Wednesday, September 24, 2008

How to make a pirate map

I missed this on TLAPD (Talk Like A Pirate Day), but Wired has instructions for making your own aged-looking pirate map. Basically, you crumple a paper bar, draw on it, and burn the edges. The part I like is under variations:

Make two treasure maps – one real and one fake. After both the real and the fake maps have been drawn, don't burn the edges of the fake map, but instead cut out another piece of paper bag about the same size as the fake map and crumple it several times. Fold the real map in half or quarters and put it in the middle of the blank piece of paper bag. Then glue the just the edges of the fake map to the blank, hiding the real map inside. Once the glue has dried, burn the edges of the map as described above...just don't burn a hole in the middle of the map. (This is useful for a Dungeons & Dragons campaign to see how long it takes the party to figure out they're following a fake map while the real one is right under their noses).

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