Island Campaign

[Cheesegear]

I really, really, really like the structure of the Rime of the Frostmaiden module. The Ten-Towns are close enough that you can travel to them easily enough. But the harsh conditions, harsh environment, and low amount of resources, make screwing around with no direction, a potentially lethal experience. So the players are always forced into doing something, however, that 'something' that the players are forced to do? ...Well, in the Ten-Towns, you quite literally have at least 10 options on what you want to do - ranging from Easy to Deadly.

I don't particularly want to run RotF a third time, and especially not concurrently with another group. But I do like the idea of Icewind Dale.

So what I want to do is make an Island Campaign. A mix between Coastal, Underwater, and the Plane of Water environments. The Villages - and Islands - are close enough together that it's totally possible to travel to each of them in less than a day. However, staying out on the open water for too long will likely get you killed - one way or another.

I know the structure of what I want...Just not how to populate it. Especially challenges and arcs for Levels 1-through-4.
I want to rip off One Piece as little as possible, since I know my players have definitely seen it - even if I haven't. But for some reason if I ask for sailing/pirate/island adventures, on the internet, I'm going to get references to One Piece. But, like...Keep it to a minimum, maybe?

[MrStabby]

Well I have never heard of one piece... so you should be safe there.

So I am not sure what you mean by "populate it" but...

Ideas for peoples/factions:

1) two aquatic city states. Both being underwater mean they have some common interests against the surface folk (say laws and standards about overhead passage and dumping from ships) but also more rivalry for underwater terratory.

2) The pirates... you want a pirate campain you need at least one pirate faction

3) The undead - not just ghost pirates, but the drowned the hanged and the betrayed. A chance to populate some islands that would otherwise have no food supply

4) The desert coast - a harsh unfogiving land to represent the "edge of the map" but to allow trade witht he rest of the world through caravans. No major settlements but just a useful place to introduce new content

5) Two trading factions, also in rivalry with each other but with a common interest in curbing piracy.

6) Privateer/Mercenary guilds; paid by the trading factions to protect their ships and/or bring pirates to justice

7) The settlers on the islands, trying to survive and some of them to make a fortune from discovered wealth

8) The fey - the ancient spirits of the land woken by nes settlers, some curious, some hostile. But the convocation of the fey court has begun and they must decide how to address these mortals

9) The Marid, guarding the deep portals to the plane of water they live in their deep undersee palaces - some pitch black in the depths, others brighter higher in the water showcasing their oppulence. They can offer power over the waves... but for a price.

[Dalinar]

Instead of ripping off One Piece, rip off Pirates of the Caribbean.

You've got your CN/charmingly-CE pirate captain and his buddies, you've got some civilians tangled up with him for reasons of their own, you've got your LE naval empire guy, you've got, uh, whatever you wanna call Davy Jones and his Locker (and ghost-ship/Cthulhu tropes in general), you've got a Kraken, you've got an incognito sea goddess with her powers bound up, you've got mermaids, you've got the Fountain of Youth, you've got skeletons of guys that tried to steal cursed treasure...

Lots of stuff worth stealing that probably translates pretty well to DnD, come to think of it. If you sell it to your players as "yeah, I pretty much ripped off a lot from Pirates of the Caribbean and then put my own twists in," they'll probably be on board with it (pun absolutely intended). There's a difference between being creative and being original, IMO. Just make sure if they're fans of those movies that they can't predict *everything* you throw at them, although it might be fun to reward them for spotting tropes from time to time, too.

[Sparky McDibben]

I mean, this is a sandbox, no? You'll want some kind of structure for getting around the sandbox, a means for delivering scenario hooks, and a way to generate new content for the players.

As far populating the sandbox, you can leverage other media (Pirates of the Caribbean), or utilize factions, or even random generators (like the Tome of Adventure Design or Kevin Crawford's Red Tide)

Alternatively, one-page dungeons are a smorgasbord for sandboxes. Hit up Elven Tower or Dyson's Logos. Use content from the old Dungeon magazines. Or just search DMsGuild for "Pay What You Want."

[TheCleverGuy]

I structured my island campaign off of a combination of "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" and "Star Trek." Very episodic, but I can justify almost any kind of adventure that way.

[MrStabby]

I structured my island campaign off of a combination of "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" and "Star Trek." Very episodic, but I can justify almost any kind of adventure that way.

That is an... unexpected crossover.

[MoiMagnus]

Something I did for my archipelago campaign was to make Mariner's Armor a reasonably common item, and it's properties to be on top of the other properties of magical armors, so Armor +1 were in fact a Mariner's Armor +1, the Armor of Resistance would be a Mariner's Armor of Resistance, etc.

The goal is to make heavy armor something still present in the game (both for PCs and NPCs)

[TheCleverGuy]

That is an... unexpected crossover.

To be fair, I've only just started running it, but in my head it makes perfect sense. The PCs are sailing into unexplored areas, stopping at different islands and having "away team" adventures, then moving on.

[Composer99]

Steal some ideas from The Mandalorian?

[TheCleverGuy]

Steal some ideas from The Mandalorian?

Why not? I'm a fan of the "steal things you like and work them into your campaign" school of D&D.

[Sparky McDibben]

The Mass Effect series might be a good inspiration, too. After all, what else is a star system but an island?

[Cheesegear]

So I am not sure what you mean by "populate it" but...

