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.