So we have been playing Storm Lords Wrath, when we ran into a ghost ship. Half of the party ran on to the ghost ship. The next session we were missing someone who's character ran onto the ghost ship so I had the ghost ship disappear with half of the party on it and we continued the main quest. Now I run a session on the ghost ship so need to homebrew a ghost ship. This ghost ship use to belong to one of the party member (who did not run onto it.) It was a fishing vessel who would catch rare fish that can only be found in thunderstorms. However the crew was full of ex-pirates and with the captain being a rare flying mermaid race the crew decide to go about their old ways and try to make a pretty penny by selling the captain. The captain escaped and the crew and ship somehow got cursed and turned into a ghost ship.
This will be my first homebrew. My players are level 9. Are there web sites that you recommend that might help me build encounters that would work with the ghost ship at that level? Also my players have a desire to commandeer this ghost ship. Is that possible as a ghost ship? How would they do that or do they need to break the curse first before they can take the ship?
This will be my first homebrew. My players are level 9.
Are there web sites that you recommend that might help me build encounters that would work with the ghost ship at that level?
Also my players have a desire to commandeer this ghost ship. Is that possible as a ghost ship? How would they do that or do they need to break the curse first before they can take the ship?
Congratulations on your first homebrew! To (somewhat) answer your questions:
Yes, this one, DDB.*
Those decisions are entirely up to you, there are no right or wrong answers. However you decide those things work is how they work.
*To get a little more specific for you about how this site can help:
For a ghost ship encounter, first you’ll need a ship. How big a ship (and how big an encounter) are up to you. Out of the readily available options I would probably go with one of the following options: • A “Keelboat” (https://www.dndbeyond.com/vehicles/keelboat) for something fairly small. (The ship that Vizzini, Inigo and Fezzik used to kidnap Buttercup in the first act of The Princess Bride was a Keelboat. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XCHKYNFH9Lk) The statblock says it can hold a maximum of 7 people and 0.5 tons of cargo, but that’s 🐂💩. In reality for a 60’ × 20’ vessel like that it could have probably carried closer to 50 people and 5 tons of cargo. A Keelboat only capable of carrying 7 people and a ½ ton of cargo would have been at most 40’ long and 10’ wide and had no room for a Balista. Something like this would make sense as a small fishing vessel that a single person could have operated all by themselves, or with a small crew (maybe 2 others), but would also be rather ideal for pirates looking to do lightning raids on small, poorly defended vessels/communities, especially if you increase the passenger capacity to from 4 Small/Medium creatures to 12-18 S/M creatures (or 4-6 S/M creatures as the PCs and 4-6 Large for their mounts), and the cargo capacity to at least 2-2.5 tons. • A “Sailing Ship” (https://www.dndbeyond.com/vehicles/sailing-ship) for a practical sized pirate ship. (This is actually approximate to ships commonly used by RL Pirates during the Age of Sail: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full-rigged_pinnace) However, the statblock for this ship also lists a ridiculously low creature capacity of 50, when in reality it could easily hold over 100 pirates (part of why they were so popular).
Below the statblocks for both of those vehicles you can find recommendations as to which “monsters” they recommend as crew (mostly the Bandit Captain, Noble, and Commoner statblocks). • However, if you have access to the Ghosts of Saltmarsh adventure, there are statblocks for Pirates you could use as well: (https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters?filter-type=0&filter-search=Pirate), and for regular Pirates, then upgrading the generic sailors from commoners to Bandits would make sense (but isn necessary). • To add in the “ghost” part of “ghost ship,” replace the regular crew members with the Specter statblock. For the officers a CR 2 version of a Ghost without the Possession trait would be fitting. For the captain, I think a Wraith would probably do nicely. • (If you really, really want to emphasize the “ghost-pirate” theme, then combine the suggestions I made for a pirate crew with the ones for the ghost crew and make hybrid monsters, but that’ll take extra work. If you want, PM me and I’ll try to help you.)
In general, if you plan to stay nautical, you might want to consider picking up Ghosts of Saltmarsh here from DDB. It may not be perfect, but it is the best thing WotC has put out for nautical stuff so far.
Thank you so much that was in deed helpful. I'm still trying to figure out if I there is even a way for them to commandeer the ship or to remove the curse on it.
Thank you so much that was in deed helpful. I'm still trying to figure out if I there is even a way for them to commandeer the ship or to remove the curse on it.
As the dungeon master, the only limitations are ones you place on yourself--so long as you can come up with a way for the matter to work that fits within the rules of your game and your narrative, there is nothing you cannot do.
From what you have described thus far, you have established the ship is corporeal and can vanish to a new location. Your questions also indicate the ship itself is cursed. If your party wants to take over the ship, that gives them two primary objectives: Figuring out how to pilot the vessel and breaking the curse on it.
Here is an example of what you could do.
1. The party first has to clear the ship of the ghosts who inhabit it.
2. The party has now commandeered the vessel, but they can only sail it like a regular ship--they have not learned how to use its ability to teleport.
