Adventures at Sea [Archive] - Wizards Community

Adventures at Sea [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
MasterRookie
02-25-06, 05:56 PM One of my PC's has just embarked on a year long ocean voyage. I need a lot of good adventure Ideas and some good encounters for a party at sea. I'm surprised to find that there isn't any Sea Dragon or sea serpent in the Monster Manual.

If it helps the PC is a level 12 rogue, on the ship are his level 10 NPC rogue compainion, a level 10 pirate who's captain of the ship and some crew that are basically noncombatants being level one and or armed with only daggers.
Lord Ian Stark
02-25-06, 06:37 PM The Bermuda Triangle was always cool IMO. Perhaps having him enter an area that has this kind of effect.

What books do you have? The MM does have a few water creatures and I believe the Draconomican has some sea dragons. I personally don't own Stormwrack (I think that's the name) but that may help as it's built around games at sea.
Number_1_DM
02-25-06, 06:50 PM Well... my PCs never make it past level six, but I'll try to help.

I ran a campaign similar to this with level one characters. Basically, a mysterious storm blows them onto an even more mysterious island. Make the PC try to survive on a strange and dangerous island with limited supplies. Have him fight some "locals" - for my campaign it was mutated goblins. For level 10? Maybe mutated trolls or something. Anyhow, the creatures are really part of some twisted experiment created by an evil wizard. Just add some interesting places to discover on the island, and you have sessions upon sessions of fun. Perhaps the PC finds a map that has places labeled and named things like - The Mountain of Horrors, The Vault, The Abyss, The Creator's Tower, and The Forest of Nine Circles.

Durning the course of my 6 session campaign like this, the two PCs made it to level 2 before dying. Deaths aside, my players said it was the most enjoyable campaign they were ever part of. For ideas for a campaign similar to this, watch a show like abc's LOST, or read H.G. Well's Island of Dr. Monroe.

Good luck, hope I helped.
VirgilCaine
02-25-06, 10:02 PM Look in the DMG at the chart of monsters organized by climate--obviously, the aquatic section. Read those monsters entries, paying specific attention to their culture and habits.

Note rivalries and possible alignments.

Look at the Dragon Turtle in the Monster Manual--THAT's your Sea Dragon!

Zaratan, hundreds of foot wide sea turtle
http://www.enworld.org/cc/converted/beast/zaratan.htm

Nifty Sea Monsters:

Morkoth
http://www.enworld.org/cc/converted/crypt/morkoth.htm

Searechter (Beholder subtype)
http://www.enworld.org/cc/converted/view_c.php?CreatureID=466

Eye of the Deep (Another Beholder subtype)
http://www.enworld.org/cc/converted/aberration/beholder/eye_of_the_deep.htm

From:
http://www.enworld.org/cc/index.php
CryoSilver
02-25-06, 10:28 PM At sea, the following things are important, and may require extreme means to keep in line:

Fresh water; you can't drink sea water. Solved by cleric with Create Water, but if there's no cleric...

Food; out in deep blue water, there aren't even fish' sea life tends to stay within a hundred miles or so of shore. Scurvy, vitamin deficiencies, spoilage.

Weather; nowhere to hide, and both calm and high seas are bad. Doldrums can waste days, even weeks; weeks of food and water supplies dwindling... Bad weather can take down your ship in a matter of hours, snap masts, tear sails, throw men overboard, shatter windows, blow you off course; all manner of problems.

Pirates; nowhere to hide on the ocean, it's all open.

Getting lost; get blown off course and don't know how to triangulate or guesstimate based on the stars, and you're screwed. And even if you can, you can only estimate latitude at sea; away from shore, there's no way to estimate longitude if you've lost your benchmarks due to weather.

Cabin fever. When the boat is only 300 feet long at the outside, it gets really small, really fast. If he's on a small ship, like a schooner or cutter, its more like 80 feet, and even smaller even faster.

Monsters. 'Nuff said.
trolloc
02-25-06, 10:40 PM i highly suggest you get Stormwrack for high sea adventures.
MasterRookie
02-25-06, 11:19 PM well I've heard a few interesting suggestions. I already thought of having a few pirate attacks, but the region their in now is pretty safe, only very stupid or very desprate pirates would attack them because they're about the only ship in the region with cannons. When they get closer to the chinese style country pirate attacks will be more of a threat. Storms and food/water stocks getting destroyed are interesting possibilitys for the game. Getting blown off course is another but their hugging the coast for most of the voyage.

