D&D 5E Ideas for shipwreck area?

[Charles Rampant]

Hey all,

I'm hoping for your assistance in coming up with interesting elements for an adventure location. I'll firstly describe the location and its context, then get to my question.

I'm running a weekly campaign on Wednesdays, set in a norse-themed island controlled by Dwarves, and my players are currently travelling northward along my map to get to an adventure location that I advertised to them: Tigerwreck Sound. This is a big pile of sunken ships, which a Rakshasa-controlled empire used to launch an attack on the island setting about a century ago. When heroes destroyed the fleet, the ships all floated downriver and piled up on a sound in the river mouth, and basically became an artificial island of sorts.

Being constructed by Rakshasa, the ship hulls are pretty magical, and so they have remained intact long after you'd expect them to rot. The adventure seed is pretty basic at the moment - namely that villages on the shoreline (mixed Human/Dwarf) have been hearing the tortured screams of some lost soul from inside the Tigerwreck Sound for the last few weeks/months, and word has passed down the caravan trail that someone or something dubious is going on. Our intrepid heroes liked the sound of this, and so they set off.

Now, my problem is that I'm not entirely sure what to do with the sound itself. I've got some ideas. Mining operations of Kua-Toa and Merfolk, scavenging the magical wood. A Marid holding court within the hollow hulls, in a strange semi-submerged scrapheap palace. Sahuagin swarming the place would seem to be a given, though they won't be tough enough to form the sole threats by the time that my players reach it, when they'll be 5th or 6th level. I thought about reskinning the Water Temple from Princes of the Apocalypse, but the players are currently slaughtering their way through a large dungeon, and I don't want two of the blighters back to back.

So my question for you, dear readers, is what would you do with this setup? Would you go for some kind of bizarre three-way water war between various factions, with the Marid pulling strings from the centre? Focus on the magical reclamation side of things? Turn it into a magical portal to the plane of water? Bear in mind that my players will be about 5th or 6th when they get there, so anything too gonzo is likely to be tough for them to handle.

Thanks!

 

[Leatherhead]

The screams come from a local druid who was spying on a lumber-mill damn that a local town is constructing from the wrecks. The town is actually populated by Werebeavers, who upon eating the magically infused wood, gained even more supernatural power. This in turn lead them to start a cult dedicated to the Rakshasa, so that they may come back into the lands and make more magic-wood to feast on.

The PCs must rescue the druid, uncover the Werebeaver spies that have already infiltrated the other villages before the towns turn against them, and confront the town of Super-Werebeavers, being lead by their Warlock-Werebeaver cult leaders before they can summon the Rakshasa back to the land.

You could use the stats for Wererats or Werewolves for the normal Werebeavers (just give them a swim speed and some way to eat wooden structures). Use the stats for Wereboars/tigers for the super-charged ones. Give a few of them some warlock powers later on down the adventure, and make the leader off of a Werebear.

Be sure to use lots of wooden traps, structures, and semi-aquatic maps to play up their strengths.

 

[Zaruthustran]

I think the best hooks are

1) the fact that you've got a huge collection of enchanted wood.
2) the Rakshasa legacy.

I've got two concepts for you:

1) A necromancer is loitering in the area, attempting to use necromantic magic to raise spirits of the dead Rakshasa. They'd make powerful minions, right? Thing is, the extraplanar nature of the Rakshasa means their souls are long-gone--returned to the outer planes. So the necromancer is frustrated (the screaming), and resorting to more and more exotic attempts at spirit-binding. Eventually he succeeds--at making undead out of the spirits of the *trees* that were killed to harvest the ship planks. The party discovers all of this as they approach and infiltrate the ruins, via recovered waterlogged journal entries, evidence of necromantic ritual magic, and interrogation of captured foes. The necromancer himself is discovered in the middle of the ruins. He's seemingly unconscious, feverish, muscles strained and eyes darting under his lids. He's exerting himself to keep the spirits under control. If he's interrupted/distracted/killed, the hulks rise up and assemble like Devastator to form a towering ent-shaped golem that goes stomping off to destroy civilization.

2) A wealthy patron hires the party to clear the ruins of aquatic monsters, because it's a danger to shipping and a threat to the town's residents. Seems simple enough. The twist is that after the ruin is cleared, this patron--actually an accomplished and ambitious pirate--salvages one of the hulks to create a magical pirate ship that he uses to plunder the planes. A spelljammer by any other name. He needed the players because he lacked the manpower and unique skills to handle the task himself (or maybe one of the ruin's inhabitants was his particular "tick tock" nemesis). The players have to come to grips with the fact they enabled this rogue, and you can have them track him down, bring him to justice, and claim his ship as their own in later adventures.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

A Trio of Sahaugin Barons are trying to establish a base there and are having their servants collect all the magic items and other magic stuff from the ships. Eventually they plan on building a magic device that can cause floods so they can raid and from anywhere they want. As they view themselves as the rulers of the Deeps and all the ships as their property they take a fair amount of offence at rival passengers.

 

[77IM]

Three words: aquatic mind flayers.

Bet they won't see that one coming!

 

[Charles Rampant]

Thanks for the suggestions, folks! You've all taken quite different tacks, which I like, and so I'll have to think about which I like the best. I'm liking the suggestions that the screams are of frustration, not pain; that's a fun subversion of player expectations.

 

[ExploderWizard]

1) the fact that you've got a huge collection of enchanted wood.

WINNAH!! Enchanted wood and werebeavers. Oh, the possibilities.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

The screaming is the figureheads of the ships, tortured spirits trapped in the wood by the Rakshasa. Why scream now? They need to be freed before something terrible happens... A Sahuagin clan has been based around the wrecks and the magic has warped them, and the chieftain in particular, who has become twisted into a water lich with ferocious magical powers, and has created a dragon turtle lich to be by his side. He plans to have the dragon turtle lich drag the floating island down the coast and use it as a floating base for his army of crazed berserker Sahuagin warriors to ravage the coast and beyond.
The figureheads are screaming in wooden voices redolent of sails snapping in the wind and ropes being pulled taut as their souls were once good but the final incantation to enable the Sahuagin-lich to control the ship island is nigh and they will turn into (static, water-based) scarecrow monsters unless an intrepid band of murder hobos erm I mean adventurers can find the lich king and kill him.

 

[neobolts]

For the climatic fight, have part of the "island" break away and start floating further downstream. A dynamic battle map with multiple hulls drifting and spinning in the current round-to-round.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

The wreckage area is filled with undead remnants and cursed or broken magical artifacts left over from the invasion. The sahuagin have been sending in slave parties to gather artifacts and experiment with unknown magic so that they don't have to risk themselves. A couple random monsters live in and around the area, feeding off the remains of those who fall victim to said undead/curses.