Neath the waves

[devadasi]

kit has a 2nd level talktipus names Memlath, and has just rolled up a "kuda" character as well.


So I am looking for any ideas you guys might want to throw out for undersea adventuring. i am interested in lairs, creatures, traps, gonzo crazy ideas, interesting mechanics.... anything.

if you were to run an undersea adventure, what ideas might you want to include.

[order99]

Sea-bloated Zombies that rise from thier watery graves whenever there's a ring around the moon, always at the highest tide, and terrorize both shallow-draft fishing boats and fogbound coastal villages...

Wrecked, capsized hulls resting peacefully in ocean silt, dwelling places for both harmless and not-so-harmless life, and full of spoiled supplies, rotted broadcloth and abandoned treasues...

Unspoiled shallows full of oyster beds, rampant and abundant and ready for eating or pearling as they grow unchecked on the coral. The natives won't eat them though, and the few native Pearldivers have an elaborate set of rituals where they 'ask' the bed for it's bounty and offer gifts of song or labor to the immaculately tended beds. The pearls harvested from these beds are a glorious and sublime Rose tint, and highly sought after. The native pearlers don't mind a few respectful strangers swimming among the beds, as long as you don't mind the unearthly, tuneless singing you will hear emanating from the beds...soothing really, once one is accustomed to it, The natives will NEVER allow strangers to dive for pearls though-loss of income aside, most non-natives go pearling with sharp tools rather than the gently rounded and oiled bamboo probes the locals use, and if you CUT a single oyster the bed will unleash a dreadful, million-part SHREIK that will empty the air from one's lungs at close range. And should the foolish divers survive, the locals WILL hunt them down due to the fact that an entire fishing season is lost when it happens (no sealife will go near the beds for months)....

Deep, deep below, past the shallows and shrouded in semidarkness sits a modest castle made entirely of volcanic obsidian, threaded with delicate strands of glass. A fissure surrounding the castle radiates cold, forming a boundary layer of superchilled water that acts as a (purely decorative) moat. Upon entering one notices that, grand as the castle is, everything is scaled to roughly Hobling size-furniture, corridors, the lot. All the child-sized furniture and decorations are of durable and sea-resistant materials. In the middle of the miniature Throne Room sits a single small 'chest' made from a cask of salt-treated wood and bound with kelp rope. Inside the chest is a collection of ordinary, but pretty, shells. The longer one stays in this pretty castle with its pretty things, the more one is affected by-an emptiness. A gentle but persistent sadness, growing deeper and more profound until any sapient being must leave or be reduced to helpless tears...the effect fades in time once one has left, and slowly resumes if one returns...

Near a bank of superheated underwater vents lies an air-filled cavern, the former laboratory of a long dead Mad Wizard. Many odd, rusted machines, splintered beakers, vats of rotted chemicals abound, along with sealed bone tubes full of delicate parchment. Delvers Beware though- the Wizard engaged in many strange experiments, one of which lifted an entire colony of Horseshoe crabs into a dim sentience. The arthropods consider the entire territory thiers, and have learned to mold the softer, more corrosion-resistant metals(silver and gold coins from wrecks) by approaching the superheated vents wrapped in insulating seaweed and carefully working the metals in the superheated fluids...Warrior bands patrol the perimeter, traveling in packs of a dozen or more, claws reinforced with gleaming, armored edges, they swarm thier opponents-recently, a team of crabs killed thier first shark, and found it delicious. If approached with respect and caution however, an enterprising adventurer might be able to convince the crabs of his or her sentience and learn the language(a series of clicks easily replicated with pebbles or shells) and perhaps offer to trade-Humanoid hands could carve bone and coral into tongs for safer smelting, durable stoneware, stronger alloys for sharper claw-guards...why, the crabs would be happy to part with a LOT of useless, shiny metals...

Sailing Galleons drydocking for the annual barnacle-scraping find, intead, a new type of starfish clinging to the hulls-and contentedly devouring the timber like some oversized termite (friggen Mad Wizards again no doubt). The shipping lanes(and free trade) are endangered by this rapidly-expanding pest. Something must be done! Brute force is useless, cut them into a dozen pieces and eash piece grows into yet another hungry Star-maybe yonder Adventurers have an idea or three....

Out of COFFEE...off to bed for now.

[gaptooth]

Hi, Devadasi!

I posted a similar query here and I got plenty of excellent feedback. I ran the resulting dungeon for one session, and the players found it too challenging and haven't gone back yet. Maybe I'll pull it out again for a run this weekend, if I can find it! I wrote up the entire location on index cards, one card per room.

If it turns up, I'll post again with any interesting details.

[devadasi]

Thanks so much to BOTH of you! Order, your stuff is always really gonzo... which fits my style very well, so probably more than one of those ideas will see playtesting ;D.

