Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Aeon_Dez 02-26-08, 02:19 AM	Hello everyone! First, thanks for taking the time to click this. Second, you're in for a read. So...why the title? Well, I decided after watching Pirates of the Caribbean that D&D needs more pirates, islands, sea monsters, and, obviously, adventure! I'm a long-time player. I don't really like playing, but I love DMing, and my players love my games. Sure, my sin is pride, but whatever. We live and we learn.:P I've spent roughly the last six months working on this, and it's far from finished. But I figured I owed it to both myself and all the other gamers out there to write my thoughts down, and update them as frequently as possible, in the hopes that someone will want to use my ideas. And now what you've all been waiting for... The Back Story So Far... The setting is a demiplane on the surface of the Elemental Plane of Water, known as the Golden Sea, due to the beautiful golden sheen of both the water and the sand. Historically, it is a relatively conflict-free place. Over the ages, creatures and humanoids of all kinds migrated there, finally finding a peaceful and beautiful place to call home, one free of the problems of wherever their ancestors call home. Unfortunately, about 50 years ago, humans found a way onto the plane, and began exploring, eventually coming across the Golden Sea. As humans are prone to do, they began following a ruthless dictator hell-bent on the mass genocide of anything not pure human. Calling themselves the Golden Sun Empire, they have been waging war on the non-humans since their discovery, to devastating effect. Fortunately, all is not yet lost. An enigmatic figure calling itself simply Z (think V from V for Vendetta with a touch of Zorro) appeared recently, and is leading the non-humans to fight back, by all means possible. Under his leadership, a coalition of non-humans, and a few humans opposed to their own race's atrocities, have agreed to work together for peace, calling itself Heaven's Gate. This seemingly simple conflict is punctuated by the addition of all the usual good and evil sea-creatures, and an additional race known as the Maulers (think Reavers from Firefly) whose form and function will be explained later. Chapter 1: Campaign Mechanics Each player is expected to run their characters from level 1 to level 20. I've been toying with the idea of each player having a roster of different characters, who can be swapped out and leveled up separately, depending on the specific group dynamics needed for individual adventures. The downside is, 20 levels is a lot of playtime. And having multiple characters all trying to get to level 20 is going to take an incredibly long time. The upside is, if a player gets bored with one character, there are a handful of other characters to use to keep things from getting stale. Additionally, if a character dies, the player has someone to take his or her place for a while. Each character is expected to be soloing until he or she reaches level 6. There are a few reasons for this. First, I want it to feel like each character has a back-story better developed than "Oh, our group met 20 levels ago in a bar fight." Secondly, this forces a closer player-DM relationship on a personal level, as well as getting the player into the campaign for their own character's reasons, and not just because "Bob says we should kill the green dragon, and we listen to him, because he's the party leader." Every character should have a fully-developed back-story well before meeting with the rest of the group. Gunpowder After much deliberation, I decided gunpowder was essential to any sea-faring adventure worth it's salt. This affects a variety of things, such as sea battles, close-quarters combat, and economy. The different applications of gunpowder are as follows: 1. Gunpowder is used in pistols. Each pistol is a one-shot weapon that requires 1 minute between shots to clean and reload. They do 1d6 points of damage, with a 19-20 4x critical modifier. This makes each shot very useless or very powerful, as most gun wounds are either non-serious or very serious. Additionally, pistols are roughly 500gp apiece, making them relatively common, but not readily available to low-level adventurers. Pistols may be upgraded, but I doubt they often will be. 2. Gunpowder is used in naval combat. Naval combat will be explored later, but the addition of gunpowder and cannons makes everything feel more like what we're used to seeing in terms of naval battles. 