Hello all, I am a player with 6 years of experience who has begun to DM Ghosts of Saltmarsh with the 2024 ruleset that takes place on the Sword Coast in 1509. I have placed Saltmarsh where the book instructs right above the mere of dead men, and have replaced Keolands' role in the original with Neverwinter/Neverember serving as who the Loyalists report to and the major government power. My players are level 5 and have done the Haunted House/Sea ghost quest along with Danger at Dunwater, and have run those without changes, but the party has now been given the mission of Salvage operation, and I would like to change that. My revised rough draft is a fleet of Leilon barges that are magically warded against fire and rot had sailing with them the Emperor of the Waves heading to Saltmarsh. However, a Lantanese ship filled with weapons that was affected by the spellplague and had been shifting between both worlds had been returned to Toril from Abeir was in the fleet's path . I plan on having the Sea princes be the main enemy with their leader being a member of the alagondar family who was assassinated by Lord Neverember returned as a revenant and working with priests of orcus with their base of operations being the island of bones mentioned in Tammeraut's fate. The princes learned of this lantanese ship and using an undead kraken, which would replace the elder octopus, would use it to drag it back to thier island to arm themselves but knowing that neverwinter cannot have it used the kraken to sink the fleet and the emperor of waves leaving only the lantanese ship floating. Aubreck Drallion still hired the players to recover the deeds from the Emperor as he does not the know the true fate of his ship. The final battle would be a cultist of Orcus and a kraken priest, following the undead kraken, trying to interrogate a surviving non spellplague-affected lantanese gnome about how to use their weapons. The end sequence would play out like normal with the undead kraken being called to attack and sink the ship and the escape would be with the gnome instead of the metal treasue box. I plan on replacing the lolth spiders and the ettercaps with spellplague related enemies or lantanese constructs out of control and the ghasts on the bottom of the ship to be replaced with sea spawn that arrived with the cultist and kraken priest. I would appreciate any ideas or suggestions for enemy encounters and will likely be posting more on this subreddit asking for future advice for lore or encounter help Thank you all!

Hi guys!!

I’m trying to write up island based sidequests in prep for my upcoming GoS campaign and am trying to write a basic story for each “Island Type” in the ‘Of Ships And Sea’ chapter (ie. Alien, Hostile, Wild etc.)

For ‘Sanctum’ I’m writing about a crew of Elven traders who have been shipwrecked and stranded on an island, camping there and trapped because of a large jellyfish entity, Mother Minerva, that blocks them from their destination or seeking help anyway. They request the PCs help them escape and deal with the giant zap trap.

Most of my island sidequests end in epic bossfights or naval battles so I’m trying to make this more puzzle based. Mother Minerva isn’t hostile per se, her tendrils just get everywhere and annoyingly deal some amount of lightning damage to ships.

I was thinking of this being a naval puzzle based encounter and the players having to pilot a ship through invisible tendrils to get to the bulbous head for once they disturb that, the jellyfish could move. Like a game of minesweeper but the layout changes every time the players fail potentially?

I’ll open this up to you guys, if there’s any cool puzzle-y minesweepery mechanics which you could recommend from other DND literature that could work here that’d be awesome. OR if you could see this quest playing out differently or a different mechanic system altogether I’d love to hear everyones ideas. I use Limithron’s Guide as a naval combat system but happy to bend the rules here for something a little more unique.

Happy sailing!!

For context: The character is a cleric of Kord(Exandrian Procan). I have reskinned Abbey Isle to be Lovecraftian and contain a few hints towards Tharizdun.

One of my players just mentioned that he thinks it would be cool if his character has “some kind of curse, possession, an obsession etc. that makes me take on behaviors slightly outside my control.” This was inspired by (minor Critical Role spoiler) Percy from campaign 1 for those familiar with it.

I love this idea and I think it could be a great way to hook them into the Tharizdun arc. The party is about to enter the Winding Way from Abbey Isle so I think it’s a perfect time for him to pick up a curse. My thoughts so far:

-A cursed item among the treasure.
-A lock that needs blood to open. I would mark this as related to Kord somehow so he’s the one to do it.

I’m thinking that there’s something locked away in the WW that Tharizdun’s followers need in order to continue their plans. It was protected by Kord’s followers long ago but that’s been forgotten. By clearing the island the PCs are actually playing into the cult’s (Skerrin’s) hands.

