Adventuring in the Elemental Plane of Water

[Evincar]

Hey all,

I call on the creative out there to help me out here.

I am running a campaign, characters are level 15 now. They just willingly passed through a portal into the Elemental Plane of Water in search of an item they lost. They travel in an elemental submarine (think Eberron airship).

I admit, I have not prepared this enough. That is why I have trouble creating an interesting side-plot for them to do while there. Next Saturday we're meeting up for a specially planned all-day session f D&D. I want to present something that is 100% true to the place they are in. Ready-made adventures are sometimes adaptable, but never make full use of weightlessness and 3-dimensional situations.

Since I'm not sure where to start, I come empty-handed. What plot ideas do you have for this?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

The ultimate oil spill, maybe?

[Eldan]

The Marids, maybe? Like all genies, they can make for pretty interesting encounters.

[dsmiles]

The Marids, maybe? Like all genies, they can make for pretty interesting encounters.

Couldn't agree more. Genies are awesome on any plane.

Also, for bonus points, is the submarine yellow?

[Xyk]

For a quick side-quest, just have the item be picked up by any big monster native to the Plane of Water. It's shiny and they wants it.

[Evincar]

Hey all,

Thanks for the ideas. I have been thinking about the Marids, but cannot think of anything special to do with them. Of course I can think of mundane encounters or simple plots, but nothing that fully uses the elemental plane. It's as new to me as to my players.

Maybe I should not have brought them there, but that is how the overall plot rolls.

[Makiru]

Easy. The marids found the item the party is searching for, and send a squad of controlled water elementals to take out their ship. There's your 3D combat for you.

Remember, with the Elemental Planes, literally any piece of the world around the party could spring up and attack them, simply for disturbing the elemental purity of the plane with their presence.

You could also use tojandas as allies. The Pathfinder book Misfit Monsters Redeemed presents them as highly knowledgeable beings that were cursed into their current form. If the party was willing to help one or more in breaking the racial curse (which could be a sidequest in and of itself), they might help storm the marid palace or whatever you think.

[Tvtyrant]

One possibility would be to have the item being kept on a city that fell into the Elemental Plane of Water from the Shadowsea, so the Marids are currently in conflict with some demons (wastriliths) over ownership of the city. This gives two different sides your party can use diplomacy on, and a city filled with different water fiends/aberrations that are justified due to it being from the Abyss originally. None of them know about the particular item, and are more interested in ownership of the city itself.

[Zaydos]

Another would be to have the archomental Olhyrdra, or Ben-Hadur, have the item. Olhydra is your basic evil overlord, while Ben-Hadur is "Good" aligned but an obnoxious jerk. Or have the forces of the two archomentals fighting over it.

[Coidzor]

The ultimate oil spill, maybe?

A little bit of Toxic Love, eh?

[Tvtyrant]

How does combat on the sub work? Can they stand on an Air Deck like Spelljammer, or do they have to stick to whatever weapons are mounted on the sub? If the latter I suggest you do 1 large grappling thing like a Kraken where the party cuts off the tentacles to free the sub, and then stick to boarding parties in order to allow people to fight as they like.

[potatocubed]

Things that can happen:

There are creatures called facets - beings from the quasiplane of salt - who are waging a war on the elemental plane of water. Facets absorb moisture by touch (healing themselves) and split into two new facets when they reach capacity. They seek to absorb the whole plane, which planar natives are naturally opposed to.

If the submarine is like an Eberron airship, it's powered by a captive elemental. Sounds like a good time to have an advanced kraken crack the elemental binding and release the elemental, which promptly scoots off. Got to find a new elemental and bind it! Perhaps the kraken can help. Perhaps it just wants people to do something it can't (travel into the small tunnels in an impossibly vast field of coral, maybe?) and crippling the characters' transport is a handy way to make sure they have to listen to it.

There are creatures called entropes which dissolve the boundaries between planes. Perhaps one is swimming nearby, leaving a trail of chunks of planar matter in its wake: huge air bubbles, rock-burgs full of confused pech, etc. The Doomguard - a faction who love entropy more than anything else - love the entropes, but everyone else hates them.

A marid has their McGuffin. He uses his elemental powers to allow the party to breathe and function underwater in his magnificent castle, then while they're not looking he tries to steal their submarine and take them as slaves. I mean, they can't go anywhere or do anything without his magic to keep them alive, right? (He'll need to take precautions vs. water breathing and other spells, like dispelling traps or something.) The idea is that the characters will have to be a bit subtle and sneaky to get what they want, all the while keeping the marid entertained enough that he doesn't just let them drown.

If the party are likely to hack first and ask questions later, put the McGuffin in Olhydra's court for much the same effect, except Olhydra is a demigod and as such less hackable.

[dsmiles]

Things that can happen:

Hell, I may steal those myself, and I'm not even running an elemental campaign (I'm running The Witchfire Trilogy).

[Evincar]

VERY nice ideas, thanks! I really like the idea about the facets. Are those made up or in one of the 3.5 books?

[Evincar]

I'm using the kraken idea. It'll want help to fight a few marids who have taken control of a clan of good water mephits, who live in his territory. They have taken over the mephit's houses in an earth mote, the caves are too small for it to attack the marids.

The players will enter the cave-system to find the marids and battle the water mephit guards (who are enslaved, but ultimately the ones to be saved) before they face off the marids.

Simple and quick, though still more than "a band of marids attack your ship!!" Also, the kraken will rip them off their course (which they will dislike), but it can bring them further along on their trip as a thanks. Which will speed up the campaign, which is what I want.


More suggestions are appreciated (for me or future visitors to this thread), and I'm always open to tweaks on the above plot. Thanks again!

[Zaydos]

VERY nice ideas, thanks! I really like the idea about the facets. Are those made up or in one of the 3.5 books?

2nd edition. Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix III.

[Evincar]

Found it! Thanks