Island Discovery 6 / Campaign Diary: Archipelago Adventures - Pt. 21

Last time on the Campaign Diaries we found two new islands, Kataigída and Astéri! Now, let’s get into building them up for our big island adventure!

Last week we talked about our new island we discovered, Kataigída, and the story/adventure that our tier 3 adventurers would be tasked with! I should mention, any level of characters could find this island… this could be their first new island they discover! Which would be problematic as I’m sure that level 3 character would not be able to take on this challenge… but I’d still let them try!

Let’s Begin

Before we can truly begin working on our masterpiece, our opus, our oeuvre! We must first create our beautiful island! So… I did that. In Inkarnate and I think it’s pretty good for what I imagined. A massive mountain that sticks out of the ocean like the point of a spear! Rocky cliffs, dangerous lands and all that!

It is a sight to behold! Ok… maybe not, but it’ll do until I win the lottery and can hire an artist to do everything for me! Going back to part 14, there are a few key things we need for this island:

• Tell the DM what the conflict is on the island

• Have information about the size, tier, resources and other things in an easy to locate place

• List the main NPCs

• Brief description of the island

• Random things on the island

• Story information

• What to do

• Any maps we need

And from that list, let’s go ahead and start with what our first page should have:

• The Conflict

• Information about size, resource, etc

• Description of Island

• Map of island

Simple enough, I’ll go ahead and get started on our adventure!

We begin simply enough, and talk a bit about the island and some of the key features, like its size, resources, inhabitants and any conflicts on the island.

It’s a pretty simple island and just features a Storm Giant, Fenja, who is currently obsessed with watching the movements of celestial bodies and the stars twinkling high above. I decided, after much hemming and hawing, to not include small maps for the docks or for Fenja’s Lookout. The reasoning is… I just don't think it is that important for most adventurers. Sure, it would be nice to have a huge map for every room on every island, but that would make this adventure extremely big and take way more time to produce for something that might not ever get used… except for some asshats that decide to attack our good friend Fenja!

But, don’t worry! There will be plenty of small ‘battlemaps’ in the future… I just didn’t think it was important for this two islands. If a GM is really worried about it, there are tons of resources online or they can just draw a simple map with a big telescope in one corner. This adventure is going to be less about exact things that happen and rely more on the GM’s ability to improv, which is an important tool to learn how to use!

Now our second page is where things got a little tricky, because Island #9 is a quick and short island, I was trying to get everything on to one page but realized that wasn’t going to happen. I needed a page and a half… but I didn’t have a map to fill up the rest of the page… so I went ahead and threw Island #10 on to that page. I think them sharing pages will be fine, and when I eventually finish all the islands, I will just have to make sure the glossary is well populated with where things are located… oh boy!

Island #10

Now, our next island that we are doing as part of finding Fenja is Astéri, and part of the reason this post is going out so much later than the normal ones. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize how much more time it was going to be to write about two small islands on three pages when it was a lot easier to write about one medium island on three pages. Here’s the last page for our Islands #9 & #10.

Again, keeping with no battlemaps and just the simple island overview map for all to adore! I really like this format of the island taking up the bottom right portion of the page and it’ll be important to keep that continuity going. Whenever you get a new module or adventure, there is always a bit of training in how to read them and its important that there is a certain consistency inside of the adventure or things will start following apart and the GM has to do more work than before.

Also, here is the a blown up look at our beautiful island of Astéri!

As a side note: I’m still trying to figure out what resources are going to look like in this adventure, but that’s something I can edit it into our islands information pages at a later date.

If you prefer PDF:

Finishing Up

So that’s what two of our islands look like now! It was fun creating an adventure for high level play, and I think I prefer high level play as opposed to low level adventures… I’m not scared about crit killing the wizard in one hit with a kobold when everyone is level 11 or higher… Though a power word kill is usually enough to kill off the Wizard on the first round at least until they get to level 15 or so!

Next week… Well I’m not quite sure what will happen next week, but I’m sure it will be awesome!

Dragon Turtle

All of a sudden the water erupts up in a geyser and the massive head of a turtle is eyeing your ship with the cold intelligence of a creature calculating your worth.

1. In the language of dragons, the dragon turtle demands tribute, in exchange it promises safe passages through its territory. If the party is able to offer up at least 100 gp in gems, coins and valuables, Illymrith will be pleased with what they offer and allow them to move on. If they party would like information about surrounding islands or other features beneath the wave, that information will cost them an additional 100 gp of valuables. If the party is unwilling or unable to pay, Illymrith will grow angry and breath out its Steam Breath, targeting the sails of the ship. Illymrith will then disappear beneath the waves.
2. The ships is suddenly rocked to one side as a whale breaches the surface shooting straight up like a lance, it then falls slowly back into the water and you can see that some sort of creature is below the whale, its hungry maw wide open. The whale slams back into the water, huge waves of water crashing into the ship, and then the whale rises once more, but this time between the jaws of some sort of giant turtle. Biting down hard, the turtle cuts through the blubber and meat of the whale, crushing it hard between its jaws as it pulls its food down below the waves. Clouds of blood dirty the waters, and many of the crew on board begin making signs to protect themselves against dark spirits.
3. The ship comes to a sudden lurching stop, as if it has come aground. Many of the crew rush forward to see what is going on, but they are unable to determine what is going on. The party may make a DC 15 Perception check to realize the pattern in the water that they mistook for the sun/moon on the waves is actually the pattern of some sort of giant shell. The ship hasn’t actually come aground as the shell the ship ran into moves slowly off to the side, and the ship is able to sail on. If the party investigate the shell, they can see that is the hollow shell of some sort of giant turtle, though no turtle remains.
4. A horrendous crunching sound can be heard below decks, and the ship begins taking on water. The bosun must quickly make repairs to the ship (DC 10, Carpenter’s Tools check, has advantage as the crew will be working hard with them), or else the ship will take on too much water in the next hour and the crew and party will be forced to flee the ship. If the party swim down to investigate what happened, they see a massive dragon turtle beneath the ship, slowly circling around as if a shark waiting for its prey to sink. If the party is able to make repairs, the dragon turtle will grow bored of waiting for it to sink and will swim off, hoping to return later and see the ship has fully sunk beneath the waves. If the party try to attack the dragon turtle, it will attack them back and then attack the ship again.