Campaign Idea: Island-Hopping, Swashbuckling Fun!

[rounser]

And, if you're exploring semi-submerged ruins, don't forget to throw in Cthulhu's cousin, in his own Rhlyeh-a-like. After all, Cthulhu's having been statted out for D&D (again) is quite possibly the biggest reward the d20 system has reaped for D&D thus far...much too good an opportunity to waste.

 

[trilobite]

You can always check out the Oak Island Mystery for ideas. Its a pretty interesting read too.

http://www.oakislandtreasure.co.uk/triangle.htm

 

[Hand of Evil]

Another thread by another name...

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=71716

 

[Privateer]

Isla Cascara (the Cracked Island), an island split in two by volcanic activities. Isla Cascara is inhabited by the Tortle, a slow but friendly race of turtle-men who are traditionally isolationists. In order to attain the treasure of the island, the players must defeat the Tortle's four (or however many characters there are) best warriors in unarmed combat- should be pretty easy, right? Wrong. These Tortles may be slow, but they've carried the ancient martial arts through the generations. But don't worry- in a subsequent pirate attack, the characters will earn the trust of these estranged warriors and earn the treasure... if they survive!

So you'll have your players fight "tortles" in unarmed combat... and they're master martial artists? If they're pre-adult post-child and exposed to dangerous amounts of unstable transmutation magic, you could get... Teenage Mutant Ninja Tortles!

Just exposing you to a possible and perhaps inevitable player joke.

Other than that, I like the idea, and be sure to look for inspiration from the Oddessy (Odessy... Oddesy... Od... er... you know what I'm getting at) and Sinbad.

 

[reapersaurus]

Sounds great - what's the chance of people getting to play in it for the NorCal GameDay?

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

Well, obviously you've got the most recent Dragon issue- why not make use of some of the other articles? You could have the castle of a powerful vampire (Strahd with a different name) on one mist-shrouded island. A desert island could be home to a powerful sha'ir, who keeps the treasue in a vault guarded by jinni and ancient curses. Another island could be a barren wasteland with the lost city of Cynidecea underneath... you get the idea.

There's also some modules that involve a little bit of island hopping- Penumbra's "Tide of Years" and "Maiden Voyage", or Monkey God's "Song of Storms". And possibly some of the Freeport stuff, but I'm not really familiar with those.

Sounds like a cool campaign- keep posting ideas, so I can steel them for use in the Red Steel game I'm planning.

 

[Breakstone]

Hey, great minds think alike!

All the ideas in this thread- the pirates, the other treasure maps, the use of the latest dragon... I've been thinking the same thing!

More specifically, I came up with a doosey of an idea in the EN World Chat Room recently:

The characters are given this "unique," ancient treasure map by an old, dying mentor. They travel around to these different islands, and all that, but mid-campaign they find another adventuring group with the same "unique" map. In fact, there's five or so groups all with the same "unique" map. It turns out that this old, dying mentor is a member of this Guild of Wizards who have discovered the secret to immortality and are now quite bored. So they devised this contest to see which adventuring group would survive to find the most treasure.

Almost like "Rat Race," in a way.

 

[rounser]

Nice idea. Actually, the Rat Race concept would probably fit D&D better than it did the movie - the sponsors could scry the contestants, and the contestants could fight/run away from/end off one another as they race for the prize. Competition can bring out the best efforts in people, D&D players included, so could be a fun adventure.

In fact, that gives me another idea: the Running Man concept done D&D. Maybe it would work especially well as a high level adventure, with all sorts of uberpowerful outsiders gating in to pursue them to the ends of the planes as they end up bounty hunted for their lives...

 

[FCWesel]

Also check out AEG's Swashbuckling Advanture's Book: Islands of Gold, it has 8 islands described out in some detail in addition to a map of islands you could easily drop anywhere you want them to be.