Help Produce 40 Sea-Going Encounters!

[Chairman7w]

Hey guys,

I'm running a "Piratey" campaign (out of Freeport) and I have a pretty good line-up of advenutres set to take my guys all the way to 20th level and beyond.

What I DON'T have are good random Sea-Going Encounters. I've done the "Getting attacked by Pirates" thing, and I've done the "Attack the enemy country's ship" thing, and even a "Found a derelict ship with a Giant Squid on the bottom" thing.

I'm looking for more though. Please add any cool Sea Encounters to this thread.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Warehouse23]

* Drunken sailor found adrift in a longboat (ear-ly in the morning). Is he a mutineer? A pirate? A cast away noble?

* The PCs spot an island where none used to be (if they ply the same route regularly)

* St. Elmo's fire dancing in the rigging alarms the crew and threatens the welfare of the ship.

* Nervous islanders approach the ship--is this a chance to trade or a massacre in the making?

 

[Turanil]

-- Thick weed on a very large area (square miles). Once the ship is in it, she is extremely hindered (movement rate at a third of normal). Of course there are a colony of monsters in this weed.

-- Weresharks (back in the days of AD&D 1e, MMII).

-- Whales rendered mad and furious by some precedent encounter with some ship.

-- Undead from sunken ship deep below.

-- Some sea creature that make holes in the wood. They would sink the ship, and thus sailors must go down and fight them fast!

 

[DaveMage]

If you're running a sea-based campaign, then go out and get "Dead Man's Chest" from Necromancer Games. Lots of encounter goodness in there - and some very detailed weather charts that will spice things up...

 

[Mark]

I suggest picking up a copy of Monsters of the Boundless Blue: The Wanderers Guild Guide to Aquatic Organisms.

 

[philreed]

Slowly, as the sun climbs in the sky, the clouds part and the world takes on a greenish color. Several hours after dawn, as the sun nears the noon hour, when the sky is a deep green in color, the sea violently throws a column of water straight up into the sky. This column continues to shoot into the sky for almost an hour and then it ends abruptly. As the day wears on the clouds move back in and the sky returns to its normal color.

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

Don't Forget Mama Nature!

Hurricane or other Terrible Storm.

Rough Seas/Tidal Wave.

Waterspout (Tornadoe at Sea)

Plague Ship

Or something really bizarre like it starts raining Tunas & Swordfish. (That might kill the party though. A 1,000 lb fish to the head does a lot of damage. Like a giant boulder, only it smells worse (depending on where the giant stores his rocks), yet the party can eat that which killed you.


MMMMMmmmmm Tuna Steak.

 

[MojoGM]

How about coming across a ship taking on water, and the crew needs to abandon ship. Maybe it is hauling a precious cargo, which they need to get off the ship.

Perhaps the captain of the sinking ship sees an opportunity to "replace" his ship with the PC's ship, or one of the abandoning crewmen uses the confusion to take revenge on another crewman...

 

[Stormborn]

- An iceberg, caught in stray current and far off course. With one or more of the following: the nest of some artic beast, an ancient artifact visibly half-frozen in the ice, an unfortunate explorer.

- True Buccaneers - a group of outlaws in small canoes/rafts/skiffs that paddle out to the ship from a small island. During the day they come to trade, at night they come to raid the ship and possibly even take it.

- A floating city made up of derilict ships, inhabited or not you decide.

-An "island" of symbiotic plants floating on the sea, complete with an intelligent tribe.

-the remains of a great sea battle

-a raft of floating corpses.

-Sea Water Elementals

-An illegal smugglers "mall" - not uncommon off the cost of the North Atlantic durring Prohibition, alchol suppliers from other countries would meet smaller smuggling boats to sell their wares in international waters during the new moon each month.

-ghost ships or ghost sea serpents

-an area of volcanic activity

-floating seed pods that explod on contact with the ship, later the seeds imbeeded at the water line grow into plant mosters and attack the crew.

 

[jasper]

Jumping sharks.
sudden rainshower
dragon over head ignores the ship
sea elves
sea nymph
ship springs a leak
water barrel goes bad (why?)
sudden gale rips sail (hope you have spare)
good wind speed increase by a third
whale pod follows ship
dolphins follow ship