Looking for tips for upcoming aquatic campaign

[ChimericDream]

I am getting ready to start a long-term campaign with my friends that I plan to run in something akin to seasons in a TV show. The first major story arc will take place entirely (at least that's my current vision) on a vast inland sea. I already have Stormwrack, but there are some important aspects of the story and plot that make some of the suggestions in Stormwrack less helpful. Here's a quick summary of the culture/setting I am shooting for.

The party are all members of a society that lives their entire lives on the water. I am drawing from aspects of Romani culture for a great deal of inspiration (though I admittedly still have a fair bit of researching to do). For example, this society started as a nomadic land-based culture. However, they were often made to feel unwelcome and actually chased out of many towns. They took to the water so they could keep their sense of freedom and independence without worrying about having to deal much with other cultures.

The bulk of the people live in small pods of sturdy rafts (the kind big enough to build a small hut on), but a few times each year they come together into a massive floating city for festivals, trade, etc. The culture as a whole is highly patriarchal, with each pod-group of rafts led by a father/grandfather. When they all come together, three of the highest ranking family leaders form a small council responsible for large-scale decisions (mediating disputes between pods, approving marriages between important families, etc).​

I want to keep things interesting for the party, so I am looking for adventure/encounter ideas to mix in with my core plot. My list so far includes "easy" things like dealing with pirates and rough weather, but beyond that it gets harder to come up with things. Much of the campaign will take place during a time when the pods are all together in a larger city kind of setting. That opens up more traditional kinds of encounters, albeit with some unique considerations. But I'd love to get some ideas for other things I can throw against the party to mix things up.

Also, if there are any suggestions for sourcebooks that would be helpful for planning an aquatic adventure (in addition to Stormwrack) I would love to hear them.

Feel free to ask any questions for more information. I didn't want this post to get too long, so I tried to limit it to the core concepts. I don't believe my players read this forum, so it'll probably be safe for me to share some of the plot elements if it will help generate more ideas.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Dandu]

 

[arscott]

Dude: Spelljammer.

All that cool "riding about in space on flying boats" stuff is pretty easily adaptable to "riding about on the ocean in non-flying boats".

 

[gamerprinter]

The best published reference for undersea adventures, cultures and mechanics are the Alluria Publishing Cerulean Seas campaign setting designed for Pathfinder. Cerulean Seas have rules for water pressure, buoyancy, underwater combat, varying cultures based on biology and depth in water, as well as many incuded races and monsters of the deep - it is the best sourcebook for undersea adventures, published by anybody. If you're going to run an undersea campaign this is the definitive resource for such a game (I've got the book and use it extensively in my games.)

For surface ship combat rules, I far prefer Razor Coast Fire As She Bears, preferring it to Stormwrack, as it has more complete rules, better designs for combat mechanics (easy to define and design ships of any size and configuration), and an effective means for an entire PC party to participate in shipboard combat. Most ship combat rules are little more than an exercise between GM and the one player in the group into ship combat rules, where as FASB requires actions by the steering crew, the sail crew, the gun crew and the support staff - the entire party is involved to resolve ship's combat, and that means a much more immersive game.

 

[ChimericDream]

Thanks [MENTION=17969]arscott[/MENTION] and [MENTION=50895]gamerprinter[/MENTION]. I had heard of Spelljammer, but never gotten to play in a campaign. I'll also take a look at the Cerulean Seas and Fire As She Bears books. I don't know how much underwater adventuring there will be, and I'll need to figure out how combat/adventuring changes when it's between rafts vs ships, but these will hopefully be a good start.

I'll [-]greedily[/-] happily take any other suggestions people have. I am still at least a month or two from starting this campaign, since we are a fair way off from the end of the current one, so I have lots of time to write and plan.

 

[unnatural 20]

A favorite gaming blog of mine has a few aquatic related articles: http://tribality.com/tag/aquatic/

 

[Grogg of the North]

Here's the big thing to keep in mind for an aquatic setting / encounter. About half the monsters assume you have things like Freedom of Movement and Water Breathing cast before you get into combat. The other half don't. So the CRs are all screwy. Seriously, go take a look at something like the Kraken.

