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BRC
2009-09-07, 01:00 AM
So, I showed up at college a few days ago, and tonight ran into some people interested in playing some DnD. I volunteered to DM, and as we were discussing various campaign ideas the idea of a nautical campaign came up and received a positive response. What I have now is this
The Setting: The world was recently flooded by some method, so there are lots of now-underwater cities and towns and castles for me to explore and fill with nifty things. Salvaging treasures from these places is a profitable, if risky, buisness.

The Campaign: The PC's get their hands on what appears at first glance to be a junker of a ship, but which they soon learn is actually a sentient artifact of incredible power, or would be. Though the hull itself is origional, pretty much everything else has been replaced with mundane materials, depriving the ship of much of it's power. As they gather the various pieces of the ship, they unlock more nifty abilities the ship has.

I'm looking for suggestions, both for adventure ideas in this setting, details for the setting, and for the things various ship pieces can do. I have Stormwrack, so I could just take the pieces from the magic items in that book, but I'd prefer to get a bit more creative.

Edit: Update, I have abandoned the flood idea in favor of a massive earthquake that shattered and sunk a good portion of one continent, and I don't think I'm going to do the Boat thing.

vicente408
2009-09-07, 01:16 AM
LoZ: Windwaker the campaign?

Watch out for the helicopter-duck-sharks! :smalleek:

Myshlaevsky
2009-09-07, 01:30 AM
I and some collaborators were recently working on a setting that contained Moby **** as a deity. We had a world-flooding event that occurred when the chief (humanoid) god created Leviathan, a huge marine serpent that preceded to devour the rest of the humanoid pantheon. Our gods were all vaguely antagonist totemic animals; we split the races and the gods up into air-based (good), water-based (neutral) and land-based (evil). The cataclysmic event in our setting was in the long-distant past, however.

I could type up the details here if you're interested or send them to you if you want. Some ideas I particularly liked were seagull-like harpy scavengers, humanoid Orca inevitables (the Orca god was the god of balance and division, for obvious reasons) and the association of mist, fog and steam with the undead. The latter came about because we had volcano-worshipping dwarves who gave mass sacrifices to the volcanoes to cause them to erupt, producing more land and eating up the sea. The steam produced contained the released souls of hundreds of sacrificial spirits. It was a short step from that to all meetings of land, air and water having a connection with ghosts.

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-07, 01:33 AM
LoZ: Windwaker the campaign?

Watch out for the helicopter-duck-sharks! :smalleek:

I hated those things almost as much as the Goddamned Sharks. But everything is much worse with Sharks anyway.

Glad I'm not the only one who thought "Windwaker?" at this thread. The party's boat should be a stealth shout-out to the King of Red Lions.

BRC
2009-09-07, 01:57 AM
I and some collaborators were recently working on a setting that contained Moby **** as a deity. We had a world-flooding event that occurred when the chief (humanoid) god created Leviathan, a huge marine serpent that preceded to devour the rest of the humanoid pantheon. Our gods were all vaguely antagonist totemic animals; we split the races and the gods up into air-based (good), water-based (neutral) and land-based (evil). The cataclysmic event in our setting was in the long-distant past, however.

I could type up the details here if you're interested or send them to you if you want. Some ideas I particularly liked were seagull-like harpy scavengers, humanoid Orca inevitables (the Orca god was the god of balance and division, for obvious reasons) and the association of mist, fog and steam with the undead. The latter came about because we had volcano-worshipping dwarves who gave mass sacrifices to the volcanoes to cause them to erupt, producing more land and eating up the sea. The steam produced contained the released souls of hundreds of sacrificial spirits. It was a short step from that to all meetings of land, air and water having a connection with ghosts.
I am intrigued by this and wish to learn more.

Myshlaevsky
2009-09-07, 02:28 AM
I am intrigued by this and wish to learn more.

You have no contact details so I'll type it up and post in this thread later. There's not loads and it's pretty limited in scope, because it came about when me and a couple of other people starting talking about statting Ahab out in D&D on a livestream channel. From there we talked a couple of times about the setting. It's just some conceptual stuff really.

bosssmiley
2009-09-07, 11:10 AM
The Campaign: The PC's get their hands on what appears at first glance to be a junker of a ship, but which they soon learn is actually a sentient artefact of incredible power, or would be. Though the hull itself is original, pretty much everything else has been replaced with mundane materials, depriving the ship of much of it's power. As they gather the various pieces of the ship, they unlock more nifty abilities the ship has.

"Voyage of the Princess Ark" - wizard explorer accidentally imbues his flying ship with sentience and the soul of an elemental lion-dragon. Hilarity ensues when he has to finish the imbuing process during the run-up to a world war.

(also, Star Trek and Muskahounds pastiches, mockery of the French, and flying Prussian clerics mit warbirds. Then there were the Skeksis Nagpas, shadow dragon and Aranea recurring villains, the Hollow World, giant arctic sloths, atmospheric anomalies that spit you out into space, lion-chariots, a Thundercat-samurai infested second (invisible) moon, mystic turtle men, the villainous Master of Hule (Chosen of Loki) and his nomad legions, swashbuckling drug addicts with mutations, lemur-people, oh and Orcish war canoes.