Put in quests. What do people who live on islands want? Fish? Fuel? ...Tourism? Why do adventurers go to an island, or archipelago, initially? What are they looking for? What's there to do, specifically around Levels 1-4, which is where world-building and plot arcs usually take place, to move into Tier 2 where **** actually happens. What's there to do in Levels 1-4, in Coastal, Underwater or Water Planar-adjacent adventures, that isn't pirates, because that's a given.


2) The pirates... you want a pirate campain you need at least one pirate faction

Yep. Can only do that once before it gets boring. I'm not running the same encounters twice...


3) The undead - not just ghost pirates, but the drowned the hanged and the betrayed.

I vaguely recall Daemon/Undead Pirates back in a very, very early Adventurer's League module. But if I recall, they were still a reasonable match for low level. I'll try and find the template. But that can also tie into a Sea Hags and Banshees...And then tie that overall to Triton Druids or something.


5) Two trading factions, also in rivalry with each other but with a common interest in curbing piracy.

Yeah. Right. Pirates. Let's avoid talking about pirates if we can.


Privateer/Mercenary guilds; paid by the trading factions to protect their ships and/or bring pirates to justice

More pirates?


The settlers on the islands, trying to survive and some of them to make a fortune from discovered wealth

...And then what?


8) The fey

Sea Hags with Undead Pirates. I can work with that.


9) The Marid, guarding the deep portals to the plane of water they live in their deep undersee palaces - some pitch black in the depths, others brighter higher in the water showcasing their oppulence. They can offer power over the waves... but for a price.

Yeah. Marids are CR11. So my party wont be interacting with one - let alone finding one - for a while. What can be some Level 1-4 plot hooks that get them interested in finding such a Chaotic Neutral individual?

Oh ****. Merrow.
*Checks MM.* CR2? Nice.


Instead of ripping off One Piece, rip off Pirates of the Caribbean.

Yeah. Pirates. I get it.


you've got a Kraken

Similar to Rime of the Frostmaiden - with its Ancient White Dragon - the Kraken is a given. It goes around the water every day dealing random damage. For the most part, the campaign's natives - and the players - should avoid it if they can, and pray if they can't. Somebody should do something. Not now. Because obviously you can't. The NPCs are maybe Level 5 max. If they could solve their own problems, they wouldn't need the party, would they? The party, likewise, is Level 1-4. The Kraken is a much, much, much larger plot hook for a different day.

Tie the Kraken to the Merrow, somehow? :smallconfused:


I mean, this is a sandbox, no? You'll want some kind of structure for getting around the sandbox

So, boats? Maybe offer Griffons later on at a price.


a means for delivering scenario hooks, and a way to generate new content for the players.

You mean have them roleplay? :smallconfused:


random generators (like the Tome of Adventure Design or Kevin Crawford's Red Tide)

Will look into it.

[Sparky McDibben]

So, boats? Maybe offer Griffons later on at a price.

No. I mean a game structure. For an example of what I'm talking about here, refer to the Alexandrian's series on them (link (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/15126/roleplaying-games/game-structures)). Basically, identify the experience you want them to have, and then build a mechanical support for it. It helps offload the cognitive burden of constantly improvising, reduces the tendency to rely on our fallbacks, etc. So, if you want your game to include lots of island-hopping, you need a structure that delivers that experience, rolling in travel time, random encounters, discovery, seaward exploration, etc. I tend to use a variant of the Overloaded Encounter Die, but YMMV.



You mean have them roleplay? :smallconfused:

Also no. I mean, how do the players find out about the cool stuff out there? In any sandbox game, you have to let the players know that there is cool stuff to find before they go exploring. So, how do you do it? Rumor tables? Treasure maps? Magical talking otter bards that school from island to island and always have some news (basically a 1d10 table of "here's what I have prepped")? You want a sandbox that's dripping with hooks pointing to your content, otherwise the players can flail around, get discouraged, and then quit. Generating new content usually means doing so procedurally. I usually use a 5-room dungeon, or I reskin a one-page dungeon or even just video game maps. I've literally used my house's floorplan before. You want a stockpile of quick stuff that can be used to contextualize random encounters, island inhabitants, etc.

[Cheesegear]

So, if you want your game to include lots of island-hopping, you need a structure that delivers that experience, rolling in travel time, random encounters, discovery, seaward exploration, etc. I tend to use a variant of the Overloaded Encounter Die, but YMMV.

Yeah. Got that. Again, I'm using Rime of the Frostmaiden for inspiration, but just transposing snow-and-blizzard survival mechanics into sun-and-storm survival mechanics.


Also no. I mean, how do the players find out about the cool stuff out there?

Got that covered. My problem is that I don't have any cool stuff to tell them about, because I'm not really too certain what goes into an archipelago adventure, except for pirates. Yeah. Got that covered.
It's no good having Awakened Giant Crabs delivering exposition when I have no exposition to give the players.


So, how do you do it? Rumor tables? Treasure maps? Magical talking otter bards that school from island to island and always have some news...

That's the easy part.


You want a sandbox that's dripping with hooks pointing to your content, otherwise the players can flail around, get discouraged, and then quit...

