my party is traveling over a huge lake, and its going to take a couple weeks to cross (16 days), and i was wondering how to spice it up. i don't want it to be 100% combat, and i have some fun ideas on how to world-build because a lot of stuff centers around the lake, and i want to add more things into the lake. any ideas would be really appreciated.
i'm going to go over my current ideas here
the lake is full of magic, one of the children traveling on the boat drinks the water for a dare from her brother, and falls ill, the party can try and find a way to help.
a storm strikes suddenly, and the ship has to chose between seeking shelter in a cave on a nearby island, the cave may or may not be empty, depending on which one they choose. if they do not enter the cave, they have to survive the storm, and potentially stay out of the way of two tempests and a leviathan (greater elementals) all fighting it out.
pirates board the ship, and the party wakes up to a hostage situation with one of the parties spell-casters being held by the pirates, their magic restrained.
the party encounters a floating ruin with a number of simple puzzles to find a ancient relic. only one combat encounter with some statues at the relic. the puzzles are logic, similar to rubik's cubes and stuff like that. no word puzzles or riddles
I like my ideas but i would love if some of yall would contribute your own. i'm so anxious and i really want them to enjoy it. also pls contribute to the poll :D
also the next session is soon and if you have any ideas, especially for standard travel session ideas i can adapt, i would be forever at your service :)
Do a 3-event structure for the travel and sprinkle about 2 random encounters (easy ones) since this is just montage. The Random Encounters should be flavor - things that depict what the lake is like in your world and what people in it do or what animals and monsters in the lake do. It’s an ecology encounter more than some challenging combat thing. Could be fisherfolk, other travelers, merchants, or just a giant water monster passing through.
Before the arrival event, have a complication and have an obstacle. The ruins could be a complication. Is the lake known for having those ruins? An obstacle could be a surprise monster ambush by otherwise weak monsters that damages the ship. Now they have to find a way to help it along or repair it.
I would say that the defining event would be the one which has the biggest impact.
If you have 16 days for the crossing then consider a mixture of things which all intermingle. I don't know how the world would provide these things - if the party has any enemis who might use this journey to deal with them - but here's some ideas for a string of events:
The ship has a cargo containing a gift for >So-and-So< on the other side of the lake. It's a barrel of brandy.
There is a storm with the elementals, and during the storm, >Beloved NPC< is killed/knocked out in the hold by loose cargo. The water barrels are broken, meaning they need to find fresh water. The secure hold lock is compromised, if investigated, but nothing appears to have been taken.
There is a child stowaway on the ship who, parched of thirst, enters the secure hold and drinks the brandy, and falls ill.
The ship stops on an island (inhabited by monsters?) to get fresh water. When loading it into the hold, the child is discovered.
The party can help the stowaway recover, realising that the child is poisoned. The child will know who killed >Beloved NPC<, having seen it from their hiding place.
The party unravels the plot that >Bad Person< killed >Beloved NPC<, and poisoned the brandy to kill >So-and-So<.
The party confronts them and thwarts their efforts, and thereby saves the day. Mini-side-quest over, they arrive at the other side...
And so on.
Making things interlinked, especially when they can be a self-contained sidequest, is a really good way to make the whole journey the feature! It's also a perfect place for Intrigue, as they have a closed-space with a set number of people, so a "whodunnit?" sort of sidequest would be awesome. If they don't solve it, then consequences happen - the brandy is delivered, and the semi-important (or helpful) NPC is poisoned. For double-twist, have them save someone who ends up being unhelpful and nasty!
The party is called up on deck by the cries of screaming men. They look up to see an ethereal light wreathes the crow's nest. It leaps and crackles like the child of lightning and fire. (Look up St. Elmo's fire). Then have the party realize that there was somebody up in the crow's nest on look out. At that moment, a dark shape topples out of the flame's gripping the crow's nest and land's with a sickening thud on the deck. The crew gathers round to see that it is the fire blackened corpse of the man who was on watch. To everyone's horror, a foreign voice speaks out from the dead man's open mouth saying, "I will speak with one who understands the unknown. All else will burn otherwise." The thing up at the top of the mast wishes to speak with a spell caster.
