Adventuring on the Seas

[bathtub66]

So I'm writing a mission involving the group getting lost at sea. I have referenced the Shipwreck supplemental already. But its has a lot encounters that take place under the sea, such as creatures or society that live below the surface. Are there situation where creatures, such as sea elves, would come to the surface, or is there a way to let the party explore the ocean floor? Keep in mind this is a low level group without a caster.

Also, if you have run a ocean mission before or have any cool ideas of what could happen I would love to hear it.

 

[Dragonfriend]

Ideas:
A battle between ships.
A ghost ship
A Zarathan (an island-giant turtle)
Captured by a marid Sultan
They find unknown lands

 

[aco175]

I recently picked up the booklet 'ruins of vor rukoth' from Wizards. They have kraken tentacles as level 9 minions that I thought were cool. They explain the pcs being on a ship with tentacles coming up on the sides, but could be in a cave or something under water.

 

[Gilladian]

How about having them meet a culture of raft people? semi-aquatic folk who live in and on the water in equal parts. That could give them a chance to communicate and learn how to travel beneath the water themselves, by magic or at least snorkeling or somesuch.

 

[Water Bob]

There's a fantastic character centered ship combat system for the d20 Conan RPG in the supplement called: Pirate Isles. In fact, you'd probably find a lot of use out of that supplement in a sea-based game, even if your campaign is set in a traditional D&D world.

Reavers of the Vilayet is an adventure published that focuses on Pirate-type characters. And, you may find some use out of a book called Hyboria's Fallen, where a third of the book focusses on Pirate characters.

I would definitely look into obtaining Pirate Isles. The other two--look at them and see if they're something you can use.

 

[GlassEye]

I recently used a sea journey as the starter of a campaign. The first encounter happened in a dockside bar. The characters were loyal crew to a particular captain and got into a scuffle with a rival captain's crew. Before the fight broke out I dropped rumors about a ship limping into port with news of a vast, rich, unexplored land. Rumor spreads fast so the local ruler made a deal with the character's captain, the rival captain, and gave the discovering captain a new ship for an expedition.

The expedition of three ships set out for the unexplored land but were separated by a large storm. The ship that the characters were on was stranded in a sea of sargasso. Much of it was thick enough to walk on and they discovered it crawled with tiny crabs (so there wasn't much chance they would starve). About this time an ooze below deck started attacking the crew. It was later discovered that this was sabotage (presumably by the rival captain) and the ooze had been packed away in a barrel and it had eventually eaten its way through the wood.

A mast in the distance was seen and thinking it might be one of the other ships of the expedition a small group (the pcs) was sent to make contact with it. Turned out to be a wreck, tilted and kept from sinking by the thick mats of sargasso. They start exploring and end up disturbing its occupants: monstrous crabs. Unknowingly they also rile up an undersea race: the squid-men. The squid-men were re-skinned chokers described as humanoid squids.

After the pcs returned to their ship the squid-men began launching attacks against the ship at night. Recurring night attacks whittled down the crew until the captain decided they couldn't stay any longer and sent out a crew in the longboat to row the ship out of the sargasso. It was a long, slow, back-breaking job but they eventually got out far enough to pick up enough breeze to help them escape the squid-men.

Eventually they arrived at the unexplored land to discover that the other ships of the expedition had already arrived. The rival captain had gone rogue and burned the other ship and had managed to incite the locals against the characters ship.

Hope this sparks some ideas for you. Good luck on your adventure!

 

[bathtub66]

Greats replies everyone. Thanks a lot for your input.