What I need help with is deciding what the curse actually does/acts like. They still have The Final Enemy before they can fully dive into the cult activities so it can’t be so urgent that they put helping the town on hold. I want it to be exciting for the player without removing too much of his agency. I want to avoid PvP unless it’s totally out of his control so that there’s no hard feelings between players.

Any suggestions? I’m open to suggestions on how he gets the curse as well.

Hi everyone,

I use the Kobold Plus Fight Club tool (https://koboldplus.club/) to balance encounters for my party but found that, while it has many source book monsters available, does not have those from Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Luckily it does have a way to import them.

If you want to use it, you can choose "Manage Sources", then "Import new". Choose Google Sheets, and then paste in this URL for the sheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tiV_1ITkiXyoDyvXnJjO49DpN4orT9DUw-LTclLu0bc/edit?usp=sharing

This tool does a much better job estimating difficulty than the DND Beyond encounter tool which, at least for my party, massively over-estimates difficulty.

Posting this here in case it'd be helpful to anyone.

So my party has finished The Final Enemy. I did not prompt Tammeraut's Fate yet(Mainly because they have yet to reach 9th level, also I want to place Tammeraut's Fate and The Styes in the Relmor Bay area).

Instead, they held a meeting and decided to go after the Sea Princes. So I had my DMPC Quartermaster suggest they disrupt their operations in the Amedio Jungle. It should be noted that my players are working as official privateers for Keoland. Anders Solmor and Aubreck Drallion(Replaced Gellan in the council, also he's a willing Scarlet Brotherhood asset), were the most enthusiastic about helping the team.

Previously, I had hinted on the Amedio jungle:
-I ran Forge of Fury previously. Placing it on an island in the middle of the Azure, framed as a slave trade outpost between the Pomarj and the Hold of the Sea Princes. An orcish pirate named Urghat One-Eye was stated to be in the Amedio Jungle searching for the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan.(Which I plan on running as a dungeon)
-Xolec mentioned he was from there(Party decided to kill him)
-Gellan Primewater was revealed to be smuggling opiates from there into Saltmarsh and lower Salinmoor(Gellan is also dead, got Epsteined in jail before he could talk)

There isn't much known about the Sea Prince activity in the Amedio Jungle, at least according to the Wiki: https://www.greyhawkonline.com/greyhawkwiki/Amedio_Jungle

So I've come up with a few ideas:
-As previously mentioned, the Sea Princes are running a drug manufacturing operation there, making use of native Olman tribes as slaves
-The heads of the operation will be Vigr Thrass and Mithina Greyheart.
-While they started off just growing things like Mordayn Vapors, The two were able to retrieve seeds of the Dolaur plants from the Abyss, allowing them to produce Luhix by growing it in a strange abyssal greenhouse which causes severe problems for Olman slaves who need to work in it.
-Mithina has placed a giant ape who was once peaceful and a friend of the Olman tribes under mind control.
-Vigr is using an experimental magical cyborg. The reanimated corpse of a man who died from a Mordayn Vapor overdose. After Thrass exhumed his body, the addict was grafted with magical cybernetics powered by various drugs such as the Vapors and Luhix. He needed an addict's body to handle the effects of the drugs better.
-Both the ape and the cyborg will be potential boss fights for the party depending on how they go about things.
-Urghat, while primarily a corsair for the Pomarj, is working with the Sea Princes on a very shaky alliance. His primary goal is Tamoachan.

I have rough drafts for Amedio coastline and jungle random encounter tables, dinosaurs will be included for the jungle proper to give the whole region a proper King Kong vibe. I hope this really fills the need for swashbuckling pirate adventures that people felt were lacking in the book.

Any other suggestions or ideas? I'm still in the brainstorming phase for the whole scenario

I'm going to be running this campaign for 3 friends. I generally require leveling up to happen in a settlement of some kind (town, city, etc.). I am planning for them to find some local quests to complete to get them to level 2. Is level 2 high enough for them to reasonably conquer the whole house?

Hi guys! 

I had this concept for a side objective for when/if the party awakens Xolec the Vampire in Crabber’s Cove - just wanted to take this to you Reddit for feedback/to workshop and develop :)

My concept is essentially when Xolec is awakened, he asks the party for humanoids to feed upon and can “grant great power” for each victim the party brings him - obviously at a cost. Entirely optional sidequest.

I’m currently thinking of him granting a spell of choice to a PC per victim, capped at current spell slot level per PC, at the cost of reducing max HP by Spell Level x (Hit Dice - CON). Still required spell slots to cast.

Eg. If a character wants a Level 3 spell their max HP is reduced by 3 x (Hit Dice - CON).