"You think you know gonzo? You can't handle the gonzo!")

Pika...
2009-09-07, 11:19 AM
Perhaps the surface races have developed some very basic breathing apparatuses for breathing under water?

Perhaps the old-fashioned pair of people pumping on the surface mask, and maybe for the more advance dwarves/elves tanks?


As for why it happened, perhaps a BBEG managed to succeed and slay the adventuring party for once, and managed to make a nice big gateway to the Elemental Plane of Water?

That, or just threw a decanter of endless water into the ocean. >.>

Cieyrin
2009-09-07, 11:54 AM
That, or just threw a decanter of endless water into the ocean. >.>

Portals to the Elemental Plane of Water are fairly common in the deep oceans and they have yet to flood your average campaign world, so I doubt a Decanter of Endless Water would produce enough water to raise sea level significantly, even on Geyser mode. It would probably get crushed by the pressure eventually, as well, giving it a limited lifetime to flood a world.

For a cataclysmic flooding of the world, you'd need some kind of planar intersection with the Elemental Plane of Water to get that much water to raise the local sea level. Either that or take a page from Tales of Legendia, where the ancient civilization nuked the sole continent of the world and took out half of the land mass. Epic spell, indeed <_<;;.

Armoury99
2009-09-07, 04:39 PM
Voyage of the Princess Ark

Ah, nostalgia. Now I have to dig out all my dragons... and wasn't there a box set? I remember the Star Trek 'homages' being a little too blatant but otherwise this would be a fun resource, especially if the ships big enough to have an actual crew other than the PCs.

Anchors away, Captain Haldemar!

BRC
2009-09-07, 04:51 PM
I had a meeting with the players today to hash out a little more of the setting. Currently, all I really have are three factions, each designed to give a different style of gameplay. I also gave my PC’s the option to be unaligned, but they chose the Black Ravens.
The Meridas Empire: Dwarves and humans, mountain-based before the Flood, meaning they kept most of their power and lands intact. Have recently begun serious nautical expansions with a newly built fleet of Ironclads, has generally higher tech-level and a general steampunk/Napoleonic era feel.
League of Free Cities: Most of the cities banded together to fight the Empire. Their combined navy is much larger and more skilled than the Imperials, but they're not as well organized. Each city is really out for itself, and old rivalries remain, crippling the war effort.
Finally the Black Raven Buccaneers: A loose alliance of Pirates, the agreement is that nobody that flies a Black Raven flag will attack another, and that they all play more-or-less fair with one another. (They aren’t expected to actually help each other, but they agree not to hinder the efforts of fellow Black Ravens), as well as to honor certain alliances between the organization and some other groups. Breaking the charter causes you to get kicked out of the Black Raven, and fortune seems to befall any crew that seeks to fly the flag without following the charter. The fact that the organizations leader, the legendary Black Raven himself, has not been seen for some time, only communicating through the captains he puts in charge of the hidden shipyards and smugglers coves, only makes sailors more afraid to break the charter. In addition, Black Raven himself is a friend of many aquatic and small-island communities, all of which the Buccaneers are forbidden to attack, but are free to trade and make deals with.

Currently I have three players, two of which have character concepts, an Aquatic Elf druid and a Hadooze Rogue.

Edit: as for the flood itself, I realized that would mean I would lose the opporotunity to use any classic natuical areas (Tropical islands and such), so instead I'm thinking there was a massive earthquake or somthing that lowered and flooded a good deal of land.

FoE
2009-09-07, 06:40 PM
Edit: as for the flood itself, I realized that would mean I would lose the opporotunity to use any classic natuical areas (Tropical islands and such), so instead I'm thinking there was a massive earthquake or somthing that lowered and flooded a good deal of land.

Not necessarily. I mean, with a realistic flood, sure, but what if you could raise islands by magic?

Maybe you could have islands "raised" by the magic of the gods, or even an order of mages dedicated to "restoring the land" by raising portions of it from the sea floor.

Perhaps you could even have small colonies in thrall to some powerful magician or deity who have no choice but to follow his commands or he sinks their land.

I'm going to suggest Dagon and possibly Demogorgon as villains in the campaign.

Fizban
2009-09-07, 07:29 PM
I actually thought of Magic: The Gathering first, specifically the Weatherlight. For those who don't know, the book series focused on Gerrard and his crew of the airship Weatherlight for a good while. It was made of living wood and metal and had huge lazor cannons up and down it's length. As they adventured about, they found various pieces of something called the "legacy" which upgraded the ship until they got the last one and the whole thing was overhauled into a sleeker more efficient design with direct interface link for their golem member. Oh, and the ship was sentient the whole time, and frequently played host to a plant sorcerer guy that would merge with the wood and repair it during combat.

