I need some help making island themed mini-quests!

[kornwiser]

Hey everybody! My group is kicking off our campaign this Saturday, and I, the DM, being incredibly busy with schoolwork this week, am enlisting the help of the Playground to help me prepare!

The main part of the session will consist of the PCs investigating rumors of a ghost ship in a tropical archipelago. The truth behind the ghost ship is a vampire pirate, attacking ships that sail at night and capturing their crews. The vampire is in cahoots with the local leader of a mining company who is working to uncover an ancient temple in the center of the archipelago that holds a portal to Sigil. He's brought a bunch of miners to the archipelago under the pretense of mining for a cache of mithril, but once he's uncovered the first hints of the temple, he's enlisted the vampire's help and is using the vampire thralls as his workers, while spreading rumors of the ghost ship to scare people off of traveling, so no authorities discover what he's up to.

What I need help with, is designing little hints and clues the PCs can discover while exploring the islands to point them in the direction of the truth. I can imagine finding deserted villages on some islands, some remnants of ancient ruins on others, all eventually leading to the discovery of something incredibly revealing, such as the vampire's coffin, or perhaps the location the vampire uses to dock his ship at.

Normally I'd plan all this out myself but I am working 12 hour days this whole week and find myself with very little free time, so I appreciate any help you can give!

[Lhurgyof]

The vampire should be (or have) an illusionist- it helps him make his ship spooky and look like a ghost ship.

Have a his hideout cave full of creepy illusions!

[inexorabletruth]

First, by thrall, are we talking about Vampire Spawn?

If that's the case, then they leave enough hints behind them on their own. Just follow the trail of bodies like a trail of bread crumbs. Easy breezy.

But if they're not on the island, then plenty of hints could be dropped by loved ones of the miners who express fear of the island because they've lost contact with their brothers, fathers, sons, what-have-you, and the previous letters/messages they received were unnerving at the least.

[kornwiser]

The miners are all stationed in the large city nearby, no one wants to travel to the mining site because of disappearances at sea.

I love the idea of the illusionist!

The PCs probably won't run into any vampire spawn until the reveal has already occurred. I like the idea of a letter left behind - perhaps the last words of a victim scrawled into a wall before he's dragged away...

[W3bDragon]

Scene 1: We're going to Ibiza!

* The PCs sail in the direction of the archipelago, hoping to solve this mystery.

* The first thing they run into is a small boat manned by an "old salt" sea trader called Carl. Carl until recently has been trading with the mining colony. He trades them food and mining supplies in exchange for mithril nuggets.

* He first attempts to warn the PCs away by telling them stories of the ghost ship.

* Assuming the PCs won't be swayed, he gives up and tells them that the whole thing is a hoax that he's capitalizing on to monopolize on the trade with the miners. Business has been great, but on this last trip, he couldn't find the mining colony anywhere. There were obvious signs of them leaving, but tracking got him nowhere in a place where most people travel by boat. He's on his way back to the city, hoping to salvage some of the cost of the goods he's carrying before it all rots.

* Carl is unwilling to share the location of where the mining colony is exactly. He's hoping that they'll eventually come back, and when they do, he'd rather be the only one that knows where they are to continue trading with them. Only a successful diplomacy or bluff check DC 20 followed by a truly massive bribe (2000 gp or more) will get the location out of him.

* Carl is not lying. He really believes the whole thing is a hoax. In truth, he only travels during the day and sleeps soundly through the night, whether on his boat or one of the islands. The Vampire spawn approached him while he's asleep many times, but they were always repelled by the garlic sacks that he carries for trade.


Scene 2: Slaad Salad.

* The PCs land at one of the islands.

* The island is abandoned save for a small clan of Slaads that have been marooned here for a long time since coming accidentally through the portal from Sigil. They don't know what the key to the portal is, so they decided to leave the island with the portal in it in search of food. Their improvised boat couldn't get them far and they ended up on this other island instead.

* Depending on the character level of the PCs, they could either:
a. (Low level)Run into a small patrol of Slaad looking for food. They're busying fighting between themselves over some scrap of food when the PCs make landfall. The PCs don't get too far from shore and are given the opportunity to make a run back to their boat before the Slaad catch them.

b. (Mid level)The PCs are beset upon by a group of Slaad looking for food. They fight them and, if they capture any of them alive and have a way of communicating with them, they'll find out that there is some magical portal on these islands that brought them here and now they're stuck.

c. (High level)The PCs find a tribe of Slaad deep in the island that has captured one of the miners and are preparing to eat him for dinner. The PCs attack the Slaad and rescue the miner. The miner tells them that his leader has gone nuts looking for some kind of "Key" for something he found while mining. He's been sending his miners to the ghost ship and they're never seen again. This miner ran away in hopes of finding a way back to the mainland, but instead was caught by the Slaad.



I wish I have more time to finish this, but that's a start. If I get more time, I'll edit in more scenes. Good luck!

[kornwiser]

I love the idea of the lost slaads! Will definitely be using that.

[Omniplex]

Snark hunting.

[Toofey]

the now vampiric workers will need somewhere to hide from the sun, perhaps during an early morning landing a member of the party could see the footprints from scores of people walking directly into the sea as they're being washed away before he can show anyone else.