Afgncaap5
2016-06-17, 09:38 AM
tl;dr - The Crimson Ship in 5e: thoughts for combat? Recommendations?
I've been asked to run a game, and the players (previously only 3.5 players barring one brief foray into the fifth dimension) asked if I could run a 5e game for them, asked if I could make it a nautical game, and asked for either Greyhawk or Eberron since they knew I enjoyed both of those settings and they wanted to see an "official" setting instead of a home made one. I was delighted, and since I know the islands and coasts of Eberron more than I know Greyhawk's, I went that way.
And Eberron + Nautical said three things to me. The first was the Lhazaar Principalities. The second was The Bloodsails. The third, strangely enough, was The Crimson Ship from 3.5's Explorer's Handbook.
(Weird note: I love House Lyrandar, and they didn't occur to me until I started writing this post.)
For those unfamiliar, The Crimson Ship is basically a magical ghost ship piloted by a single captain and no other entities, a (probably?) non-evil Ultroloth who seems to be playing some larger, mysterious game the end result of which is unknown. He finds people... usually those marooned on islands or on sinking ships or other places where storms rage or blood has been shed (and flown from land to sea according to some accounts)... and offers them a single chance to take his ship on a trip to go literally anywhere connected to water (even in other planes) as long as they agree to engage in a single combat. Effectively, he's a mysterious, larger-than-life figure who offers a chance to get anywhere in the campaign setting really quickly with a single combat along the way.
Now, I'm hoping to introduce him early in the campaign, very early... so I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for good, thematically mysterious combat scenarios for The Captain to offer. Examples from the original book included a duel with Rakshasas in the Lake of Fire in the Demon Wastes, killing a hydra on an abandoned beach, and fighting off two vampires who jump onto The Crimson Ship from their own shipwreck in the middle of a sargasso kelp sea that houses a dozen or so ruined warships.
Now, I love the example fights that the Explorer's Handbook offers, but given the high-ish levels of a lot of the suggested monsters, and the fact that 5e bumps up the challenges of a few of these things, it feels appropriate to me to tweak them or come up with new ones on my own. And since I'm doing that anyway, I thought I'd ask for some good no-context ship battles. So... any suggestions for what The Captain wants these players to do? Things that would present good options for fully healed and prepped level 3 to 5-ish players. I want The Captain introduced super early so that by the time it reaches the late game and players are used to identifying Bloodsails by their crimson sails, he'll be a nice surprise when he comes back to save them from something dire (in exchange for yet another combat, of course...)
And while I'm on the subject: has there actually been much talk about Eberron aside from that one Unearthed Arcana article from way, way back? Every time I try to do research into that, it looks like it's almost entirely Forgotten Realms support with a few nods to how things are handled in the various other settings.
I've been asked to run a game, and the players (previously only 3.5 players barring one brief foray into the fifth dimension) asked if I could run a 5e game for them, asked if I could make it a nautical game, and asked for either Greyhawk or Eberron since they knew I enjoyed both of those settings and they wanted to see an "official" setting instead of a home made one. I was delighted, and since I know the islands and coasts of Eberron more than I know Greyhawk's, I went that way.
And Eberron + Nautical said three things to me. The first was the Lhazaar Principalities. The second was The Bloodsails. The third, strangely enough, was The Crimson Ship from 3.5's Explorer's Handbook.
(Weird note: I love House Lyrandar, and they didn't occur to me until I started writing this post.)
For those unfamiliar, The Crimson Ship is basically a magical ghost ship piloted by a single captain and no other entities, a (probably?) non-evil Ultroloth who seems to be playing some larger, mysterious game the end result of which is unknown. He finds people... usually those marooned on islands or on sinking ships or other places where storms rage or blood has been shed (and flown from land to sea according to some accounts)... and offers them a single chance to take his ship on a trip to go literally anywhere connected to water (even in other planes) as long as they agree to engage in a single combat. Effectively, he's a mysterious, larger-than-life figure who offers a chance to get anywhere in the campaign setting really quickly with a single combat along the way.
Now, I'm hoping to introduce him early in the campaign, very early... so I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for good, thematically mysterious combat scenarios for The Captain to offer. Examples from the original book included a duel with Rakshasas in the Lake of Fire in the Demon Wastes, killing a hydra on an abandoned beach, and fighting off two vampires who jump onto The Crimson Ship from their own shipwreck in the middle of a sargasso kelp sea that houses a dozen or so ruined warships.
Now, I love the example fights that the Explorer's Handbook offers, but given the high-ish levels of a lot of the suggested monsters, and the fact that 5e bumps up the challenges of a few of these things, it feels appropriate to me to tweak them or come up with new ones on my own. And since I'm doing that anyway, I thought I'd ask for some good no-context ship battles. So... any suggestions for what The Captain wants these players to do? Things that would present good options for fully healed and prepped level 3 to 5-ish players. I want The Captain introduced super early so that by the time it reaches the late game and players are used to identifying Bloodsails by their crimson sails, he'll be a nice surprise when he comes back to save them from something dire (in exchange for yet another combat, of course...)
And while I'm on the subject: has there actually been much talk about Eberron aside from that one Unearthed Arcana article from way, way back? Every time I try to do research into that, it looks like it's almost entirely Forgotten Realms support with a few nods to how things are handled in the various other settings.