And gaptooth, I was already toying with the idea of some e-vile mermaids, and the brinemaidens, are a really well fleshed out idea. Now how to fuse some of this stuff and pull off something my players will love....

[ProfGremlin]

You're quite welcome to use my Iron Snail. Beyond the original write up, Mahrundl and Quoghmyer offered a couple of interesting modifications.

[mgtremaine]

From the SRD project the Chuul is pretty whacky and strange

tnt.stellarcore.net/monsters_ogl.html?mode=Load&id=39

And of course the Aboleth is always a great monster to run because of the illusion and enslavement powers.

tnt.stellarcore.net/monsters_ogl.html?mode=Load&id=1

-Mike

[mahrundl]

Vampire kelp. ;D

[cram]

I like Lovecraft's "Deep Ones" along with Mother Hydra and Father Dagon

and I recomend checking out the movie "Dagon" a retelling of Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"

[feldrik]

I was going to suggest Dagon as well. An eerie, drippy thriller to be sure.

[devadasi]

I was able to catch the trailer for Dagon on Youtube. it looks campy and cool, and has been put on the "to see" list.

I have a town already the site of one adventure.... some 40 miles south of Ur, called Blue Oyster Shoals. Its a pearl diving town that has already had incident with a group of Dagon cultists.Taran and Memlath (the talktipus) already stamped out part of the sect.... but this just makes it the ideal "weird little seacoast town" to revisit at the start of this campaign. the town needs to serve as an intro and a "creep fest" but soon afterwards action should head into the depths of the sea.


I am still looking for ways to expand on the ideas that came up in my recent brainstorm. i thought i might express some of those ideas here and perhaps others can help me turn them into something more cohesive.


So i want:

1. facehugger starfish. ( ala Starro the conqueror) I don't know whether these will have made it onto the faces of the remaining Blue Oyster shoals citizens or not. if not, i need a creepy way to introduce them.

2. an "Eye of the Depths" orb. ( ala Eye of the Deep beholder type thing) Not sure whether he should be a "boss" and perhaps have a cult and higher motivations.... or whether it is an ornery obstacle in their path, but of no real story significance, not sure yet... is he an adversary of the aboleth... or an ally?

3. I have already played out a scene of mermaids beaching themselves and dying in the previous Blue Oyster Shoals adventure, but offered no explanation. I want crazy, inexplicably strange mermaid behavior to be a part of this, but i am not sure whether they have ingested some bad algae( perhaps the "Eye"'s doing?) or whether they have been exposed to starfish facehuggers

4. an Aboleth type thing. Responsible for the facehuggers?

5. a rising underwater R'yleh type city. probably associated with the aboleth and Dagon. The interior, underground portions of the city possibly home to Ixitichitl cultists and their aboleth "God?".... the upper portions now a battleground for groups who want to claim the new "territory" and its secrets including
a. the ( talktipus) Cephelomages Guild of Usamagarus
b. mad Mermaidens of Madarua
c. Kudaman Brotherhood of Chumguzzer

It is uncertain how much any of these groups know about the rising city's true nature, the kudamen have already proven willing to be enlisted to Dagon's cause( previous Blue Oyster Shoal's adventure), but this particular group may simply be trying to expand its prestige and hunting territory, and may know ( and care) nothing about the motivations of the other inhabitants of the ocean. None of these three groups get along well... but the Brotherhood is aggressive and hostile by nature. On the other hand, Kit will be running a kuda character ( along with Memlath)

6. Electric/venomous jellyfish polyps.... unsure whether these are free roaming with animal intelligence, or they serve a master, or both.

7. wandering monsters( NOT including mermaids, talktipus or kudas. the available underwater humanoids)

are

1. sharks
2. chaotic dolphins with psychedelic sonar
3. giant eel
4.sea hulk
5. quipper school
6. territorial water weird

8. a free floating underwater city of mixed races on the back of a gargantuan sea tortoise

9. TREASURE... still trying to come up with them.... but want the underwater currency to be "sand dollars" haha. Some kind of magic conch? an "Ocean master" type helm? a set of gold tooth caps on a kudaman? a bottled water elemental? any other kewl ideas guys? do undersea races value the same kinds of material wealth (ala gold, gems, and silver)

10. a chase or battle scene in some kind of kelp forest.

11. oh yeah, one last monster... i was thinking an underwater version of the classic "trapper" makes more sense than any land version would..... sort of like a giant flattened clam or muscle.. that disguises itself with sand, and folds over the victim on contact

12. a new spell called "sinking feeling" which causes any swimming opponent to become heavy and sink to the ocean floor for a few rounds?