3. The party has to learn more about the ship before they can unlock its teleporting ability. Perhaps it can only transport between a number of set locations, each of which was an important part of the boat's history (where it was built, its most common port of call, the site where the ship was sunk, where the captain mutinied against its captain, etc.). Some of these locations might be contained in the ship's records, others you might have to learn in ports talking with folks or looking at records.
4. The party has to figure out some way to actually utilize the teleportation system. You could also add some kind of cost to this ability, such as tithing a portion of any goods they capture to the sea.
5. The curse should have some kind of detrimental effect on the party so long as they are piloting the ship. Perhaps it causes similar effects to madness (Chapter 8 of Dungeon Master's Guide), or sometimes ghosts appear on the ship and have to be slain again.
6. You could make it so that, when the curse is ultimately broken (perhaps they need to do some sort of side quest to do a purification ritual), the ship reverts to being a normal ship, losing its teleportation ability.
Sorry it's taken me a bit I've had some sick kids. I'm thinking of the ghost reappear once in a while. If they want the ghost to stop appearing there going to have to get each one to cross over. I like the idea of having the ghost ship cause some kind of detrimental effect. I'm thinking that is slowly turns them into ghost but get the players excited about it first. Like give them cold resistance but eventually they can't even hold a sword anymore. I do want a purification ritual but I'm not sure on the details on that. I am thinking of having a wisp that is is like spirit of the ship or have some connection to the ship so if it dies the ship goes with it. I'm thinking that a Necromancer came to the ship and promise riches beyond their dreams. However when the crew saw that the necromancer was turning them into undead so they took their treasure and their spell caster gave up her/his life to keep their treasure with them even in death. Witch made this treasure become sentient. (He is one of the players and him having an item can curse it). So I'm trying to figure out if this spell would have cursed the ship or if the necromancer cursed it.
I have it where after they have been on the ship for a while they all had to roll a d20 if they roll 11-20 nothing happens, 6-10 next time they roll they have to roll another die, a 2-5 they gain a trait to get closer to becoming a ghost (like one of my players has cold resistant now), and if they roll a 1 they start going out of phase and have to roll to grab anything. (I haven't figured out the rolls for this yet.)
Cool. I dig it. Did the players like the encounter? What ship did you use? How about the crew? How many of them have ghostly abilities? How close are any of them to being out of phase?
I used this map: https://i.redd.it/yq8381jqufx51.jpg. The whole crew were ghost. Only one so far has a ghostly abilities and that is cold resistance. Two of them have to roll a d12 next time. None have gone out of phase yet but 1 has a gali coin so I might make him start going out of phase soon.
So we have been playing Storm Lords Wrath, when we ran into a ghost ship. Half of the party ran on to the ghost ship. The next session we were missing someone who's character ran onto the ghost ship so I had the ghost ship disappear with half of the party on it and we continued the main quest. Now I run a session on the ghost ship so need to homebrew a ghost ship. This ghost ship use to belong to one of the party member (who did not run onto it.) It was a fishing vessel who would catch rare fish that can only be found in thunderstorms. However the crew was full of ex-pirates and with the captain being a rare flying mermaid race the crew decide to go about their old ways and try to make a pretty penny by selling the captain. The captain escaped and the crew and ship somehow got cursed and turned into a ghost ship.
This will be my first homebrew. My players are level 9. Are there web sites that you recommend that might help me build encounters that would work with the ghost ship at that level? Also my players have a desire to commandeer this ghost ship. Is that possible as a ghost ship? How would they do that or do they need to break the curse first before they can take the ship?
Congratulations on your first homebrew! To (somewhat) answer your questions:
*To get a little more specific for you about how this site can help:
• A “Keelboat” (https://www.dndbeyond.com/vehicles/keelboat) for something fairly small. (The ship that Vizzini, Inigo and Fezzik used to kidnap Buttercup in the first act of The Princess Bride was a Keelboat. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XCHKYNFH9Lk) The statblock says it can hold a maximum of 7 people and 0.5 tons of cargo, but that’s 🐂💩. In reality for a 60’ × 20’ vessel like that it could have probably carried closer to 50 people and 5 tons of cargo. A Keelboat only capable of carrying 7 people and a ½ ton of cargo would have been at most 40’ long and 10’ wide and had no room for a Balista. Something like this would make sense as a small fishing vessel that a single person could have operated all by themselves, or with a small crew (maybe 2 others), but would also be rather ideal for pirates looking to do lightning raids on small, poorly defended vessels/communities, especially if you increase the passenger capacity to from 4 Small/Medium creatures to 12-18 S/M creatures (or 4-6 S/M creatures as the PCs and 4-6 Large for their mounts), and the cargo capacity to at least 2-2.5 tons.
• A “Sailing Ship” (https://www.dndbeyond.com/vehicles/sailing-ship) for a practical sized pirate ship. (This is actually approximate to ships commonly used by RL Pirates during the Age of Sail: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full-rigged_pinnace) However, the statblock for this ship also lists a ridiculously low creature capacity of 50, when in reality it could easily hold over 100 pirates (part of why they were so popular).