Yes. I do want a sandbox with hooks. So far I've got:

1. Pirates, obviously.
2. Pirates, but Undead/Daemonic, and also a Sea Hag. Hey look, a Banshee!
3. Merrow, probably.
...
...
...
X. Kuo-Toa Leviathan! (Cloud Giant statistics)
Y. If there's Merrow, there's Demons, right?
...
...
Z. Kraken and Dragon Turtle...Maybe a True Dragon?

[Blithe_Ring]

I would actually suggest a few One Piece homages, if not full rip-offs. Without spoiling too much about what happens in that series, here are some island and sea concepts you could rip from it:

The sea is so treacherous and weird in places that regular navigation tools don’t work; you need a special magic compass to “lock on” to specific islands (great way to justify preparing a specific island next).

Sea monsters live in an area of ocean that has no wind, making it doubly dangerous (no wind = no speed for your ship, while the gribblies below ponderously surface and the players panic).

Islands in the sky that can only be reached by jerry-rigging your ship to sail up a massive ocean geyser. In the Sky, the ship sails on dense magical clouds and encounters weird sky monsters and probably cloud giants or a silver dragon.

A ship so massive it’s more like an island, that sails around a foggy “Bermuda Triangle” like stretch of water, capturing ships for nefarious purposes with fake distress signals.

An island that’s half frozen, half on fire due to a clash of excessively powerful magic.

An island where it constantly rains lightning.

An island under the sea lit by bioluminescence. You have to “coat” the ship in magic resin that provides an “air bubble” to get down there. The undersea island, populated by Merfolk of some type, also uses air bubbles for visitors to breathe.

An archipelago made up of titanic mangrove tree root systems. In the source material this is also where the resin used to travel under the sea comes from (the trees secrete it).

A prison/fortress that stretches underwater from
sea level like an inverted tower, isolated in a treacherous sea.

An island only accessible by riding an inverted waterfall flow upward; taming local giant fish that swim up it to help optional.

A Venice-like city on the ocean that experiences huge tidal surges occasionally; the local buildings are all made to survive being submerged for a time.

A wizard’s academy on an island in the sky devoted to wind and weather magic.

An island that’s actually a massive carnivorous plant that occasionally contracts its outer leaves to try to eat creatures living on it.

A gigantic creature that has a whole civilisation on its back that wanders the water aimlessly.

Source: I am a huge One Piece fan, and am stealing its concepts for a game.

[Cheesegear]

I would actually suggest a few One Piece homages, if not full rip-offs. Without spoiling too much about what happens in that series, here are some island and sea concepts you could rip from it:

I've never seen a single episode of One Piece. So I can't rip off anything. I know my players have, though.


The sea is so treacherous and weird in places that regular navigation tools don’t work; you need a special magic compass to “lock on” to specific islands (great way to justify preparing a specific island next).

Sea monsters live in an area of ocean that has no wind, making it doubly dangerous (no wind = no speed for your ship, while the gribblies below ponderously surface and the players panic).

An island that’s half frozen, half on fire due to a clash of excessively powerful magic.

An island where it constantly rains lightning.

An island under the sea lit by bioluminescence. You have to “coat” the ship in magic resin that provides an “air bubble” to get down there. The undersea island, populated by Merfolk of some type, also uses air bubbles for visitors to breathe.

A prison/fortress that stretches underwater from
sea level like an inverted tower, isolated in a treacherous sea.

An island only accessible by riding an inverted waterfall flow upward; taming local giant fish that swim up it to help optional.

A Venice-like city on the ocean that experiences huge tidal surges occasionally; the local buildings are all made to survive being submerged for a time.

A wizard’s academy on an island in the sky devoted to wind and weather magic.

An island that’s actually a massive carnivorous plant that occasionally contracts its outer leaves to try to eat creatures living on it.

A gigantic creature that has a whole civilisation on its back that wanders the water aimlessly.

That's a lot of nice locations. But I really am looking for quests and/or ideas for hostile challenges.
It's all good making nice locations. But if my players don't have a reason to go there, they likely wont.


Islands in the sky that can only be reached by jerry-rigging your ship to sail up a massive ocean geyser. In the Sky, the ship sails on dense magical clouds and encounters weird sky monsters and probably cloud giants or a silver dragon. [I need Level 1-4 Challenges]

A ship so massive it’s more like an island, that sails around a foggy “Bermuda Triangle” like stretch of water, capturing ships for nefarious purposes with fake distress signals.

An archipelago made up of titanic mangrove tree root systems. In the source material this is also where the resin used to travel under the sea comes from (the trees secrete it).

...That's more like it!
"If you want to deal with the Triton and the Merrow and Sahuagin, and the nonsense. You're gonna need to magic up your boat, first. If you wanna do that, you have to get the sap from the magic trees, and the magic trees only grow in [location]. And the trees are likely magical because of [Fey, Sylvan or Druid challenge/encounter]."

It's nice to have a magical forest. But the players have to want to go there.

A group of [Something] notices your boat, and [their leader] has a Wand of Pyrotechnics that they use as a 'flare gun', to trick passing boats into coming closer. This creates a challenge/encounter. The reward for completing the encounter is the Wand, which of course works underwater. Which might be really handy for later.

[Amnestic]

It's nice to have a magical forest. But the players have to want to go there.


Mm, I guess my question to you is what are you and your players after from this island sea-hopping campaign? Why're the players on a journey in the first place? Treasure? Exploration? Personal reasons? In your shoes I'd want players to come up with characters reasons for traveling in the first place in a session zero (even if it's literally just as simple as 'wants to get rich') and I can backfill stuff onto the islands later from there.

