Looking for Pirate-y Adventure Hooks

[OminousP]

Hi everyone!

I DM a game of D&D 5e once a week for a group of a friends. Recently, they expressed great interest in playing a Naval/High Seas/Pirate-Themed game which I too thought was a great idea. So over the course of about one hour I cooked up a quick module taking place in the "Sea of Fallen Stars" (and also made up some relatively balanced 5e stats for the beasties that live there.)

It consisted of their ship running aground on a deserted island and being destroyed, and a short dungeon on the island. This all ended up being great fun, so much that the players are now really attached to the characters they made. So much so that they now expect me to turn it into a campaign. And now that I need to hook them in to a new adventure on the Inner Sea, I need ideas.

I actually wanted to know if other DMs out there know some good sources for adventure hooks in such a setting. Or ideas for an adventure themselves. I already looked up lots of lore and background about that region of the Forgotten Realms, but I still haven't really thought up a good adventure hook that would give them a ship and a reason to explore the islands, and I also couldn't find many adventures written for the Sea of Fallen Stars setting. It could really be material from any role-playing game out there as long as it seems fun and pirate-y.

[Lord Raziere]

Its a pirate campaign. finding an island with a strange landmark on it is a plot hook.

or finding random flotsam floating in the ocean. that can always be used for something. what happened to make it flotsam just floating around on the seas?

or you can have them find a strange magical map that seems to constantly reveal to the new islands for them to go to, thus providing a bunch of new options every time they look at it.

you can always go the "need money to upkeep/repair ship" route and have them do something for somebody to get the money to keep sailing. preferably done while in a port town.

you could come across merchant or civilian ships that got raided by other pirates who let the people on the ship keep sailing. could be anything from taking needed supplies to stealing something magical the merchants found.

those sound good at all?

[Sartharina]

A one-off adventure between other hijinks: Unnatural fog rolls in, heralding an attack from an undead ship. Depending on the amount of damage sustained, the party finds itself on a cursed island. (Inspired by Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, and some Pirates of the Caribbean - any movie)

It's the maiden voyage of the Very Important Empire's Mighty Armada's new flagship. Wouldn't that be a wondrous treat to go sailing the world in, over whatever doohicky they're in instead?

Uh-oh! Stranded on an island with irate, obnoxious and socially unpleasant natives 'ruled' by Johnny Depp, and he needs them to extricate them from his situation!

[VoxRationis]

A race against a rival crew to find a massive treasure load or poorly defended cargo ship.

[geeky_monkey]

Pirates of Dark Water! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirates_of_Dark_Water if you missed this masterpiece).

A band of misfits with mysterious pasts, forced together to stop a world threatening evil. Magical macguffins to collect, in a life-or-death race against an evil pirate who will use them to further his power rather than save the world.

That's a campaign right there.

[Mutazoia]

Try picking up a copy of the Golden Voyages supplement for the old Al Qadim setting. It outlines a mini-campaign based on Sinbad the Sailor, but can easily be modded to fit pretty much anywhere. It was written for 2nd ed, but a clever DM should have no problem with a little updating. I also highly recommend picking up a copy of the 3.5 supplement, Stormwrack. It will be absolutely invaluable for an ocean going campaign.

Books and movies can help as well. Titles such as:

• The Swiss Family Robinson
• Robinson Caruso
• The afore mentiond adventures of Sinbad
• The afore mentioned Pirates of Darkwater
• The Seahawk
• The Crimson Pirate
• Captain Blood

[OminousP]

So far these are all really great! Most likely this week's adventure will start the players off following a magical map that reveals, one by one, the locations of the region's most powerful and mysterious macguffins as they race against other pirate crews to collect them.

Thanks guys ! :)

[Jay R]

I recommend the Flashing Blades: High Seas supplement. You'll need to translate; Flashing Blades is not a D&D compatible system. But you're looking for hooks, not finished adventures.

[LibraryOgre]

If you want something a bit politically meatier, you might give them a letter of marque and let them start robbing ships from opposing countries... assuming you mean FR's sea of Fallen Stars, they might be Sembian privateers out to restrict trade up to the Moonsea by ambushing ships from other nations.