Expanding Rickety's Squibs and Replacing the Drought (spoilers)


Skull & Shackles

Scarab Sages

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I'd like to add an upriver expedition to the PCs' time at Rickety's Squibs. I'm thinking about using parts of River Into Darkness, but replacing the magic paddle wheeler with one of the ship's boats from the Man's Promise, or maybe some canoes.

Instead of a drought, maybe Rickety's local river is experiencing significant fish kills. The wasps could be replaced with hungry fish-eating pterosaurs, and the naga could be half-crazed with both hunger and the effects of some corrupting substance in the river. After two attacks, Rickety could offer the PCs a significant discount if they'll head upriver, find the problem, and try to fix things.

As for the actual source of the corruption, I'm thinking about placing the corpse of something foul, like a catoblepas, on the riverbank. Poisonous vapors rising from the river could signal the party that the source is nearby, and give them a clue about its nature.

The biggest part I haven't figured out yet is what a party of 4th level characters could do to restore the health of the river. Even the corpse of a catoblepas could be very dangerous to low-level characters. Does anyone have some suggestions?


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I like this idea. The PCs could make a heal check on some dead fish they find and realize that they were poisioned and knowledge nature check to realize the type and that the beast is dead.

I would leave the stench aura but make it nauseate instead of sicken up close. If one is within 90 feet then must save or be sickened.

If Rickety has a scroll of neutralize poison he could give that to the party and have them use it to defuse the corpse. Decompose corpse would also do the trick and cleric or druid will be able to cast it easily. Many other classes have access to it so that could work as well

Shrink item and animate dead would allow the corpse to moved easily.

Guard the corpse with a band of troglodytes or globster.

I would put the corpse about 8 miles up river because that distance will be easy to cover by boat in a day but difficult to do by foot in a trackless jungle. Give the river a slow current of .5 miles per hour. The trip will take 8 hours upstream and 4 hours back down. The rowers will have to make forced march checks for 4 hours or they will have to camp in the jungle.

One way to discourage overland traffic would to tell the players (knowledge nature check) that swarms do not like the middle of the river.

Scarab Sages

Great ideas! Thank you, Mathius. That should work nicely.


Let me know what you populate the river with.

The more I think about it the more I like the idea of a trog shaman leading some faithful in ritual to honor their fallen god.

If they manage to skip some encounters on the way up river they will be waiting when they come back down. Animals should be shippable in my opinion.

Scarab Sages

That could be fun. Hastening the god's decomposition, purging its toxin or burning the body could be seen as blasphemy.

I was planning to use a couple of river encounters from River Into Darkness, but there are fewer of them than I expected. The keches would work well, and a couple of rolls on the river encounter table. On the way home the catoblepas' worshippers might spring one more attack on the god-corpse defilers.


Three to five encounters on the way up plus the trogs and one more on the way home would be a full day for many parties.

2-3 bull Hippos guarding a herd of cows could be interesting. One does not want to provoke the whole herd.

A young dire croc is CR 7

Hungry Piranha swarms might attack the boat but i do not see how they could get into the boat.

Scarab Sages

A defensive male hippo overturns the boat. Someone gets a cut or abrasion and starts bleeding in the water. Hungry piranhas get excited and start swarming. Fun time ensues.

Scarab Sages

This addition to the plot worked out very well for my group. I placed the village of Rood (from Rangers of the North, by Iron Crown Enterprises) on the opposite side of the un-named river from Rickety's Squibs, and peopled it with NPCs from The Village of Swallowfeld, from Raging Swan Games. The map of Swallowfeld doesn't fit this spot quite as well, but it wouldn't be too hard to modify.

The PCs in my group were able to snap Selissa out of her poison-induced rage. (Rickety's bartender, during the third round of the fight: "Wait! She hasn't paid her tab!")

Rickety offered the PCs a discount on their squibbing if they would accompany Selissa back home, and try to clean up the river with a couple of scrolls of Neutralize Poison, provided by a priest from Rood. (Rickety's truce with the nagas isn't strong enough to risk one of them being hurt or killed near his shipyard.)

Using a river barge poled by two villagers, the PCs made their way upriver past Selissa's lair, until they reached the catoblepas corpse. (To keep combats along the river interesting, Selissa spent the trip in the barge, recuperating from the poison.) One of the PCs spoke Draconic, and realized that the troglodyte shaman was leading some followers in a prayer over the body of their dead "god".