Yeah yeah no One Piece Comparisons but motivation wise we've got:-

Luffy - Pirate King (treasure hunter/fight lots)
Zoro - World's Greatest Swordsman (fight lots)
Nami - Money and map the world (treasure hunter+exploration)
Usopp - Become a 'great man of the sea' (kinda just 'get experience of the world'? I guess?)
Sanji - Find All Blue (treasure hunter/exploration)
Chopper - Best doctor, make cure-all's (exploration/see the world)
Robin - Poneglyphs (specific treasure)
Frankly - Create a ship that circumnavigates the world (exploration)
Brook - Reunite with his whale friend (kinda hanging out mostly)
Jinbe - Trust/'debt' to Luffy/belief in is ideals (personal)

While there's definitely important islands to the crew that they specifically want to go to, a good chunk of of the motivations are sufficient that an island simply existing nearby is reason enough to go there. This is helped of course by Luffy being incredibly impulsive and latching onto anything shiny. Sky island? Hell yeah lets go there. Why? Why not? Even if the entire crew isn't on board there's usually enough of them interested as well so that it's not just the captain's selfish urges dragging them hither and thither.

If your players are on a high seas adventure campaign and are actively deciding not to visit the magic fire-ice island then do they need to make new characters?

[Aett_Thorn]

So if you have an island chain that they are limited to, eventually they will have visited every island that they want to, right?

So what you need to also have set up is things that are causing changes on the islands over time. Things like a cult of a fire elemental lord trying to restart the volcano that formed the island. Massive hurricanes that while they wipe out the main city in the island, it uncovers an ancient city in the jungle.

Reefs that change somehow so that shipping is more hazardous because it’s unpredictable. Wind patterns have changed so that the dry side of islands is now the rainy side, and vice-versa, meaning that towns and villages need to relocate.

Make the islands dynamic somehow, so that even the “stable” parts of them aren’t that stable.

[Blithe_Ring]

Mm, I guess my question to you is what are you and your players after from this island sea-hopping campaign? Why're the players on a journey in the first place? Treasure? Exploration? Personal reasons? In your shoes I'd want players to come up with characters reasons for traveling in the first place in a session zero (even if it's literally just as simple as 'wants to get rich') and I can backfill stuff onto the islands later from there.

If your players are on a high seas adventure campaign and are actively deciding not to visit the magic fire-ice island then do they need to make new characters?

Absolutely this! Mostly, I would suggest “treasure” as a reason to go to the cool island, if its sheer coolness isn’t enough of a reason. The Sky Island in One Piece has a legendary treasure on it, according to one old hermit nearby, for example. Though as Amnestic points out, the ACTUAL reason the crew goes there is that Luffy is a force of nature and has decided that he MUST go there to experience an adventure in the sky. Of course, any given island could also be the base of operations for a campaign villain, or the location of a MacGuffin, or where the crew end up after a shipwreck...

Personally, I find the reason to go somewhere isn’t so much of a challenge. These are the islands/concepts in my quiver, and when the players suggest something they want or need, well, it’s on THIS island (that I think is particularly interesting and inspiring to write adventures on).

[da newt]

Take any adventure hook you like and put it on one of your islands. Do a 'find - replace' for bandits = pirates, cart = ship, road = ocean, town = island. Populate Islands with normal terrestrial stuff, populate the oceans with marine stuff. Done.

Rescue mission (save the damsel), monster hunt (kill the thing preying on the locals), find the McGuffin, escort mission, open trade routes (someone is stealing all our supplies, we're gonna die), find the cure for the plague, tomb raid for riches, war, stop the ritual that will bring about great peril, anything.

If you want to add flavor, each of you islands can have it's own theme - fire, jungle, volcano, ice, fey, KuoToa, Goblins, Lizard Folk, Grung, YuanTi, Bullywug, Cyclops, Dryad, Sea Hag, Troglodyte, etc or if you want simpler - just populate the islands with different humanoid settlements. The Greek myths have tons of island stories you can use for inspiration.

Ramp up the environment to be as hazardous as you like (hurricanes, Tsunami, snow storms, doldrums, etc) and as treacherous as you like by adding random encounters (Mobidick, Marrow, Sirens, Chuul, Sahuagin, a swarm of Stirge, Water Weird, Shark, Pirates, Saltwater Crock, Giant Octopus, ...)

I'd create a Myconid Island just because I never run into them.

[Cheesegear]

Things like a cult of a fire elemental lord trying to restart the volcano that formed the island. Massive hurricanes that while they wipe out the main city in the island, it uncovers an ancient city in the jungle.

Perfect.


Make the islands dynamic somehow, so that even the “stable” parts of them aren’t that stable.

I totally see where you're going with that. But I don't like it as much, since instability kind of means that the/my players can't get invested in a single location or create a 'home base' where all their favourite NPCs are, or where they store all their stuff.

Now, 'Not being able to permanently and/or safely store your extra stuff.' certainly hits a 'brutal survival mechanic' spot in my heart. But I feel like it almost strays into 'punishing the players for collecting things.' Which I don't really like to do.


Absolutely this! Mostly, I would suggest “treasure” as a reason to go to the cool island, if its sheer coolness isn’t enough of a reason.

