I've been thinking about designing a campaign centered around the idea of a world that has been flooded. Most of the mainland has disappeared underneath the watersurface and the world consist of islands now. Islands are mostly densely packed by people who migrated because their homeland became flooded over the years. Monsters also migrated and live closer to the cities now. Or they have adapted to the world of water.
The idea would be that the PCs own a boat together. The boat needs maintenance, supplies, resources, workers, repairs, ...ect. Every PC has their own cabin on deck and job function. The boat can be customized and upgraded over time. They use the boat to travel between islands.
Obviously there would be a lot more combat on the water and some creatures might behave a little different considering this world. I'm not yet sure what the goal of the camapign would be but I think it's an interesting setting.
QUESTION
Has anyone done anything similar, or are there know/published adventures which I could check for inspiration and tips. What would be hurdles I could stumble upon?
I don’t know about published adventures, but every IRL culture in the world has a flood mythology. You could always look for inspiration there. And I saw somewhere online a thing where you could see a map of the world adjusted for sea level rise that you could probably use. The world looks a lot different with a couple extra feet of water.
I think Ghosts of Saltmarsh has some things about owning a ship. However, seeing as you most likely don't have this and are asking the question, there's a version of it in the Unearthed Arcana playtest: here
I'd suggest a couple houserules based on the world. For example, I'd consider giving everyone advantage on swim checks, since I imagine everyone learns to swim from a young age. Maybe also be willing to hand out proficiency in navigator's tools as a bonus to almost everyone, if not everyone. Carpenter's tool proficiencies would also be very, very valuable (though I wonder where they are getting wood in a flooded world, seems like that would be a precious commodity). Magic items that would allow people to breath underwater would be either more common, because everyone needs them, or much more valuable, because everyone wants them. Something like a wand of fireballs would become terrifying, if the enemy starts aiming it at the waterline instead of the deck. Same goes for lots of big damage ranged spells. (though I guess they'd usually rather board the ship and take supplies than sink it, so maybe it would be fairly rare) But it could be that the people here have adapted and build their ships with some kind of special magic-resistant material.
The thing I'd be careful of is the ship itself. This sounds like it would be very similar to a space-based science fiction game, using a ship to get between relatively small points where you can be out of it. (through space to get to planets vs through water to get to islands, but the principle is the same. Come to think of it, you might want to look to things like star trek for inspiration.) Those games can quickly get overwhelmed by bookkeeping for things like ship maintenance costs and time, where the ship ends up becoming more a nuisance with an excel sheet to track everything than a cool moving, upgradable base.
So unless you want it to become "ship maintenance: the game", I'd suggest abstracting most damage and other problems. (Just like when PCs take damage we don't worry if it is to a leg or an arm, when the ship takes damage, don't worry about what part of it is hit) I'd then do something like, when they get to a harbor, make them pay for repairs and call it good. Or if someone has those carpenter tools, say the ship took 20 hp damage, so you'll need to use 20 gp of supplies to fix it (I don't know if that would work out in terms of the world's economy, but its probably the easiest). Then just assume they have the right stuff on hand to do the repairs, like how a wizard's component pouch always has the right stuff in it. And like those spell components that sometimes are rare and have a cost, you could occasionally make the damage be to some specific part that they need to go and quest to find.
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Hi all!
I've been thinking about designing a campaign centered around the idea of a world that has been flooded. Most of the mainland has disappeared underneath the watersurface and the world consist of islands now. Islands are mostly densely packed by people who migrated because their homeland became flooded over the years. Monsters also migrated and live closer to the cities now. Or they have adapted to the world of water.
The idea would be that the PCs own a boat together. The boat needs maintenance, supplies, resources, workers, repairs, ...ect. Every PC has their own cabin on deck and job function. The boat can be customized and upgraded over time. They use the boat to travel between islands.
Obviously there would be a lot more combat on the water and some creatures might behave a little different considering this world. I'm not yet sure what the goal of the camapign would be but I think it's an interesting setting.
QUESTION
Has anyone done anything similar, or are there know/published adventures which I could check for inspiration and tips. What would be hurdles I could stumble upon?
Cheers!
I don’t know about published adventures, but every IRL culture in the world has a flood mythology. You could always look for inspiration there. And I saw somewhere online a thing where you could see a map of the world adjusted for sea level rise that you could probably use. The world looks a lot different with a couple extra feet of water.
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I think Ghosts of Saltmarsh has some things about owning a ship. However, seeing as you most likely don't have this and are asking the question, there's a version of it in the Unearthed Arcana playtest: here
I'd suggest a couple houserules based on the world. For example, I'd consider giving everyone advantage on swim checks, since I imagine everyone learns to swim from a young age. Maybe also be willing to hand out proficiency in navigator's tools as a bonus to almost everyone, if not everyone. Carpenter's tool proficiencies would also be very, very valuable (though I wonder where they are getting wood in a flooded world, seems like that would be a precious commodity). Magic items that would allow people to breath underwater would be either more common, because everyone needs them, or much more valuable, because everyone wants them. Something like a wand of fireballs would become terrifying, if the enemy starts aiming it at the waterline instead of the deck. Same goes for lots of big damage ranged spells. (though I guess they'd usually rather board the ship and take supplies than sink it, so maybe it would be fairly rare) But it could be that the people here have adapted and build their ships with some kind of special magic-resistant material.
The thing I'd be careful of is the ship itself. This sounds like it would be very similar to a space-based science fiction game, using a ship to get between relatively small points where you can be out of it. (through space to get to planets vs through water to get to islands, but the principle is the same. Come to think of it, you might want to look to things like star trek for inspiration.) Those games can quickly get overwhelmed by bookkeeping for things like ship maintenance costs and time, where the ship ends up becoming more a nuisance with an excel sheet to track everything than a cool moving, upgradable base.
So unless you want it to become "ship maintenance: the game", I'd suggest abstracting most damage and other problems. (Just like when PCs take damage we don't worry if it is to a leg or an arm, when the ship takes damage, don't worry about what part of it is hit) I'd then do something like, when they get to a harbor, make them pay for repairs and call it good. Or if someone has those carpenter tools, say the ship took 20 hp damage, so you'll need to use 20 gp of supplies to fix it (I don't know if that would work out in terms of the world's economy, but its probably the easiest). Then just assume they have the right stuff on hand to do the repairs, like how a wizard's component pouch always has the right stuff in it. And like those spell components that sometimes are rare and have a cost, you could occasionally make the damage be to some specific part that they need to go and quest to find.