Cieyrin
2009-09-07, 08:07 PM
I actually thought of THE Spelljammer, which is semi-detailed in the Cloakmaster cycle. The first few books were okay but it just got bad when the new authors hadn't read the earlier books or anything about the Spelljammer setting and just threw together whatever they felt like. Why TSR paid for that tripe, I'll never know.:smallsigh:

The Poet
2009-09-07, 09:23 PM
For the islands, have you considered the stereotypical giant floating (insert animal) with stuff growing on them? this could involve the PCs trying to wake it up to destroy everything on it or trying to prevent it and also allow for mobility (and so on and so forth, its amazing what you can do with a giant floating living island). make sure you do cool stuff with the thermocline and volcanic vents and stuff for your underwater combat.

Cieyrin
2009-09-07, 10:09 PM
For the islands, have you considered the stereotypical giant floating (insert animal) with stuff growing on them? this could involve the PCs trying to wake it up to destroy everything on it or trying to prevent it and also allow for mobility (and so on and so forth, its amazing what you can do with a giant floating living island). make sure you do cool stuff with the thermocline and volcanic vents and stuff for your underwater combat.

A Zaratan, y'mean? Those are pretty awesome and I heartily agree with including them. A nation that is built on a bunch of Zaratans would be pretty awesome in sheer mobility and defensive and offensive capabilities.

OrangeQuarter
2009-09-07, 11:14 PM
You could always go Waterworld, too. Have quite of the towns visited be huge, ancient 'arks', built during the flood by cities of villages to escape imminent doom. Or, alternatively, huge flotilla's of ships roped together into a huge, floating city. Would work just fine in calm waters. So, yeah. Large, wooden or metal 'townships'. Could be interesting.

And I do love the idea of islands controlled by the Mages who raised them. Would make for some interesting scenarios. Say, the PC's are offer quite of money to kill a man, not knowing that he was infact the controller of come islands. Would they kill him anyway, and kill hundreds of people when their island sinks? Or let him leave, and be pursued for not finishing the job. Could be fun.

BRC
2009-09-08, 10:57 AM
On the subject of mage-islands, it could be that several of them form the core of the League of Free cities. Because alot of the sunken lands arn't that far underwater, a decent number of casters with Move Earth or Wall of Stone could raise islands without epic magic. Maybe the League can deploy Caster-equipped "Spellships", which they use to counter the Imperial Ironclads.
Edit: Hrmm, Steam-powered Ironclads squaring off against Themiurges with wizards standing on decks throwing fireballs. Pretty cool mental image.

Fizban
2009-09-09, 06:49 PM
On the subject of mage-islands, it could be that several of them form the core of the League of Free cities. Because alot of the sunken lands arn't that far underwater, a decent number of casters with Move Earth or Wall of Stone could raise islands without epic magic. Maybe the League can deploy Caster-equipped "Spellships", which they use to counter the Imperial Ironclads.
Edit: Hrmm, Steam-powered Ironclads squaring off against Themiurges with wizards standing on decks throwing fireballs. Pretty cool mental image.

Bombards vs. Lightning Ballistae? Cool, but sadly iron plating beats low level casting. It'd be much easier to sink them with weather hazards since they take such a high penalty to shiphandling checks.

How about combining the Zaratans and the caster's raising islands? Zaratans are in the Arms and Equipment Guide as 80'x100' colossal magical beasts with 38 HD. One half of 38 is 19, which is quite within the range for a Simulacrum. Cities built on magically conjured Zaratans sounds good.

shadzar
2009-09-09, 06:53 PM
If you don't like anime influence, then stop reading this post now....

http://onepiece.wikia.com/wiki/Thousand_Sunny

this is the ship for the Straw Hat Pirates in One Piece. It is equipped with many normal types of things for a semi-non-magical/non-futuristic/industrial world, and may provide ideas of some things your K.I.T.T. junk might have when fully refurbished.

BRC
2009-09-09, 07:40 PM
Bombards vs. Lightning Ballistae? Cool, but sadly iron plating beats low level casting. It'd be much easier to sink them with weather hazards since they take such a high penalty to shiphandling checks.

How about combining the Zaratans and the caster's raising islands? Zaratans are in the Arms and Equipment Guide as 80'x100' colossal magical beasts with 38 HD. One half of 38 is 19, which is quite within the range for a Simulacrum. Cities built on magically conjured Zaratans sounds good.
Remember that the guys with the Ironclads don't exclusivly use Ironclads, just like the League of Free Cities dosn't exclusively use mageships. However, the guys with the Ironclads, the imperials, tend to be sucky sailors compared to the League. So it probably is standard League strategy to get a scroll of Control Weather or somthing to whip up a storm and sink the enemy fleet, trusting their superior ships (for sailing, not combat) and sailors to pull them through.

Altima
2009-09-09, 07:50 PM
Well, ideally, the only surviving pieces of land would be the really large mountainous types. Which means that goblinoids now control most of the world's land!