3. Gunpowder means explosives. Explosives means large amounts of damage over a large area. Entire ships can be taken down by destroying their powder magazine. That pesky sealed stone entrance to the local dungeon? Boom. Instant entrance. Annoying boss monsters? Roll a keg of gunpowder towards them, then bye-bye boss monster, hello large amounts of innards on my shiny 50,000gp mithril armor. Naval Combat Ships come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Most of the information I'm using can be found in Stormwrack. The main type of ship is the caravel, the standard 1-masted sailing ship. Combat begins with the two ships sighting each other. They can chase each other until they meet, then basically the first round is spent trying to outright sink the opposing ship. Then, assuming the enemy still lives, hand-to-hand combat begins, and continues until one side is defeated. I'm using the rules for hull points, with every five cannons destroying one hull point. Cannons never miss. The mast can be targeted, but opposing rolls are made by each ship to see if the mast is affected. Additionally, if a group of individuals (such as the party) wants to fight it's way to the powder magazine, they can instantly sink the ship, destroying it utterly. A d20 roll is made, and added to the average CR of the sailors on board, and the average CR of the opposing crew is subtracted. The remaining number is how many crew members are rendered useless in combat. For example: A ship manned by kobolds and captained by a half-dragon spots the party's ship. The half-dragon's ship, the Green Scale, has 30 cannons, 15 on each side, and 8 hull points, and 50 kobolds, with a CR of 1. The party's ship, Serenity, has 20 cannons, 10 on each side, and six hull points, and a crew of 20, with a CR of 5. The two ships meet, with the Scale being in the superior naval position, and attacks first. It does 3 hull points of damage. Serenity fires back, doing 2 hull points of damage. Fortunately, though, the Scale has already fought another ship recently, and has only 5 hull points, and is reduced to 3. The two ships throw grappling hooks and planks across, and do battle. The Scale rolls a 17. It adds it's CR, 1, and subtracts Serenity's CR, 5, taking out 13 of Serenity's crew.Serenity rolls a 20, and adds her CR, 5, and subtracts the Scale's, 1, eliminating 24 of the enemy kobolds. Then, the PCs take their turns, killing another 15 kobolds, for a total of 39 out of 50. The rolls are made again. This time, Serenity loses only 5 of her crew, while the rest of the kobolds are eliminated with a 16. Serenity wins! I hope you all are still following...:embarrass Sailing Ships Sailing is incredibly easy. Each class of ship has a speed, and can move that speed. The minimum crew is the number of hull points the ship has. Anything else will probably just be made up on the spot, such as storms, attacks by the Kraken, etc. If a ship has less than half it's hull points, it moves at half speed. If it has only one hull point, it must be repaired or will sink in a number of hours equal to the captain's level. Needless to say, a ship with zero hull points is sinking and not able to sail anywhere. Captains Captains are worth their own section. Captaincy is a feat. The only prerequisites are level 6 and profession (sailor) 9 ranks. Meaning it may be taken at 6th level. All ships require a Captain, or cannot sail. Captains can choose to bind themselves to specific ships, giving their ship +5 movement speed, and giving a +1 morale bonus to the entire crew while at sea. Captains do not have to bind themselves to a ship to sail that ship. A captain may bind themselves with only one ship at a time, and if their ships sinks, they must go down with it, due to pacts made with the sea gods, or else may suffer the consequences, as determined by the DM, allowing for some interesting possibilities. Adventures Yes, I have a system for adventures. I apologize if this is getting too technical, but I feel it needs to be quantified before I set on the beginnings of my different story ideas. There are theoretically an infinite number of adventure possibilities, due to the nature of D&D, but for this specific age in the world, I divided the campaign up into 15 different campaign arcs, each with its own set of adventures, meaning I can run the same exact setting 15 times before having to retire the setting. Granted, I'm too creative to want to use the same world for 15 campaigns, but I figured it would be useful if I ever wanted to publish it as a major campaign setting. Each campaign runs at the same time as all the others, and it is presumed that there are 15 different main groups of adventurers out there, each involved in it's own massive campaign to save/end/usurp the world. At the outset, I simply pick a campaign. Then, there's roughly one adventure hook for each level up until 15, broken up by various other adventures to keep things from feeling like they're all part of the same plot. Each hook is given out whenever it is convenient and when the group has reached the necessary level. I figure after level 15, the group has probably figured out what they're fighting, and are probably going to go on a crusade to end their specific campaign setting. If not, oh, well. The DM obviously isn't very good at enticing his or her players. In the next installment, I'll go over some of the islands, races, and politics. I hope you all enjoyed this, and would greatly appreciate feedback of any kind, even if it's just an ego boost. Please do not leave negative comments unless you explain what it is you dislike, and why. Thanks!!! :D
Delfedd 02-26-08, 03:11 AM	I can tell you that your idea of having a roster party is a really really good one. You can't have five characters I would say that the Golden sea is a pretty dangerous place, and that while the players are off dungeoneering or whatever, the rest of the crew is battling Ice Pirates or Kracken or some other dangerous foe.
