The New D&D Book Is Called "Ghosts of Saltmarsh" [UPDATED!]

It seems those who suggested that the upcoming 'nautical themed' book was based on the old Saltmarsh trilogy were correct. Ghosts of Saltmarsh is the new book, with a release date of May 21st, 2019. UPDATED WITH NEW INFORMATION ON ALT COVER & RELEASE DATES!

Explore the waves above and the fathoms below in these watery adventures for the world’s greatest roleplaying game.

“D&D acolytes are everywhere...Tech workers from Silicon Valley to Brooklyn have long-running campaigns, and the showrunners and the novelist behind ‘Game of Thrones’ have all been Dungeon Masters.”—Neima Jahromi, The New Yorker

Ghosts of Saltmarsh brings classic adventures into fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. This adventure book combines some of the most popular classic adventures from the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons including the classic “U” series, plus some of the best nautical adventures from the history of Dungeon Magazine: Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, Danger at Dunwater, Salvage Operation, Isle of the Abbey, The Final Enemy, Tammeraut’s Fate, The Styes.

• Ghosts of Salt Marsh includes a variety of seafaring adventures, enough to take characters from level 1 to level 12.

• This supplement introduces the port town of Saltmarsh, the perfect starting point for a nautical campaign.

• Each adventure can be played individually, inserted into your ongoing game or combined into a single epic nautical campaign.

• Dungeon Masters will find rules for ships and sea travel, deck plans for various vessels, an appendix with rules for new and classic monsters, and much more.

• Dungeons & Dragons is the world’s greatest roleplaying game. Created in 1974, D&D transformed gaming culture by blending traditional fantasy with miniatures and wargaming.

It's already on Amazon.

[video=youtube;GajoKmh9-68]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GajoKmh9-68[/video]

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Updates!

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WotC has just announced the book. Full press release below, but a couple of key points:

• There's an alternate cover (below)
• Preferred stores and regular stores get it on the same date, instead of WPN stores getting it early

Sail the Seas in Dungeons & Dragons with Ghosts of Saltmarsh Adventure Releasing Everywhere May 21

Renton, WA – February 25, 2019 – Dungeons & Dragons is excited to announce a new adventure book called Ghosts of Saltmarsh, which takes classic sea-faring adventures and updates and expands upon them for use with D&D fifth edition. The book details the port town of Saltmarsh and the surrounding lands players can explore using their own ship and the vehicle mechanics included in the 256-page book. Unravel sinister secrets of the sea with Ghosts of Saltmarsh releasing in game stores, digitally and everywhere on May 21, 2019. An alternate art cover with a distinctive design and soft-touch finish is available exclusively in game stores on May 21.

“The Saltmarsh series consistently ranks as one of the most popular classic D&D adventures,” said Mike Mearls, franchise creative director of D&D. “With its ties to ocean-based adventuring, it was an obvious step to augment it with additional sea-based adventures and a robust set of rules for managing a nautical campaign.”

The book includes details on the port town of Saltmarsh, as well as plenty of adventure hooks for each chapter. Fans can play through the whole story in a seafaring campaign leading characters from level 1 through level 12, while Dungeon Masters can easily pull out sections to place in ongoing campaigns in any setting. The appendices cover mechanics for ship-to-ship combat, new magic items, monsters and more!

Ghosts of Saltmarsh will be available both in game stores and everywhere else on the same date – May 21st. Fans are encouraged to pick up the adventure in the way that’s most convenient for them, but there is an alternate art soft-touch cover that will only be available in game stores. The alternate cover image was created by N. C. Winters and features a snarling sahuagin.

For more information on Ghosts of Saltmarsh and all things D&D, please go to dungeonsanddragons.com and check out the breadth of live D&D programming and interviews available on twitch.tv/dnd. You can also listen to interviews involving Ghosts of Saltmarsh as well as D&D mechanics and lore on Dragon Talk, the official D&D podcast.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh combines some of the most popular classic adventures from the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons including the classic ‘U’ series, plus some of the best nautical adventures from the history of DungeonMagazine:

• The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
• Danger at Dunwater
• The Final Enemy
• Salvage Operation
• Isle of the Abbey
• Tammeraut’s Fate
• The Styes

All adventures have been faithfully adapted to the fifth edition rules of Dungeons & Dragons. Furthermore, this book includes details on the port town of Saltmarsh, as well as plenty of adventure hooks for each chapter. Play through the whole story in a seafaring campaign leading characters from level 1 through level 12, or Dungeon Masters can easily pull out sections to place in ongoing campaigns in any setting. The appendices also cover mechanics for ship-to-ship combat, new magic items, monsters, and more!
[h=3]WHERE CAN I BUY IT?[/h]Unravel sinister secrets of the sea with Ghosts of Saltmarsh releasing in game stores, digitally and everywhere on May 21, 2019. An alternate art cover with a distinctive design and soft-touch finish is available exclusively in game stores on May 21.

Price:[FONT=&amp] $49.95 [/FONT]
Release Date: [FONT=&amp]21 May, 2019 [/FONT]
Format:[FONT=&amp] Hardcover

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[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I had been hoping that, in addition to material from Sea Devils, we would have gotten some of Stormwrack adapted.

I'd particularly hoped to have seen 5E updates of the darfellan and hadozee.

 

[CleverNickName]

I'll take your concern seriously when Greyhawk returns the Keep on the Borderlands and the Isle of Dread back to Mystara...

