D&D 5E Airship Crash - encounters and equipment. Help Needed?

[aco175]

My main question is if this is the campaign or just the start to a campaign? If the players are interested in the survival aspect, then go with it, but if it is just the cool start, then get the PCs to the town.

Some ideas that come to mind are dealing with things like snowshoes. This speeds up travel, but do you require an ability check? Maybe someone's background allows you to just say "ok, you make shoes." What about training an animal to pull a sled or finding an animal? Can there be an animal that was on the ship or a druid around that can help or a PC that can shapechange. Prepare for it. If it is such a hard climate, then the monsters may be few. You mentioned the wolves and scavengers. You could have orcs or such come out of their winter caves or lodges to check for goods and may trail the PCs with some harassment along the trail to the town.

Another thought is to have a NPC or two still alive. One could be the reason for the crash and have some reason. Another could be food for wolves late at night to add suspense.

 

[Stormonu]

This was the opening sequence I wrote up for a campaign called "The Wreck of the Venerable Drake". It was more Lost based, and the wreck was in a tropical area, but perhaps it will give you some ideas...

Spoiler

With a mighty crash, the door and front face of the cabin is torn away as a fist made of solid stone tears the wood to flinders. Sunlight pours in, momentarily blinding you. Once you can see, you see a sight that is as terrifying as it is bewildering.

The cabin sits on the sandy ground of some beach; you can now hear the faint lap of waves from somewhere nearby. Remains of the Venerable Drake lay all about you – scattered crates, piles of wood scattered across the sand and wooden planks driven like fence posts into the ground fill the area.

A towering earth elemental stands in front of you, one of its upraised, spiked stone fists smeared with fresh blood. You can first hear the shouts, then see a fence of armed and armored warriors forming a half-circle around the earth elemental. One is an elf, and raises his bow to shoot the elemental. The arrow bounces off the earth elemental’s hide with a “tink”, but the massive beast utters a low growl and turns from the cabin, and begins to lumber after the retreating warriors.

As the elemental moves out of the way, you can see a little ways off another individual, smeared in blood and dirt, vainly attempting to push a former interior wall of the Venerable Drake off of himself. Not much farther away, a large half-bear, half-owl like creature sniffs at the fallen debris, as if hunting for food. Seeing you, the trapped man holds out an arm, pleading for help.

But before you can even react, further in the distance, you espie a herd of horses running across the shore, just a short distance from the edge of a thick jungle. Within a moment, the horses have passed out of your sight. To your amazement, the horses are followed by a pack of tiny, leaping and bounding lizards that scatter across the field of debris, screeching loudly as they pass. They too, like the horses, are gone within an instant, giving you an unobstructed view of the jungle beyond.

At the edge to the jungle, your eyes fall upon the sight of a large, emanciated-looking panther whose form seems to blur and shift before your eyes, like the haze drawn up in the heat of day. A pair of long tentacles writhe from the creature’s side, swishing at a pair of golden-furred dogs that bark and snap at the creature. A moment later, the huge cat turns and bounds into the jungle, the howling dogs in pursuit.
A moment later, and into view, running the opposite direction the horses disappeared a pair of halflings, hauling a stretcher on which lies a bleeding hobgoblin, scurries across your view. A moment later and a green-silk dressed man coaxes a half-eagle, half horse creature in the same direction. One of the creature’s great wings is smeared with blood, and is being dragged along, as if broken.

After that strange view has passed, you notice a dwarf climbing atop one of the crates in the distance, holding a crowbar. With an eerie calm, the dwarf starts to pry open the crate, looking up only once as the half-bear, half-owl creature snuffles past the crate he is working on.
Your attention is snapped back to the edge of your cabin as the shouts of the nearby warriors is followed by a sickening thud. The cabin shakes monstrously, but holds. A moment later, and a human body slides into view, collapsing in the doorway. Its chest has been caved in by a mighty blow, and bits of chipped stone jut from oozing wound.

Welcome to Xen’Drik!

 

[Quickleaf]

Large piece of balloon fabric surrounded by various frozen foodstuffs and rations. The fabric occasionally shifts as if some snarling thing were trapped underneath.

It's a yeti tyke.

 

[MarkB]

Would the airship have been equipped with the equivalent of a longboat - some sort of smaller flying machine with a short range that can be used to go from air to ground in places where there are no easy mooring spots?

Maybe it could be recoverable in the wreckage, but require parts from both halves of the ship to get it airworthy. Even then, it will only be good for a couple of hours' flight, but that would allow them to get the lay of the land, or to reach a particular location if they know which direction to go.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

If you're trying to make time an issue for scavenging, there's an idea I liked that I heard on a podcast (it may have been Fear the Boot?)

The game started with an underground dwarven city being destroyed, and the PCs only had finite time to escape. So, the escape route had encounters, and then it would get to plot-junctions: as you flee the city, do you stop at the bakery or do you stop at the general store? Fleeing to the next district - do you stop at the armorer or the weaponsmith for more than your base equipment? Like three or four rounds of that with encounters in between seemed pretty cool.

Maybe for the crashed airship, the first option is: search the crew or search the hold? Do you search the armory or do you try to scavenge bits and bobs off of the machine itself? etc

If the party keeps delaying and being thorough, I'd definitely give them a warning like that they hear beasts approaching the crash warily. And if they don't take it seriously, I'd have no problem with letting them have a rough encounter.

 

[TheSword]

If you're trying to make time an issue for scavenging, there's an idea I liked that I heard on a podcast (it may have been Fear the Boot?)

The game started with an underground dwarven city being destroyed, and the PCs only had finite time to escape. So, the escape route had encounters, and then it would get to plot-junctions: as you flee the city, do you stop at the bakery or do you stop at the general store? Fleeing to the next district - do you stop at the armorer or the weaponsmith for more than your base equipment? Like three or four rounds of that with encounters in between seemed pretty cool.

Maybe for the crashed airship, the first option is: search the crew or search the hold? Do you search the armory or do you try to scavenge bits and bobs off of the machine itself? etc

If the party keeps delaying and being thorough, I'd definitely give them a warning like that they hear beasts approaching the crash warily. And if they don't take it seriously, I'd have no problem with letting them have a rough encounter.

I think this approach could be applied to the aft castle suspended over the cliff. A timer that starts when they start exploring with the occasional shift or groan in the structure. When the final area is entered the party start a round by round counter which ends with a tilt to 45 degrees and the next round toppling off the cliff.

Im currently thinking the aft castle is sever stories, some of which is open to the elements, with the part moving up from the base level to the top deck finding things as they go. With a tough decision as to whether they go higher or play it safe. It ends with a desperate jump from whichever floor they’ve dared to reach as the aft castle goes over the cliff.

 

[TheSword]

I’m so impressed with the responses here. So much creativity! I’ll fit in as much as I can.