For the players who like meta-gaming, yes.
For me, the DM, who is trying to worldbuild, and get my players invested, I don't feel like 'treasure' is a good enough reason. Since you can find treasure anywhere. Why be in the archipelago when you could just head back to the mainland?


Take any adventure hook you like and put it on one of your islands. Do a 'find - replace' for bandits = pirates, cart = ship, road = ocean, town = island. Populate Islands with normal terrestrial stuff, populate the oceans with marine stuff. Done.

I can do that. I'm just trying not to.
I want to exhaust the playground's ideas before I fall back on generic stuff. Because I know for a fact that the Playground has better ideas that I can think up, by myself...


I'd create a Myconid Island just because I never run into them.

...For example! Good idea. The magical damp, creates fungus monsters. The fungus monsters override the villagers. The adventurers fight the monsters.

[Unoriginal]

You could have several militarized factions at war over the islands, and have who wins what alter the events of the campaign even when the PCs aren't around.

The PCs coming back to a familiar harbor only to see an unfamiliar flag floating above the spires and to be welcomed by the song of a new portmaster got to be memorable.

[Carpe Gonzo]

You gotta have an island that's actually a giant turtle. And of course, a skull-shaped island or island with a skull rock in it. Maybe put some grung in it. There are also of course the bullywugs. I've always had a bullywug boss who sounds like Boss Nas from Star Wars in mind. Lot's of good amphibious reptilian enemies assuming this is tropical. Kuo-toa are good too.

Fey as voodoo spirits instead of celtic/norse stuff might be a fun change of pace.

You could also use aarakockra like the rito in wind waker. They deliver everyone's mail because they can fly. Though i suppose that'd depend on whether or not "mail" is a thing your setting has. But an adventure where someone asks the party to check up on a courier who never returned (either due to being attacked, injured, and stranded, or deciding to steal the package because of how valuable it is) is an idea.

[Sparky McDibben]

It's no good having Awakened Giant Crabs delivering exposition when I have no exposition to give the players.

Yes. I do want a sandbox with hooks. So far I've got:

1. Pirates, obviously.
2. Pirates, but Undead/Daemonic, and also a Sea Hag. Hey look, a Banshee!
3. Merrow, probably.
...
...
...
X. Kuo-Toa Leviathan! (Cloud Giant statistics)
Y. If there's Merrow, there's Demons, right?
...
...
Z. Kraken and Dragon Turtle...Maybe a True Dragon?

If you're looking for inspiration, try The Dark of Hot Springs Island an excellent hexcrawl that should keep your players occupied for a while. You might also check out Seas of the Vodari. Two, I would argue that you can mine all you want, but until you settle on a theme and a tone, you're not going to know what you want, or rather, what "fits." Rime focuses on survival horror - is that what you're looking for in an archipelago? Thus far, we've all been sort of suggesting swashbuckly goodness, but if that's not the tone you're going for, let us know.

But if all you're looking for is random content suggestions:

Sailboarding races that cross islands (so you have to portage your sailboard)
Sahuagin using submersibles crafted by evil aquatic gnomes
Animated giant statues so tall that they can walk across the sea floor and keep their heads above water that are remnants of an ancient civilization and pursue those who steal its relics...but can't journey more than a mile from the seashore.
Invading / colonizing civilization (could use Mahapajit, Zheng He's voyages, or go Greek)
Natives who use water walk or spider climb spells to board ships (even if they're just there to trade with you, how terrifying is it to turn around and see some dude standing there with a gunny sack, like "Hey man, what's up?")
Island sacred to a nature god/dess, guarded by weresharks
A stationary hurricane; if you're a skillful sailor, you can use the currents it generates to accelerate your ship, but if you get too close you can sink yourself. At the eye of the hurricane is a passage to the Astral Plane, allowing you to "skip" between dimensions by using color pools that can generate quick exits. Which pools lead where is a closely guarded secret of the Gnostics.
Island full of hill giants (or cyclopes) who sing songs so horrible they drive sailors insane (create a mid-90's pop playlist)
Waterfalls that go the wrong way, hiding caves that are actually extradimensional spaces created by aboleths to store the stuff their chuul guardians brought back; removing the stuff can collapse the space - the more (and more powerful) items you remove, the greater the likelihood the space collapses
The Gnostic Order, a group of planar-traveling wizard-merchants who sail the planes in great golden barques, each of which carry a king's ransom in wealth and magic (explains the pirates). Each ship is a mini-faction, specializing in a different type of magic (like the necromancy barque that trades with the Shadowfell, and spends time searching the pearl beds for naturally-occurring black pearls) and feud with regular merchants or other Gnostic vessels.
An island full of Tantric monks whose repeated mantras calm the seas around them. An unfortunate misunderstanding has created the impression that all of these monks are sex experts (sexperts) and they routinely have to defend themselves against prospective kidnappers.
The Institute of Fulminology, an enclave of gnome engineers obsessed with lightning. They're currently working on harnessing storms with flywheels and electrified nets, but it's a short jump from there to ballistae that shoot lightning.
"Pirate quartets" that sing sea chanteys on street corners. 25% chance per quartet that one of them is a yuan-ti pureblood with a ton of drugs.
Drug-dealing yuan-ti cults that study biochemistry as a means to enhance their suggestion spells; their poison spray cantrip does no damage but produces a really awesome hallucinogenic experience. The yuan-ti view themselves as naturally superior to other mortals and are working to establish a peaceful dominion over these idiotic mortals before the mortals hurt themselves.
Obnoxious halfling pickup artists who use starfish as throwing knives.
A priest died from auto-erotic asphyxiation while hosting a mind-flayer tadpole. His soul wound up moving on, but the combination created a psychic aberration that only lives in the Ethereal Plane. Now the aberration, which thinks of itself as "the Priest" lurks in the Border Ethereal near the red-light district where it died and explodes the heads of mind-flayer allies / thralls that it finds.
Eel-hounds (magical cross-breeds between hounds and eels) have escaped into the wilds; their growing numbers and aggressive natures are displacing local fish shoals. The fishermen are muttering darkly about killing all the wizards they can find to send a message.
Stonetouch Mountain, a volcano whose lava is ice-cold and turns anything it touches into rock. This is a problem, given the ejecta from its eruptions reaches miles away. Cue a Pompeii-analog on the volcano's island somewhere. If freed from their petrification, the villagers will tell you the volcano wasn't always this way, at least, not until the purple worms arrived.
Aquatic trolls who lair in a cave filled with natural gas - any fire spell causes an explosion centered on the spell's caster equivalent to a 3rd-level fireball.
A locathah vampire who rides a giant shark like a remora, seeking warriors that can defeat it in underwater combat and give it Final Death. Those who fail are turned by the vampire, so the locathah (Count Blooboobpood, if you're curious) has a whole posse of vicious warriors riding sharks behind it. They only come out for blood once per month on the new moon.