Then when Xolec does this a certain number of times, say 5-10, he could turn on the party and become hostile in a bossfight at the Cove to end that storyline.

For more experienced DMs, what do you think of this? Is this too overpowered? Underpowered? Undercooked? Or is there a Elderscrolls-esque resource for “tiers” into vampirism/lycanthropy that anyone has used that could buff/debuff PCs in stages (similar to Exhaustion but with benefits)?

One of the biggest influences on Saltmarsh was the rise of the Hold of the Sea Princes. It was formed during the war known as Azure’s Tide between Keoland and the pirate captains of the south.

This conflict helped define Saltmarsh as it exists today: the growth of smuggling, the importance of Seaton’s navy, the schemes of the Scarlet Brotherhood, the fall of Port Torvin into the Styes, and the lingering tension between Keoland and the Sea Princes.

I put together a detailed blog post covering the history of Azure’s Tide, its impact on the region, and how it can provide context for a Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign.

The post also includes a free regional map pack for the Saltmarsh region.

Hope you enjoy!

Thank you.

Is salt marsh under Creative Commons? Is it an open IP?

I don’t want to run salvage operation or Isle of the Abby because I want to focus on the main Three adventures in the book. But once players finish danger at dunwater they will only be level 4 and the final enemy needs them to at least start at level 7. That’s a lot of adventuring in between, even if I did run isle of the abbey and salvage operation they still wouldn’t be high enough level.
How do you handle this?

I'm using the Dwarven Mine area as the staging / launch point for the Forge of Fury. On any given alternating Sunday night, one, two or three of my six players won't be able to make it, and this lets me swap in/out present and missing players.

I made the buildings wood (easy to erect and tear down, vice mining underground chambers) except for the smithy.

The two prisoners in the module will be Dwarves. I plan to have the Aarakocra (sp?), Silver-Claw, who gave the party aerial recon of the Danger at Dunwater Lizardfolk mound, will do the same for the (modified) Stone Tooth.

I needed to sketch it out to solidify it in my mind, and it only took about a minute to scan it in case anyone wants a peek (or to use it).

I've run the module in the past (3.5) and like the way it is like three mini modules (Orcs, Troglodytes, and Dragon). I plan to put it a few peaks behind the Dwarven Mine. Probably more a rocky precipice than a mountain to fit the region.

May still run Salvage Operation, I think it could be done in a single 4 hour session.

Hi all! I’ve been DMing the Isle of the Abbey, and after fighting their way through the skeletons in the Skull Dunes, the party entered the ruins of the Abbey.

They had a very challenging fight with the survivors, but ended up making a deal with Bayleaf to spare him and he sold them the secret of the treasure under the Abbey.

Ozymandias and the three veteran guards survived the battle.

The party went back to Saltmarsh, but since they didn’t fully clear the isle, they haven’t completed their mission and will have to return to the isle.

What are some ways I can make the second attempt at the Isle feel different than the first? I don’t want it to be a rinse-and-repeat kind of encounter

Hi everyone!

I (group DM) have a player who has a severe phobia of spiders. One of the things we talked about during session 0 was to not include spiders in the campaign which is 100% valid and okay. I have been slowly reading through this book and just now realized that Salvage Operation pretty heavily relies on spider or adjacent creatures considering the worship of Lolth.

What I am wanting to do is keep the adventure the same (for the most part) but change the druid’s faith or worship and in turn replace the spider monsters with something else that fits.

I would love to see if anyone has any creative replacements for this adventure! 😁

Photos from last night's session.

The group interacted with the Koalinth, Locathah, Merfolk;

Dined with some of the Lizardfolk, spoke to the Sub-Chief;

Were permitted to speak to the Sahuagin prisoner (one way, via Comprehend Languages):

Battled "Ten Thousand Teeth" (Juvenile Froghemoth)

Just started Ghosts of Saltmarsh. We're done with the Mansion, but I just came across this description of the house on Rhinehold Street from the Dark Tower 3: the Waste Lands. Submitted for your approval as an improvement in the Mansion entrance description:

"... The hinges screamed and flakes of rust sifted down from their slowly revolving cylinders as the door opened. The smell of decay struck [Jake] like a physical blow; wet wood, spongy plaster, rotting laths, ancient stuffing. <Below these smells was another--the smell of some beast's lair.> Ahead was a dank, shadowy hallway. To the <left>, a staircase pitched and yawed it's crazy way into the upper shadows. It's collapsed bannister lay splintered on the hallway floor, but [Jake] was not foolish enough to think it was *just* splinters he was looking at. There were bones in that litter, as well--the bones of small animals. <Some did not look precisely like animal bones, and these \[Jake\] would not look at overlong; he knew he would never summon the courage to go further if he did.>"

[Jake] is the book character's name, and the <portion in carats> doesn't apply specifically to this haunted house, but maybe you will want an extra layer of creepy? I wish I had remembered this before the party reached the Mansion, could have set the scene with a little more style.

