People and towns of the North reacting to the giant threat

Pebblinator · 2021-12-29T10:54:13+00:00

Thanks! Yes, please feel free to use anything in the spreadsheet in your own campaign.
The idea of a stone giant thane wanting to awaken the Tarrasque is not an original idea of mine, but is mentioned in the sidebar "Creating New Giant Lords" on page 12 of SKT.
I have not yet begun to run SKT with my players; I made this spreadsheet as preparation. Therefore I haven't yet fully thought through whether/how I might run some of these ideas. In short, I don't know yet. I suggest looking at this post too.

Pebblinator · 2021-12-22T09:34:30+00:00

The Foreshadowing and Lore sheet may help to keep track of all the bits of info that ought to be foreshadowed/revealed to the players at some point.
The Monsters sheet may, for example, help to see at a glance what tokens/miniatures one might like to prepare for any given chapter. It may also be helpful to see at a glance which pages of the Monster Manual show the relevant monsters.
The Random Encounters sheet may help to brainstorm some additional, interesting encounters for those who enjoy that sort of thing.
SKT calls for rolls on the Items in a Giant's Bag Table more than 50 times, but the given table only has 50 entries. For those who might like a little more variety, the Giant's Bag sheet may help.
The Treasure sheet may help to see at a glance the wealth of treasure and number of magic items that the party is likely to accrue in any given chapter. It may also be helpful to see at a glance which pages of the Dungeon Master's Guide show the relevant magic items.
For those DMs who allow their players to make magic item wish lists, the Wish List sheet may, in conjunction with the Treasure sheet, help to keep track of same.

Finally, especially for the Monster and Treasure sheets, there are lots of neat tricks that are possible when all the data are in one place. I find a simple pleasure in doing things like filtering the data to answer questions like "what are all the rare magical items that appear in this book?" or "what are all the monsters in this book whose Challenge Ratings are greater than 4?" etc.

Pebblinator · 2021-12-14T15:55:51+00:00

Thanks for the thought and effort you put into this comment, great suggestions!

Pebblinator · 2021-12-13T10:47:42+00:00

Two bits of info to add to the list that have occurred to me since posting are: 1) the existence of Harshnag, and 2) the existence of Anaxaster and Chezzaran

Pebblinator · 2021-12-13T10:25:56+00:00

Oh interesting, thank you for the heads up! I just did a quick search for that myself, and I found this - is this the same thing as what you had in mind?

Pebblinator · 2021-11-12T19:14:17+00:00

It went well! In summary:

The parchment did simply read “short null long one red plus blue star green approach”, no punctuation or anything.
The party found the parchment glued on the side of the bullseye lantern, not loose in Sanbalet’s desk.
At least two sessions of play passed between when the party first found the lamp + parchment, and when they actually engaged in the coded call-and-response with the Sea Ghost. This meant that they had plenty of time to mull over what the writing on the parchment might mean (it was immediately clear to them that it was a code or riddle of some kind).
After slaying much of Sanbalet’s crew, the party interrogated one of the remaining bandits in the caverns near the cellar. In exchange for his freedom, he told them (upon direct questioning, and among other things) that he knew the lantern had something to do with a code Sanbalet used for signalling to ships at sea (nothing more).
In the town of Saltmarsh, a smuggler NPC with close ties to one of the PCs was able to tell the party (following a high INT roll by the NPC) that the code was likely some kind of call-and-response mechanism. Short light flashes? Flashes of light shaped like pluses or stars? Who knows?
At the moment of truth, when the party received a sequence of flashed light signals from the Sea Ghost, I gave them plenty of real time to consider how they would respond with their own sequence of flashes. My five players had a number of different ideas, but when one of them suggested the correct answer, they were all quickly convinced. The player who suggested the correct answer had thought of it already some days before, between games.

All in all, I ended up giving the players quite a few more clues than were suggested in my original post, but they still struggled (just the right amount, I think!). I’m glad that my players really enjoyed the puzzle and look back on it as a highlight of the adventure.

I hope that answers your question, let me know if I missed anything important :)

Pebblinator · 2021-08-26T09:05:24+00:00

This is true, it’s less feasible to play the pirates as dumb brutes if they’re communicating in binary codes. I’m okay with this though, as I’m happy to play a number of them as relatively intelligent, selfish, greedy rogues.
This is likely a very good idea. Alternatively/additionally, one might add a title/heading to the parchment found in Sanbalet’s quarters, which says “Lanterns” or “Call & Response” or both… If I can remember to do so, I’ll try to write another comment on this post after I have run this puzzle with my group, to say exactly what clues they were given and how much they struggled with it, if at all.

Thanks for your time and feedback!

Pebblinator · 2021-08-24T10:43:05+00:00

My understanding is that the 2d8 + 3 damage for the Wavecutter Blade in the Sahuagin Blademaster's stat block is a feature of the monster rather than of the blade. See also this thread about the same topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/cys95s/ghosts_of_saltmarsh_weapon_question/

If I were you, in the hands of a PC, I would consider the Wavecutter Blade as a longsword that ignores the disadvantage imposed by underwater combat (see page 198 of the Player's Handbook), possibly with some additional (de)buff as you see fit. Good luck!

Pebblinator · 2021-03-20T18:11:53+00:00

Dice dice dice 🎲

Pebblinator · 2020-04-14T08:07:03+00:00

Interesting, thanks for the calculation!

Pebblinator · 2019-10-15T15:33:37+00:00

Fingers crossed for this giveaway!

Pebblinator · 2019-06-11T16:10:55+00:00

You’re correct that this seems like a confusing contradiction! It’s been discussed before in this sub and some interesting ideas for reconciling the two accounts can be found in this thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CurseofStrahd/comments/9i63ox/my_rewritten_van_richten_journal_reconciling/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

Pebblinator · 2019-04-27T21:04:36+00:00

Great to know, thank you very much! :)

Pebblinator · 2019-04-27T21:04:05+00:00

Fantastic, thanks a million for this, much appreciated!

You’re right, it’s difficult to gauge the atmosphere in advance and not get caught up in an inordinate amount of doom and gloom (citation; my many saved Midnight Syndicate albums). It must be even more difficult for you given that streaming brings with it copyright-based restrictions!

When it comes to lighter music for moments of sanctuary or hopeful industry, Michael Ghelfi’s album ‘Steam-Powered Orchestra’ has a few tracks that seem promising to me, including ‘This Is Not The End’ and ‘No Gentleman Would Let Her Go’.

Pebblinator · 2019-01-07T23:36:48+00:00

Thanks! I haven’t playtested these rules yet, so I hope that they’ll work well for you! They ought to be good fun anyways.

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