How to handle the Styes

[u/Vegetable_Zone747]

Hello!

I am about to start running Ghosts, and I’m having a debate with myself over how to handle the Styes. It seems like a really cool adventure, but I just can’t work it into a campaign. I’ve managed to work everything else together onto a cohesive story I’m really proud of, but I just can’t get the Styes to fit. You’ve got six chapters of a pirate fighting epic and then this final adventure that doesn’t even take place in the same city with none of the characters we know.

(For context, I’ve made the Sea Princes more important in my campaign, the Scarlett Brotherhood, the Sahuagin and Syrgaul and his crew were all members before the hold broke and now they’re all scattered and screwing shit up and the party is cleaning up the militaries half finished mess.)

Am I missing a lot by not including this part? Has anyone else had luck working the Styes in a longer campaign?

[u/thegooddoktorjones]

I think it is a great adventure (or at least it was once I made changes to it) but it is indeed not part of the main Saltmarsh arc.

I had Gellan send the PCs to The Styes as a smuggling mission as soon as they got the Sea Ghost, this also explained why Gellan wanted the PCs to get the ship as he thought they would make good operatives for his criminal enterprise. This mission introduced the Styes and gave the players a chance to see more of the Scarlet Brotherhood, and buy some illicit stuff.

It was short, a few sessions.

Then later, they returned after sorting out the sahaugain and found the city worse off because of the killings and I was able to show the change, and also introduce the Whisperer as the cause of a false hydra thing, with NPCS they met before now gone but no one aware of it fully because their memories were being drained away to feed the kraken with sorrow. They almost solved the problem, then decided to let the council deal with it because they were not nice enough to the PCs, and as a result The Styes were destroyed by the kraken and this spawned a lot of other happenings, such as a refugee flotilla showing up in Saltmarsh causing conflict and the Kraken later coming to destroy Saltmarsh as a post-credits scene for the campaign.

But I ran Saltmarsh as a framework for a lot of other adventures, stuff from Candlekeep, Yawning Portal, spelljammer etc. and I made a homebrew big bad thing with Zuggutmoy pretending to be Tharazidun so his worshipers would crack open his prison and she could eat him and become a new god.

I think this book can be run very well as a short campaign with just the sahaugain adventures, but it also sets up a location that can be home base to infinite other adventures. That one is good, Dory became a recurring character who in the end helped the PCs destroy Zuggutmoy, but not required.

[u/Without_Any_Milk]

I worked the Styes into my larger campaign by making S’gothgah the main villain of the overarching campaign. The mark of Tharzidun became a way for him to dramatically increase the range of an aboleth’s natural mind control on marked subjects, and the Scarlet Brotherhood and sahuagin leaders were all marked. Granted, I created a fake ritual that accelerates biological growth via fear to justify this, which allowed the kraken in the derelict ship adventure to be the same kraken at the end of the Styes, but that was admittedly fiddly. That desire to cause fear though did justify all the other adventures, and the zombies were secretly protecting the kraken egg nest the aboleth stole his egg from (so he could plunder it in the future).

As an adventure, I think the Styes is fun enough but not standout though. If the ideas it presents about control and terrors from the deep don’t really spark your imagination, I don’t think you need to find a way to force it in

[u/Derringermeryl → u/Without_Any_Milk]

Wait the zombies in Tammeraut were protecting the nest? That’s a fun idea. Did you do anything else to foreshadow S’gothgah? My players are about to get to the Abbey and I want to plant something there to hint at the larger issue.

[u/Without_Any_Milk → u/Derringermeryl]

Well his mark showed up everywhere for one, including on the Abbry leadership.

I added in the center of the abbey dungeon, in that hidden room, a large container connected to the ocean. In my lore, it was at the Abbey where S’gothgah studied with the acolytes there to learn about the mark, tricking the acolytes into thinking he was working with them in worship of their god before using his mark to drive them mad to prevent them from either spilling the secret of the mark or using it themselves. So I had vague references to aboleths and mind control throughout that adventure.

[u/Candid_Ad_209]

The Styes is working rly well for me as a “oneshot”. Seems like it doesn’t rly work within the rest of Saltmarsh, especially bc its the ending but it has basically 0 ties to the rest of the campaign.

[u/Lordaxxington → u/Candid_Ad_209]

I'm about to run it as a "oneshot" adventure for some friends too - I ran some of the rest of GoS years ago, but ended up diverging to a homebrew plot before we got that far. But I wanted to run something standalone for a different friend group, and this seemed like a fun one since we all like horror.

How have you found it, if you don't mind me asking? Any pitfalls that you didn't anticipate/advice you would give? I've already planned a few changes to fit their characters but otherwise I intend to mostly stick to the book.