Hope this helps.

[Cheesegear]

Rime focuses on survival horror - is that what you're looking for in an archipelago?

Currently playing through it in two concurrent games. I think what's good about Rime is that it forces players to keep moving, and if you slow down, you lose resources. Now, sure, there are many, many, many ways to circumvent the survival aspects of Rime; Leomund's Tiny Hut, Create Food & Water, to name but a few. But spell slots, are, in fact resources. They're just not really resources that the party has to work for. No dice. No roleplaying. Bam. Food & Water. But it is a resource that is spent.

Every hour in the wilderness, take a CON save due to the cold weather. This is extremely easy to circumvent by Level...3? Hell, some PCs might be able to circumvent the problem at Level 1 simply by playing a Dragonborn or Goliath, or by accidentally getting Child of Auril. Hell, you circumvent the cold problem, because the module gives you cold weather clothes, for free. Nobody should have to ever take the CON save, ever... Except for NPCs. As the players level up, they gain more resources, and more ways to circumvent the world around them. The fact that the players can do what they do, quite literally puts them a rung above the NPCs. That's why the party is required. That's why the party gains a reputation. They do, what the NPCs, can't. Rime is a fantastic module and I love it.

But, the fact of the matter is, in order to circumvent the world around them, the party must spend resources. Which, as a DM, I'm fine with. Because that's what makes the module difficult, and not a quiet stroll through the summer grasslands.

That's why I feel the same sort of thing can work in an Archipelago:
- You stick around too long in the Sun? Gain exhaustion.
- Saltwater everywhere. Fresh water is worth its weight in gold.
- You want to burn...Wood? **** off. We need that to build ships. We need that to build shelter. Anyone who poses a threat to what little lumber/forest growth the islands have, is a huge threat.
- And of course, Underwater Combat is punishing enough as-is. Land-dwelling mammals in an underwater city? Guess what, the Underwater Spellcasters have Dispel Magic prepped to remove the effects of your Potions or Spells, and now you're drowning, in an underwater city, surrounded by hostiles. I think you're already dead. Dispel Magic is a near-instant win vs. them in Underwater Combat. How does the party get around that?

You can't simply Long - or even Short - Rest after every encounter, because that burns resources. Resources you don't have. Maybe at some point you'll be able to circumvent the environment. But that's what separates the players, from the NPCs. That's why the party is required. That's why they need to be there.

However, the party has to want to be there in the first place. And, unfortunately, the majority of players in my third group, typically don't play Lawful and/or Good characters.


But if all you're looking for is random content suggestions:

I'm looking for low-level quest or challenge suggestions that my players would want to do, as characters. Rather than OOC "Well, the DM wrote it, so I guess we'd better check it out."


Animated giant statues so tall that they can walk across the sea floor and keep their heads above water that are remnants of an ancient civilization and pursue those who steal its relics...but can't journey more than a mile from the seashore.

Natives who use water walk or spider climb spells to board ships (even if they're just there to trade with you, how terrifying is it to turn around and see some dude standing there with a gunny sack, like "Hey man, what's up?")

The Gnostic Order, a group of planar-traveling wizard-merchants who sail the planes in great golden barques, each of which carry a king's ransom in wealth and magic (explains the pirates). Each ship is a mini-faction, specializing in a different type of magic (like the necromancy barque that trades with the Shadowfell, and spends time searching the pearl beds for naturally-occurring black pearls) and feud with regular merchants or other Gnostic vessels.

Drug-dealing yuan-ti cults that study biochemistry as a means to enhance their suggestion spells; their poison spray cantrip does no damage but produces a really awesome hallucinogenic experience. The yuan-ti view themselves as naturally superior to other mortals and are working to establish a peaceful dominion over these idiotic mortals before the mortals hurt themselves.