In most types of fantasy and mythology, sea deities are quite fickle to downright bastards. They expect to be feared, instead of love, and they expect plenty of sacrifices and worship. And they generally have no compunction about destroying a ship or coastal city to prove a point. Navigation gods tend to be good or neutral, though.

For the setting, start with the basics.

Where do people live? On the few reservations of land? On floating islands? Earth motes?

How do people eat and drink? Humans, at least, can't survive on salt water, so where do the massive quantities of needed water come from? Is there a creature that naturally desalinates salt water, perhaps?

As for food, fishing and kelp can form the bulk of a diet, but other nutrients and vitamins are needed, or else you start getting things like scurvey.

Where do building materials come from? In a flooded world, most of the trees are gone. Those that survive are probably prohibitively expensive, or outright illegal to possess outside of whatever passes for the government.

Other things to consider are how the races themselves have been affected by this upheavel. Where are the gnomes who are typically more technologically innovative than either dwarves or humans? The halflings, who traditionally live in large tracts of farmland? Were the wiped out? Turned to refugees? The elves? Were they able to protect their lands with magic?

What about the traditionally aquatic races? How have they reacted to suddenly finding huge amounts of resources in their lands? Plenty of aquatic races, especially sahuagins, are extremely predatory and militaristic. Sahuagins, in fact, believe that the world belongs to them, and may see the sinking of lands as a sign from their devil-god that it's time to start the reaping.

How do the druids react? Do they view the world flooding as a part of nature, or an unnatural cataclysm? How are they dealing with it? Do they have any wildlife preserves?

How are population levels maintained? In a flooded world, there are a finite number of resources. Overbreeding (looking at you, you pesky goblinoid humans) will result in starvation and vast amounts of death.

Adventure Ideas:

The players are part of an expedition to take a goblin island.

The players stumble across a Sahuagin warband that has formed/is forming to raid, pillage, and wipe out vast amount of refugees.

One of the Free Cities has discovered a vast deposit of X underwater food, and start consuming it at an alarming rate, which causes their population to boom and consume it even faster. However, said underwater tract of land is actually a farm for a city nation of aquatic elves, who nomadically farm in order to allow the resources to grow back. Now they've returned to find it being drained, and they prepare for war to prevent their own nation from starvation.

NorseItalian
2009-09-09, 08:06 PM
Just convert "Waterworld" to D&D style: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterworld

BRC
2009-09-09, 08:14 PM
Okay, the world setup will be somthing like this.

Before, there were two continents with a smattering of tropical islands in between. A massive Earthquake occured in one of the continents, flooding most of it, leaving some higher-altitude areas as islands. The kingdom of Marinas was on the far side of the continent when the quake struck, and so survived relatively unscathed, so while everybody else was still grappling with the whole "Holy ****, we're all underwater now", they only had to deal with most of their buildings being knocked down. Some of the central islands got swamped by the inevitable tidal wave, but most managed to survive.
Marinas, being the main surviving land-power, took control of most of the remaining major land masses in the Shattered Continent. The cities that remained above-water rebuilt as best they could and became the League of free Cities, most of the Wizards simply found sunken cities and raised them from the sea, creating the mage-islands. Currently, the main conflict is in the Shattered Continent, with the Empire, which having captured the larger landmasses, is moving on to smaller islands where their skilled armies don't have much to do, but their navies, which previously had little to do besides ferry troops, suddenly finds itself in pitched battles with the skilled sailors of the League of Free Cities who have spent the time the empire was using to fight land battles figuring out how to sail and build ships.

By the way, the Quake happened about a hundred and fifty years ago, so society has more or less stabilized. Alot of things are still fairly roughshod, but it's not like everybody is completely focused on rebuilding. Now that the whole food/shelter/society problem has been thoroughly solved, people are starting to focus on salvage.

llamamushroom
2009-09-09, 08:21 PM
So you're leaving the other continent open for exploration? Sounds pretty cool. I envy your players.

BRC
2009-09-09, 08:24 PM
So you're leaving the other continent open for exploration? Sounds pretty cool. I envy your players.
I'm going to do things with the other continent, It will probably have a more middle-eastern/oriental feel, it probably had to deal with an influx of refugees when the quake first hit, and right now dosn't feel like getting involved in the Shattered continent. Traders and merchants are probably prominent in the central islands, and both the League and the Empire may employ "Continental" Mercenaries.

Myshlaevsky
2009-09-09, 11:30 PM
I've not been up to posting anything lengthy due to sickness and getting ready for a move, but as it turns out we used in our setting have been suggested here anyway in slightly different form. The giant animals, ship-cities, organisms that purify salt, etc. were all there. If I perk up or get some more free time in the next few days I'll post here despite that, though it seems like your setting has solidified quite a bit now. I'm sure our take on these things probably doesn't fit with yours anymore. Our dwarves used giant biomechanical monstrosities to get about the ocean, for one.