The PCs presented themselves to the troglodytes as servants of the Great Goddess Selissa, sent by the Powers That Be to replace the catoblepas. (Selissa's reaction: "I haven't run the goddess con in a while. Let's do it.") While Selissa basked in the reverence of her new worshippers, the PCs used the scrolls on the corpse.

Edit: Expanding Rickety's also allowed the party to do a little more shopping. Compared to many campaigns, S&S waits a long, long time to give the party access to a well-stocked town.

Grand Lodge

Interesting idea, KarlBob.

Scarab Sages

Thank you.

Thanks also to Mathius, and to vikingson, who pointed out the odd logic of a drought at a tropical jungle port.


My PCs fixed it with a decanter of endless water at the source letting the nagas know the command words to control it. Curse super good and surprising diplomatic crafting wizards, always finding ways to give me more work than I already have.

Scarab Sages

That's a clever solution, too. I wonder whether living under Harrigan, Plugg and Scourge, making friends and enemies among the crew, then organizing a mutiny predisposes many S&S PCs toward diplomatic solutions at this point in the AP?

Grand Lodge

KarlBob wrote:
That's a clever solution, too. I wonder whether living under Harrigan, Plugg and Scourge, making friends and enemies among the crew, then organizing a mutiny predisposes many S&S PCs toward diplomatic solutions at this point in the AP?

Perhaps by the suggestion of "Fishguts" Kroop or Sandara Quinn, the PCs and crew could sign or mark an Articles of Agreement that is based on the Pirate Code or Privateer's Code from Pirates of the Inner Sea.

Pirate code
Inner Sea Pirate Code and Privateer's Code

Such an agreement would give the PCs some role-playing guidance.

Grand Lodge

ThunderMan wrote:
My PCs fixed it with a decanter of endless water at the source letting the nagas know the command words to control it. Curse super good and surprising diplomatic crafting wizards, always finding ways to give me more work than I already have.

I wonder how many PCs just killed the water naga for disrupting the beer and ninepins party by the river.


She had just gotten the hypnosis spell and wanted to use it as a non-lethal alternative.

Grand Lodge

So Selissa told the PCs why she was vexed due to the hypnosis spell? Was the trek to the source of the river something you had planned before hand? Or did you have to improvise?

Scarab Sages

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More examples of Articles of Agreement can be found here, and in a book called The Pirate Primer.

Grand Lodge

KarlBob wrote:
More examples of Articles of Agreement can be found here, and in a book called The Pirate Primer.

Have you been using The Pirate Primer to flavor your portrayal of NPCs, KarlBob?

Scarab Sages

I used it a lot in the first few sessions, but I haven't used it as much lately. I need to pick it up again once in a while, and read a couple of pages here and there, so I'll have a few phrases ready for each session.


As soon as my captain wizard wanted her alive I knew I was screwed. Almost everything after that, the trek, the meeting with the naga elders, even some modifications to the wasp attack, along with the implementation of the decanter, and payment, I had to make up on the spot. I learned a while ago to plan for a lot but keep things loose so everything doesn't go sideways when they pull out random crap.

This wizard embodies friendship through superior firepower...with rubber bullets cause she doesn't want to kill people, just beat the hell out of them until they are her friend.

Yeah all my PCs are weird.

Grand Lodge

Sounds like they are more Gentlefolk Privateers rather than Pirates, ThunderMan.


Since Free Captains have a Letter of Marque, they are all privateers, technically.

At least one other PC isn't acting out because he doesn't want to get his head accidentally blown in with a rubber bullet. So far cap has managed to not kill any people with a lucky crit, but there were several monsters that had the damage lap non lethal and sink them dead with rubber bullets. But the worried PC has also knowingly sold many people into slavery under the guise of ransoming them. Roguely is more than happy to support her captain/molestation victim.

I reiterate, all my PCs are weird.

Grand Lodge

It wasn't clear to me whether the Free Captains of the Shackles followed the Privateer's Code. Captain Barnabas Harrigan doesn't even seem to follow the Pirate's Code.

Scarab Sages

Captain Harrigan is definitely an exception to the "rules". His iron fist style of captaincy is quite different than the "proto-democracy" style of many pirate ships.

Grand Lodge

KarlBob wrote:
Captain Harrigan is definitely an exception to the "rules". His iron fist style of captaincy is quite different than the "proto-democracy" style of many pirate ships.

I still don't understand why the crew of the Wormwood puts up with him. He must have made some of them wealthy.


Most of the crew are very new recruits. After he got captured he replaced almost his entire crew so nobody could blab.

He has some old friends (most of whom get screwed over by him), a first mate he trusts (but shouldn't), and a couple of alcoholics. Seems believable.

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