13. creatures, even intelligent humanoid ones, wouldn't have "beds" or "chairs... or tables, or bowls or cups.... what WOULD they have with regards to furnishings. any strange tech?


obviously this is alot of ideas, and it needs to fit together somehow. if anyone wants to help me run with this, i am open to any and all suggestions. i really want this to be a cool adventure, unique in its own right.

[devadasi]

Also, in terms of atmosherics..... how would food be served and such in a place with no gravity?. Is the chum you ordered just floated in front of you, to pluck from its suspended state at your leisure? Would there even be "restaraunts" in a world were food is so abundant, and cannot be cooked anyway? if no taverns, then what WOULD a city have?

Obviously no one drinks underwater.... do races still run potions or oils through their gills in order to be affected?. Do they inject potions? (creepy!) There would be little or no metal..... are most weapons, furnishings made of shell? coral, stone? Did they fall from the sky with the wrecks of man ships?


ideas and mechanics that really make this a DIFFERENT world are also a big part of what i am after.

[devadasi]

also maybe crucial.... as in crucially wonderful, is that with my young gamers there are NO established tropes or memes to speak of.

What that means is no cynical or "old hat" reaction possible to creatures like an "Eye of the Deep" an "Aboleth" or even a "Mermaid" really. my players haven't encountered creatures like these so they aren't jaded to them..... which kind of frees me up to go crazy gonzo with them IF I WANT TO. There isn't even the IDEA of an "official" version to the monster....

so feel free to think "outside the box" with any ideas you have that might take some of these elements and string them into something stronger and more unified.

[devadasi]

i really like this "vertical build" Ixitichitl.

Attachments:

[devadasi]

by the way, MGTremaine have an exalt for the aboleth and chuul which will BOTH see playtime in this series of adventures! Care to do an Ixitychitl and an Eye of the Deep?

[ProfGremlin]

Ok, I'm just riffing here off your thoughts...

How about the town of Blue Oyster Shoals has had an outbreak of drug addictions and/or deaths due to the ingestion of fluorescent algae. It is believed, why we're not sure yet, that the mass mermaid suicide was due to the psychotropic effects of the fluorescent algae. Further investigation revealed the distinct bruise pattern on the mermaids faces consistent with the face-hugger starfish. Someone decided that the mermaids used the fluorescent algae to counteract the face-hugger starfish but made a mistake and the effects drove them mad. Either the dosage was 1) insufficient to counteract the face-hugger effects, 2) far exceeded the necessary dosage and drove the mermaids mad or 3) the fluorescent algae was misidentified.

The belief that the face-hugger starfish have returned has scared the people of Blue Oyster Shoals. They have an oral history of the last time the face-huggers appeared. It was a dark time and half the village population disappeared. Due to this fear and the death of the mermaids some of the lesser learned and/or more superstitious villagers have begun ingesting various forms of algae. The effects of the algae have been - surprising (Let your imagination run wild here with different types of algae). Some of the effects could even be useful for the PC's - if they're willing to accept the potential that the effects could be permanent.

The village elders have asked for the assistance of the PC's due to their reputation in dealing with the Dagon cultists. The elders want the threat of the face-hugger starfish removed and the correct algae identified just in case it actually is effective and the return of the face-huggers can't be stopped.

Backstory, to be discovered by the players - the aboleth is using the face-hugger starfish to effectively mind control others. The face-hugger starfish uses a paralytic toxin to overwhelm and render the victim docile. It will then implant an embryo deep within the victim as part of its life cycle. As the embryo grows it releases toxins into the unsuspecting victim's systems. These toxins allow the aboleth to more easily control large masses of beings. The aboleth intends to use these masses of beings to focus their worship upon Dagon and thereby bring about Its rising. When the embryo reaches full growth, it will explode out of the victim. It will be fully within the aboleth's control and work as a warrior dedicated it the aboleth's safety.

Alternative - The "Eye of the Depths" (Perhaps just a title for a Kudaman prophet?) has discovered the aboleth's mind control plan. The face-huggers are actually symbiotes willing to fight with the kudaman fifth column against the aboleth priest of Dagon. The mermaids were actually a strike force sent to assassinate the aboleth before his mind control of the masses became to strong. The face-huggers attached themselves to the mermaids in order to boost all their capabilities. There is an oil that the face-huggers can excrete that super accelerates the recipients metabolism. While this treatment won't last forever it would work very well for such a strike force - provided they're willing to submit to such a 'kiss' from a face-hugger. The fluorescent algae is poisonous to the face-huggers. Oh, incidentally, the villagers were right, in the past half their village did disappear - they used the face-hugger starfish the last time Dagon tried to rise and managed to defeat His plans.

You'll have to highlight the 'hidden' text. I thought it might help avoid players from knowing to much ahead of time