So far I've had the PC do some treasure hunting on an undead infested Isle that used to be a prison. Also when he made landfall for trade the city he was staying in was raided by orcs while the crew was on shore leave so he had to run about the city to find the crew and save them from the orcs.
Flushmaster
02-25-06, 11:20 PM Look through the dragon descriptions in your MM. Several dragons can breath water and will establish lairs along coastlines or even on the ocean floor if there is something interesting nearby to make the location attractive to them. Blacks and greens breath water, though blacks generally prefer murky water, plenty of cover, and the kind of stuff you'd find in a swamp. If you want to include a black dragon I'd suggest having it's lair be either in a swampy river delta that opens into the ocean or in or near some kind of polluted/tainted reef. Greens could easily have cavernous lairs in the sides of cliffs (quite possibly with entrances on land, underwater, and even in the sheer face of the cliff. Don't forget swamps, caverns, or any other "typical" dragon lairs that are just conveniently located near the ocean; a red dragon living on a small volcanic island likely would pose a threat to ships passing nearby, as well as any settlements within a day or so's flight. Of the metallic dragons, I believe that either bronzes or brasses have water breathing and a swim speed and are partial to lairs not entirely unlike those of greens, so you might arrange an adventure that involves a dragon turf war or even rival islands and/or coastal communities fighting a war in which dragons of some type or another are fighting for one or both sides.

With the proper magic items (like rings of water breathing or some such) you can take the adventure under the waves and introduce just about any creature of the aquatic subtype (including aquatic versions of the normal PC races). Who said a dungeon crawl can't be done underwater? Or perhaps a group of pirates have made an alliance with aquatic orcs who's chief is a high level barbarian that rides a dire shark into battle?

Or perhaps the aquatic orcs/goblins/kua-toa/other water breathing baddies are the pirates; sink ships by swimming up and poking holes in the bottom then loot the wreck once it's sunk. Perhaps they fence part of their loot through unscrupulous surface merchants nearby and this could be a hook for that underwater dungeon crawl.
MasterRookie
02-25-06, 11:32 PM hmm those are good suggestions. I like the waring dragon idea, maybe they fight over the treasure from trade ships.

Anyway when I said sea dragon I wasn't talking about any dragon like aquatic monster. I'm talking about the classic finned sea serpent type sea dragon. Not dragon turtles, not dragons that happen to be in the water. Not to say I'm not interested in those too, but when I say sea dragon I mean both words together.
CryoSilver
02-26-06, 09:39 AM I do believe that there is a Sea Serpent in the Fiend Folio...

Yep. The "Sea Drake," a serpentine swimming dragon; intelligent, curious and a fairly high CR.

Even if your ship is hugging the coast, a few hours in a heavy storm, winds blowing upwards of 30 knots, can put them dozens of miles out to sea, and dozens of miles off in the N-S vector.

And with a broken mast, 50 miles might as well be 5000, especially if the current is sweeping them further out to sea...
Uratoh
02-26-06, 11:05 AM At sea, don't forget the Scrag and Merrow. aquatic variants of the Troll and Ogre respectively...nothing brings the fear of being at sea to you when a pirate ship pulls up and the captain, a blue skinned freak with an axe, jumps off, blitzes to your ship, and either climbs on board or latches onto the hull and starts chopping a hole in it...do give em class levels though.
revnk
02-26-06, 01:04 PM At sea, don't forget the Scrag and Merrow. aquatic variants of the Troll and Ogre respectively...nothing brings the fear of being at sea to you when a pirate ship pulls up and the captain, a blue skinned freak with an axe, jumps off, blitzes to your ship, and either climbs on board or latches onto the hull and starts chopping a hole in it...do give em class levels though.

Or the lacedon, the aquatic ghoul. How about the fear of going up on deck for a little night air only to see a scaly, unclean hand claw its way over the side, followed by a half-dozen or more loathsome dead things looking for a midnight snack!
MasterRookie
02-26-06, 04:01 PM I do believe that there is a Sea Serpent in the Fiend Folio...

Yep. The "Sea Drake," a serpentine swimming dragon; intelligent, curious and a fairly high CR.

Even if your ship is hugging the coast, a few hours in a heavy storm, winds blowing upwards of 30 knots, can put them dozens of miles out to sea, and dozens of miles off in the N-S vector.

