Smugglers' Cove
A golden-hour beach: smugglers' bonfire, a boathouse, a sea cave, a ship at anchor.
It builds in your browser in a few seconds, models, lights and miniatures included. No sign-up needed to try it.
The place
Setting: Late afternoon, the sun low over the water, a warm haze on the sea
A sandy cove where the sea shelves gently in from the south and runs out to the horizon: clear shallows over the sand, deep water further out, a tide line that wanders round sand spits and a rocky shelf. A headland closes the east side with a sea cave in its face, and a grassy rise to the north-west brings the smugglers' track down to the beach.
The smugglers are at work. Two sit at a bonfire among crates and barrels from the night's run, one hauls at the door of a timber boathouse with a mossy clay roof (lift the roofs in Play and the contraband is stacked inside), and Captain Vess waits at the end of a floating jetty with a boat tied alongside. Their ship rides at anchor in the cove, a goblin lookout watches from the headland, one more smuggler waits in the cave by a lantern-lit cache, and something drowned lies under the jetty. The party, a fighter, a dwarf fighter, a sorcerer and a halfling rogue, comes down the track.
What the recipe places
- 58 props, lines and scatters
- 3 lights and effects
- 11 miniatures
Encounters it was built for
- The raid on the camp: the bonfire lights the smugglers and blinds them to the dark track the party comes down.
- Fight on the jetty: planks one square wide, deep water either side, and the captain with the boat at their back.
- The sea cave: a narrow mouth, a cache of barrels, and one smuggler who has had all fight to get ready.
- The drowned sailor rises from under the jetty when someone walks its length; mark it Hidden until then.
- A chase to the ship: the boat is the only way out to it, and the goblin on the headland has seen everything.
Tips
- In Play, press U to lift the roofs and look inside the boathouse; it lifts for you alone, not for the players.
- Drag the time-of-day slider to night and the bonfire and the cave lantern do the lighting.
- Wading counts: a miniature in the shallows stands on the bed, and the ruler measures across the water.
- Mark the cave smuggler and the drowned sailor Hidden from players; they are not sent to anyone until you show them.
- The water brush paints more sea or a tidal pool; it digs its own bed as it paints.
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Free top-down battle map
A flat, gridded version of Smugglers' Cove for any other tabletop: straight down, north up, 37 by 29 squares at 70 pixels per 5-foot square, with no miniatures on it. Set your tabletop's grid to 70 px and it lines up.
Free under CC BY 4.0: use it, share it and change it, in paid work too, as long as you credit TerrainTale. Some buildings in it are other artists' CC BY models, credited on the About page.
Questions
Can I change Smugglers' Cove after loading it?
Yes. A template is a normal scene once built: paint, drag, delete and add to it, then save it as your own project.
How long does it take to load?
A few seconds. The recipe compiles instantly and the models it uses download from the built-in library on first use, then stay cached.
Can I make my own template?
Write a recipe (see Build with AI) and import it with File ▸ Import Scene JSON, or save any scene as a project and reopen it from the welcome screen.
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