In my siege of Khemi campaign one element that needs to be dealt with is a powerful enemy fleet. The pcs are requested to accompany an admiral in an effort to delay and harass the enemy. Intelligence indicates that the enemy intend to use an archipelago to the south as a waypoint and watering area. (while they have access to magic there are simply far too many soldiers, rowers and sailors to be watered and fed by that means) The admiral intends to delay them there, possibly deny them this waypoint and prevent them from even getting to Khemi.
The adventure path I've picked out is partly based on Dungeon Magazine adventures.
1. The pcs are informed that the admiral needs their help. They journey to the Ulfane Archipelago. En route they encounter a pirate ship pretending to be in distress. It is actually a ship crewed by goblins, margoyles and a hill giant who have a wizard skilled in illusions and deception aboard. They discover that the enemy fleet partly consists of various privateers.
2. Arriving in the archipelago, they find out that the local towns are very independant and don't want interference from anyone--they are mostly descended of merchant-venturers, smugglers and pirates themselves. They also discover that some of their Stygian enemies are in the area, offering protection against pirates. Can the pcs prove that the pirates are actually hired by the Stygians? In this they face:
- a Stygian war galley and its intriguing commanders in a neutral area
- a pirate ship that acts in tandem with a dragon turtle.
3. Having proven their worthiness to the locals and shamed the Stygians, the pcs are then begged to help hunt down the pirates. The locals agree to help fortify the islands against the Stygians in turn. Here the pcs find that they are up against a group of underwater allies that the Stygians have gained, who are staging commando raids against shoreside communities.
- Kuo-Toa raiders have taken up residence in a former locathah community and have been offered treasure in exchange for attacking the surface communities. The pcs must descend underwater to deal with this.
- The Kuo-Toa are acting in tandem with a magical submersible. But what other sinister purpose do they have? Why are the Stygians not using the sub for attacks save to utterly sink ships that encounter it?
4. Strange and disturbing events in the coastal sea reveal that the Stygians have somehow activated an evil artifact beneath the waves, and that it was for this purpose that they aligned with the Kuo-Toa. The pcs must go to a submerged Githyanki lost city to destroy the artifact.
This is what I have so far. I'd appreciate some thoughts on how this all sounds. Hopefully the pcs will be able to attempt to gain enough victory points from this to hold off the Stygians...but I'm thinking that this will be a delay not an utter prevention. Thoughts?
One thing I'm trying to work on is what kind of people are on the islands--I'd like an interesting mix of independant or semi-independant communities if possible.
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Various outcast type communities that would fear and distrust outsiders could include;
Members of a cult to some diety not recognized as part of the official pantheon. Variations would include 'heretics' who worship an established god but in an unorthodox way, such as worshippers of an otherwise evil god who are primarily neutral (and were persecuted both by members of opposed good faiths and their own core faith, who regarded them as heretics to be expunged), or worshippers who interpret a god's dogma 'wrong,' such as believing that the CG moon-goddess is a goddess of lunacy and lycanthropy, and shelter the deranged as 'wise men' (and have some bizarre customs, as a result, following ancient proclamations of 'inspired' lunatics) and lycanthropes as 'blessed by the moon' (with the 'blessed' being locked up on nights of the full moon, since the locals are quirky, not suicidal!).
Survivors of people cast off and exiled to this island for signs of plague. Having been abandoned by the mainland (shipped there to die), and somehow survived, they are bitter and resentful of the 'civilized folk' who threw them to the wolves (or, in this case, sharks).
A community of shipwrecked folk who stumbled upon ancient ruins (that appear to have once been submerged, or created by a race of fish-men) who are furtive and secretive and have 'the Innsmouth look,' due to some taint left behind (or still dwelling deep within the ancient ruins, perhaps they are 'pseudo-skum' in service to an aboleth, or perhaps they have been interbreeding with kuo-toans or perhaps the taint is magical, and no physical union has occured, but the people are dreaming of 'their' great cities under the sea, and every generation, a few of their pearl divers go missing, answering the call of the deep, shedding their human skin as they go). To skip the aquatic / Cthulhoid theme, perhaps the ruins are inhabited by ghosts who wish to recreate the glory of their past by possessing these castaways and having them clean up their ancient buildings, sacrifice to their 'dead' gods, etc. Alternately, perhaps only one or two fanatical ghosts want to rebuild their civilization, while others just want to re-experience the things in life they've missed, such as food and sex and sunlight, and other often-possessed members of the community are grotesquely obese, due to the over-indulgence of their possessors. And to skip the 'ancient civilization' theme, perhaps they stumbled upon a very real community of yuan-ti monastics or an illithid observatory, who promptly enslaved anyone who came to their island, and use them as a pleasant 'face' for visiting merchant-ships, as their appearance and reputation would otherwise make regular trade problematic.
The usual 'sanctuary' community where people of otherwise unsavory reputation (such as half-orcs or tieflings) could mix with semi-civilized folk considered monsters (hobgoblins) and the dregs of various human and demihuman cultures. Things normally illegal elsewhere would flourish here 'beyond the reach of the law,' such as slavery, drug use, illegal spell-access (necromancy, enslavement magics, etc). The community could start as a fantasy equivalent of Australia, a dumping ground for prisoners and dissidents, radicals and heretics and 'inconvenient people' (like royal bastards and mistresses who are no longer in favor). It could even have started out as a 'Liberia' type country, where a former slaving nation dumped all of it's former slaves 'to have a place of their own' (since it was no longer acceptable to have slaves, for whatever reason) rather than integrating them into their own society. These 'ex-slaves' are fiercely independent, as a result of being dumped on some jungle island with no food or supplies and only the fond wishes of their former oppressors.
Dozens of options, really.
Thanks Set, I really like those ideas. One thing I particularly like is that they're all a little crazy, which explains the independance thing.