An idea I meant to mention in the first post I made was the fey in our world. I suggested a flying insectoid race for one of our 'air' races but the other guys collaborating didn't really go for that. What they did like was the idea that the fey and fairies in the setting take on an insectoid form - different races associated with different tropical island insects or insects type. Most would be small, some would be very large. They would retain their capricious, individualistic nature but one personality would be shared between many fey in a hivemind type set-up.

BRC
2009-09-10, 10:38 AM
An Idea, to flesh out the central island a little more
Shamans: Powerful spell casters who live on Zaratans, traveling the central islands lending aid to the various villages they find. The duties of a shaman are to “Ensure balance and tranquility”, however, different Shamans have different opinions on how to do that. The presence of non-islanders, especially those from the Central continent, is a major point of contention amongst the Shamans. Some use their position to encourage trade and peaceful relations, others take it upon themselves to wipe out the “interlopers”, and anybody who works with them. A shaman usually goes around with a group of Apprentices or Disciples. Though most Shamen and apprentices are Bards, Druids or Clerics, their disciples may be Fighters, Rangers, Barbarians, or Warlocks. If there is some major threat, one or more Shamans may go around to villages and call a warband. These warbands consist of everything from humanoid villagers to Fey and elementals called by the Shaman, to bands of Giants, schools of sharks or pods of whales.
Though technically, no village “Belongs” to any shaman, oftentimes a shaman will “claim” a village by assigning one of their apprentices to stay there permanently, becoming a priest and caring for it’s people and keeping things calm. Some villages have Priests, who follow the ways of the spirits, but only the powerful priests who wander the sea on Zaratans get the title “Shaman”.
Every so often all the wandering shamans in the central sea will meet at one location, a mysterious island generally referred to as “The Mother of Islands”. Only the Shamans know how to get there, when a meeting is, and what happens there.

Callos_DeTerran
2009-09-10, 11:34 AM
You can actually take it further then just living on top of the water, there are very many big airborne creatures that could conceivable hold small villages or something of the like upon it's back. Soarwhales, Cloud Rays, etc.

The benefit of all of those? They get you up and away from the oceans MANY predators that's look at a giant sea turtle (Leviathans, megalodons, siege crabs, possibly krakens, etc.) as prey to be eaten. Even if your playing up the people vs. people aspect, never neglect the HUGE sea monster type encounters. Remember, there is always a bigger fish in the ocean and in a world-spanning ocean there can be some very big fish.

I also agree with someone above, Demogorgon and/or Dagon make excellent sources for this catastrophe.

Tiki Snakes
2009-09-10, 11:40 AM
Without having had time to properly read the thread, I just want to say that the threads title made me think of the Robin Hobb trilogy, "The Liveship Traders".

Amongst other things, it partly focused on the Liveships, which were made from a mysterious, magical or pseudomagical wood. They were, literally alive, with the Figureheads being essentially people(though their awareness did kind of stretch throughout the rest of their 'body', the figurehead was the bit that saw and spoke).

They had personalities that varied depending on the ship, the crew, and how they were treated and what they were used for. The second book delves quite deeply into the story of 'The Mad Ship', who repeatedly drowned his own crew and is, at the start of the first, a stranded partial wreck at the outskirts of the protagonists town.

Interesting stuff all round, basically, especially when factoring in the eventual revealing and answering of the various secrets of the Liveships...

BRC
2009-09-10, 12:43 PM
You can actually take it further then just living on top of the water, there are very many big airborne creatures that could conceivable hold small villages or something of the like upon it's back. Soarwhales, Cloud Rays, etc.

The benefit of all of those? They get you up and away from the oceans MANY predators that's look at a giant sea turtle (Leviathans, megalodons, siege crabs, possibly krakens, etc.) as prey to be eaten. Even if your playing up the people vs. people aspect, never neglect the HUGE sea monster type encounters. Remember, there is always a bigger fish in the ocean and in a world-spanning ocean there can be some very big fish.

I also agree with someone above, Demogorgon and/or Dagon make excellent sources for this catastrophe.

The Shamans are probably protected from giant sea predators, but Skywhales and the like may be used by others to traverse the sea. And Shamans who live in areas dominated by hostile foreigners may take to the sky to avoid running into Imperial or League navies.

shadzar
2009-09-10, 01:10 PM
So no ideas from One Piece work for your ship?

BRC
2009-09-10, 01:14 PM
So no ideas from One Piece work for your ship?

I'm not entierly sure I'm going to go with the Sentient Ship thing, and if I am, I'm going to introduce it later in the campaign. Right now I'm focusing on the setting.

Callos_DeTerran
2009-09-10, 01:36 PM
The Shamans are probably protected from giant sea predators, but Skywhales and the like may be used by others to traverse the sea. And Shamans who live in areas dominated by hostile foreigners may take to the sky to avoid running into Imperial or League navies.

The important thing to remember though is that they can't protect against EVERY sea predator and there's still ships that DON'T have Shamans. What does the Empire do if one of their islands come under siege by an intelligent monster like a kraken or Leviathan for example?

