ghost awakening from the disturbance and telling the ghost pirates that he had treasure and a map in his coffin, which now rests at the bottom of the harbor. Cut to underwater ghost pirate exploration and shark fighting scene!
Region Maps
I’ve also included two region maps of the harbor: a full color version that could work great for exploring and naval combat, and a hand-drawn version from after Kingston was established. This could be a handout, and a region or larger city map, especially if you are running a campaign around Blackbeard’s time (circa 1715). Of course you could use any of these maps in a setting that isn’t Earth at all!
Port Royal map variations (39x34, Hi-res JPEG files) include:
- Port Royal Pre-Quake Day
- Port Royal Pre-Quake Night
- Port Royal Earthquake, Flood, and Tidal Waves
- Port Royal Post-Quake Day
- Port Royal Post-Quake Night
- Port Royal Temperate (No Palm Trees)
- Port Royal Rain
- Port Royal Snow
- Port Royal Harbour Region Map
- Port Royal Harbour Region Map (No Scale Legend)
- Port Royal & Kingston Harbour Old Map
- Port Royal & Kingston Harbour Old Map (No Scale Legend)
Foundry
The Foundry Module include all maps setup with sound effects and lighting.
Installation guide: Limithron.com/Foundry
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