Is anybody else using Saltmarsh from DMGII in Eberron? - My players stay out.

[Rel]

Last night we began the next phase of my Eberron campaign as the party restarted in Xen'Drik (after an unfortunate TPK on the way to Xen'Drik that ultimately resulted in me losing most of my hair). I decided to use Saltmarsh as a base of operations for them and I made a few modifications to it in order to fit it in better with Eberron but I'm interested in hearing other ideas too.

A short list of the things I've modified so far is as follows:

1) The biggest is that Saltmarsh stared as a coastal outpost near a swamp where Dragonshards were found in sizable quantities (I placed it south and east of the northern peninsula on which Stormreach sits, near the mouth of one of rivers there). The place became a boom town because of this. But recently the Brellish Crown has been actively encouraging her citizens to emmigrate to Saltmarsh and they have effectively made the town a colony of Brelland. The Crown hopes that if the town continues to thrive and grow that it can serve as a base from which to annex even more of the lost continent.

2) A result of this growth and emmigration is that the ships bringing supplies to and from Saltmarsh are operating east of the traditional trade routes to Stormreach and avoiding the heavier concentration of Sahuagin in Shargon's Teeth. The Sahuagin are not happy about their "Toll Road" being bypassed and some tribes have begun attacks on vessels going to and from Saltmarsh. The biggest such attack had them attempt to sink a fully loaded ship right at the mouth of the harbor in such a way as to block other ships from entering and leaving. The captain of the ship managed to keep her afloat long enough not to block the harbor but died in the process. A "salvage company" of Warforged has sprung up to remove cargo from the sunken ship and other off-shore wrecks.

3) The nature of the relationship with the Lizard Men of the marsh is somewhat different. I have the town offering a bounty on their heads because the Lizard Men have been attacking parties of Dragonshard Hunters who have infringed on their lands. There is now open hostility between the Lizardfolk and Saltmarsh and the PC's in my game intend to go bounty hunting as their first order of business (this is a rather shady group of PC's and they see nothing wrong with profiting from hunting the natives).

4) I've replaced the Temple of Farlanghan with a Temple to Kol Korran and changed it from a cheap hostel to a full service luxury hotel for visiting merchants. I haven't gotten around to changing the deities of the other temples yet but they'll all be switched as needed.

5) The School of Blades is run by House Deneith and the primary instructor there is a veteran of the Last War, still haunted by memories of that conflict. He often goes into the swamps to kill Lizardfolk when he feels he must vent his anger and self loathing over losing most of his men in the final days of the war. He secretly hopes that he'll eventually be killed and end his misery that way.

That's about all I've got so far. Most of the modifications above were made on the fly during last night's session that I was uncharacteristically underprepared for. I'm most interested to hear any other suggestions you guys might have for modifying this interesting town to better fit Eberron and Xen'Drik in particular.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I plan to use Saltmarsh in my next campaign, simply because I loathe coming up with city maps and naming all the NPCs.

However, I do find it odd that a town the size of Saltmarsh can support so many groups. An assassin's guild? How often do they assassinate people? A freak show? Wouldn't everyone in town have seen the exhibits by now? A fighting school? But I thought this was a rustic frontier town, not a cosmopolitan city?

I'm willing to overlook these sorts of thing in the name of ease of use. But I dread having to answer persistent player questions of the sort I posed above.

 

[Rel]

However, I do find it odd that a town the size of Saltmarsh can support so many groups. An assassin's guild? How often do they assassinate people? A freak show? Wouldn't everyone in town have seen the exhibits by now? A fighting school? But I thought this was a rustic frontier town, not a cosmopolitan city?

I'm willing to overlook these sorts of thing in the name of ease of use. But I dread having to answer persistent player questions of the sort I posed above.

I think these are valid concerns and I intend to address some of them in my version of the town. But some are taken care of by the nature of where I've placed it.

The School of Blades I've rationalized as being where mercenary fighters can be consistantly hired by those wishing to venture into the marshes looking for Dragonshards. In a place like this, located next to a dangerous place with a valuable treasure, I'd expect for there to be a ready supply of sellswords and someone to train them.

I intend to tone down the "Freak Show" into more of an oddity/antiquity collector who gives newcomers a taste of the exotic things that Xen'Drik has to offer. And since my version includes a near constant influx of new citizens it makes sense that there would be at least a couple new customers a day.