BRC
2009-09-10, 01:50 PM
The important thing to remember though is that they can't protect against EVERY sea predator and there's still ships that DON'T have Shamans. What does the Empire do if one of their islands come under siege by an intelligent monster like a kraken or Leviathan for example?
True, in fact, the vast majority of ships don't have shamans (And Shamans don't use ships anyway, they use Zartans for the most part). So the Empire and the League probably do use flying ships occasionally, but not very often, for it's really expensive, and Sea travel, despite all the monsters and pirates and opposing navies, isn't really all that dangerous if you stay in your nation's territory.

As for attacks by large sea predators, well, since most of the shattered continent is fairly shallow they don't generally have to worry about those there. In the Central Islands it's definetally a problem though, if they are really lucky they might be able to get a Shaman to ward the area against such threats (Well, more like the Shaman acts as a go-between and arranges for the colony to give a tribute to any large predators in the area), but otherwise they are pretty much stuck with hoping they arn't noticed or fighting it out. Mind you, it's not common that Krakens and Leviathans would bother attacking such settlements unless they were disturbed or angered in some way.

Edit: Remember, Gunpowder does exist in this setting, so if a Levithan, for example, attacks a settlement, chances are a fight will be put up as people take potshots at it from shore. It will probably win, but it will be heavily wounded from all that gunfire. And if it does wipe out the settlement, it can expect retaliation from whomever owned that settlement. Both the League and the Empire have teams specializing in killing big sea creatures, everything from specialized Hunters, to simply carpet bombing the sea floor with depth charges.

tcrudisi
2009-09-10, 01:57 PM
Without having had time to properly read the thread, I just want to say that the threads title made me think of the Robin Hobb trilogy, "The Liveship Traders".

Amongst other things, it partly focused on the Liveships, which were made from a mysterious, magical or pseudomagical wood. They were, literally alive, with the Figureheads being essentially people(though their awareness did kind of stretch throughout the rest of their 'body', the figurehead was the bit that saw and spoke).

They had personalities that varied depending on the ship, the crew, and how they were treated and what they were used for. The second book delves quite deeply into the story of 'The Mad Ship', who repeatedly drowned his own crew and is, at the start of the first, a stranded partial wreck at the outskirts of the protagonists town.

Interesting stuff all round, basically, especially when factoring in the eventual revealing and answering of the various secrets of the Liveships...

Ahhh. As I started to read your thread, I was thinking, "Someone needs to tell him about Robin Hobb's Liveship Trader trilogy." And someone has -- and with all due respect to Tiki Snakes, I don't feel that they did it justice.

Read this trilogy. Right now. We will wait. Seriously. Right this moment.

Done? Yeah, I didn't think so. Further plot about the story which you can easily incorporate and make the players go "ooohhh, that's awesome!" If you plan on reading the trilogy, well, don't read the spoiler.

The wood wasn't actually magical or alive. The wood was used to encompass hibernating dragons. Over the ages, they slowly died out. Well, the wood, due to its very long exposure to the dragons, picked up some of it's encompassed dragon's personality. It laid dormant in the wood until three generations of captains gave their soul to the wood (by dieing on it). After the third one, it would awaken. Part of the dragon's spirit was still there, but so was the spirit of the captains. Since the liveships were a part of each family, this meant that the ship took on the personalities of the family. Also, each death on the hull would be felt by the liveship. Each death was sort of a blow to the ship's psyche. Also, the ship had a little bit of control over where it went. For instance, if it wanted to go somewhere, it could make the journey a little bit faster than otherwise. The Mad Ship was known for capsizing and killing it's crew, until eventually it became known as cursed.

Storm Bringer
2009-09-10, 02:10 PM
here is an idea to chew on, borrowed form the 40k universe:

specifically, the craftworlds.

at some point shortly before the Big Flood, a High eleven society with far too much magic on their hands forsaw the future and built a series of really, really, really big boats to keep them safe. I was thinking someing on the kilometer wide, 16-20km long scale, with maybe 10-15 decks (roughly the height of a modern cruise liner). with that much floor area, you could use space for magically assisted farming, allowing them to keep a basically unchanged diet, and devote deck space to things that smaller ships couldn't, like parks. they vary in size, form the 20k monsters to big aircraft carrier size, and are equipped with suffcient weaponry and armour to make taking them such a hard endevor as to make it impractical (it has been done, but at the loss of dozens of ships and thousands of men in bitter city-fighting).

Mostly the craftworlds keep out in the Deep Sea, where their is little for the other nations, and so are left alone. some of them venture into the more populated areas for one reason or another, bringing with them extoic meats like beef and lamb and a sense of arrogance for the 'lesser' peoples.


another idea:

the Stilt lands:

the Stilt lands are one of the most populated areas of the seas, for a very simple reason: it is less than 20 feet deep over most of it's expanse. this creates a large area where floating structures can be anchored to the sea floor, either on stilts or by a tether. the sea foor is teaming with life, making good farming, and the area is covered with tidal islands that are exposed on a daily basis.

another advantage is that a swathe of the northern stilt lands is so shallow as to make it impassable to the deep-sea ships of the Empire, who would run agroundif they tried to cross it. Several of the Leagues biggest cities are in this area for that very reason, providing a protected hinterland for the League that is mostly safe form invasion and can support the more exposed members of the League.