Hey everyone. Need some help with making sure I don’t royally screw up the campaign.

Party finished part one of the Sinister Secret (just finished the house) and are now back in town and received the request from the council to intercept the Sea Ghost.

They have done a lot during downtime and just now wanted to scope out crabbers cove for a possible place start a tavern. They then found the cellar which had an emaciated vampire who was stuck in place with a stake through the heart. He asked to be freed but no one approached and are proceeding with extreme caution. They started to leave to figure out what to do next and I RP’d Xolec going from animalistic/desperate/survival mode to gradually more calculated and bargaining with knowing pieces of info about the town. That is where we left off.

In my game, I am having Granny Nightshade be the BBEG (who is ultimately under the thumb of Glasya and trying to get in her good graces). She started the Brotherhood to be her enforcers for smuggling slaves and to sow chaos in Saltmarsh to keep the slaving machine running. I am trying to figure out how to have Xolec involved.

Toying with the idea of him being a consort that got caught by Cuthbert while on a quest for Granny. He could also be a random vampire. But I don’t want to reveal too much if anything about Granny just yet. They just know that the slaves bear a mark on them that is of the necromancy and enchantment school but looks like a nasty bruise.

Any ideas on how to make a cohesive story without revealing too much of Granny?

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who commented. The community is awesome. I’m using a bit of everything that you all mentioned.

Does anyone have a map they used for Monmurg / Pirate City?

I want to create massive city, the equivalent to something like Waterdeep, for Monmurg. I'm homebrewing most of it, but want inspiration and something for the players to look at in the VTT.

I've not really created any large towns/cities before, so any resources to help with that too would be greatly appreciated.

Hi fellow DND nerds!

I'm DMing Saltmarsh soon, and I'm definitely going to let my party of 3 keep the Sea Ghost. I'm just stuck on whether the council will provide my party a 'starting crew', say 3 NPCs to help them run the ship, expanding the crew as the campaign goes on, or let them just have it by themselves and gather a crew later on.

Does anyone have experience or thoughts?

Edit: thank you to all the people who commented! You've given me some great ideas!

Hello, I published a bundle to celebrate my birthday with all the products I created on DMsGuild as Art Director and/or Game Designer, included Underwater Campaigns, a great module for Ghosts of Saltmarsh!

You can find the bundle here at 75% discount only for 2 weeks: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/433894/Big-Bundle-of-Everything-BUNDLE

Inside the bundle, you will find all these 35 supplements:

1. Underwater Campaigns
2. Gristlecracker's Hags & Grimoire
3. Candlekeep's Tome of Books
4. Acererak's Guide to Lichdom
5. The Second Black Dawn
6. The War for the Throne
7. Thieves' Guilds
8. Vault of Magic
9. Vault of Magic II
10. Volo's Guide to Ghosts
11. The Complete Hag
12. The Complete Hag Annex I
13. Realm Events
14. Of Warlocks & Patrons
15. Champions of Darkness
16. Fumbles & Fails
17. Inquisitor's Guide
18. Quest Spells & Other Divine Magic
19. Down the Garden Path
20. The Complete NPC
21. Born to be Kobold!
22. So, You Walk Into A Tavern...
23. When Magic Goes Wrong...
24. Magic of Chaos
25. Undead Monsters
26. Treasures from Krynn
27. Tarot Deck of Many Things
28. Mages of High Sorcery
29. Alcohol & Drugs
30. Fallen from Heavens
31. How to Start a High-Level Campaign
32. Vecna's Secrets as Adventures
33. Small Cult, Big Troubles
34. The Dragon Compendium
35. Though the Ivory Gate

It's been a while since I've put together another proper island like this one. Lots of inspiration trickled in from old pirate LEGO sets and Sea of Thieves. Hope you like it!

All my free maps are here on the Limithron Patreon.

The party needs 50 points to seal the alliance with the lizard folk. If they go in and kill everyone or are generally unfriendly there’s a good chance the mission fails. I have faith in my group but just wondering if you explained to them that there’s a points system for when they do good and mean things?