Orchomenos 02-26-08, 11:20 AM	Skim this contest thread (http://www.dndarchive.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=528), there are some cities that might be good as pirate bases, or just as raiding places! :D This other contest thread (http://www.dndarchive.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=1114) is about boats and crew. And here's a link (http://www.dndarchive.com/article_ships_ahoy.shtml) to an article on boats in D&D.
Aeon_Dez 03-10-08, 06:28 PM	Orchomenos and Delfedd. Thank you. The above links were extremely useful for flavor. You have my appreciation. It's been a while. I've been uber-busy with school, and haven't really had the time to sit down and write the next installment. Because I know you've all been waiting very impatiently for this. :D To kick things off, I'm going to discuss races and politics, and how each of the different factions is going to pan out. Chapter 2: Races and Politics There are two new races so far, the Malygrym and the Viking Elves. The Viking Elves are basically the coolest elves alive. Appearance-wise, they are a cross between the Nords from the Elder Scrolls, and the traditional Wood Elf. Unlike normal elves, they don't waste a lot of their youth learning politics and the Elven language, but rather ransacking port cities, learning how to fight, and telling stories in the Norse tradition. They mature at around 110, like the standard elves, but are already around level 2 or 3 before attaining adulthood. They are generally vicious, and don't take well to any other race, excepting some humans. They believe that their deity has chosen them to conquer everyone else, and to the Viking Elves, combat is almost everything. They speak Runic, a language loosely based on the Norse language of the same name. They are a sea-faring race, and do not have homes on any of the Islands, but migrate from somewhere presumed to be nearby. They are secretive about their ancestry and home-land, and will not divulge this secret regardless of the amount of pain inflicted upon their person. They typically have blond to grey hair, with bright blue or green eyes, standing around 6 feet tall, with a large, well-muscled build. Their ships are generally fearsome looking and functional. They do not usually have guns or firearms, preferring instead to meet their foes in close combat with their Weapon. Honor is extremely important to Viking Elves, and they follow a code similar to that of bushido and will end their own lives if they disgrace themselves. It is whispered among scholars that the Viking Elves are those elves that in other worlds have passed beyone the edges of their seas, and that these elves have no individual homeland, but rather come from a plethora of worlds and backgrounds, banding together to join in the "good fight." Other schools of thought believe they are a cross-breed between elves and dwarves, hence the remarkable similarity to these two races. The Viking Elves do not use traditional weapons, but rather a new hybrid of armamanets, called simply Weapon. Each Weapon is essentially a greatbow fitted with blades and spikes, with a large shield attached. It fires what are essentially short-spears. They are proficient with these weapons, and have incorporated a great deal of variety into their fighting style. The stats for Viking Elves are as follows: - +2 STR, +2 DEX, +2 CON, -2 INT, -2 CHA. - Medium size. - Base land speed, 30 feet, swim 10. - Low-light vision. - +2 to Balance checks made while on a ship. - Weapon Proficiency: Weapon - +2 to Fortitude saves made to resist poisons. Favored Class: Barbarian The Malygrym are essentially based on the Reavers from everyone's favorite sci-fi western, Firefly. They are not an evil race, they are simply so far removed from our methodology of ethics and morals that they are typically regarded as evil. Physically, they are quite alien to our perceptions. They come from another world, primarily volcanic in nature, with extreme heat. Their race was created to be the servants of dragons. Their volcanic, metal-rich world served perfectly to sculpt their bodies into an extremely resilient and powerful physique. The males stand at roughly 7 feet in height, covered in mettalic plates that are part of their massively muscular bodies. The females are far more lithe and dextrous, and possess less muscle mass, in exchange for heightened speed and intelligence, and are covered only in extremely tough scales, instead of outright natural armor. The Malgrym stand alone as perhaps one of the only races in D&D in which the male and female anatomy are different enough to warrant different game statistics. They are all highly intelligent and resourceful, however, which led to their eventual status as the favored race of the dragons. They have the intelligence and capacity for usurping their dragon masters, but prefer instead to co-habitate with them for greater protection. They have a remarkable propensity for magic and psionics, and their natural armor is able to repel all but the most powerful magical attacks, in addition to huge amounts of heat, acid, cold, and damage in general. They also possess the capacity to regenerate themselves, although this mechanism is based on a special organ in their bodies. The function of this organ is slightly unclear, but it appears to run on life-force, and it is for this reason they appear