The characters can learn of the tension between the traditionalists and the loyalists. You also might be the sort of DM who lets players choose anything and come what may. And Final enemy is level 7. In case this game goes longer than an adventure or two, I'd like to try and build out a coherent campaign. Have a question or want to contact me? The characters attempt to land upon and cross a region of sandy dunes in which a large number of skeletons are buried in the sand. I could wish for more specific types of mysterious island because I think theres a lot of untapped potential still, but perhaps well see a collection of additional types on DMsGuild one of these days. The Saltmarsh village and regional maps can be printed on 17x24 for about $3 each at your local Staples or Fedex print center and they look great on the table when you're running your session zero and describing the locations. However, it is almost certainly a sign that Greyhawk is about to be added to the list of supported settings on the DMsGuild, which would enable fans to update Greyhawk themselves. Adding in grid maps for each ship type (galley, keelboat, longship, rowboat, sailing ship, and warship) and area descriptions for average vessels of those types is awesome. Ghosts of Saltmarsh - The Premise. Crew names. This avoids the oddball character who comes in with a clearly different motive and drive that never quite fits either the group or the adventure. As mentioned, access to high level divination spells might bypass some of the adventure, but after reading it through Im fairly confident that it should still be a good play experience, with enough meat on the bones of the adventure even if the investigatory aspects are largely skipped. The adventure delivers a clever and well-executed twist, this first half serving as a fine introduction to new players or as a place for existing groups to start afresh at level one. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Ghosts of Saltmarsh is an adventure module anthology for the 5th edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. This review is intended for DMs, who are the products intended audience (there is only a very little amount of player content). Since chapters 2, 3, and 6 are the trilogy that form the through line of the larger campaign, this is the first of what we might call side quests. This latter advice is honestly one of my favourite parts of the book: in a few brief paragraphs, it massively increases the play potential of a campaign set in and around Saltmarsh for anyone who also owns TotYP. Note that a similar sidebar gives localisation guidance for each adventure in this book. Theres a table you can use to determine a hazard type at random. After returning with their intelligence, the characters are rewarded, but of course there part in the plan isnt done: the alliance want them to join the attack on the fortress as a strike team so its back to the stronghold they go! These arent given names, you could use other tables for that: theyre meant to be sailor nicknames. Although this quest isnt directly related he can negotiate using this information: he can talk about how the sahuagin are not the only menaces the people of Saltmarsh have to fear, and hint that the sahuagin may even make surface allies of their own. And sure, there are people who will look at this and think 'I dont feel like going out to sea' for their campaign, and thats okay because some of these can be adapted easily to fit what you need if you feel like taking your DMs tools to them". Fortunately, an awareness of this seems to have factored in at the design stage: indeed, the adventure references divination and commune specifically as options for characters who have lost the trail. it appears that the actual print of the cover looks flatter and duller, Monstrous Monograph: Monstrosities Volume 1. Finally, Saltmarsh Backgrounds provides four new background options (Fisher, Marine, Shipwright, and Smuggler) which are useful additions for GoS specifically but also great new options for any character in any campaign. Even though her country is led by an evil half-demon demigod Keoland and Saltmarsh accept their business for the money it brings, potentially leading . Time to turn back if you dont want spoilers! A Pressure Capsule is a consumable that allows you to ignore effects of swimming at depths greater than 100 feet (if youre not aware, these effects are described in the Underwater section of Unusual Environments in the Dungeon Masters Guide. Kysh (Triton) though Kysh is a named NPC this statblock is useful because Kysh is typical triton warrior, and to date we only have a triton player race and not any monster stats). The Adventures in Saltmarsh section is very useful. Any kraken is a catastrophe in physical form, but one touched by Tharizduns destructive madness could become a threat of apocalyptic proportion in the fullness of time. We can describe the locations of Saltmarsh, letting players jump in when they hear of a place about which they want to know more. Here are some ideas: The Final Enemy concludes the trilogy which began with The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. Sort by: In any case the log only describes events up until the captain and crew were defeated and consumed by the cannibals. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". Crossing the dunes is akin to crossing a minefield, except choosing the wrong path results in an explosion of undead from the sand. The notes in chapter 1 recommend placing it in an isolated harbour city on an island in the Azure Sea. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. For this session zero I wrote a Ghosts of Saltmarsh Player's Guide. Danger at Dunwateris the second adventure in the through line trilogy that started withThe Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. Since only one cultist survived, hes the only person capable of telling the next part of the story. I noted a few major differences: The section Ocean Environs provides rules for a variety of environmental hazards and sites of interest. Maybe they worship Orcus, like the undead pirates in, Alternatively, or perhaps in addition, the evil clerics here once belonged to the same order of monks that occupy Firewatch Island in, Another option is to make them cultists of Tharizdun. The three adventures of the core Saltmarsh trilogy has the characters face off against sahuagin, who worship the shark god Sekolah. Sanbalet a named NPC smuggler. GoS indicates Ghosts of Saltmarsh. The loyalists see the body as a sign that the town needs more protection and a heavier hand. We are given the background to this: these werea group of thieves who stowed away on the ship before