• However, if you have access to the Ghosts of Saltmarsh adventure, there are statblocks for Pirates you could use as well: (https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters?filter-type=0&filter-search=Pirate), and for regular Pirates, then upgrading the generic sailors from commoners to Bandits would make sense (but isn necessary).
• To add in the “ghost” part of “ghost ship,” replace the regular crew members with the Specter statblock. For the officers a CR 2 version of a Ghost without the Possession trait would be fitting. For the captain, I think a Wraith would probably do nicely.
• (If you really, really want to emphasize the “ghost-pirate” theme, then combine the suggestions I made for a pirate crew with the ones for the ghost crew and make hybrid monsters, but that’ll take extra work. If you want, PM me and I’ll try to help you.)
If you have access to the Ghosts of Saltmarsh adventure you can read more about using those statblocks here: (https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/gos/of-ships-and-the-sea#ActivityWhileTraveling), but most of it won’t matter unless you actually let them commandeer the vessel. There are more minimalist rules in Chapter 5 of the DMG: (https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/adventure-environments#TheSea).
In general, if you plan to stay nautical, you might want to consider picking up Ghosts of Saltmarsh here from DDB. It may not be perfect, but it is the best thing WotC has put out for nautical stuff so far.
I hope that helps.
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Was any of that helpful?
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Thank you so much that was in deed helpful. I'm still trying to figure out if I there is even a way for them to commandeer the ship or to remove the curse on it.
As the dungeon master, the only limitations are ones you place on yourself--so long as you can come up with a way for the matter to work that fits within the rules of your game and your narrative, there is nothing you cannot do.
From what you have described thus far, you have established the ship is corporeal and can vanish to a new location. Your questions also indicate the ship itself is cursed. If your party wants to take over the ship, that gives them two primary objectives: Figuring out how to pilot the vessel and breaking the curse on it.
Here is an example of what you could do.
1. The party first has to clear the ship of the ghosts who inhabit it.
2. The party has now commandeered the vessel, but they can only sail it like a regular ship--they have not learned how to use its ability to teleport.
3. The party has to learn more about the ship before they can unlock its teleporting ability. Perhaps it can only transport between a number of set locations, each of which was an important part of the boat's history (where it was built, its most common port of call, the site where the ship was sunk, where the captain mutinied against its captain, etc.). Some of these locations might be contained in the ship's records, others you might have to learn in ports talking with folks or looking at records.
4. The party has to figure out some way to actually utilize the teleportation system. You could also add some kind of cost to this ability, such as tithing a portion of any goods they capture to the sea.
5. The curse should have some kind of detrimental effect on the party so long as they are piloting the ship. Perhaps it causes similar effects to madness (Chapter 8 of Dungeon Master's Guide), or sometimes ghosts appear on the ship and have to be slain again.
6. You could make it so that, when the curse is ultimately broken (perhaps they need to do some sort of side quest to do a purification ritual), the ship reverts to being a normal ship, losing its teleportation ability.
So what have you decided?
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Sorry it's taken me a bit I've had some sick kids. I'm thinking of the ghost reappear once in a while. If they want the ghost to stop appearing there going to have to get each one to cross over. I like the idea of having the ghost ship cause some kind of detrimental effect. I'm thinking that is slowly turns them into ghost but get the players excited about it first. Like give them cold resistance but eventually they can't even hold a sword anymore. I do want a purification ritual but I'm not sure on the details on that. I am thinking of having a wisp that is is like spirit of the ship or have some connection to the ship so if it dies the ship goes with it. I'm thinking that a Necromancer came to the ship and promise riches beyond their dreams. However when the crew saw that the necromancer was turning them into undead so they took their treasure and their spell caster gave up her/his life to keep their treasure with them even in death. Witch made this treasure become sentient. (He is one of the players and him having an item can curse it). So I'm trying to figure out if this spell would have cursed the ship or if the necromancer cursed it.
No need to apologize. (Sick littl’uns is no fun neither.) I think you’ve come up with some pretty cool ideas.
PS- I hope everyone gets all healthied-up just fine too.
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So how’d it work out?
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My players loved it and now they are slowly turning into ghost.
Oohhh…. Tell me everything. It sounds fun!
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I have it where after they have been on the ship for a while they all had to roll a d20 if they roll 11-20 nothing happens, 6-10 next time they roll they have to roll another die, a 2-5 they gain a trait to get closer to becoming a ghost (like one of my players has cold resistant now), and if they roll a 1 they start going out of phase and have to roll to grab anything. (I haven't figured out the rolls for this yet.)
Cool. I dig it. Did the players like the encounter? What ship did you use? How about the crew? How many of them have ghostly abilities? How close are any of them to being out of phase?
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I used this map: https://i.redd.it/yq8381jqufx51.jpg. The whole crew were ghost. Only one so far has a ghostly abilities and that is cold resistance. Two of them have to roll a d12 next time. None have gone out of phase yet but 1 has a gali coin so I might make him start going out of phase soon.
Cool map!
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Thanks