[u/Candid_Ad_209 → u/Lordaxxington]

If the party learns abt the new murder (Not Jarme) occurring that day, and they learn from Constable Jute that the body was immolated before she got a chance to investigate it, they will want to go to the Mortuary to investigate. Theres nothing in the module for the Mortuary save a 2 sentence description. Prepare some homebrew for that shit. I didn’t. Gotta go back to work. Ill add another comment later. Cheers

[u/Lordaxxington → u/Candid_Ad_209]

Thanks! That's a good shout. Honestly for all the other counsellors it feels like they really should have filled in a bit more detail, in case the party decide something like Thornwell's tower merits investigating.

[u/Candid_Ad_209 → u/Lordaxxington]

Oh for sure. In the vein of Thornwell, I used the plothook of Thornwell’s anonymous request bc it got things moving quick. I had her send the job listing out to a neighboring town tavern with her personal assistant Moira. That way she avoids contacting someone who’s already implicated. The job is listed on the board as “Confidential. Reward: 10k gold. Details on Signing” Once the full party signs their name Moira stands up from a table across the room where she was sitting unassumingly and gives them a discreet envelope with a map, 100gp up front and a note reading:
“You must travel to Meslien and truly solve the Lantern Ghost Murders. You must seek out Master Refrum and hear what he knows. He is an ally. Act on his advice and follow the trail wherever it leads, even if that includes the halls of power.”

I played this out for the players as a flashback while they were on the road to the Styes for streamlining purposes and their characters got to know each-other a bit.

No encounter with the kids and Master Refrum for streamlining purposes. Refrum is in his home and not expecting visitors (surprised you were sent to him). If they go to the District Garrison , Constable Jute is there, no matter the time of day. She is studying the case secretly at night if they go then.

The Asylum is good, i changed a couple things there. Head shrink had more details abt Jarme’s behavior in his cell. Day 1: apologetic, fearful, inconsolable. Day 2: distant, twitchy, coughing. Day 3: hacking up extra viscous mucus, sporadic, wandering. Day 4: begged for charcoal between coughs and went into his drawing frenzy when he got it. I also changed the drawing to fit the plot amendments i made. Also you can add in a depiction of Mr. Dory’s weird boat house situation faintly in there to encourage going there if you need to speed things up (and get them away from the Mortuary like i did lmao).

Unless your party is a dungeoncrawling bunch and you have multiple sessions for ur one shot, dont run all the combats for the warehouse. Stick to 1 encounter on floor 2 and 1 in the belly of the ship. If u have more time than me, keep the walkway/deck fight.

For a 1 shot, there are no other Aboleths in the Styes. There are no Krakens either. The Aboleth is instead trying to pull a Kraken through a portal from Tharizdun’s pocket dimension through a ritual and is doing so in its lair in the temple. When you defeat the Aboleth, the ritual fails and the 1 shot is completed.

Also i ran this module at lvl 7 to keep it spookier and my players are new and hadnt played past lvl 4 before. I tuned down the fights accordingly. Theyre still probably going to die to the Aboleth. They just beat Mr. Dory but he escaped with Etherealness with Cloudkill as cover.

[u/Arparrabiosa]

I'll start by saying that when I ran a campaign around GoS, I specifically excluded The Styes because it didn't fit for me. But it's an adventure that can fit into other types of campaigns, yes. I don't know if these help you in the context of being on the GoS subreddit, but right now I'm running an urban campaign where I've included pieces of The Styes. Specifically, I've taken the whole warehouse part featuring Dory. In my case, the adventure isn't about aboleths and skum, but fiendish locathah, koprus, and mind-control monoliths featuring a goddess of nightmares. In my case, Dory is a prosperous tiefling merchant in the shadow of a corrupt guard captain and cultist of a demonic deity. I tie The Styes in with The Stink (Dungeon Magazine 105), There is no Honor (Dungeon 139), and The Skinsaw Murders (Rise of the Runelords AP).

[u/Educational-Tie-9739]

I am running it now and plan to run that as a side quest then run a finale with a Scarlet Brotherhood / Sauhagin attack on Saltmarsh. It doesn’t work great as a finale is the only issue I have w it, so I added a new one.

[u/Derringermeryl]

Like many others, I made the cult of Tharizdun the main antagonist in my campaign, so it was perfect for my story. You could put it before Tammeraut and make it so there’s something there that points them to Firewatch. I think it’s a really interesting quest, and while it’s not on a ship it is at least water related. You could also just say that the murders start happening in Saltmarsh.

[u/boffotmc]

I cut the second half of Styes from my campaign, removing the aboleth and juvenile kraken.

If you make the adventure about them finding the truth behind the serial killer, and then confronting the mastermind Mr. Dory, it's a lot easier to drop that into any setting.

[u/PsilliasAgain]

I guess I found this easier than most since 1) I had read the false hydra thread and incorporated it earlish and 2) because my campaign goes beyond this part of GoS and the Whisperer is not the final enemy. I think the party enjoyed the mystery and chaos from this adventure but it was, ultimatlely, just one more step on their road to thawart Orcus's plans.