When I bought Stormwrack I thought one of the most interesting terrain types introduced was the sargasso sea, and was very happy to sea this concept featured in Sea Wyvern's Wake.
That said, reading through that adventure again brought some questions to mind: How exactly does a ship get stuck in it? You can't sail out of it, so how can you sail into it? I know that the Mother of All controls the sargasso, but the adventure states that only the central portions are actually alive, the part where the Sea Wyvern gets stuck (about a mile from the edge) are dead. Does the grass allow sailing into, but not out of? If so, how exactly does that work?
Also, I know that the night that it happens is overcast, but would that keep the crew and PC's completely unaware of what is going on? Is it the kind of fog that gives anything more than 5' away total concealment? If so, I guess that could explain it.
When I bought Stormwrack I thought one of the most interesting terrain types introduced was the sargasso sea, and was very happy to sea this concept featured in Sea Wyvern's Wake.
That said, reading through that adventure again brought some questions to mind: How exactly does a ship get stuck in it? You can't sail out of it, so how can you sail into it? I know that the Mother of All controls the sargasso, but the adventure states that only the central portions are actually alive, the part where the Sea Wyvern gets stuck (about a mile from the edge) are dead. Does the grass allow sailing into, but not out of? If so, how exactly does that work?Also, I know that the night that it happens is overcast, but would that keep the crew and PC's completely unaware of what is going on? Is it the kind of fog that gives anything more than 5' away total concealment? If so, I guess that could explain it.
The ships sail in because the mother wills it. Is that not enough? Even is the fog only granted anything 10' away total concealment it works - how high is it from rail to water? My guess is that it is somewhere between 7-15 feet depending on location on the ship.
The ships sail in because the mother wills it. Is that not enough? Even is the fog only granted anything 10' away total concealment it works - how high is it from rail to water? My guess is that it is somewhere between 7-15 feet depending on location on the ship.
Ok, the Mother wills it. But how does a ship sail into something that it can't sail out of? Presumably, the Mother cannot control the parts of the sargasso tht are dead, and that includes everything but the center. So how does it happen?
I know there has to be a good and simple explanation for how this happens, because this water hazard is talked about in Stormwrack and then used in The Sea Wyvern's Wake, and in Stormwrack it's just a plain ole sargasso sea, without the Mother of All to help trap ships. My little brain just can't figure out how it happens and I want to have a good explanation for my players because when they realize their deadly conundrum they will want an explanation of how they got there.
The visibility question isn't as big of a problem to me, actually. A caravel sits ten feet off the water, IIRC, so people aboard couldn't actually see the water through the fog.
I found a web site that may be useful:
http://www.bermuda-triangle.org/html/sargasso_sea.html
What I took from the site:
It describes the fact that the real Sargasso Sea has "deadly calms" - surrounded by the gulf stream currents with their colder water, but the area isolated within is warmer waters (which presumably also help the "sargassum" seaweed. I conclude that a ship sailing into the area could be carried well into the region by its own momentum, then slowed to a stop by the seaweed and trapped ("becalmed") by the lack of wind currents within that region to get the ship moving again.
That said, reading through that adventure again brought some questions to mind: How exactly does a ship get stuck in it? You can't sail out of it, so how can you sail into it? I know that the Mother of All controls the sargasso, but the adventure states that only the central portions are actually alive, the part where the Sea Wyvern gets stuck (about a mile from the edge) are dead. Does the grass allow sailing into, but not out of? If so, how exactly does that work?
You have to remember we are talking about *sailing* ships here.
The ships propulsion is provided by the wind. So it is sailing with the wind at it's back (or close to) and gets itself far enough into the Saragasso, that the mass of the seawood stop the ship from moving forward. Uh Oh it's stuck, and you can't just stick a sailing vessel into reverse!
Just in case you're thinking of pushing/towing it out. Once the ship is actually stopped, the inertia caused by the mass of seawood is incredibly difficult to overcome from a standing start for a large boat! Not withstanding all the practical problems of rigging up a system to pull/push the ship.
Creative Director
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Yes... when under full sail, a ship has a lot of momentum and can cut deeply into the weed, eventaully slowing to a stop. And once stopped, the sargasso gets all clingy, so getting the ship to move again is tough since you're technically also trying to move all of the weed around you.
As James said, a ship could easily sail a ways into the weed. On a dark night with fog, it would be very easy to miss the fact that you're stuck. Sure, you might be able to catch glimpses of the seaweed in the black water, but there are no real reference points for movement out there. The poor sap on lookout would probably think "Huh, we're sailing into a patch of seaweed." And later when he/she gets another glimpse, "Wow! Look, another big patch." Hours could easily go by before you'd catch on to the fact that the seaweed isn't really moving relative to the ship. Most folks up at night, especially a dark foggy one, are up because they have work to do. There's nothing to look at on deck, so the idlers who might otherwise be leaning on the rail watching the wake are probably down below playing poker or something.
Then once the ship is inside, it ceases to move relative to the seaweed around it. The edges of the patch as a whole, however, continue to flow organically, most likely with the net effect of "moving" the ship deeper into the morass. Presumably ships occasionally break away and sink too.
Those explanations make a lot of sense. I knew there must be a relatively simple explanation that I was missing, and sure enough there was. Man, I cannot wait to see the look on my player's faces when they realize their predicament. Of course, since we're just starting TINH on Friday it will be a while, but it will be worth the wait...
The above covers it pretty well. My group, due to a side adventure and party composition, had some interesting resources: a marble elephant and a STR 30 ice troll. They spent the better part of the first day rigging up a pulley system with the extra rigging they purchased at Blackwell Keep. Between the troll and the elephant (and the rest of the crew manning the pulleys), they had enough "oomph" to turn the boat about 130 degrees in the first day.
After the nights encounters, they stepped things up and the druid began using diminish plants to make openings in the sargasso, followed by gusts of wind to push the boat through. Because I use a spellpoint system rather than vancian, the druid was able to drop her whole payload to move the boat about 600 feet.
In the end the PCs went after the "root" of the problem, but they could have gotten away with about three more days of what they were doing.