Those're cool.
I especially like the idea that there's a pirate crew with an enslaved alchemist in the hold. Whose job is to continuously create Potions of Water Breathing. Ending the pirates, frees the alchemist, who becomes an NPC alchemist available to the party who can create...Potions of Water Breathing...But for the party. Which will be real handy later on. He needs the necks/throats of Merrow, their demonic gills are filled with magical essence, you see.


Island sacred to a nature god/dess, guarded by weresharks

Yeah, got that one in my pocket. Trying to figure out which God/dess, since then I can tie them to the entire module (i.e; Like Auril, in Rime).


Island full of hill giants (or cyclopes) who sing songs so horrible they drive sailors insane (create a mid-90's pop playlist)

...But I like mid-'90s pop. :smallfrown:
Am I wrong? ...No. It's the children who are out of touch.


The Institute of Fulminology, an enclave of gnome engineers obsessed with lightning. They're currently working on harnessing storms with flywheels and electrified nets, but it's a short jump from there to ballistae that shoot lightning.

So we're going with the God being Talos? That checks out. Can explain hurricanes and storms whenever I feel like...And now I'm making analogues to Auril's Rime. But, my third group wont have played Rime, so it's fine. :smallbiggrin:


A priest died from auto-erotic asphyxiation while hosting a mind-flayer tadpole. His soul wound up moving on, but the combination created a psychic aberration that only lives in the Ethereal Plane. Now the aberration, which thinks of itself as "the Priest" lurks in the Border Ethereal near the red-light district where it died and explodes the heads of mind-flayer allies / thralls that it finds.

I lol'd. Well done.


Eel-hounds (magical cross-breeds between hounds and eels) have escaped into the wilds; their growing numbers and aggressive natures are displacing local fish shoals. The fishermen are muttering darkly about killing all the wizards they can find to send a message.

Amazing.


A locathah vampire who rides a giant shark like a remora, seeking warriors that can defeat it in underwater combat and give it Final Death. Those who fail are turned by the vampire, so the locathah (Count Blooboobpood, if you're curious) has a whole posse of vicious warriors riding sharks behind it. They only come out for blood once per month on the new moon.

Whilst not Level 1-4...It very definitely is adjacent to a Kua-Toa plot that I'm thinking up for later.


Hope this helps.

It did.

Q. If you cast Purify Food and Drink on saltwater, it would remain, saltwater, right? A major issue in the adventure isn't just solved by a Level 1 spell that even some NPCs could cast, right?

[Sparky McDibben]

Currently playing through it in two concurrent games. I think what's good about Rime is that it forces players to keep moving, and if you slow down, you lose resources. Now, sure, there are many, many, many ways to circumvent the survival aspects of Rime; Leomund's Tiny Hut, Create Food & Water, to name but a few. But spell slots, are, in fact resources. They're just not really resources that the party has to work for. No dice. No roleplaying. Bam. Food & Water. But it is a resource that is spent.

Every hour in the wilderness, take a CON save due to the cold weather. This is extremely easy to circumvent by Level...3? Hell, some PCs might be able to circumvent the problem at Level 1 simply by playing a Dragonborn or Goliath, or by accidentally getting Child of Auril. Hell, you circumvent the cold problem, because the module gives you cold weather clothes, for free. Nobody should have to ever take the CON save, ever... Except for NPCs. As the players level up, they gain more resources, and more ways to circumvent the world around them. The fact that the players can do what they do, quite literally puts them a rung above the NPCs. That's why the party is required. That's why the party gains a reputation. They do, what the NPCs, can't. Rime is a fantastic module and I love it.

But, the fact of the matter is, in order to circumvent the world around them, the party must spend resources. Which, as a DM, I'm fine with. Because that's what makes the module difficult, and not a quiet stroll through the summer grasslands.


I'm looking for low-level quest or challenge suggestions that my players would want to do, as characters. Rather than OOC "Well, the DM wrote it, so I guess we'd better check it out."

I think I'm starting to grok what you're going for here.


I especially like the idea that there's a pirate crew with an enslaved alchemist in the hold. Whose job is to continuously create Potions of Water Breathing. Ending the pirates, frees the alchemist, who becomes an NPC alchemist available to the party who can create...Potions of Water Breathing...But for the party. Which will be real handy later on. He needs the necks/throats of Merrow, their demonic gills are filled with magical essence, you see.

He can also branch out from there, too. What if you can seed alchemy recipes around the sandbox that, once turned in, the alchemist can start trying to create? I once went through the entire PHB spell list and tried to figure which ones could be done with alchemy. Stinking cloud and fireball were the easy ones, but what about an alchemically neutered parasite that adheres to your frontal lobe once imbibed, giving you both a one-hour detect thoughts spell and a splitting headache afterwards. Oh, and don't forget to take the antidote. The side-effects can be...unpredictable. So the party has to find both the recipe for the alchemist and a clutch of kuo-toa eggs that hold the actual parasite. Enemies abound might be an actual idea (contained in an etherically charged bottle) that, once releaseed, starts to drive people insane. Darkness? Gotta get that giant squid ink, y'all. And so on.


...But I like mid-'90s pop. :smallfrown:
Am I wrong? ...No. It's the children who are out of touch.

I laughed so hard at this.


Q. If you cast Purify Food and Drink on saltwater, it would remain, saltwater, right? A major issue in the adventure isn't just solved by a Level 1 spell that even some NPCs could cast, right?

