I’m curious to hear what, if any, changes people have made to the story of Ghosts of Saltmarsh, and in particular the motives and actions of Ned Shakeshaft. As written, his scheme makes no sense. He was hired to dissuade the party from investigating the house, yet he’s locked away in an out of the way upstairs room. He’s supposed to try to convince the party the house is really haunted, yet he’s stripped, bound, and gagged (by a ghost?). He claims to have been knocked out and woke up in this condition, yet he knows where his clothes are?
I change it up so that he is a lookout for the smugglers, hidden upstairs where he can make the weak floorboards creak and make eerie moans himself when he hears the party snooping around. He’s fully clothed in rags, locked in as if by supernatural means though in truth he’s just a skilled lock pick. He pretends to be a trapped vagrant, ranting about ghosts in the cellar. If his warnings don’t scare the party away, he ambushed them with his poisoned dagger when they run into their first enemy.
The only thing this leaves out is the original tie to Gellan, but cluing the party in to that secret can be accomplished more reliably with paperwork or any of the smugglers at all.
I also make larger changes to the lore as I fit the module into my homebrew setting. For example, the vampire is actually a deposed noble of the defunct Undead Empire, and the Scarlet Brotherhood is seeking to reinstate his rule by causing so much chaos in Saltmarsh that the current ruler has to personally visit to restore order, at which point they’ll go all Red Wedding on the town. I’m trying to think of a better way to justify him being trapped in the cellar in Crabbers Cove, since as written Skerrin would just get Anders to carry him out. My thoughts at this point are that he’s severely weakened by some sort of blood curse that can only be broken by drinking the blood of the noble who cursed him.
Ned Shankshaft became more important in my game than I anticipated. I played him as written initially, except that he was working for the smugglers. He badgered the players constantly trying to get them to leave. Most of the players believed his story, but continued looking through the house. They left before finding the smugglers to rest up and Ned appeared to go off on his own, but instead doubled back and warned the smugglers.
When the party returned they made it into the converted basement which had its entrances trapped because of Ned's warnings. During the battle with the smugglers Ned led a group of them to flank the party. The party did kill or drive off the rest of the smugglers and captured Ned. Sanbalet escaped without encountering the players. They tried interrogating Ned, but couldn't get much out of him other than that he thought Sanbalet was an extremely powerful and terrifying wizard. One of the players hated Ned from almost the start and after the interrogation went nowhere he chopped Ned's head off.
The player's reaction was so visceral to what I thought was a throw-away NPC, that I thought I'd take things a step further. I figured that Ned might have family that would want to know what happened to him. So the players were passing by the mansion a few days later and ran into Ned's older brothers Ted and Jed while they were retrieving Ned's body. I planned for the players to make short work of them and for Ted's dying words to be "Our father Fred will avenge us!" And then some day down the line Fred would show up.
Instead the players fought Ted and Jed to a draw and now they're reoccurring villains who are trying to avenge their brother. The Shankshaft Clan has become one of the Sea Princes that are mentioned sporadically in the campaign book. The Shankshaft's have convinced the rest of the Sea Princes to go to war with Saltmarsh and the players are currently trying to defuse that confrontation.
The players haven't even gotten to the second module of the book because of being wrapped up in the legacy of Ned.
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I’m curious to hear what, if any, changes people have made to the story of Ghosts of Saltmarsh, and in particular the motives and actions of Ned Shakeshaft. As written, his scheme makes no sense. He was hired to dissuade the party from investigating the house, yet he’s locked away in an out of the way upstairs room. He’s supposed to try to convince the party the house is really haunted, yet he’s stripped, bound, and gagged (by a ghost?). He claims to have been knocked out and woke up in this condition, yet he knows where his clothes are?
I change it up so that he is a lookout for the smugglers, hidden upstairs where he can make the weak floorboards creak and make eerie moans himself when he hears the party snooping around. He’s fully clothed in rags, locked in as if by supernatural means though in truth he’s just a skilled lock pick. He pretends to be a trapped vagrant, ranting about ghosts in the cellar. If his warnings don’t scare the party away, he ambushed them with his poisoned dagger when they run into their first enemy.
The only thing this leaves out is the original tie to Gellan, but cluing the party in to that secret can be accomplished more reliably with paperwork or any of the smugglers at all.
I also make larger changes to the lore as I fit the module into my homebrew setting. For example, the vampire is actually a deposed noble of the defunct Undead Empire, and the Scarlet Brotherhood is seeking to reinstate his rule by causing so much chaos in Saltmarsh that the current ruler has to personally visit to restore order, at which point they’ll go all Red Wedding on the town. I’m trying to think of a better way to justify him being trapped in the cellar in Crabbers Cove, since as written Skerrin would just get Anders to carry him out. My thoughts at this point are that he’s severely weakened by some sort of blood curse that can only be broken by drinking the blood of the noble who cursed him.
Thoughts?
Hmm... This is a lot to digest. Thoughts on what exactly? This does seem like a balanced, fun encounter.
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Ned Shankshaft became more important in my game than I anticipated. I played him as written initially, except that he was working for the smugglers. He badgered the players constantly trying to get them to leave. Most of the players believed his story, but continued looking through the house. They left before finding the smugglers to rest up and Ned appeared to go off on his own, but instead doubled back and warned the smugglers.
When the party returned they made it into the converted basement which had its entrances trapped because of Ned's warnings. During the battle with the smugglers Ned led a group of them to flank the party. The party did kill or drive off the rest of the smugglers and captured Ned. Sanbalet escaped without encountering the players. They tried interrogating Ned, but couldn't get much out of him other than that he thought Sanbalet was an extremely powerful and terrifying wizard. One of the players hated Ned from almost the start and after the interrogation went nowhere he chopped Ned's head off.
The player's reaction was so visceral to what I thought was a throw-away NPC, that I thought I'd take things a step further. I figured that Ned might have family that would want to know what happened to him. So the players were passing by the mansion a few days later and ran into Ned's older brothers Ted and Jed while they were retrieving Ned's body. I planned for the players to make short work of them and for Ted's dying words to be "Our father Fred will avenge us!" And then some day down the line Fred would show up.
Instead the players fought Ted and Jed to a draw and now they're reoccurring villains who are trying to avenge their brother. The Shankshaft Clan has become one of the Sea Princes that are mentioned sporadically in the campaign book. The Shankshaft's have convinced the rest of the Sea Princes to go to war with Saltmarsh and the players are currently trying to defuse that confrontation.
The players haven't even gotten to the second module of the book because of being wrapped up in the legacy of Ned.