 

[Celebrim]

I am getting ready to start a long-term campaign with my friends that I plan to run in something akin to seasons in a TV show. The first major story arc will take place entirely (at least that's my current vision) on a vast inland sea. I already have Stormwrack, but there are some important aspects of the story and plot that make some of the suggestions in Stormwrack less helpful. Here's a quick summary of the culture/setting I am shooting for.

The party are all members of a society that lives their entire lives on the water. I am drawing from aspects of Romani culture for a great deal of inspiration (though I admittedly still have a fair bit of researching to do).​

Ok, to begin with, make sure you research the Moken, Chao Lei, and Sama-Bajau peoples - real world sea gypsies. Lots of great inspiration about how a people would actually successfully live entirely at sea.

I want to keep things interesting for the party, so I am looking for adventure/encounter ideas to mix in with my core plot. My list so far includes "easy" things like dealing with pirates and rough weather, but beyond that it gets harder to come up with things. Much of the campaign will take place during a time when the pods are all together in a larger city kind of setting. That opens up more traditional kinds of encounters, albeit with some unique considerations. But I'd love to get some ideas for other things I can throw against the party to mix things up.

Most anything you could do on land, you could do with a marine twist. The festival concept lets you adapt just about any urban adventure to the unique nautical setting. For example, you could import the ideas of something like Burnt Offerings from 'Rise of the Runelords' and it's applicable here - aquatic demi-humans (either amphibious ones like Sahuaghin or Koalinth or air breathing pirate raiders) attack festival and have to be chased back to their (partially submerged?) lair. Or you could do something like, "PC's are tasked with guarding a VIP who must go ashore to buy something necessary to community which can only be purchased ashore. PC's experience discrimination first hand. Then VIP is attacked and robbed, or simply cheated by unscruplous, and PC's must recover stolen treasure and win local support/vouchsafe from someone (a priest?) despite apathy and sometimes downright antipathy by locals including some magistrates."

On the water, you can do, "Fishing expedition goes bad when attached by monster." It would be a good idea to decide what secrets your inland sea hides now, as well as who are the powers and dominions under its waves. Your inland sea can easily have several thousand little islands of no more than a few acres each, several hundred of which can have all sorts of weird secrets. That could lead to an episodic Star Trek like campaign, were exploring islands each leads to some strange adventure.

A ship wreck or a storm can be a convenient plot device rather than a game ending disaster, for example, drowning sailors can be rescued by friendly merfolk or even a noble marid, who either then ask the PC's for some help against an amphibious foe they are for some reason ill-suited to thwart or the distress of their new benefactors comes out in some way that should prompt the PC's to seek to repay their hosts (if they are of the heroic inclination).

You could also have a 'trouble with the neighbors' scenario, where one of the land powers wrongly blames some crime on the sea gypsies and you have to clear the name of your people and prevent possible disaster by finding the real culprit. As a twist, the real culprit could turn out to be the sea gypsies, forcing you to turn in one of your own (and possibly leading to internal strife).

You might also look for some inspiration in floating cities China Meiville's 'The Scar', although that is a bit over the top weird fantasy so be warned.​

 

[Herobizkit]

The simplest idea I can think of is Atlantis-based. The sea gypsies realize that living on the ocean offers limited resources, so they build magical sub-dirigibles to mine the ocean floor. However, the underwater Sea Elves (or whatever) are offended by the Surface Dweller's invasion and strike out to defend their native land... water... yeah.

Also, perhaps there are underwater caves that harbor (hee) Underdark dwellers... the weird ones... aboleths, mind-flayers, and perhaps a certain race of albino humans... or maybe even a Lost World tropical paradise.

 

[ChimericDream]

[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] and [MENTION=36150]Herobizkit[/MENTION]: Those are some awesome ideas! I might have to expand the scope of my campaign to fit them in, but that's alright since I felt like it was a bit lacking to start with.
[MENTION=36150]Herobizkit[/MENTION]: It's funny you mention Atlantis, because I am planning to borrow aspects of Stargate: Atlantis for bits of the core plot already.