Pirate/Nautical-themed encounters

[Elephant]

I'm planning a pirate-themed campaign, so I started brainstorming possible shipboard encounters. Some of these are Eberron-specific, but most are general enough to apply to any setting.

1. Another ship passes within hailing distance:
-- Lyrander magic ship
-- Lyrander sailing ship
-- merchant (rich/middle/poor)
-- smuggler
-- pirates
-- naval warship
-- naval courier
-- derelict

2. Dragon flies overhead
-- indifferent
-- hungry/bored/destructive
-- curious

3. Lyrander Airship flies overhead

4. Sea monster attacks (many types possible)

5. Sea creatures parley (tritons, merfolk, etc)

6. Weather
-- fair
-- light rain
-- big storm
-- whirlpool
-- heavy fog
-- Other? A weather chart would be nice (Stormwrack or other supplements could help)

7. Onboard RP encounter
-- two crew get in a fight
-- unpopular mutiny plot (<5 crew)
-- popular mutiny plot (at least half the crew)
-- a crewman catches a really big fish
-- man overboard
-- fire breaks out
-- a crewman disrespects the captain (or a PC!)
-- Drunk (or lazy) crewman causes damage to ship (drops a rope, leading to a spar being snapped or a sail to be shredded, etc).

Can anyone think of anything to add to this? Obviously some of the items above could use tables (especially sea monster attacks), but I haven't gotten that far yet.

 

[roguerouge]

Undiscovered island

Constrained quarters produces love relationship
Or: Crew has taboo against women (or men) on board
Or both

Ghost ship

Food runs low, rationing required

Gambling amongst crew leads to tensions

Sunken Treasure to be found with this cool map!

Escort merchantman vessel on journey

Take on passengers for the gold, get plot hooks for free

Stowaways!

Some idiot shoots the albatross

Ships is becalmed

 

[Ze]

An idea I am considering in my campaign is having the PCs running into an uncharted shoal (or even running aground on it). The shoal turns out to be an unknown sunken city that has recently come to the surface - for whatever reason is fine with your plot.

In my campaign, what is slowly rising to the surface of the sea is a semi-sentient tower, so ancient to be "of a previous era". It was built by the advanced civilization which then degenerated into the Locathah. Underwater, unbeknownst to the most part of Faerun, the tower has long been worshipped by Scrags.
The "sunken tower" thing was inspired by some old thread on these boards, but unfortunately I can't find it at the moment.
Got it! It was by Eric himself. Lots of good stuff in that thread!

 

[Silver Moon]

Dungeon Magazine did a series of modules from issues #138 to 150 with a Pirate theme. One issues had a great map of the coastal pirate town.

 

[Silver Moon]

I'm in the process of a Pirate themed game. My suggestion is to pick up a couple of packs* of the Pirates PocketModel game to have some nice 3D ship miniatures for use in your game.




*Just a few though, otherwise this form of 'plastic crack' becomes addictive.

 

[Elephant]

Dungeon Magazine did a series of modules from issues #138 to 150 with a Pirate theme. One issues had a great map of the coastal pirate town.

Savage Tides? I have those magazines. Sadly, I can't simply run the AP because one of my players went through it with another gaming group.

 

[jdrakeh]

Bob Liddil's new book The 30-Sided Fantasy and Other Tales reveals quite a bit more about the nautical aspects of his own somewhat disjointed fantasy world (it has never had a proper setting sourcebook).

Basically, werewolves (referred to as "Nauticals" in his world) are the only beings who can journey more than a mile from the shoreline upon the open sea due to an ancient curse that aflicts all men and notmen.

Conversely, Nauticals can only journey a mile inland before the same curse compels them to seek out the ancient wizard who created them and serve his evil will. It's a neat idea, I think and certainly pretty original.

The new books is largely dedicated to fiction and random tables (Mr. Liddil wrote the old books d30 books for the Armory) that detail the coastal domain of the Nauticals, a Voodoo-inspired notorious isle, and several other pirate-y locales.

Here's a Link

I order my copy through Noble Knight Games, however (I was unaware, at the time, that Mr. Liddil was selling copies via his own storefront).