Per the spell's write up: "All nonmagical food and drink within a 5-foot-radius sphere centered on a point of your choice within range is purified and rendered free of poison and disease."

Two points here: Salt is not a poison, and saltwater is (debatably) not a drink. So yeah, still saltwater. This actually makes sources of fresh water a serious sticking point for the area - maybe the "water right" has to be granted by inhabitants of an island before you can gather fresh water there, and captains hoard the knowledge of where water and provisions can be gathered along their routes.

[da newt]

With a little crafting cunning and access to unlimited heat and cooling sources (cantrips) you can evaporate seawater, collect the condensate and have drinking water. A simple solar still will work too without any magic.

[Catullus64]

One thing I did to motivate exploration in the early stages of a nautical/archipelago campaign was the Trade Tables.

I came up with a number of broad trade resource categories (for my game it was Grain, Liquor, Ores, Cloth, Steel, Guns, Medicines, Animals, Spices). For each of the settlements in the archipelago, I gave each good a base price per unit, based around which natural resources were more readily available in each location, and the manufacturing skills of the people living there. Lizardmen live near wild jungles and are expert hunters; cheap Animals and Medicines, but expensive Guns and Steel. Dwarves have a mining colony on a mountainous; Liquor and Ores are cheap, Cloth and Grain are more expensive.

For each good, I also came up with parameters for random weekly price fluctuation: more valuable goods have more unstable prices; Grain goes up or down by only about 1d6 CP per bushel, where Spices go up or down by a whole GP per pound.

I also made sure to put the most dangerous adventure hazards along some of the most profitable trade routes. Buying Medicines at the Lizardmen town and selling it at Val Nessa would sure turn over a tidy profit, but doing so requires sailing through the waters of the Vampirates. Much safer to sell those medicines at the next Lizardmen town over, but at a much lower profit. The players have to decide whether to take greater risks for greater profits, in an organic and world-driven way.

Players can look at or guess the prices by spending a workday chatting in the markets and succeeding on social skill checks. Higher DCs to figure out the prices of more remote locations. You can also include caches of trade goods in treasure horards, which function as soft adventure hooks. If the sahuagin lair has a lot of plundered Cloth, the players might decide to risk the perilous voyage to Port Ramshead, through the Screaming Reef, to sell them at the greatest profit.

[Unoriginal]

Random idea, but what if the PCs were in charge of distributing the mail through the archipelago?

[Corsair14]

Go semi-historical and do an ancient Greek campaign. Traveling by galley from place to place to strange islands like Jason and the Argonaughts(sp?). Or maybe do it against the backdrop of the Trojan war and have the PCs trying to find or do stuff to save Troy from the Hellenes. Maybe trying to gather allies and material from the various island city-state kingdoms, the Egyptians, or the Hittites or raiding the Hellene allies.

[ScoutTrooper]

I have a West Marches style campaign in the works that has a similar premise. I've filled a few quest tracks, but allowed player agency to change course of events. I went for a capture of largely loose Caribbean expansion minus the native exploitation. Instead changed it to a lost history, that explains the genesis of the whole plane. These secrets guarded by Merfolk, as part of the discovery track of quests. OF course pirates and a few 'home nations' for a whole political intrigue track. A lot of this is inspired from Sid Meier's Pirates! (2003) in the hopes that the players treat the West Marches similar to mechanics of that game. Gain a ship, sail freely to whatever course they want, choose to build up a navy, sack other towns, force them to change allegiances if they want. Conspire with other pirates for either coordinated attacks or hassle for cover. Buried treasure, some BBEGs in their own right, for them to cross and get involved in. If they gain their own notoriety, pirate hunters constantly seek them.

[Vogie]

Since I, too, have never seen or know about One Piece, I will give you two different IPs to draw from -

First - Raft.
It's an Early Access game on Steam where the player(s) not only have to deal with weather, island-hopping, and Shark-infested waters, but also have to go around and actually construct their titular Raft of scraps found floating about.

So, since you're looking at a series of encounters from levels 1-4, I'd do just that - Destroy the Boat and make them piece together a raft with the remains. Then, they're literally adrift, stuck with whatever they had on their person. Since they're adrift, they won't be able to "choose" where they're going until they collect enough items to create things like sails, rudders, oars, and the like. You have them bump into micro-islands, most of which are NOT inhabited by sentient creatures, where they hunt, harvest, and whatnot.

Secondly - The Expanse
This series of Books, and the SyFy/Amazon series that it is based on, was actually originally written as a custom TTRPG that one of the writers was creating. While it's set in space, the transition from that to a seafaring, island-hopping series of adventures is very simple - the giant capital ships and various waystations that the party of protagonists' discovers could easily be turned into various Islands, or much larger ships. Galleys, Floating amalgamation constructions, even Airships are things the party may discover.

The Expanse also has a massive level of political intrigue that you can incorporate into your games, and the entire plot of the first half is very much "you have to do these things to survive". That also fits will in the lower levels, as that's already something the PCs will be running into. The interior conciet of the Expanse is that the party has information that would stop the 3 major powers from going to war with each other... while being chased by the unknown OTHER enemy that started the fuse by committing false-flag attacks on those powers. So the PCs are not only trying to survive the harshness of their environment, but they're trying to find a sympathetic ear to get the information.