its last voyage and drowned in the storm. Here they may defeat it, make a deal with it, or perhaps succumb to its psychic enslavement. This will KILL a newbie 3rd level party that is not optimized for combat. The first, Avernus, fell apart. It takes a lot of work to mesh singular modules into a cohesive adventure, but [Mike] Mearls and Kate Welch (who served as the lead designers on this one) did a fantastic job. ), sapping snow, and magical storms. The mayor of Saltmarsh was NOT happy about them burning down the house, so I sent them to the Isle of Dread instead. Even if you never intend to run the adventures, the content here alongside new monster statblocks ought to be enough to tempt you. Its worth noting that if youre playing in a world other than Greyhawk and you intend to run the book as a campaign rather than pick stand-alone adventures from it, you might find it difficult to include some adventures in your campaign. The upgrade system has been made intentionally simple: rather than price everything separately, each upgrade costs 15,000 gp and requires 1d4 weeks of work. If I run a GoS campaign, Im not sure Ill include this one. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. If you enjoy this article, check out Sly Flourish's bestselling books, weekly newsletter, YouTube videos, twice-weekly podcast, and fan-supported Patreon, all offering tips to help you run awesome D&D games. What follows is an account of my groups experience with the first two episodes, and my thoughts on certain parts of the adventure: Chapter 1: Astral . This table is a fun idea but only moderately useful in my opinion. Thousand Teeth a legendary giant crocodile. While Saltmarsh slumbers, the evils that seek to plunder it grow stronger. Its also where the major NPCs of the town are described. This one-page guide, influenced heavily by Matt Coleville's video on the value of player guides, is intended to give the players everything they need to understand where the campaign is going and how their character might fit into it. Ghosts of Saltmarsh makes no sense, here's why. Ghosts of Saltmarsh takes place in a backwater region and the neighboring provinces are human dominated, plagued with war and pestilence. This is an interesting product, because it falls somewhere in the middle of previous adventure books in terms of its presentation and purpose. To foster the fear of the citizens, the kraken manufactured the Lantern Ghost, enslaving a local fisherman and forcing him to kill. However, this isnt always the case (for example, in Danger at Dunwater creatures might move between room 10 and room 29). Alien islands are ruled over by strange, eldritch creatures (aberrations) and inhabited by humanoids or cultists indoctrinated into their worship. what plots should yo. This is the first campaign book Ive read through properly, but I understand these rosters also appeared in previous campaign books. Amphisbaena if you ever want a more deadly version of this CR 1/2 monster (which is CR 1/2), my own CR 5 take on the amphisbaena can be found in. They find an aboleth at the temple (which is of course the Whisperer) recuperating after being attacked by its kin. They may or may not be willing to entertain visitors. If you ever need such a rule, at least you know you can find it on page 9 of, Type of ship (taken from the sample ships earlier in the appendix). The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh - four to six 1st level Danger at Dunwater - four to six 3rd level Salvage Operation - four to six 4th level Isle of the Abbey - four to six 5th level The Final Enemy - four to six 7th level Tammeraut's Fate - four to six 9th level The Styes - four to six 11th level Fearing an attack, the towns leaders send the adventurers to investigate. All in all, this is an excellent supplement that oozes potential and inspiration. With our Waterdeep Dragon Heist campaign complete, my two groups both began their adventures in Ghosts of Saltmarsh. In some campaigns this doesn't matter too much but it's hard to figure out why a githyanki or yuan-ti might be involved in the issues surrounding a fishing village. Check em out if you love boats". Youll either love or hate the maps in GoS. Get revved up! Furthermore, neither the captains log nor the druid can explain the presence of four ghasts in the cargo hold (though the druid falsely believes them to be emissaries of Lolth). Ghosts of Saltmarsh for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons* Last modified: 9/4/2019 8:47:00 AM . In the events of the previous adventure, it was discovered that the smugglers were supplying weapons to a tribe of lizardfolk living in a colony near Saltmarsh. The appendix contains the following creatures: As you can see theres quite a lot here thats new to Fifth Edition at least! Like Tales from the Yawning Portal, it collects and updates a set of unrelated classic adventures and a DM can cherry pick from among them. Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features. Upon encountering the clerics, the adventure might branch from its original path: although it is very difficult to do so, the characters may be able to avoid fighting the clerics and might decide to help them to the mainland so they can get help to rebuild the abbey (if they agree to this and arent deceiving the clerics in order to deport them, they obviously cannot complete their original contract). The files were designed to be used with VTT apps such as Roll20, where you can assemble the ship in the way it best suits your campaign, being it placing . By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of all the cookies. Aside from the smuggling operation noted above, the final sections of this adventure pertain to further adventures characters could have that are connected to Tammerauts Fate. These tables are paired with more complex adventure sites in an effort to make them more manageable. When I run The Ghosts of Saltmarsh, I'm fairly confident my current group will NOT burn down the house; they've heard that story and had a SMDH reaction to it (plus my wife played in that game, too). However, its the perfect place to add such links. [10], Cameron Kunzelman, for Paste, wrote that the book is "geared at more veteran players" and that he "found it very cool to read through". During The Haunted House the adventures investigate the abandoned cliffside abode of a long dead alchemist, which seems to be haunted. In this adventure, the characters are asked by a struggling merchant to help salvage his wealth from a former ship of his fleet, long thought lost to the sea. Download Free PDF View PDF . Download the Ghosts of Saltmarsh Player's Guide. 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