It's winter in France, the horizon is cloudy, the sun never seems to return, we need sun and palm trees! Ok creatures and pirates too. I can only remember the U1 for D&D. Any ideas? Not a RPG, just adventures or supplements. Thanks.

Is this just for D&D?

Classic Traveller had a nice supplement "The Undersea Environment" along with a linked adventure, "The Drenslaar Quest" that extended the game nicely for water worlds.

Space shows provide the best examples of ship-born adventures and there are hundreds of episodes out there to mine for ideas (although most probably can't be converted a large number can).

Battlestar Galactica: The Orc horde captures the city/kingdom in an orgy of violence. A few ships escape port full of refugees with what they can carry, but the Orcs follow on every ship they can get a hold of. So our refugees have to occasionally fight the Orcs, resupply, and fight their way through pirate infested waters until they can get to a safe area.

Voyager: Captain of a merchant ship piss off a Wizard/Demon/whatever that teleports their ship to an unknown sea and they have to figure out where they are and how to get back.

Star Trek: Explore, explore, explore. Hex crawl at sea with some big enemies and first contact situations.

Firefly: Try to make a living through trade and smuggling and the random strange mission.

First thing that came to my mind was Fury of the Deep, a module for Dragon Warriors Revised. That sees players travelling to a Mediterranean island in the company of an unscrupulous merchant to explore the temple of a sea god.

Pdf is here, and you can watch some people play it here.

For what it's worth, I've found Dragon Warriors very easy to convert back and forth with any other class/level game.

There's also The Dark of Hot Springs Island, which is a somewhat-gonzo tropical island hexcrawl setting. Mostly system-neutral, but clearly designed with OSR in mind. I started a campaign for it a while back, but it never really got off the ground.

I ran an adventure/dungeon on the back of a disappearing island/gigantic tortoise that surfaced only periodically. So basically a timed dungeon crawl in a water-logged shrine built on its back, before it dived again. I never worked up those notes in a form usable to anyone else though, was really just a small dungeon map for the shrine and the rest in my head.

I also thought of the Coin trilogy for Kingdoms of Kalamar. Set in a not-Mediterranean sea, it was statted for D&D 3.0, but spiritually closer to AD&D. Flipping through it now it's more of a railroad than I remembered. It still has some nice grace notes, like a ship the PCs could capture for their own (but its not telegraphed they should do so), or a tough but optional fight against a creature guarding a treasure chest you don't quite have to have (would be even better in a gold for xp system). But I can't recommend it too strongly.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 03, 2025, 08:14:27 PMThere's also The Dark of Hot Springs Island, which is a somewhat-gonzo tropical island hexcrawl setting. Mostly system-neutral, but clearly designed with OSR in mind. I started a campaign for it a while back, but it never really got off the ground.

System neutral seems to be where good adventures go to die not get played. For myself, I can convert on the fly if something is statted for just about any version of D&D faster than I can go through and make notes or make things up on the fly.

Hot Springs Island is so good its the partial exception, it did get some play reports, but I still think they shot themselves in the foot with that decision.

Mazes & Minotaurs is made for the sea!

Quote from: Dave 2 on February 03, 2025, 09:08:33 PM

QuoteThere's also The Dark of Hot Springs Island, which is a somewhat-gonzo tropical island hexcrawl setting. Mostly system-neutral, but clearly designed with OSR in mind. I started a campaign for it a while back, but it never really got off the ground.

System neutral seems to be where good adventures go to die not get played. For myself, I can convert on the fly if something is statted for just about any version of D&D faster than I can go through and make notes or make things up on the fly.

Hot Springs Island is so good its the partial exception, it did get some play reports, but I still think they shot themselves in the foot with that decision.

Yeah, when I was going to run it, I found someone who had statted all the unique creatures for 5e, and then found a conversion guide from 5e to savage worlds (which is what I meant to use). It wasn't a huge amount of work, but an unnecessary hassle to be sure.

Check out "The Sea People" for BX/BECMI D&D. It is all about undersea campaigns and adventures and adds several aquatic races.

The ship's reflection in the clear sea is suddenly disrupted by a crashing wave that overturns the vessel in the ocean putting the player characters face to face with their mirror universe dopplegangers.  There may be a specific spell involved or perhaps an eldrich abomination trying to understand the difference between good and evil mistook their vessel for the Enterprise.

Whale hunter tribal rites are really interesting to read about. They'd do entire ceremonies to prepare for the hunt, which would prove their worth in the tribe if it succeeded. I've always wanted to do a campaign where you go out on canoes and hunt a giant underwater lobster monster-- swimming frantically, firing harpoons, having to outsmart it and live to tell the tale. As you drag it back ashore and fall to the sand, a woman hugs you with tears of joy in her eyes-- you've ensured your tribe months of food and safety.

As for an island, it is said that you can confront your deepest fears at a certain island of despair. After making your way ashore, though the jungle, and past the dangerous animals, a deep cave awaits. Inside, all your fears are whispered aloud and slowly written all over the walls in a glowing ink. You must remain sane as the entire world feels like it is collapsing in on you. But the real treasure is certainly worth it and the spirits of the past will guide you.

I'm a RL seaman (currently on a car carrier ship.)  I've been a seafarer for 32 years now.

For seafaring adventures while a vessel is underway, it's fairly easy.  You can threaten the ship itself, make something disappear from the ship, or make something appear on the ship that doesn't belong.  In context of life aboard a ship, this is going to create an emergency.

The biggest thing that needs to be considered about any sea going adventure where the players are sailors is that the ocean is very big and hostile.  No human is going to swim free in the ocean for very long.  If something hungry doesn't eat you then the weather or waves will. 

A ship, even a very modern one made out of steel, is fragile machine that barely holds off death by ocean.  (Check out the story of the El Faro.  Also, I was on an US aircraft carrier in a typhoon and that was iffy.)  A ship needs constant maintenance and a constant watch to keep it going.  Even in seemingly calm weather, a ship can get into real trouble if the bridge watch (helms watch on an older ship) isn't keeping an eye on currents, waves, and wind.  If something happens to the ship, then you end up in the ocean at the mercy of whatever it throws at you.

Life as a sailor is largely a monotony of doing much of the same thing every day.  Typically, a seaman's job is 12 hours a day, seven days a weeks.  Most of the tasks being done are to keep the ship in good condition to keep it keeping the ocean out and headed towards it's next port.  It's also worth noting that a ship is always crewed only to the minimum limits to it's purpose.  Military ships will have a lot more personnel than commercial ships but even then it's much smaller for it's mission compared to a similar shore side operation of similar purpose.  A typical commercial ship has between 20 and 30 crew members.

Finally, most people overlook the fact that a ship is isolated for long periods.  Everyone is bottled up and every little thing is a bigger issue than if you could call for outside assistance or go out to get something.  A missing screwdriver can send an engineer around the bend.

Quote from: ElifeLau on February 03, 2025, 03:00:07 PMIt's winter in France, the horizon is cloudy, the sun never seems to return, we need sun and palm trees! Ok creatures and pirates too. I can only remember the U1 for D&D. Any ideas? Not a RPG, just adventures or supplements. Thanks.

Shameless plug: The Lost Treasure of Atlantis. Mid-sized dungeon on a small island with a small settlement on another nearby island.