This week brings another coastal adventure, based on my Coastal Encounters random table. This is the last coastal themed content, since next week I have something special prepared and we are going to switch the environment next month.

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Adventure Idea

This coastal encounter is suitable for a late Tier-1 or early Tier-2 party, and can easily be adjusted by choosing the specific creatures and their amount. It is a balanced mix of combat, exploration, and social encounters, and intentionally contains no location names, to be easily put into any games.

Adventure Background

Erkyn Pather holds an auction in a beach hut to sell some things. Gathering people he knows, the auction is quite the event. What nobody knows is that Erkyn just found the items at the beach a few hours ago, lying next to a stranded and unconscious merfolk. Being desperately in need of money to finance medical treatment for his child, he decided to take and sell the items and left the merfolk at the beach.

Erkyn’s partner died a couple of years ago, so he raises their child by himself. Now, his child has a medical condition, which could be fatal, but could also possibly be cured if Erkyn gets the right treatment soon. This is very expensive; too expensive for Erkyn. When he sees the shiny relics lying at the beach, he sees an opportunity.

The merfolk, Naurith Waveborn, gathered important relics from different merfolk communities for a collective ritual to protect their territory. A group of Sahuagin attacked him to steal the relics and prevent the merfolk from completing the ritual. They hurt him and eventually he stranded, along with the items he gathered. Before the Sahuagin were able to get ahold of these things, Erkyn found and took them. Tracks lead them to a beach hut in which a desperate Erkyn is sitting, next to the missing items.

The Sahuagin will find Erkyn when the characters talk to Naurith. Once they return to him, they find him surrounded by the Sahuagin. They will have to fight them to return the items.

Hook

When the characters travel along the coast, they pass by an old beach hut. A small crowd is standing outside, while they can hear loud chatter from the inside. As they come closer, they can see a man standing between half a dozen different objects, trying to auction them. People look annoyed, and it takes a while until somebody buys one of the items - for a lower price than the man initially wanted. When the characters reach the beach hut, the man presents his last object; a shiny magical weapon.

Conclusion

Returning the Items. When all the relics are in Naurith’s possession, he can finally go back home and start the ritual with the other merfolk communities. If the characters talked to Erkyn about this situation, he apologises and agrees to return the items to Naurith. He asks the characters for their help, supporting him and his child financially. If the characters agree to help, they can do so by sharing their gold. It is up to the GMs discretion, how much gold would be sufficient. To make this have a meaning to the characters though, it is advisable to make it cost at least half the gold they have, if not even more.

By this point, the Sahuagin have been fought off and they won’t pose a threat any time soon.

Decisions. The characters might decide to leave the relics with Erkyn to help finance the medical treatment of his child. In this case, they might encounter Naurith in later adventures, being driven out of his home, trying to retrieve all of the items to be able to return. When the characters leave Erkyn, he starts trying to sell the relics, which proves difficult and he still can’t afford the medical treatment for his child.

This week I created another adventure idea using my Coastal Encounters table. It can be played as a standalone adventure, but I intentionally connected it to the recent adventure idea ‚What the Tide Hides‘. So, if you played that, you can continue the journey with this adventure and use the Children of the Spawning Tide as a cult that formed around Ilassithid - the mind-controlling creature from the former adventure.

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You can find a downloadable PDF for free on my Patreon.

Adventure Idea

This coastal adventure idea leans more towards combat, but also leaves room for roleplaying and social interaction. It is suitable for any Tier party. It intentionally contains no location names, so it can be placed in any game playing at the coast.

Situation

After an eldritch, mind-controlling creature died in battle, a cult that formed around it received its last order—deliver the crates to every major city. Those crates contain larvae, ready to nest in a host and grow. The cultists, who call themselves Children of the Spawning Tide, are not aware of what is inside those boxes, as well as they’re not aware of the fact that their deity was just an eldritch creature, manipulating them into worship. Behind all this is a much bigger plot, and the cultists are distributing the crates with larvae from a hideout to different places. The cult itself is very well organised and manages their distribution well. If you played What the Tide Hides, you can connect this adventure to it. The eldritch creature in this adventure is Ilassithid, the one the party defeated before. They now reveal that even after his death, Ilassithid has a plan in motion, which the characters now have to stop.