in the campaign. Their natural environment has made them strong, but is relatively lacking in resources. When the dragons revealed to them the secrets of the planes, they spread out across the world in hunting expeditions, attempting to gather more of this life-force from other creatures, to further perpetuate the comfortable existence they rarely enjoy on their home world. The stats for the Malgrym are as follows: - +8 STR for males, +6 STR for females, +8 DEX for males, +10 for females, +6 CON, +2 INT for males, +4 for females, +6 to CHA. - Medium size. - Base land speed, 40 feet. - Low-light vision. - Spell Resistance 50. - Regeneration 20 - Natural Armor Bonus +8 for males, +6 for females. - Special Ability: Soul Harvesting. When a Malygrym brings an opponent to HP between 0 and -10, he or she may take a standard action to harvest their soul. The Malgrym may store their opponent's soul inside themselves, which gives them a number of Soul Points directly equivalent to the number of Hit Die of their fallen foe. This ability instantly destroys a soul, making any sort of return to life impossible, including effects from Miracle and Wish. The Malygrym may either transfer their Soul Points to another Malygrym as a standard action, or use them to regain hit points equal to their highest Hit Die. (i.e. if a Malygrym takes levels in Sorc and Ftr, they regain 10 hp as Ftr has the higher Hit Die.) Malygrym using this ability always regain max Hit Points. Favored Classes: Psion, Wizard, Sorceror, and Fighter. *DM's note: The Malgrym are EXTREMELY broken and powerful, and are not meant to be used as a character class, unless the DM feels that making sure nothing stays alive is a prerequesite for the campaign world. Politics can best be summarized by four different factions: The Golden Sun Empire, Heaven's Gate, the Pirates, and the Malygrym The Golden Sun Empire As stated previously, the Golden Sun Empire is basically the human coalition that decided to conquer the Golden Sea, after discovering it 150 years previous. They generally are highly xenophobic towards anything that isn't human. They are powerful and well-organized, but are outnumbered and effectively cut off from reinforcements from their home plane. Their main stronghold is the island of Chaldea, and they possess numerous other islands throughout the Golden Sea, which will be discussed later. Their leader is a talented veteran of naval warfare and politicking, known as Harmon. They are currently winning their war against Heaven's Gate, and will likely continue with their mass genocide of the non-humans until it's estimated completion in less than ten years. Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate is the name for the poorly organized and generally rag-tag motley assortment of non-humans fighting a war for survival against the Golden Sun Empire. Much of their disorganization is the cause of infighting over which race is "superior," and many of Heaven's Gate's armies are self-isolated into racial groupings, preferring to gain glory for their race instead of working together effectively. They control a number of islands as well; only slightly less than those of the Golden Sun Empire. Their leader is basically a hybrid of Zorro and V from V for Vendetta, named "Z". He remains behind a mask perpetually, and does not usually make public appearances, preferring instead to be engaged in battle, which he feels is far more important. He is extremely talented and powerful, and is essentially the only person holding Heaven's Gate together. He chooses to remain behind a mask so as not to let his race become a factor, realizing that if his race was revealed, the entire idea idea behind Heaven's Gate would be weakened, and probably collapse. The Pirates The Pirates are a non-specific group consisting of the thousands of mercenaries who want no part in the racial battle occuring in their world, preferring instead to simply profit from the chaos. They have no particular alignment or race; they are bound together by desire for profit alone, and will go to individually-specific lengths to get it. They generally prefer to stay in the waters between the two empires, taking advantage of the battles constantly occuring there for treasure, occasionally offering their services in exchange for plunder. Their major concern is the Kraken, who makes these waters it's home, and the various underwater races suspected to be living under the waves in this region. The Malygrym The Malgrym want nothing more but the souls of everyone and everything alive. They are intelligent enough to not want to thoroughly destroy life, but do not see its extinction as an immediate problem. To the Malgrym, anything is kosher. They typically reside on their craft, which are capable of above- and under-water travel. They typically can take on three or four to one odds, and enjoy engaging in combat. They ritualistically desecrate the bodies of their fallen, placing them on their ships' exteriors to be slowly eaten by the sea life. As they say: "Waste not, want not." Within their own ranks, they follow a strict code, with males dominating, and females subserviating. (I hope that's a word.) They sometimes travel with dragons, whom they use as airborne artillery and scouts. They are not above dirty tactics, realizing that morals complicate their mission: To acquire the souls of the fallen.