On the Sunless Sea

I run four concurrent AD&D1e campaigns, so significant prep is not on the table. I have to find ways to improvise a lot of the content to keep up with that many different fronts of player activity. I have enumerated different methods I use to keep the sandbox game going, and today I’m going to talk about improvisation with an example.

It is also an example of how to run 1e AD&D in a sword and sorcery mode. Anyone asking if a game can do that, 1e can do that.

So my Thursday group is on a quest to get the Mask of Horus. Their last leg in the journey is to traverse an underground sea. They are a party of 7, three NPCs along for the ride, each riding on a giant lizard that can swim. The Mask of Horus (an artefact/relic) will be across this sea.

One of the things I do in my game is to plant seeds and see where they take me. Sometimes that’s a random encounter roll, sometimes an encounter reaction roll, and in this case, it was an idea from a book. I cribbed an idea from a Jack Vance story, about two groups of people who, due to magic warping their brains, could not see each other, specifically they couldn’t see the other group’s clothing color, or them when in it.

I had no idea how to fit this into the quest for the Mask of Horus, but I decided to put it in and wing it. So in the previous sessions they had seen two villages along an underground river, in one people dressed in green, in the other in blue, but they couldn’t see each other. They heard each other, but spoke different languages, so assumed the noises were ghosts. So they avoided the other’s villages as they felt them haunted, and when they did occasionally bump into one another assumed it was the spirits.

I randomly assigned the languages that each of these villagers spoke, since they were a village of underground dwellers I used the DMG tables and rolled up ogre magi and titan. These seemed appropriately weird to me, and gave the encounter some flavor. As it happens 1e is generous with extra languages for high intelligence, we had two magic users, so we had both of those languages spoken! I made up the language lists for the PCs randomly two years ago, I rolled these languages randomly at the table today.

That kind of stuff makes your head spin.

So the party convinced one member of each village to accompany them, the NPC warlock who was with them had a spell to summon mounts, so they each had a giant lizard (which could swim) and they set out to the underground sea with a priest from the blue village and a warrior from the green village, neither of whom could see each other.

By the end of the last session they met up with a former opponent, Zimmerlin Suel, and his henchman Jonin Sinzo, who proposed a partnership, they would accompany the party on their quest, let them have the Mask, and abscond with whatever else they could find.

So the party (a bard, a thief, a druid and a magic-user), a warlock and his fighter henchman, a blue priest and a green warrior headed out along the underground river to the sea. A random encounter with some ettercaps led to the green warrior being hurt and the party sent him back.

This morning before today’s session I had to decide what they would meet on the sunless sea, their last obstacle before finding the Mask. I came up with four challenges for them to face crossing the sea: its size, the giant sea serpents, the two giants and the two ghosts. I didn’t have any idea what to do when I woke up this morning, all of this was worked up today before my afternoon session.

Now, at this point I had no idea how I was going to use these villagers, the party might have passed them by, but since they hadn’t, I decided that having them around when they were getting the Mask would make it easier. They wouldn’t be the only way to get the Mask, but if they were there it would help.

The idea here is that the story gave me a seed, I had to figure out how to use it. This moring the idea came to me. Here’s how it went down.

First, the party had to cross the sea, it was big enough that it would take 12 hours to cross on their giant lizards. However, the lizards can’t swim forever, they need to rest, and the only spot to do so was some islands that were 6 hours out.

So when they were about to set out on the water one of them asked me how far across it was, I responded that even though it was dark, looking with their spyglasses did not show them the other side, so it was very far across. At that point the penny dropped and they realized that their giant lizards might be more maneuverable and able to fight but they would have to rest. So they asked how far they could go before the lizards would tire. I told them 8 hours swimming.

So they planned to go 4 hours out, and if they didn’t see the other side, they could turn back and try again. They headed into the water, the only light being a dull phospherescence in the air that gave everything a dark, green hue.

The second challenge was the giant sea serpents. They swam around the sea but mostly stayed away from a path right through the middle, so if the party stayed there they would be comparatively safe, if they strayed too far I would roll to see if they were noticed. The idea would be that if they kept on course it would be comparatively safe, but if they deviated it was risky, but not necessarily lethal.

At one point I told them that the bottom dropped out and the water was black and very deep. Then I said,

“You look down and see something huge, a serpent-like creature, it appears to be about 50 feet beneath you, chalk white in color, and approximately 300 feet long. As you look around you to the East you now see that there are MANY of these immense creatures swimming about below the surface, but most appear to be avoiding the direct route throught the middle of the sea”

That FREAKED THEM OUT.