Hook

As the party travels along the coast, they discover a hidden beach spot, full of Children of the Spawning Tide. Shady business is going on here, as they are loading boxes onto a small ship. One part of ‘The Children‘ delivered those crates on a wagon, and the other part waited for them at the beach and is supposed to deliver the crates further. They seem to be very keen to stay undetected, and they are hostile towards anyone entering the beach spot. So as soon as they discover the characters, parts of them try to ready the ship to flee, as the rest start a fight. When the characters approach the beach, they can try to stay undetected to follow some of ‚The Children‘ back to their hideout. Once all the crates are unloaded off the wagon, some of the cultists leave the beach to the rest, who are getting ready to sail off. If the party wants to stop the distribution process, they have to fight the Children of the Spawning Tide. Once they defeat them, they can find notes on a bigger plot going on and a map leading them to the hideout.

Conclusion

Destroy them from inside. If the party investigates the beach and the Children of the Spawning Tide, they can find clues on a secret hideout. If they decide to go there, they will find more crates and more cultists and they can stop ‚The Children’s' ill-doings from the inside. The most likely way to stop them, since they are hostile towards the characters, and very determined to serve their deity, is to fight them. But some characters might find a way to make them see the truth, and convincing and converting them is a legitimate option.

Take Them All Down. If the characters don’t follow the clues, that lead them to the secret hideout, they might still track down and stop all of the distribution meetings. If they finish the adventure this way, a small group of Children of the Spawning Tide will be left over, who eventually find out that someone stopped their plans. If you play this adventure as part of an ongoing campaign, they might appear at another time to confront the party.

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Last week I posted my Coastal Encounters table, and this week I wanted to create an adventure idea using it. I used the extended version, so I rolled three d20s and I had a full encounter. To create something even more unique, I rolled another set of d20s though, and I mixed both encounter ideas together. This is what I usually do with random tables; I roll a couple of times, take what resonates with me, and I throw the rest out. So, for now—have fun at the table!

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You can find a downloadable PDF for free on my Patreon.

Adventure Idea

This coastal encounter is best suited for a party of level 5 characters, but can easily be adjusted. It intentionally contains no location names, so it can be dropped into any campaign or played as a standalone adventure.

Situation

An eldritch creature inhabits a temple hidden and lost deep down the ocean. Luring uninformed travellers in, it nourishes on their brains with its tentacle-framed mouth. It created a maelstrom and now mind-controls an innocent travelling merchant to lure people into the temple to feed on their brains. The travelling merchant pretends to be working on a stranded ship, asking any passersby for help, offering to share knowledge of a sunken treasure with them. This is all part of the plan to feed the mind-controlling beast in the depths.

Hook

When the characters travel along a beach, they discover Daron Sellgood, a travelling merchant, currently working on a stranded ship. He asks the characters for help, offering to share his knowledge of a hidden treasure. If they agree, he also asks for help to retrieve it, willing to share it with the characters. He lacks the skills and assumes they have experience with adventurous ventures like this. He tells them where the treasure is and lends them his ship to get it. Once they sail out into the open water, they get caught by a strong maelstrom and sucked into a hidden temple under the surface. Most parts of the temple are dry and filled with air to breathe, but flooded with monsters.

Conclusion

Defeat the Evil. To escape the temple, the characters need to make their way through and eventually defeat the mind-controlling creature. Once they defeat it, the maelstrom stops, no one is under the creature’s control anymore and the characters can leave the temple by simply swimming to the surface. Daron Sellgood lies at the beach, unconscious, and has difficulty remembering what happened once the party wakes him up.

The adventure idea only gives one possible outcome—take the deal, defeat the monster. Of course, the characters can (and often will) decide to go another route. If they don’t care about the merchant, they can just leave the area and this adventure idea will not play out. They can see through the lies the merchant is telling. The merchant will be conflicted about this, since he will not be aware of this himself. The party could still decide to go for the treasure; they might even take the merchant with them. They could fight the pirates, or take their warning seriously. It is up to the GMs discretion to decide what is possible in your games, and what the players can do. This adventure idea only wants to give inspiration and direction, but it doesn’t need to be played as written.

The topic for my next random table was kind of a user request. My approach usually is, to give GMs just a bit of inspiration to create their own things. This is what I tried to achieve here as well. You can roll three dice, to get the full scope of something that is trapped and the solution on how to avoid this trap. You can also just roll two dice to see what is trapped, assuming the trap can be easily disarmed without solving a puzzle. Or maybe your players approach something, that is only accessible by solving a puzzle, but it isn’t trapped. Everything in this table is intentionally vague, so you can fill the gaps with your imagination, and tailor everything to suit your games. In the Dungeon Master’s Guide, both the 5e and the 5.5e version, you can find guidance on how much damage a trap should do to characters of certain levels. I left all of this out on purpose, so you can always use this table in your games. Have fun with it.

