101 ship wrecks

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The Fishwife is a deep sea fishing vessel, and floats, upside down, on the rocks. Within are the fish-chewed skeletons of the few crewmen who didn't get washed overboard in the wreck. Nothing of value remains on board. Nets from the vessel cling to the rocks around the wreck, making it dangerous to swim around it, and would-be explorers stand a good chance of being caught and drowned.

 

[Tonguez]

This ship is one that you have only heard about in legend and nightmare. A living thing crafted from flesh, bone and a Karnomancers art. The sails of the ships twin masts are furled like batwings for indeed such they are. The monstrous wings supported by long and twisted arms of two tall skeletal creatures that grow up from the deck of the ship like two necromantic trees

The ship itself is flesh reinforced with bone plates and long ribs, with pulsating nodules and suppurating wounds. Even its ropes and coils still run with the black ichor which flows up from some deep and hidden heart. But this is not the worst of things for the crew of this ship still live, merged within the very flesh of the ship and attached by a giant umbilicus and ready to emerge and defend their monstrous surrogate...

* The Mast can't move except to furl and unfurl their wing-sails
* The ship can also defend itself using noxious gas clouds, tentacles, bone spikes and man traps (think mouths forming in the flesh of the ship)

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The ship is nearly upside down, partially encased in the iceberg that was its doom.

The folk of Land's End still remember the wreck of the Gaspard, often giving content, yet wistful, sighs as they remember the ship that went down in shallow water containing 1600 gallons of whiskey is nice, solid, and well sealed barrels....

The ribs of the ship are mixed with those of the vast sea creature that tried to devour it, the bones of the sailors now lost to the tides.

And of course, the Irish Rover....

In the year of our Lord, eighteen hundred and six,
We set sail from the Coal Quay of Cork
We were sailing away with a cargo of bricks
For the grand City Hall in New York
We'd an elegant craft, it was rigged 'fore and aft
And how the trade winds drove her
She had twenty-three masts and she stood several blasts
And they called her the Irish Rover


We had one million bags of the best Sligo rags
We had two million barrels of stones
We had eight million sides of old blind horses' hides
We had four million barrels of bones
We had five million hogs and six million dogs
And seven million barrels of porter
We had three million bales of old nanny goats' tails
In the hold of the Irish Rover


There was awl Mickey Coote
Who played hard on his flute
When the ladies lined up for a set
He was tootin' with skill
For each sparkling quadrille
Though the dancers were fluther'd and bet
With his smart witty talk
He was of the walk
And he rolled the dames under and over
They all knew at a glance
When he took up his stance
That he sailed in The Irish Rover


There was Barney McGee from the banks of the Lee
There was Hogan from County Tyrone
There was Johnny McGurk who was scared stiff of work
And a man from Westmeath called Malone
There was Slugger O'Toole who was drunk as a rule
And fighting Bill Tracy from Dover
And your man Mick McCann, from the banks of the Bann
Was the skipper on the Irish Rover


We had sailed seven years when the measles broke out
And our ship lost her way in the fog
And the whole of the crew was reduced down to two
'Twas meself and the captain's old dog
Then the ship struck a rock; what a shock
The bulkhead was turned right over
We turned nine times around - then the poor old dog was drowned
Now I'm the last of the Irish Rovers

The Auld Grump

 

[Varianor Abroad]

A ship made of dreams that foundered upon a rock of nightmares.

A ship out of time, from a far future where even the most powerful of magics is mundane. Only a few children's toys are left.

A ship made of earth and air, trapped because of the salt water.

An enormous sea creature - not a ship at all - slowly regenerating certain abilities before it moves on. It has a lifespan of centuries, making it seem immobile and dead until someone wakes it up....

A prison ship, full of the vilest, most powerful creatures captured by a League of Light. The ship crashed and the prisoners drowned. Now their ghosts and shadows live on.

 

[Agent Oracle]

Heh, i've got a bunch!

Abandoned Shipwreck

Washed high on a dune, evidently by a great wave, this shipwreck shows signs of life, possibly in the recent past. Someone strung up a canopy over the gaping hole in the side, and there's a organized pile of driftwood and shattered timber nearby. The captain's Cabin has a bed that was disheveled, as if someone slept in it recently. In the hold, it's evident someone was taking measures to ration their food. as is evidence by a three remaining quarter-rations of extremely stale hard tack. I wonder where they went to?

Ancient Shipwreck

This longship is of a style you've never seen, but it speaks to something primal in your sailor's hearts. wedged level in an extremely tight squeeze between the peaks of a reef that rises out of the shallow sea floor. All the canvas has rotted away, and the only ropes that remain are heavy with moss. The upper and lower decks have both rotted, walking along either level is ill-advised. If explored, there might be some objects from a time long forgotten found in the hold, but their condition is extremely poor.

Derelict Shipwreck

This isn't a wreck, so much as a complete mystery. it's floating, unoccupied. Sails tied down and wheel tied hard-a starboard, so it drifts in a kind of long, lazy loop, in the middle of the ocean. Everything about the ship just feels wrong, at a fundamental level. You should just get back on your ship, and leave. Sooner is better. Cut the boarding lines, don't want to waste time reeling them in just GO!