I would dearly love to see the Mystara B and X modules fully converted to 5E. Nostalgia alone would propel money out of my wallet at record speeds...

 

[R_Chance]

This will get my money. Not because I'm pining for old adventures but because of the nautical rules and any number of ideas / NPCs I can purloin as needed. I don't use published adventures. I do use some of them as reading material and inspiration. I skipped the Ravnica book (the setting had pretty much zero appeal for me) and the Eberron one (same reason). Now they get my money again

As for setting nostalgia... Greyhawk and the Realms are both broad generic settings into which you can drop adventures. I bought and read the Greyhawk folio version and original Forgotten Realms boxed set. They were OK. Neither lured me away from my own setting. I found Blackmoor more interesting (as depicted in Judges Guild "First Fantasy Campaign") and I absolutely love Tekumel (Empire of the Petal Throne). One for the look at the early game (pre-publication in 1974) and the other for a really unique setting. While I appreciate the attachment many have to their first experience / setting I tend to see it all as fuel for homebrew games... well, my homebrew game / setting anyway

 

[guachi]

If they do as poor a job on this as they did with Yawning Portal this is an easy pass.

I guess if you get this on sale it's still cheaper than buying a PDF of each of the adventures. But the Yawning Portal adaption was lazy and you didn't even get the pleasure of original font, art, and layout.

There was no "nostalgia" in any of the Yawning Portal adventures for me.

 

[MNblockhead]

Four Greyhawk modules, one Known World module, and two "any setting" modules.

Any chance this won't be shoehorned into the "Forgotten" Realms?

I'm guessing that, like Yawning Portal, there will be a call out with a snippet about the original module, and suggested locations for a number of campaign settings. They are meant to be dropped into whatever campaign you are paying: home brew, Forgotten Realm, or Grey Hawk. This is what I liked about Yawning Portal, if things got busy or if the party really threw me for a loop, I could easily pull out and run one of the adventures.

I'm glad that they are publishing another book with with this format rather than just large, big-story, 1-15 level adventures that requires months of play to finish.

The nautical rules are a nice addition. Mixing new rules like this with adventures that show them off is helpful to me. I already have some third-party nautical rules that I've been using in my campaigns, but I'm interested to compare the official rules.

 

[pukunui]

I’m pleased to see the town of Saltmarsh is going to be included in the book. I have fond memories of the version from 3.5e’s DMG 2.

It’s a shame they couldn’t squeeze in N4 - Treasure Hunt along with some rules for level 0 characters. That would’ve been cool.

Aren’t Isle of the Abbey and U1 - Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh both for levels 1-3, though? I wonder how they’re going to work that out. TftYP didn’t have any level range overlap.

Lastly, Mike Mearls wrote Salvage Operation. According to an old Twitter post of his, it was originally meant to be a Shadowrun adventure.

 

[Staffan]

Its still a greyhawk set. Its STILL the strong pattern of taking stuff from greyhawk to FR.

IT is VERY MUCH a greyhawk module

"VERY MUCH a greyhawk module"? What, pray tell, ties it so strongly to Greyhawk?

Here's the thing: for early D&D, settings weren't a thing. Greyhawk was just Gary Gygax's home campaign, and he used some material from it to flesh out AD&D. The setting wasn't even published until 1980.

Saltmarsh was clearly intended to be used in whatever setting the DM had made, with a location given if you were playing in Greyhawk. The DM was also meant to do a lot of the heavy lifting themself in actually setting up the town - there's about half a page of guidelines on what Saltmarsh should be like, but there are no maps or anything about the town itself.

Now, if this had been a module where, say, the Scarlet Brotherhood or the Circle of Eight or whatever other power groups there are in Greyhawk had been prominent, you would have had a leg to stand on, but if I can remove all the Greyhawk references from a book with five seconds and some white-out, it's not "VERY MUCH a greyhawk module".

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Maybe Saltmarsh are two different towns with the same name. For example Cordoba is a Spanish city in Spain, but there is other in Argentina and a third one in Mexico.

Or you could create a new story about Saltmarsh like a "hell mouth" linked to the demiplane of the dread, ghost ships, Disney's Davy Jones with cursed mutant sailors, red steel (from the savage coast in Mystara) and a cult of Lovecraftian deep-ones. Maybe red steel was used to create a demiplane but something went wrong and now this demiplane is linked to different worlds.

 

[Connorsrpg]

I had been hoping that, in addition to material from Sea Devils, we would have gotten some of Stormwrack adapted.

I'd particularly hoped to have seen 5E updates of the darfellan and hadozee.

This. When Wizards went to 'themed' books for 3E, those were the books I enjoyed the most. Especially these setting ones. It did not matter what cmapaign setting you were playing, if you were on the sea, then you took your copy of Stormwrack and the player options were cool.

I actually like this idea of another sea-themed book, with a mini-setting too Some player options would be a great addition.

And you just remminded me to add those 2 races to my extensive Realms' Races lists

 

[Hussar]

Thinking about it - this seems like the best way to do an "environmental" book. I loved reading the 3e Environmental books, but, at the end of the day, it was a lot of work to then turn around and take all the goodies in that book and apply it to whatever adventure I was running. Having a series of modules all based around using the nautical rules means I can get a LOT more use out of a book like this.

And, the fact that they are opening up Dungeon Magazine means that good grief, they have sooooo many modules to pull from. Creating more "themed" books would be an absolute snap. It's probably harder to figure out what not to include than anything else.

Sweet.