Hey led, my first visit to this map. Apologies that I've not read the feedback and i may be repeating others - 14 pages of responses in less than two months suggests you're doing something right - folks want a pirate map!
It looks to me as of you've given a lot of time to the decorative elements of this map, and some of them look pretty kick-ass. The skull is sweet, and the effects on the ships are cool in a ghostly way. The paper is nicely faded - perhaps a bit too much at this stage because I'm still trying to work out the gameplay. But I have two concerns:
1. the focus seems to be on the decorative element and not on those elements that are key for gameplay. Cairnswk has a map moving through the Drafting Room with islands, ships, and pirates, and no one element of his map looks as cool as your skulls; however, his map will move into the main Foundry before this map because his focus is on those elements that make the map playable. Put some time into the attack routes, the mountains, and getting your text off of the borders (they are the same color and hard to read) and this map will make major strides.
2. the best elements that you have so far don't go together. The ships are very cool, but ships on a hand-drawn map should be line art. The compass rose looks too perfect and computer generated. The skull on the top right of the map looks like a pirate skull, while the one below it looks norse; the skull on the left belongs on the back of a biker's jacket. In order for this image to work visually it needs a unifying approach to the graphics.
To make this a proper Treasure Map it needs a backstory. Find a way to wrap the legend info and gameplay into a riddle... you know, "Make for the X and get there fast; hold the treasure and win - avast!"
Finally, your pirate ships need pirate names... what kind of pansy-ass pirate sails aboard The Mary?
