Undersea Adventures: Comments, Concerns, & Concepts

[Benthicus]

I meant that underwater environments seem limiting to those who haven't played in them. I think when you consider that your characters can (in effect) fly and travel at high speeds through currents, there are plenty of options.

I've always liked the idea of a deep-sea D&D game as well (although, sadly, I've never seen the Abyss). There are some great campaign ideas you could run with. A long hunt across the Abyssal plain, or a mass migration. Many of the deep-sea ecosystems are fragile, especially hydrothermal vents, so imagine what happens when an entire community based around black smokers suddenly collapses when the vents stop spewing. The players would have to lead their people (their blind, albino crab-people) across the plains from whale-carcass to whale-carcass, searching for the new promised land.

 

[Aeolius]

I've always liked the idea of a deep-sea D&D game as well...

You might enjoy:
Blue Planet - The Deep (iTunes)
Ghosts of the Abyss (iTunes)

In addition to anguillians, I placed deep sea water dwarves, a chemosynthetic red-skinned race that lives near black smokers and uses the vents as forges to make calciferous weapons and armor. They have recently begun to mine explosive crystals known as "frozen thunder" (methane hydrate).

 

[Benthicus]

I loved Blue Planet! Great inspiration for my underwater coral cities. And those hive-shrimp are definitely making it into my game in a giant form.

I bought The Deep over the summer, and it has probably been the most useful book I own for designing a believable underwater campaign setting. A lot of the stuff that people have brought up on this thread is covered in The Deep, including magic, equipment, armor, etc.

The book is also, unfortunately, missing a lot of material. I remember there was some talk on another forum about some errata for The Deep possibly existing. Has anyone found this? Has anyone ever had contact with the people from Mystic Eye Games? I just really want to know what a Giant Popping Shrimp is!!!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I confess I kept looking at- and passing over- Blue Planet. I may have to look at it again...

 

[Aeolius]

The book is also, unfortunately, missing a lot of material. I remember there was some talk on another forum about some errata for The Deep possibly existing. Has anyone found this? Has anyone ever had contact with the people from Mystic Eye Games? I just really want to know what a Giant Popping Shrimp is!!!

I was an uncredited consultant on MEG's The Deep (yeah, I know... go figure). Basically I looked at the material and made a few suggestions here and there. The book did ship with editing issues and unfortunately Mystic Eye closed their doors shortly thereafter. If you can track down Susannah Redelfs, she would know far more that I.

As for popping shrimp, that would most likely be either a pistol or mantis shrimp:

I confess I kept looking at- and passing over- Blue Planet. I may have to look at it again...

Discovery has the DVDs for $45 (Blue-ray on sale for $30)
iTunes has the series available for $15

 

[Benthicus]

I'm not sure how I'd ever track her down. Whenever I google her name I either get stuff that's tangentially related to The Deep, or some kind of New Age religion site. It doesn't really matter, I think the book is still pretty awesome as it is, just a bit messy.

Has anyone checked out Sunken Empires for Pathfinder? There's some great new aquatic monsters, and if you like the Aboleth (which I most certainly do) there's some cool stuff on glyph magic, and some variations on their basic design.

 

[kitsune9]

If your current DM approached you with the idea of starting a new campaign set primarily beneath the surface of the sea, what would be your first reaction? Suppose the “core races” were replaced with the likes of sea elves, locathah, and merfolk (or any race that that has a swim speed and the aquatic subtype). Would that be enough to alienate you?

I would have some reservations, but I'd say, "Go on...."

I set my games on Oerth, the world of Greyhawk. Prior knowledge of the campaign setting is not required. I also tend to scale back on the use of dragons, while overpopulating the world with hags. Again, this is simply my personal signature in my games. Is that the killing blow that distances potential players?

No problem with me there.

My games tend to be role-play heavy and combat light. Rolling lots of dice tends to break my “willing suspension of disbelief”. Spending hours speaking in character as a room full of NPCs is my bread and butter. Again, I know this does not appeal to everyone.

You lost me there. I'm a real 50/50 mix guy. I can't sit around for four hours and do nothing but talk or maybe only do one combat encounter out of eight hours of gaming. However, this is just me, so it's not a criticism on the play style because I know that there are many players who really love the roleplay aspect, hate combat or vice versa.


I do think it's cool that you have an entire campaign that's undersea. I think it would be interesting on the various themes and adventure ideas you came up with.

 

[El Mahdi]

... but none of that covers exactly what the proper "dress code" is for a benthic adventure.

I would think anything goes...except Speedo's.

 

[Aeolius]

I would think anything goes...except Speedo's.

a certain NWN ad that ran years ago in Maxim magazine comes to mind...

 

[lamia]

This thread is lovely. One of my players is a ranger with aquatic humanoid as her favored enemy (her backstory involves some mermaid mishaps). So even though I've never done any aquatic d and d, I felt it was my responsibility as a nice DM to give her an evil mermaid cult to fight. I've never played aquatic d and d, so I've been perusing Stormwrack for ideas. Just thought I would pop in and voice my appreciation for the inspiration! (And since more than half my players are female, perhaps Speedo is completely acceptable!)