Now they had to make a decision, stay in the middle where it was “safe”, not knowing if they were being corralled into a dangerous place, or risk going over the giant sea serpents.

They chose the middle path.

This led them to the next obstacle, and the one I tied in to the villagers. I decided that these two villages were descendants of two groups that were originally assigned to protect the Mask from being removed by outsiders, but in the intervening years they fought over who was in control, and this led to deaths and betrayal, so Horus cursed the two groups to be invisible to each other to end the rivalry, but if one representative from each village came to the Mask together and cooperated, they could remove it together from it’s resting place. The odds of this happening were fairly slim, given that they couldn’t see each other, so this meant the Mask would be hidden from the world for centuries.

And so it was.

So the first way the villagers would be tied to this adventure was that they would be able to make getting past the next obstacle easier.

They reach a point about an hour out from shore they saw two giants stand up from the water (they are standing on mini-islands below the water’s surface). One giant is green, one giant is blue. If you stare at either one you must save versus spell or become transfixed and unable to pass. If you avoid looking at them and try to pass the giants will attempt to sink you in the water as you go by. The only way to go by them is to go well around them (which takes time and puts the part at risk of attack from the underwater sea serpents). Or, if you have a member from either village with you, the blue giant can’t see the green village member and those who are with them, the green giant can’t see the blue villager, and same for the villagers, e.g the green villager can’t see the blue giant, etc. If you are with a villager of the appropriate color, you can pass between the two giants close to the one that can’t see you, and the other can’t reach you.

So, they had the blue priest with them (the green warrior had been sent back). As they talked about what to do I had them each roll a d12 every five minutes to see if they met the gaze of either giant (the blue priest only checked every 10 minutes as he could only be ensorcelled by the blue giant). After the first 5 minutes the party bard rolled a 1, then failed his save, and became entranced.

But the party didn’t know how it happened.

They reacted fast to this, as they were worried the effect would hit one of them too. So they decided on the spot to try going through the space between the giants to avoid the sea serpents. Since the blue priest could only see the blue giant, they decided to hew closer to the green giant, as they had trouble convincing the blue priest that there was a green giant (as he couldn’t see it), but they could convince him to go further from the giant he could see. They crossed their fingers that the green giant wouldn’t attack them, gambling that it might have trouble seeing the blue priest.

They were right!

That meant they passed close to the giant who couldn’t see the blue priest, and the blue giant couldn’t reach them, and they passed through safely.

Now, I just want to point out two things. One, I had NO IDEA I was going to do this and use the villager’s curse in this fashion, it literally came to me this morning unbidden when I was remembering a scene from another Jack Vance story, when a giant comes to life and rises out of the waters of a lake. That made me think of a giant coming out of the water, then the idea of a blue and green giant just jumped out at me.

They continued on. At the 4 hour point they looked through their spyglass and I told them that they saw something that MIGHT be an island or a shore, but in this low light it was difficult to tell. They decided to press on, even though that might be the death of them.

Brave lads.

So they pressed on, and fortunately they reached the island, actually, there were two islands, about 1000 feet across each, and about 500 feet apart.

However…

I came up with the idea that years ago two thieves, Rinar the Wily and Kalab the Brute, had fled to this underground sea laden with loot, and had made it this far but their boats were damaged by one of the giant white sea serpents and they had to land on one of the islands. They fought over who was responsible for their plight, and inhabited different islands after fighting a few times. They starved to death on these islands, hating each other.

They were now twin ghosts. They were stuck here as ghosts until one was destroyed, then the other would be sent on to the next life. So when the party arrives, the two ghosts will appear, and if they can destroy either one, the other will disappear. Both will cajole them to do so, wanting to have them destroy the other, so they will go on to their afterworld, and the other will go on to nothingness.

It was a delicious twist. Who would they help? How would they slay the ghosts? They had a magical bow and a magical scimitar, dagger, sword and sword between them to fight a 10HD ghost, all other weapons and spells won’t work against them unless the caster is ethereal.

So the party arrives on the island, and the giant lizards get to rest. The blue priest uses create food and water to feed and water the lizards, and the party camps down for the night in the dark green half-light in the middle of a sunless sea, giant ivory sea serpents swimming all around them.

Then, in the middle of their sleep, the two ghosts appear.

1e ghosts are AMAZING. Everyone, when they see the ghosts, has to make a saving throw, and everyone but the NPC warlock and fighter failed. So the bard, the thief, the druid, the magic-user and the priest all age 10-40 years each, and flee in terror.