The Assassins guild thing is something that I'll probably ditch in favor of one or two individuals who are willing to do some dirty work for a fee. Aside from that, the biggest change I'm making is to some of the building descriptions. These places are a bit too ostentatious for my "hastily erected coastal boom town" model. I have let the Town Hall be an impressive edifice since Brelland wants new citizens to feel secure, important and wanted in the colony. Aside from that I might have one or two other grandiose buildings being constructed.

I'll share one funny story from the party's first night in town:

The group consists of an odd assortment including an Elf, a Bugbear, a Hobgoblin, a Shifter and a Gnome. Except for the Gnome Sorcerer, the highest Charisma in the party is an 8. They walk into the bar and look around. The bartender offers them the "House Specialty" drink: The Drunken Urchin. (for those of you not so familiar with Saltmarsh, this is a glass of cheap wine with a live sea urchin in it that forces the person who drinks this foul concoction to make a DC22 Fort save or basically be nauseated and vomiting for several rounds)

The entire party bellies up to the bar and says they'll take a round of Drunken Urchins. The Elf, Bugbear and Shifter fail their Fort saves while the Hobgoblin makes his and the Gnome successfully Bluff/Slight of Hand tosses his drink on the floor and pretends to drink it. The Bugbear decides he isn't happy about this trick and Intimidates the bartender (I'm smelling a brawl coming any second). The roll is credible but not amazing so the bartender tells him to settle down and offers him another drink. Then the Elf decides he's going to do the Intimidate trick too.

He fails badly and the bartender orders him out of the bar. Sensing the mood souring, the Gnome breaks the tension by taking bets on whether the Hobgoblin can down ANOTHER Drunken Urchin. Bets are placed and he guzzles down another as everyone looks on in silence. His Fort save is a 21 but he spends an ACTION POINT to boost it and makes the save again. The crowd cheers and the Hobgoblin's drinks are on the house for the rest of the night and has become a sort of local hero within the bar.

Seeing this from outside the doorway, the Elf decides that he'll get back in everyone's good graces by drinking a TRIPLE Drunken Urchin. The Gnome brokers this deal with the bartender that if the Elf drinks the drink he can come back in the bar with everyone else. The bartender agrees and serves up a glass with THREE urchins in it (I upped the DC by 3 on the Fort save). The Elf guzzles it down and rolls a...2.

I describe him as tipping the glass back and never stopping until his head hit the floor. He fainted dead away from the foul concoction. Furthermore, one of the urchins was now stuck in his cheek/nose area. The bouncers sat his unconscious body on the bar and the bartender served drinks across him for the rest of the night. After sleeping and vomiting for most of the following day, the Elf was fine.

Both he and the Hobgoblin are now nearly legendary in the Drunken Urchin and made a valuable contact with the owner as a result. I gave the group as much XP for this encounter as they got for fighting the Sahuagin earlier in the session!

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I'm willing to overlook these sorts of thing in the name of ease of use. But I dread having to answer persistent player questions of the sort I posed above.

These might make more sense if this was a boomtown. Maybe Saltmarsh is near something snazzy that everyone wants to go to. So Saltmarsh becomes a gateway town. The population is generally low, but they get a ton of transients.

 

[Rel]

These might make more sense if this was a boomtown. Maybe Saltmarsh is near something snazzy that everyone wants to go to. So Saltmarsh becomes a gateway town. The population is generally low, but they get a ton of transients.

I definately agree. My version of Saltmarsh is rapidly growing and a bit more lawless than presented in the book. Which suits my current batch of PC's fine!

 

[Rel]

Anybody else?

 

[Digital Archon]

I was actually thinking of running U1-3 with the Saltmarsh information in the DMG 2. Of course, converting it over to Eberron.

 

[Rel]

I was actually thinking of running U1-3 with the Saltmarsh information in the DMG 2. Of course, converting it over to Eberron.

Well then you have arrived in the proper thread. Feel free to adopt any of the above ideas and submit any you come up with as well.

I'm going to be using this town as a setting for the foreseeable future of my campaign so if anything comes to mind, even weeks down the road, feel free to post them.

 

[James Jacobs]

This thread's great! It's cool to see how people are adapting Saltmarsh to their games. Yay!

As for the number of different locations in the town; Saltmarsh is certainly a booming community. It's located on the fringe of civilization, and has a lot of money flowing into it (as well as a lot of visitors). The primary reason? It's situated near several areas that are ripe for adventuring opportunity, so lots of low-level adventurers are drawn to the place. They go out into the woods or swamp or whatever and come back with lots of money and Saltmarsh is the closest place to spend that money.

Given a few months or a year, I could see it making the jump in population up to Small City.