Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Aeolius 11-26-06, 10:58 AM	I am now compiling my notes for "Heirs of Turucambi", an undersea campaign that will begin in the near future. As the majority of the campaign will be set underwater, the game will draw heavily from supplements such as Stormwrack. Player characters must be able to swim (have a swim speed) and breathe underwater (aquatic or amphibious) without the use of magic. The campaign will begin at level 1-3, to account for characters with templates, monster races, and similar instances. "Heirs of Turucambi" is set in the Oljatt Sea of Oerth, the World of Greyhawk. Originally detailed in "Greyhawk Adventures (http://paizo.com/store/downloads/wizardsOfTheCoast/aDAndD1/greyhawk/v5748btpy7mdt)" and later featured at wizards.com, Turucambi is one of the "Mysterious Places (http://web.archive.org/web/20030219001806/http://www.wizards.com/greyhawk/dndgreyhawkmysteriousplaces.asp)" of the region. Knowledge of the World of Greyhawk is not required, for participation in the campaign. Given my preferences, the campaign will draw from my interests in marine biology and my hobby of keeping saltwater aquariums, coupled with my fascination with various mythological creatures such as hags, dragons, and demons. Be aware that life underwater has its limitations; typical potions are all but impossible to imbibe, paper scrolls will quickly disintegrate, and typical metal items are subject to corrosion. Many typical spells may not suitable for underwater casting. Treasure may be similarly altered, as many undersea races value rare corals, pearls, and shells far more than coins and gemstones. Keep in mind that some of the best inspiration for an underwater campaign can come from the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, visiting your local aquarium or fish store, and perusing ocean-related materials in a bookstore. With that in mind, what are your preferences, for such an adventure? What would you expect to see, in an undersea game? What would make the campaign memorable, enjoyable, and enduring?
Disciple_of_Juiblex 11-26-06, 11:44 AM	Ill say right up front im not familiar with Greyhawk, however... One thing that should stand out is new combat dynamic. sure peaple could have played around with fighting with flight but in an aqutic setting everything is going to be able to move in all directions. Transpot should also be an intesting note. Sure there are hippocampuses (sp) but what other things are there? underwater boats? Clockwork tram system (it could work...). Another note will be all the unusual terrain itself. coral beds should feel majorly diffrent from kelp beds. underwater volcanoes from sulfer vents. trenches, vallies, darkwater, ect. also i would think that most of the game would be made near the surface for light and warmth, unless the pc's originate from the dark ocean. Sidenote- dont everburn torches still work underwater? Monsterwise i think there is some great divercity. you can throw any landloving monster in with the amphibious template in stormwrack, but how many players can say there are fimilar fighting against a shark? Ultimatly what would make a game memorable to me would be an epic feel. perhaps some dark ocean dweells are trying to raise some sort of monster. perhaps some crazed wet lich (since there is a dry lich) who is trying to flood the world and the characters are trying to keep the balance. my :twocents:
CharlieRock 11-26-06, 12:43 PM	If your going 20,000 leagues below the sea, there had better be a Kraken somewhere. :D
Drucilla_Rocks_my_Socks 11-26-06, 01:36 PM	Hmmm...I honestly woudl rather have a game on a ship, and ban them from being races with swim speeds and water breathing, just to keep things interesting. It would make adventuring in the storms and stuff seam dangerous, and to have a real sence of peril when they go into the trenches and blackwater regions protected by magic, only to run into aquatic beholders and thier antimagic eyes... But for your campiegn....I'd modify items and such. Figure out some things that worl liked scrolls and potions but are usable underwater. I'd start out with them facing up against ships and such, like raiding gallions for treasure, and other such things. If the PCs are evil/neutral incline, just having them act as thives. Maby give them a rescue mission if they are good. How about having some giant fish type creature reveared as a protector of the underwater village? What if a captain Ahab wanna-be comes looking to kill the sacred fish? Thats only realy one adventure, but it would be fun. A submarine (nautalis) goes down and attacks a settlement of aquatic creatures for research purposes. Figure out a way to make the battle take place over a giant, suposedly bottomless trench with mild suction towards the bottem (Enough so that a character with a 20' swim speed could make it out, but it would suck any surface dwellers down, along with thier submarine once it stops working). The sub goes down, and you let it rest for a little. Then you bring the crew back as undead with lots of demonic allies, and the players must venture to the bottom of the ocean to find out what horrers lurk down there. And just about any "land d&d" plots work, just with aquatic races (tritons, sauguans, mermaids, ect...) rather than land races (humans, orcs, goblins, ect...). One problem is there realy aren't enough "bad guy" aquatic races and too manny "good guy", so you may want to drop some of the "good" ones, make them evil, or add some evil ones. I personaly think that either aquatic elves or tritons should be dropped as they kind of fill the same niche.
Thomar_of_Uointer 11-26-06, 08:17 PM	Question: How do you deal with everyone having the equivalent of flight?
Gorteck 11-27-06, 12:30 AM	ok ... what about undead? they dount need air to breathe so they can "Breathe" Underwater ... they can have a swim speed ... or a fly speek which would be the same underwater ... im not thinking i was asked to come hear and do a Brain storm so ... what should i brain storm over?
