For dungeon maps, we can use lined graph paper to draw hallways, doors, and rooms, each with a width determined by the scale we’ve chosen, such as a square on the grid being five feet. We need to decide where the entrance is but may freely arrange areas such as those named in the previous section. A dungeon is typically below another structure like a castle, meaning foundation walls, pillars, and other supports will be incorporated into the design.
For space ships, we should determine a list of areas we need. This can be based partly on something like a cruise or cargo ship or actual military vessels on which people live. In addition to places like the bridge, engineering, and propulsion, living areas are needed, including dining, recreation, sleeping quarters, general stores, and more. An interstellar ship could keep travelers on it for a very long time and need to satisfy their needs. See the next section for software that can help create a spaceship map.
For wooden vessels, we’ll want to find a resource (possibly online) that shows us typical configurations, such as this one: https://artofworldbuilding.com/warship. We can model our design on this, removing decks in smaller vessels. This might take some drawing skill, but the point is that we don’t need to invent internal layouts so much as understand how these ships are already structured. We can print such an image and trace it, or hire an artist to do it, or suggest readers refer to a link included in an author’s note at the start of a tale.
For wooden ship layouts, most people don’t understand existing ones and aren’t bored with them, so we should research what’s commonplace on Earth and use something similar. Creating a layout might be beneficial for readers, in order to clarify little-understood nautical terms like port, starboard, orlop, bow, stern. We may point readers of an eBook to an online resource, but print books lack this capability. Including an existing image requires gaining the copyright, but we can hire an artist to create one similar or attempt to draw it ourselves, using a program like Cosmographer 3.