And with a broken mast, 50 miles might as well be 5000, especially if the current is sweeping them further out to sea...

I'm not trying to kill them.
dungeonmasterblog
02-26-06, 04:19 PM Check this book out

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446607177/qid=1140989054/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_6/104-7002409-5731163?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

It's about a pirate who had essentially an inverted tower built on an island to house his treasure. You could incorporate something like that into your campaign as an ultimate destination. Have tons of traps on the way down.

Dungeon Master
http://www.dungeonsdragonsblog.com
MasterRookie
02-27-06, 01:22 PM There's already an ultimate destination. I've already had them stop at an island for treasure hunting I don't want to do that too often or it will get booring.

So far I have these ideas.

Dragon skirmishes that take place across a strait connecting to the ocean that leads to the PC's final destination.

Discovering knew islands

Crew members being kidnapped

Pirate attacks

These could probably last for a while
SiouLubb
02-27-06, 01:52 PM Murder Mystery aboard ship.

About the pirates: if the PCs'ship is the only one in the area with cannons, then the Pirates won't be expecting the cannons and will attack.

Water and air elementals are other possible opponents.

A Sargasso sea which entangles their ship. there may be other deserted ships caught in the Sargasso as well

Mary Celeste type derelicts. Mini-dungeons floating on water!

Floating islands with a dungeon complex built into the underside of the island. It requires the PCs to climb into the dungeon from the masts if they want to get inside. (Have them run low on food first, so they have a reason to want to explore the complex)

A tower rising straight out of the water. "In front of your prow, a stone tower looms right out of the gloom. (let the PCs act so as not to smash into it) It is 15' across and perfectly featureless and round. It rises up 200' above the water. (Face it, they're on a boat- the PCs have enough rope to get up if they want to) At the top, there is a spiral staricase leading into the depths......."

Strange, alien looking ships on the horizon. Have one follow the PCs ship, avoiding all contact. It will drive them insane.

Mirages on the open ocean, a magic effect creating illusions all around them of land, strange creatures, northern lights, etc.