Heliomance
2009-09-10, 02:12 PM
Portals to the Elemental Plane of Water are fairly common in the deep oceans and they have yet to flood your average campaign world, so I doubt a Decanter of Endless Water would produce enough water to raise sea level significantly, even on Geyser mode. It would probably get crushed by the pressure eventually, as well, giving it a limited lifetime to flood a world.


The elemental plane of water has subjective gravity. For the purposes of any inanimate object, this is effectively zero gravity. Water is an inanimate object. Thus, water pressure will be (approximately) constant throughout the plane. As pressure is not a planar hazard, and it is possible to survive there quite nicely asuming you can breathe water, we can assume that the water pressure there is far lower than it is at the seabed. Thus, a gate to the elemental plane of water at the ocean floor would actually result in water following the pressure gradient and flowing from the ocean into the plane, lowering the sea level rather than raising it.

If someone who knows more hydrostatics than I do would like to run the calculations and come up with an approximate figure for the pressure on the plane of water, it would be quite interesting.

BRC
2009-09-10, 02:53 PM
I don't really like the Craftworld Idea, I mean, I love W40k, but it just dosn't seem to fit in my view of the setting.

However, your idea for Stiltland I like, though I'm going to change it to The Shallows.


The Shallows refers to a vast swath of the sunken continent that is very shallowly submerged. small islands and sandbars jut up everywhere and in many places a Low or High tide means the difference between somthing an oceangoing vessel can pass through, and a narrow channel one could practically walk across.
The Shallows forms the core and main power base of the League of Free cities for several reasons. First of all it was where the most populace survived (Out side of the large landmasses that now make up the empire) to rebuild, and because the waters were shallow, it was easier to gather materials. Most of the Mage Islands are in the shallows, where it is an easy task to raise the ground a few feat to make an artificial island, the Shallows are teaming with easy to reach Fish and Salvage, making it the ideal place for the cities to arise. In some places cities simply float on the water, tethered to pillars or the ground, or in the instance of one city, build directly on top of a city that was submerged by the quake.

When the war with the empire came, the League discovered another benefit to the shallows. Their sailors had long grown used to navigating ocean-going vessels through the Shallows, finding the trenches deep enough for their ships to pass. The Imperials on the other hand, with their clumsy ships and inexperienced sailors, would often find themselves run aground on a sandbar or trapped by a low tide, forced to watch in vain while League ships zigzagged around such obstacles with contemptuous ease. The Imperials once attempted to storm the Shallows with a fleet of flat-bottomed shallow-draft boats, only to have it end disastrously when a storm blew up and capsized the fleet before they got within sight of the Shallows.

I should probably draw up a world map or somthing.

shadzar
2009-09-10, 03:05 PM
I'm not entierly sure I'm going to go with the Sentient Ship thing, and if I am, I'm going to introduce it later in the campaign. Right now I'm focusing on the setting.

:smallredface: I kind of got excited about the Knight Industries 100 (K.I.O.H. ?) ship and forgot there was more to it.

It is a good idea all around though. I just don't know what to suggest that hasn't been already outside of the ship ideas.

Maybe several man-made floating islands in the vast water (atolls in Waterwold) where people would be able to get out and stretch their legs a bit rather than always being on ship or docking in port at one of the continents?

Cieyrin
2009-09-10, 03:25 PM
For an idea of what the gnomes could be doing, you could have a crossover from the Dragonmech setting and have citymechs walking through the oceans, making yet another method of mobile cities. I'll have my library back by next week and I have a hankering for building some mecha, so I could put together some stats and possibly floor plans for such when I get that far.:smallbiggrin:

Callos_DeTerran
2009-09-10, 03:34 PM
For an idea of what the gnomes could be doing, you could have a crossover from the Dragonmech setting and have citymechs walking through the oceans, making yet another method of mobile cities. I'll have my library back by next week and I have a hankering for building some mecha, so I could put together some stats and possibly floor plans for such when I get that far.:smallbiggrin:

You could actually change that completely and just create floating 'dreadnaughts' large enough to have actual populations living on-board. But yeah, steam-gear from Dragonmech would be extremely useful.

BRC
2009-09-10, 03:35 PM
Alright, I made up a map of the Setting. Blue refers to territory controlled by the League, Red the Empire, Purple is territory actively contested between the two. Green is territory controlled by nations from the Ishala (Which is not all one nation, i'm just too lazy to flesh that out right now), and Grey is controlled by no nation, usually belonging to native Islanders of some sort. Before you remark on the large amount of grey, remember that some of those "Native Islanders" may be (or may be under the protection of) Giants, Dragons, or simply have an epic level druid waiting around.