There are a lot of things that you could do with this. Maybe some ghost-like creature wishes to be put to rest. Maybe the fire is the dream of a slumbering titan that rests at the bottom of the lake and it wants the party to silence something that is disturbing its sleep. Maybe it is a star that fell from the heavens and wishes to swim the night sea with its brothers and sisters once more. Maybe it is the messenger of a giant mage who lives on an island in the lake. Maybe it is here to warn the ship of an upcoming threat like the storm or the ruins. Maybe it is a disembodies spirit that wants to be reunited with its body.
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> the lake is full of magic, one of the children traveling on the boat drinks the water for a dare from her brother, and falls ill, the party can try and find a way to help.
This is a simple set up, but I'm not sure how it would develop into a major story, just healing a kid is a sort of yes/no thing for whether the party has the resources to do it or not. Would the party be trying to cure the whole lake? Or would it be more of a hook to get them to explore islands in the lake for the rare ingredients they need to cure the kid?
> a storm strikes suddenly, and the ship has to chose between seeking shelter in a cave on a nearby island, the cave may or may not be empty, depending on which one they choose. if they do not enter the cave, they have to survive the storm, and potentially stay out of the way of two tempests and a leviathan (greater elementals) all fighting it out.
Is there a reason for the storm? Or is it just a random thing? Is there something to find in the cave? Again I'm not too sure what the story is what will the players discover or learn as part of the encounter? If it's just a random encounter that's fine, but random events are not "defining" and often not very memorable to the players. It does provide a break from their normal questing which might be helpful if their current arc is very stressful. I put in a Myconid random encounter in my game during a civil-war arc as a break to the depressing-ness of the main story's plot.
> pirates board the ship, and the party wakes up to a hostage situation with one of the parties spell-casters being held by the pirates, their magic restrained.
There's lots of potential here, the pirates could become long-running enemies, or they might have ties to bigger plots.
> the party encounters a floating ruin with a number of simple puzzles to find a ancient relic. only one combat encounter with some statues at the relic. the puzzles are logic, similar to rubik's cubes and stuff like that. no word puzzles or riddles
Again lots of potential here to link it to a larger plot, depending on what the ruin is / who it is dedicated to and what it's history is.
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HI everyone!
my party is traveling over a huge lake, and its going to take a couple weeks to cross (16 days), and i was wondering how to spice it up. i don't want it to be 100% combat, and i have some fun ideas on how to world-build because a lot of stuff centers around the lake, and i want to add more things into the lake. any ideas would be really appreciated.
i'm going to go over my current ideas here
the lake is full of magic, one of the children traveling on the boat drinks the water for a dare from her brother, and falls ill, the party can try and find a way to help.
a storm strikes suddenly, and the ship has to chose between seeking shelter in a cave on a nearby island, the cave may or may not be empty, depending on which one they choose. if they do not enter the cave, they have to survive the storm, and potentially stay out of the way of two tempests and a leviathan (greater elementals) all fighting it out.
pirates board the ship, and the party wakes up to a hostage situation with one of the parties spell-casters being held by the pirates, their magic restrained.
the party encounters a floating ruin with a number of simple puzzles to find a ancient relic. only one combat encounter with some statues at the relic. the puzzles are logic, similar to rubik's cubes and stuff like that. no word puzzles or riddles
I like my ideas but i would love if some of yall would contribute your own. i'm so anxious and i really want them to enjoy it. also pls contribute to the poll :D
also the next session is soon and if you have any ideas, especially for standard travel session ideas i can adapt, i would be forever at your service :)
Do a 3-event structure for the travel and sprinkle about 2 random encounters (easy ones) since this is just montage. The Random Encounters should be flavor - things that depict what the lake is like in your world and what people in it do or what animals and monsters in the lake do. It’s an ecology encounter more than some challenging combat thing. Could be fisherfolk, other travelers, merchants, or just a giant water monster passing through.