Deserted Shipwreck

Just a few miles downriver from the port, there's this fine wreck. Some rich yob's pleasure barge, no doubt. And he tried to steer it himself, obviously. And he had a few too many flasks of wine surely, which is why this thing ran so far aground that whoever was steering it just hopped off and made a dash for the nearest pub. Still, you've never seen a ship wrapped around a tree before.

Desolate Shipwreck

little more than the sun-bleached ribs of the hull remain of this once mighty battleship. What little of the upper levels remain show evidence of a hard battle, albiet a significant amount of time ago. The captain's cabin was destroyed by cannonfire, and the wheelhose probably met the smae fate... still, there might be something remaining...

...

Probably make some more when I feel like it...

 

[Joël of the FoS]

Wow, I’m amazed. Pretty cool ideas here so far. Keep them coming, it’s very interesting. I’m collecting these for a netbook, and will put your names in the credit.

Flumphs! They'are all filled with flumphs!

No. That's too awful to consider. I’ve had years of therapy to forget these critters. I hope my memory won't remember this one to haunt my nightmares.

I have some questions first. What setting are you using? Where does your campaign fall on the high- to low-magic spectrum? Any restrictions on races? Is the island populated?

Well it’s in the Ravenloft setting. There is this lonely island where a werebat built a lighthouse in order to wreck ships and feed from the sailors. Over the decades, a forest of wrecks now surrounds the island.

Of course, in Ravenloft, most of these shipwrecks should be mundane, but now I have many cool supernatural / magical options from this thread.

Now this thread is pretty cool and should be only oriented toward Ravenloft! If other DMs can get goos ideas out of it for their games, that's fun!

Those are mine, removing those similar to ones in this thread:

 Thunderball (from Egertus), a small passenger ship on its way to Liffe. This ship never arrived to destination and was thought lost at sea.

 White Starfish (from Mordent), a scientific ship studying fisheries, which vanished in the Sea of Sorrows.

 Dragon’s Gold (see RL Darklords accessory)

 A merchant ship with alien flag (from another plane and dragged to the mists by the lighthouse’s beam)

 Merchant boats, lots of them

 A ship which cargo held something valuable for a specific party, who could ask the heroes to retrieve it. It simply could be gold and you can play on PC's greed, or more philanthropically, someone they know needs the money (for a hospice foundation, for a ransom, etc.). It could also be an artefact / magic items, or important books / documents, etc.

 A Darkonese warship - why was it sunk? Why wasn’t it retrieved by the Darkonese Navy?

 A perplexing artefact was recently recovered in the swamps of the Wild Lands. The explorers found many marble statues of great values. Among the findings was a hunk of corroded bronze that contained some kind of mechanism composed of many gears and wheels. The explorers first thought it was an astronomer's tool. An more thorough explanation revealed it to be far more complex, containing a sophisticated system of differential gears. Gearing of this complexity was never seen before anywhere, even in Lamordia. This item was put on a boat, but it was lost at sea. Many people wish to find this instrument and analyse it.

 The characters are hired by a Pont-a-Museau man responsible for covering the loss of a ship, the Belle Marée. He explains the wreck of the merchant boat with a costly cargo was seen near île de la Tempête. He asks the players to investigate and retrieve a chest from the Captain’s room.

Joël

 

[Angel Tarragon]

You might find this handy.

 

[Torment]

this is fantastic. I'm running a pirate campaign right now and these ideas were all very excellent, thanks for the thread.

 

[smootrk]

The Wreck of the Gigantus is renowned, mostly because it was the largest ship ever built in its age, supposedly unsinkable; but sadly it sunk on its maiden voyage. It was a passenger transport intended to cross (insert large ocean expanse). A large number of nobles and other important people were lost on the tragic voyage. A number of rumored treasures, art pieces, and magical materials were lost (or supposedly lost), one of which, the Heart of the Ocean amulet was known to be on board the ship on its maiden voyage.

The exact point of the wreck is not known, and a number of frozen undead fiends are rumored to inhabit the region of the wreck.




--for more ideas on ghosts and their personalities... see the Titanic movie for inspiration.

 

[greywulf]

- The Beholder's Eye, a small pirate vessel run aground while fleeing a man-o-war. The captain died with all hands, the bodies left to rot where they lay. No treasure was found on board, despite the fact they the crew had recently raided a merchant ship, and not made ground since

- Sophostoclese, a cartography ship torn apart by angry air elementals as it mapped their isle

- Ocean's Delight, a failed gnomish restaurant concept which was scuttled for insurance reasons

- Modarin's Folly, a dwarven ship made of iron and powered by steam from immense forges. The dwarven claimed that it was unsinkable, which it was - until it entered sub-zero waters and the heating and constricting of the iron hull tore it apart

- An unnamed vessel. No papers, no port of origin, no crew, nothing. Strange lights are seen around the wreckage during nights of the full moon

- The Nophos, a merchant ship well known around the local shipping lanes. Problem is, the Nophos and all its crew also made dock two days ago, alive and well......