Azezel 11-27-06, 08:28 AM	The Complete Arcane details alternatives to paper spell books and spell scrols and liquid potions - things which are impractical in the deep. Dealing with 3-d movement is harder. If you want to go all out - then go to your local timber merchant and get a couple of feet (minimum) of 1"x1" wood and have them (or yourself) cut it into one inch sections, leaving you with a couple of dozen one inch cubes (ideally several dozen) which can be placed under your minis to give virtical movement in five-foot increments. Alternatively, you will have to keep careful nots of altitude round by round. I would probably double the effective range of all [sonic] effects, but that is just me - it is by no means RAW (I have Stormwrack btw) and I would half the effective range of all light sources. Most importantly - you as DM must be a supassingly good describer of the world. Create a sense of wander - emphasise the alien and beutiful nature of the setting. It is mundane to the PC's, but to the players, it is something they likely have never and will never see (if you know any SCUBA sorts, pump them for information). Your powers of imagination and description will make or break this campaign. Personally - I'd apreciate it if you would tell the comunity how the game goes - because I have long wanted to try running such a game.
Dunamin 11-27-06, 11:53 AM	I think you might find many good ideas for an underwater campaign here (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=562415). My very first post on these fine boards almost a year ago... Now I'm all sentimental :P
Thomar_of_Uointer 11-28-06, 06:16 PM	Ooh! It's a weird idea, but what about diving bell spiders? They trap air in their hair, and use it to fill up silk bells, and the oxygen and carbon dioxide cycle through diffusion. I've gotta write this up as a race...
Aeolius 01-05-07, 08:05 PM	Now that the holidays are over and people's lives and schedules are returning to normal, I'm going to dive full force into getting "Heirs of Turucambi" "out of the clouds and back in the water where it belongs" (thanks to Sebastian for that quote).
CharlieRock 01-05-07, 08:13 PM	Have you seen this book? (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1524) It has the stats for all sorts of boats. I make a lot of pirate ships (because they are kewl), and use this book a lot.
Azar_of_Faerun 01-05-07, 08:18 PM	In most underwater campaigns I play it, I almost always go with a Cleric with the Travel domain. Freedom of Movement = <3 :)
journeyman777 01-06-07, 01:20 AM	I don't have Stormwrack, so my apologies if these points are redundant. Expect to see almost nothing but piercing weapons. (mentioned primarily because it rather drastically alters the relative value of some types of DR) You should probably make a point of rewriting the summon monster/nature's ally lists to include more aquatic creatures. In terms of team mechanics, the 3D nature of underwater movement will pretty much eliminate the use of meatshields and reduce the effectiveness of most battlefield control spells.
halflingofthenorth 01-06-07, 02:13 AM	i would have to say you got to be a great dm to pull off an aquatic campain. i mean really you have to deal with 3-d imaging if you use representations even though it would be easy to do so if you just used imagination instead of using miniatures to show where people are at all i got to say is good luck with it i personally applaud any dm who can pull off an aquatic campian
Aeolius 01-06-07, 08:49 PM	i personally applaud any dm who can pull off an aquatic campian It helps to begin with a fascination for the sea, coupled with access to Discovery's "Blue Planet" series on DVD, and several saltwater aquariums. ;)
taradusis 01-06-07, 09:42 PM	Spelljammer used to have a lot of ships based on sea life like hammerships were based on hammerhead sharks,the deck plans would be useful if you eliminate the masts and call them submersibles?An underwater jumble of sunken ships that were collected by a sea dragon and now are home to lacedon ghouls would be an interesting 3D challenge to explore?Electric eels can be a shock to players as well?A giant clam that traps your foot and won't open for an hour is not a problem if you can breathe water(a must in scuba diving movies tho:) )How about a giant mechanical crab that has a fighting platform on its back,the claws could rip thru obstructions like an underwater construction machine,sort of fred flintstone meets aqualad?RANDOM THOUGHTS
Angus Cotton 01-07-07, 12:18 AM	I actually ran a aquatic campaign for my players. it was high level though and took place in the Elemental Plane of Water. I ripped off a lot of stuff from Everquest (they had a plane of water), the Ecco the dolphin video game, and Magic the Gathering (check out all the blue magic cards...TONS of ideas). I tried to find my notes for it, but guess I lost 'um. It was a few years ago after all. The jist of the campaign though was am unidentified 'taint of evil' was seeping into the the prime material plane and endangered the world the players were on. The players located the 'taint' as coming through a gate at the bottom of a trench in the ocean. So, the party hired a gnomish submariner and went through it. Once there [the Plane of Water], they located a village of tritons, who didn't know what the players talked about, but told them that if anyone in the Realm of Endless Depths (their name for the Plane of Water) would know, it would be the "Great Old One". The rest of the campaign was them travelling the Plane of Water, going through many side quest, and finally finding the "Great Old One"--who by the way was not Cthulu, but a Great Leviathon who was highly intelligent and infinitely old. he pointed the party to the "Ancient Who Hunted" which was basically a Colosal Kraken with Fiendish Template whos ink was a the source of the "evil taint". The NPCs killled the Kraken, returned home, and ended the campaign. One of the biggest challenges I had was coming up with geographic locations for the party to travel through on their quest. I didn't want them to just have endless expanses of water ("You encounter...more water."). I wanted them to find locations that I could be discriptive with. So here are some of the locales I included. Note also, the party could go around any one of these locations, but I as a DM made each seem infinitely wide (it IS the Plane of Water) so the party chose to go straight though each locale: 1) Kelp Forest. This is a ripoff of the Rootwater Depths of Magic the Gathering. Basically, the party had to go through miles and miles of Kelp that was infinitely tall...kinda like a dense jungle underwater. Obscured vision even more and who knew what was hiding in there? 2) Ice field. Just a wall of icebergs floating in it. This may not work in your ocean campaign, as the icebergs would just float to the top, but here, they looked kinda like an ice astroid field. 3) Ruined Temple of Posiden mounted on a mile wide wedge of rock. 4) A Coral Reef (duh) 5) Triton Village (again on a wedge of rock) 6) Shipwrecked Caravel (again, on a wedge of rock....and how did this thing get down here?)--course the thing was infested with undead pirates...also from a Magic Card. there were a few other things, just can't remember them.