Before the arrival event, have a complication and have an obstacle. The ruins could be a complication. Is the lake known for having those ruins? An obstacle could be a surprise monster ambush by otherwise weak monsters that damages the ship. Now they have to find a way to help it along or repair it.
I would say that the defining event would be the one which has the biggest impact.
If you have 16 days for the crossing then consider a mixture of things which all intermingle. I don't know how the world would provide these things - if the party has any enemis who might use this journey to deal with them - but here's some ideas for a string of events:
And so on.
Making things interlinked, especially when they can be a self-contained sidequest, is a really good way to make the whole journey the feature! It's also a perfect place for Intrigue, as they have a closed-space with a set number of people, so a "whodunnit?" sort of sidequest would be awesome. If they don't solve it, then consequences happen - the brandy is delivered, and the semi-important (or helpful) NPC is poisoned. For double-twist, have them save someone who ends up being unhelpful and nasty!
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The party is called up on deck by the cries of screaming men. They look up to see an ethereal light wreathes the crow's nest. It leaps and crackles like the child of lightning and fire. (Look up St. Elmo's fire). Then have the party realize that there was somebody up in the crow's nest on look out. At that moment, a dark shape topples out of the flame's gripping the crow's nest and land's with a sickening thud on the deck. The crew gathers round to see that it is the fire blackened corpse of the man who was on watch. To everyone's horror, a foreign voice speaks out from the dead man's open mouth saying, "I will speak with one who understands the unknown. All else will burn otherwise." The thing up at the top of the mast wishes to speak with a spell caster.
There are a lot of things that you could do with this. Maybe some ghost-like creature wishes to be put to rest. Maybe the fire is the dream of a slumbering titan that rests at the bottom of the lake and it wants the party to silence something that is disturbing its sleep. Maybe it is a star that fell from the heavens and wishes to swim the night sea with its brothers and sisters once more. Maybe it is the messenger of a giant mage who lives on an island in the lake. Maybe it is here to warn the ship of an upcoming threat like the storm or the ruins. Maybe it is a disembodies spirit that wants to be reunited with its body.
> the lake is full of magic, one of the children traveling on the boat drinks the water for a dare from her brother, and falls ill, the party can try and find a way to help.
This is a simple set up, but I'm not sure how it would develop into a major story, just healing a kid is a sort of yes/no thing for whether the party has the resources to do it or not. Would the party be trying to cure the whole lake? Or would it be more of a hook to get them to explore islands in the lake for the rare ingredients they need to cure the kid?
> a storm strikes suddenly, and the ship has to chose between seeking shelter in a cave on a nearby island, the cave may or may not be empty, depending on which one they choose. if they do not enter the cave, they have to survive the storm, and potentially stay out of the way of two tempests and a leviathan (greater elementals) all fighting it out.
Is there a reason for the storm? Or is it just a random thing? Is there something to find in the cave? Again I'm not too sure what the story is what will the players discover or learn as part of the encounter? If it's just a random encounter that's fine, but random events are not "defining" and often not very memorable to the players. It does provide a break from their normal questing which might be helpful if their current arc is very stressful. I put in a Myconid random encounter in my game during a civil-war arc as a break to the depressing-ness of the main story's plot.
> pirates board the ship, and the party wakes up to a hostage situation with one of the parties spell-casters being held by the pirates, their magic restrained.
There's lots of potential here, the pirates could become long-running enemies, or they might have ties to bigger plots.
> the party encounters a floating ruin with a number of simple puzzles to find a ancient relic. only one combat encounter with some statues at the relic. the puzzles are logic, similar to rubik's cubes and stuff like that. no word puzzles or riddles
Again lots of potential here to link it to a larger plot, depending on what the ruin is / who it is dedicated to and what it's history is.