A forest of giant trees rising out of the ocean. Who knows what lives there? Hint: some inhabitants probably fly.
MasterRookie
02-28-06, 01:23 PM hmm for some reason that made me think of drifting rocks from the oddessey. It could serve as a good obsticle they have to get around.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
MasterRookie 02-25-06, 05:56 PM	One of my PC's has just embarked on a year long ocean voyage. I need a lot of good adventure Ideas and some good encounters for a party at sea. I'm surprised to find that there isn't any Sea Dragon or sea serpent in the Monster Manual. If it helps the PC is a level 12 rogue, on the ship are his level 10 NPC rogue compainion, a level 10 pirate who's captain of the ship and some crew that are basically noncombatants being level one and or armed with only daggers.
Lord Ian Stark 02-25-06, 06:37 PM	The Bermuda Triangle was always cool IMO. Perhaps having him enter an area that has this kind of effect. What books do you have? The MM does have a few water creatures and I believe the Draconomican has some sea dragons. I personally don't own Stormwrack (I think that's the name) but that may help as it's built around games at sea.
Number_1_DM 02-25-06, 06:50 PM	Well... my PCs never make it past level six, but I'll try to help. I ran a campaign similar to this with level one characters. Basically, a mysterious storm blows them onto an even more mysterious island. Make the PC try to survive on a strange and dangerous island with limited supplies. Have him fight some "locals" - for my campaign it was mutated goblins. For level 10? Maybe mutated trolls or something. Anyhow, the creatures are really part of some twisted experiment created by an evil wizard. Just add some interesting places to discover on the island, and you have sessions upon sessions of fun. Perhaps the PC finds a map that has places labeled and named things like - The Mountain of Horrors, The Vault, The Abyss, The Creator's Tower, and The Forest of Nine Circles. Durning the course of my 6 session campaign like this, the two PCs made it to level 2 before dying. Deaths aside, my players said it was the most enjoyable campaign they were ever part of. For ideas for a campaign similar to this, watch a show like abc's LOST, or read H.G. Well's Island of Dr. Monroe. Good luck, hope I helped.
VirgilCaine 02-25-06, 10:02 PM	Look in the DMG at the chart of monsters organized by climate--obviously, the aquatic section. Read those monsters entries, paying specific attention to their culture and habits. Note rivalries and possible alignments. Look at the Dragon Turtle in the Monster Manual--THAT's your Sea Dragon! Zaratan, hundreds of foot wide sea turtle http://www.enworld.org/cc/converted/beast/zaratan.htm Nifty Sea Monsters: Morkoth http://www.enworld.org/cc/converted/crypt/morkoth.htm Searechter (Beholder subtype) http://www.enworld.org/cc/converted/view_c.php?CreatureID=466 Eye of the Deep (Another Beholder subtype) http://www.enworld.org/cc/converted/aberration/beholder/eye_of_the_deep.htm From: http://www.enworld.org/cc/index.php
CryoSilver 02-25-06, 10:28 PM	At sea, the following things are important, and may require extreme means to keep in line: Fresh water; you can't drink sea water. Solved by cleric with Create Water, but if there's no cleric... Food; out in deep blue water, there aren't even fish' sea life tends to stay within a hundred miles or so of shore. Scurvy, vitamin deficiencies, spoilage. Weather; nowhere to hide, and both calm and high seas are bad. Doldrums can waste days, even weeks; weeks of food and water supplies dwindling... Bad weather can take down your ship in a matter of hours, snap masts, tear sails, throw men overboard, shatter windows, blow you off course; all manner of problems. Pirates; nowhere to hide on the ocean, it's all open. Getting lost; get blown off course and don't know how to triangulate or guesstimate based on the stars, and you're screwed. And even if you can, you can only estimate latitude at sea; away from shore, there's no way to estimate longitude if you've lost your benchmarks due to weather. Cabin fever. When the boat is only 300 feet long at the outside, it gets really small, really fast. If he's on a small ship, like a schooner or cutter, its more like 80 feet, and even smaller even faster. Monsters. 'Nuff said.
trolloc 02-25-06, 10:40 PM	i highly suggest you get Stormwrack for high sea adventures.
MasterRookie 02-25-06, 11:19 PM	well I've heard a few interesting suggestions. I already thought of having a few pirate attacks, but the region their in now is pretty safe, only very stupid or very desprate pirates would attack them because they're about the only ship in the region with cannons. When they get closer to the chinese style country pirate attacks will be more of a threat. Storms and food/water stocks getting destroyed are interesting possibilitys for the game. Getting blown off course is another but their hugging the coast for most of the voyage. So far I've had the PC do some treasure hunting on an undead infested Isle that used to be a prison. Also when he made landfall for trade the city he was staying in was raided by orcs while the crew was on shore leave so he had to run about the city to find the crew and save them from the orcs.
Flushmaster 02-25-06, 11:20 PM	Look through the dragon descriptions in your MM. Several dragons can breath water and will establish lairs along coastlines or even on the ocean floor if there is something interesting nearby to make the location attractive to them. Blacks and greens breath water, though blacks generally prefer murky water, plenty of cover, and the kind of stuff you'd find in a swamp. If you want to include a black dragon I'd suggest having it's lair be either in a swampy river delta that opens into the ocean or in or near some kind of polluted/tainted reef. Greens could easily have cavernous lairs in the sides of cliffs (quite possibly with entrances on land, underwater, and even in the sheer face of the cliff. Don't forget swamps, caverns, or any other "typical" dragon lairs that are just conveniently located near the ocean; a red dragon living on a small volcanic island likely would pose a threat to ships passing nearby, as well as any