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w27/bloddyredcommie/Campaignmap.png
Edit: Currently, the war is at a stalemate. The Imperials are unable to reliably defeat the League's navies, and therefore cannot launch of invasion of the League-controlled islands. Meanwhile, the League, though if it really put it's mind to it could fight it's way to the Imperial shores, dosn't have nearly enough troops to mount any sort of land-based invasion, and if it did they probably wouldn't be able to beat the Imperial ground forces anyway.
Edit II: Concerning Mechs, no. The Imperials are early industrialized, with some steamships, I don't want to schizo-tech things up by having giant robots.

As for races, they're pretty evenly split between the Empire and the League for the most part. Though there are some general tendencies.

Most Gnomes, Dwarves, and Orcs are Imperial, while most Elves, Goblinoids, and Halflings belong to the League, and all sorts of races can be found on the central islands.

Pika...
2009-09-10, 03:55 PM
By the way, have you considered this type of substance? >.>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgx8WjZ_0TE&feature=PlayList&p=BC28B9159B3EDDBF&index=0&playnext=1

BRC
2009-09-10, 04:07 PM
By the way, have you considered this type of substance? >.>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgx8WjZ_0TE&feature=PlayList&p=BC28B9159B3EDDBF&index=0&playnext=1

Hrmm, maybe. I might introduce that later.

Also, Gunpowder Rules

There are two types of handheld Firearm, Pistols and Muskets, and they both have a new rule I'm adding called "armor Penetration". You see, your standard issue studded leather may hold up to an Arrow, but a musket ball will go right through it. A weapon with Armor Penetration ignores a set amount of Armor bonus to AC (Armor, natural armor, and sheild).

a Pistol deals 1d10 damage with a range increment of 120 feet, a x3 Crit Multiplier, and an AP of 3. It takes two full-round actions to reload a pistol.
A Musket deals 1d12 damage with a range increment of 200 feet, a x3 crit multiplier, and an AP of 5. It takes four full-round actions to reload.

Callos_DeTerran
2009-09-10, 04:36 PM
Hrmm, maybe. I might introduce that later.

Also, Gunpowder Rules

There are two types of handheld Firearm, Pistols and Muskets, and they both have a new rule I'm adding called "armor Penetration". You see, your standard issue studded leather may hold up to an Arrow, but a musket ball will go right through it. A weapon with Armor Penetration ignores a set amount of Armor bonus to AC (Armor, natural armor, and sheild).

a Pistol deals 1d10 damage with a range increment of 120 feet, a x3 Crit Multiplier, and an AP of 3. It takes two full-round actions to reload a pistol.
A Musket deals 1d12 damage with a range increment of 200 feet, a x3 crit multiplier, and an AP of 5. It takes four full-round actions to reload.

The armor penetration is not worth the time to reload at higher levels, it simply isn't. You may want to adjust that.

BRC
2009-09-10, 04:42 PM
The armor penetration is not worth the time to reload at higher levels, it simply isn't. You may want to adjust that.
Completely intentional, which is why higher-level characters don't really bother with Pistols and Rifles, or use magic ones that are faster to reload (maybe a +1 equivalent bonus to cut down on reload time by 1 Full Round Action)
Remember, most people are under 6th level, where a 1d12 weapon that punches right through anything short of full plate is incredible. However, people good enough to get off rapid shots with a bow usually use one. In fact, it's not uncommon for a large force of Musketeers to be commanded by a bowman.

Cieyrin
2009-09-10, 09:24 PM
Pity on the lack of Dragon Mech style mecha but ah well. As for the firearms, they seem to be the kind of thing you're gonna mainly see in the hands of NPCs. The Muskets seem hardly worthwhile, as well, as an average of 1 more point of damage and 2 more points of armor ignored doesn't seem worth the 2 additional full round actions you need to load one. Personally, I'd cut the reload times you have in half, so 1 full-round for pistols and 2 full rounds for muskets, and increase the damage of muskets to something respectable for that kind of reload time, like 2d8 or 3d6. Making them Rapid Reloadable wouldn't be out of line, either, as you can get 1 shot per round with the pistol and 1 shot every other round with the musket, more if you use some of the other crossbow enhancers out there.

BRC
2009-09-10, 11:10 PM
Hmm, Alright, I'll Halve the reload times and make them rapid reloadable. I'm abit worried about upping the damage. A bunch of musketeers packing 2d8 muskets could blast my PC's to pieces in the first round of combat.

BRC
2009-09-15, 05:37 PM
How does this sound:
{table=head]Name|Cost|Damage|Crit |Armor Penetration|Range|Reload Time|
Pistol|200 gp| 1d10| x3| 3| 150 ft|1 Full round action
Musket| 400 gp| 2d8| x3|6| 250 ft| 2 full round actions[/table]
Both Pistols and Muskets can be reloaded faster with the Rapid Reload feat.

Edit: I'm considering adding in a misfire chance or somthing, but I'm worried that would complicate things too much.