Azezel 01-07-07, 05:57 AM	How about a giant mechanical crab that has a fighting platform on its back,the claws could rip thru obstructions like an underwater construction machine,sort of fred flintstone meets aqualad?RANDOM THOUGHTS In Stormwrack (Which the OP has) there are Corral Golems, which are crab shaped, there are also plain ol' Giant Crabs, and Seige Crabs which are enourmous crabs with a hollow section inside their shells, accessable through a 'hatch' in their ventral shell.
taradusis 01-07-07, 09:13 PM	1 Perhaps a ripoff of the movie GORGO.The players find a giant pearl and bring it ashore.While the party is trying to find a buyer for this pearl it shows signs of drying out.The pearl isn't drying out tho,it's actually getting ready to hatch into a baby gorgo.When the baby gorgo hatches it begins to make cries like a giant foghorn and tries to escape back to the sea.These cries attract the mother Gorgo to the location of the cries,sure hope the players or townsfolk haven't done anything stupid or cruel to baby gorgo:)- 2 Ixititichil attack-the party enters the turf of these violent devilrays and the seabed keeps erupting with ambushers who hide in the mud.This is sort of like throwing waves of kobolds at a party as a nuisance attack.If the party displays the brass rings they collect from the ixitichil then they get a +2 on diplomacy checks and offers to buy the rings at 2X the normal price as a sort of unofficial bounty?3-Mad scientist.A mad cleric or mad wizard amongst the sahaugin has figured out how to graft parts onto sahaugin?He uses electric eel glands to give shocking grasp.He replaces a sahaugins legs with the tentacles of a squid.He implnts ink glands from an octopus into a roguish sahaugin.He implants spines from a giant sea urchin onto the back of a sahaugin.He transplants the mouth of a vampiric ixitichil onto a sahaugin giving it the energy draining bite attack.RANDOM THOUGHTS
Aeolius 01-27-07, 10:54 PM	I posted a brief recruiting notice (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=780566) over in the RPG Gamer Classifieds. Feel free to discuss character and campaign issues, here and/or there. What sort of PC would you create, with my above-mentioned criteria? Merfolk, locathah, awakened seahorse, or ixitxachitl? Something entirely different? You tell me! What sorts of locales would you expect to visit, in an undersea campaign? Shipwrecks, coral castles, deep-sea chasms, and more? The campaign I envision will be a long-term affair, taking chacters from levels 1 to 20. If you'd like to do your homework, I plan to use The Jungle of Lost Ships and the Sinking Isle, in addition to Turucambi.
Tyler Do'Urden 01-27-07, 11:21 PM	UNDERSEA SHOT [GENERAL] Prerequisites: Point Blank Shot, swim speed. Benefit: When you fire a ranged weapon underwater, you suffer only a –1 penalty to your attack roll for every 5 ft. of water the projectile passes through. Normal: Ranged attacks suffer a -2 penalty for every 5 ft. of water they pass through.
Aeolius 01-31-07, 04:48 PM	My last recruiting notice got deleted, no doubt because I put the game title before the game particulars... whoops. UPDATE: Link restored
Aeolius 02-26-07, 10:46 AM	This week, I begin recruiting in earnest. So, what supplements would you like to see included in an undersea campaign? Strormwrack is a given, but what about psionics, warlocks, incarnum, the variations in Tome of Blood, and so on?
Thomar_of_Uointer 02-26-07, 11:51 AM	This week, I begin recruiting in earnest. So, what supplements would you like to see included in an undersea campaign? Strormwrack is a given, but what about psionics, warlocks, incarnum, the variations in Tome of Blood, and so on? Well, psionics is always awesome. Incarnum will make a normal human possible in the campaign (though there's always the danger of someone busting up your soulmeld). Oh, don't warforged not have to breathe? Hmm, I'm thinking an LA +1 aquatic warforged equipped with an eldritch jet turbine or something... Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to play, so I'll pass on this one.