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You can find a downloadable PDF for free on my Patreon.

Random Traps & Puzzles

This week I created a new adventure idea out of my Travel Encounters table. I think it turned out pretty good, let me know what you think. A campsite full of corpses, and a wanted poster bearing the face of one of your own party members. What begins as an unsettling discovery quickly turns into a morally grey situation with no easy answers. And the more the party learns about the people involved, the more difficult it becomes to decide who’s side to pick. A flexible travel encounter designed for easy integration into any campaign.

Download

You can find a downloadable PDF for free on my Patreon.

Adventure Idea

This adventure idea can be played during travel and focuses on social interaction and roleplaying , with some potential for combat, and is suitable for any Tier party. It intentionally contains no location names and can be placed in any game.

Situation

Carly Longsail, a pirate who lost his crew, his ship, and something very valuable to him, is wanted for murder. While he was trying to retrieve the medallion his grandmother gave him before she died, he got caught, and in a messy fight for survival, he killed a lot of the people who stole from him — only that those people were Navy forces. A group of bounty hunters found him and brought him in, but he managed to get away again. After stumbling across the group of bounty hunters, who were making camp in the area, he had to fight them, killed all of them, and is now on the run.

Hook

As the party travels to the next city, they discover an abandoned campsite full of corpses. After investigating the place for a while, they find an old wanted poster depicting the face of one of the party members. In this moment of irritation, Vendis Rightgart, a member of the city watch, shows up and orders the party to give up. If the characters are compliant, Vendis is easy to convince that they are not who he is looking for. The arms of the pirate he is after are covered in tattoos, and if the party member whose face is on the poster shows their arms, Vendis turns friendly towards the party and tells them what happened.

Conclusion

Bring in the Bounty. If the party decides to bring in Carly, he will resist with all that is left within him. He will fight to death if necessary. If they bring him in alive, he will be put in a cell, and the characters will be rewarded with gold. The amount is up to the GMs discretion to be easily adjusted to the current level of the characters. If he is brought in dead, or if they bring proof of his death, Vendis will not be as satisfied, but he will still reward the players with gold. Free the Prisoner. If the party decides to let Carly go and help him cover his tracks, they will not suffer any consequences from the city watch. Vendis is going to send more guards after Carly and thank the characters anyways. Carly gave the characters all he has (besides the medallion), which will roughly be half of the amount of gold that Vendis would have rewarded. Most of that money was on the bounty hunters.

If the characters brought Carly in alive and you are playing a longer campaign, he might show up at a later point in that campaign again. He might have fled imprisonment and now is hostile towards the party. If they helped him get away, he might show up again as well, but now is friendly towards the party and he might even return the favour and help them out.

We're a digital monthly APA (a fanzine collective) focused on roleplaying games. RPGs discussed in this issue include D&D, D&D5e, GURPS, Mausritter, Kriegsmesser, Knave, Villains and Vigilantes, Star Wars d6, Barrows & Borderlands, Pulp Cthulhu, RuneQuest, Urban Shadows, Monsterhearts, Cage of Sand, and Traveller.

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My games mostly play in urban environments, which is probably why my first random table was the Urban Adventure Ideas. Second to urban environments is probably coastal areas, so I decided to give this a try as well. When creating random tables, I don’t focus on potential combat encounters. My focus goes to story ideas, which don’t necessarily need to be played as they are written, but should just serve you as a game master to get enough ideas in your head to run your own stories. This is why I split my random tables into three categories. If you read each line, it sounds relatively standard. But if you mix different items from the different categories together, things start to become weird, sometimes they won’t even fit properly. But this is, where I see the strength in my tables. Anyways, you can find a free PDF on my Patreon.

We're a digital monthly APA (a fanzine collective) focused on roleplaying games. RPGs discussed in this issue include D&D, D&D5e, GURPS, Mausritter, Kriegsmesser, Knave, Villains and Vigilantes, Star Wars d6, Barrows & Borderlands, Pulp Cthulhu, RuneQuest, Urban Shadows, Monsterhearts, Cage of Sand, and Traveller.

The Ignorable Theme for our next issue will be on fantasy races and science-fiction species. What’s the most interesting race/species you’ve played, NPCed, or simply read about, and which, if any, do you personally identify with? The deadline for submitting a zine is June 21st. Please see https://everanon.org/ for details.