settlements within a day or so's flight. Of the metallic dragons, I believe that either bronzes or brasses have water breathing and a swim speed and are partial to lairs not entirely unlike those of greens, so you might arrange an adventure that involves a dragon turf war or even rival islands and/or coastal communities fighting a war in which dragons of some type or another are fighting for one or both sides. With the proper magic items (like rings of water breathing or some such) you can take the adventure under the waves and introduce just about any creature of the aquatic subtype (including aquatic versions of the normal PC races). Who said a dungeon crawl can't be done underwater? Or perhaps a group of pirates have made an alliance with aquatic orcs who's chief is a high level barbarian that rides a dire shark into battle? Or perhaps the aquatic orcs/goblins/kua-toa/other water breathing baddies are the pirates; sink ships by swimming up and poking holes in the bottom then loot the wreck once it's sunk. Perhaps they fence part of their loot through unscrupulous surface merchants nearby and this could be a hook for that underwater dungeon crawl.
MasterRookie 02-25-06, 11:32 PM	hmm those are good suggestions. I like the waring dragon idea, maybe they fight over the treasure from trade ships. Anyway when I said sea dragon I wasn't talking about any dragon like aquatic monster. I'm talking about the classic finned sea serpent type sea dragon. Not dragon turtles, not dragons that happen to be in the water. Not to say I'm not interested in those too, but when I say sea dragon I mean both words together.
CryoSilver 02-26-06, 09:39 AM	I do believe that there is a Sea Serpent in the Fiend Folio... Yep. The "Sea Drake," a serpentine swimming dragon; intelligent, curious and a fairly high CR. Even if your ship is hugging the coast, a few hours in a heavy storm, winds blowing upwards of 30 knots, can put them dozens of miles out to sea, and dozens of miles off in the N-S vector. And with a broken mast, 50 miles might as well be 5000, especially if the current is sweeping them further out to sea...
Uratoh 02-26-06, 11:05 AM	At sea, don't forget the Scrag and Merrow. aquatic variants of the Troll and Ogre respectively...nothing brings the fear of being at sea to you when a pirate ship pulls up and the captain, a blue skinned freak with an axe, jumps off, blitzes to your ship, and either climbs on board or latches onto the hull and starts chopping a hole in it...do give em class levels though.
revnk 02-26-06, 01:04 PM	At sea, don't forget the Scrag and Merrow. aquatic variants of the Troll and Ogre respectively...nothing brings the fear of being at sea to you when a pirate ship pulls up and the captain, a blue skinned freak with an axe, jumps off, blitzes to your ship, and either climbs on board or latches onto the hull and starts chopping a hole in it...do give em class levels though. Or the lacedon, the aquatic ghoul. How about the fear of going up on deck for a little night air only to see a scaly, unclean hand claw its way over the side, followed by a half-dozen or more loathsome dead things looking for a midnight snack!
MasterRookie 02-26-06, 04:01 PM	I do believe that there is a Sea Serpent in the Fiend Folio... Yep. The "Sea Drake," a serpentine swimming dragon; intelligent, curious and a fairly high CR. Even if your ship is hugging the coast, a few hours in a heavy storm, winds blowing upwards of 30 knots, can put them dozens of miles out to sea, and dozens of miles off in the N-S vector. And with a broken mast, 50 miles might as well be 5000, especially if the current is sweeping them further out to sea... I'm not trying to kill them.
dungeonmasterblog 02-26-06, 04:19 PM	Check this book out http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446607177/qid=1140989054/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_6/104-7002409-5731163?s=books&v=glance&n=283155 It's about a pirate who had essentially an inverted tower built on an island to house his treasure. You could incorporate something like that into your campaign as an ultimate destination. Have tons of traps on the way down. Dungeon Master http://www.dungeonsdragonsblog.com
MasterRookie 02-27-06, 01:22 PM	There's already an ultimate destination. I've already had them stop at an island for treasure hunting I don't want to do that too often or it will get booring. So far I have these ideas. Dragon skirmishes that take place across a strait connecting to the ocean that leads to the PC's final destination. Discovering knew islands Crew members being kidnapped Pirate attacks These could probably last for a while
SiouLubb 02-27-06, 01:52 PM	Murder Mystery aboard ship. About the pirates: if the PCs'ship is the only one in the area with cannons, then the Pirates won't be expecting the cannons and will attack. Water and air elementals are other possible opponents. A Sargasso sea which entangles their ship. there may be other deserted ships caught in the Sargasso as well Mary Celeste type derelicts. Mini-dungeons floating on water! Floating islands with a dungeon complex built into the underside of the island. It requires the PCs to climb into the dungeon from the masts if they want to get inside. (Have them run low on food first, so they have a reason to want to explore the complex) A tower rising straight out of the water. "In front of your prow, a stone tower looms right out of the gloom. (let the PCs act so as not to smash into it) It is 15' across and perfectly featureless and round. It rises up 200' above the water. (Face it, they're on a boat- the PCs have enough rope to get up if they want to) At the top, there is a spiral staricase leading into the depths......." Strange, alien looking ships on the horizon. Have one follow the PCs ship, avoiding all contact. It will drive them insane. Mirages on the open ocean, a magic effect creating illusions all around them of land, strange creatures, northern lights, etc. A forest of giant trees rising out of the ocean. Who knows what lives there? Hint: some inhabitants probably fly.
MasterRookie 02-28-06, 01:23 PM	hmm for some reason that made me think of drifting rocks from the oddessey. It could serve as a good obsticle they have to get around.