Now here’s where it got interesting. I run a game with non-standard races, so the age ranges for these characters is not specified. I decided when we created the PCs to peg the age ranges for thri-kreen to halflings, and for the rakasta to half-elves. It was entirely arbitrary, but I wanted them younger than dwarves and elves but older than humans.

So we had rolled up the starting ages for each character at the beginning of the campaign, and two years had gone by since then.

The rakasta bard was 27 years old when the ghost appeared, he rolled 30 years, so he was now 57 years old. This put him in the next age category, so he gained a point of strength and a point of wisdom! Ability scores rarely change in 1e, so this was a big deal.

Next came the other rakasta (the thief), he was 30 when it happened, he was aged 40 years to 70, which had the same effect.

Then the thri-kreen, he was 28 and rolled 40 years, so he was now 68, he gained a point of strength and wisdom as well.

Then the human magic-user, he was actually polymorphed into a bear and is still one, but since he started as human I decided to have him age as a human. He started off at 30, aged 30 years, and was now 60, jumping two age categories, that bought him a strength point that he then lost, gained him two points of wisdom, lost him a point of constitution and gained him a point of intelligence.

The human priest was older but went through a category too, losing STR and CON and gaining INT and WIS.

Rolling for this on the spot, before they had even started to deal with the ghosts, was EXCITING AS HELL, they were squealing as we rolled to age everyone up.

Then their characters bolted in terror, and headed to the water!

They REALLY FREAKED OUT about that.

Now, the party was travelling with three NPCs, two of them were former opponents from my home brew city Bhavisyavani. Zimmerlin Suel and his henchman Jonin Sinzo had tracked the party and exacted revenge for the party bard’s blinding of Suel, blinding the bard.

Impressed by the bard’s moxy (he allowed himself to be blinded to pay the honor debt so Suel wouldn’t kill his friends in retribution with an earth elemental), Suel and Sinzo had joined the party on their quest. By the grace of the dice, they are the only two to make their saves (I rolled a 19 and 20), while everyone else is bolting in terror for the sea serpent infested waters.

My games have a horror edge to them, it’s part of the pulpy feel 1e gets right.

So I tell the party,

“OK, the only two people left standing are two NPCs, so I will put their stats up for you all to see, and you direct them. They have thrown their lot in with you, they think you will find the Mask, and they will find other riches, so they will try and save you. Direct them accordingly.”
Now just to be clear, I rolled up these two NPCs as adversaries a year ago, and they only rejoined the party a few weeks ago, when I didn’t have this encounter in mind.

Suel’s spell list is as follows:

1st – Affect Normal Fires,Enlarge,Identify,Magic Missile,Shield,Spider Climb
2nd – Continual Light,ESP,Rope Trick,Stinking Cloud
3rd – Hold Person, Protection from Normal Missiles
4th – Minor Globe of Invulnerability,Protection from Evil 10’ radius

All rolled randomly.

He also has the following magic items:
Bracers AC:6, Dagger of Throwing +2, Wand of Fear (14)
Scroll: Bigby’s Interposing Hand (10%F/5%RH), Globe of Invulnerability (25%F/15%RH)
Scroll: Monster Summoning III (15%F/5%RH) (1-4 Meazel's, last 4 rounds + 1 per level)
Ring of Spell Storing (Protection from Evil 10’ radius)

Also rolled randomly using the DMG “Human” subtables from the random encounter tables in the DMG (with modifications)

Guess which spell they had him cast?

The warlock turned to the terrified party members and shouted, “a lépés lefagyása”!

As the entire party and the blue priest flee in terror from the island, Suel casts Hold person on four of them; all the PC party members (as he had just met the blue priest I decided he would use it on the party first).

So in a delicious twist of fate, the party members who FAILED the save versus Hold Person would be frozen in place, those who made their saves would flee in terror into the sunless sea.

Bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha.

EEEVVVIIIILLLL.

So they rolled, all the PC party members except one, the bard, failed their saves. They were frozen in place by the Hold Person spell, bard headed to the water along with the blue priest.

Now Jonin Sinzo the fighter henchmen had an action, and check out his weapons listing from his character sheet

Note his THACO of 16 and his listing of a “chain” as one of his weapons, it’s used to wrap around opponent to drag them down, dismount opponents, disarm them, that sort of thing. It’s a 12’ long chain, he was standing with the party when the ghosts appeared and sent everyone fleeing in terror, so I rolled initiative to see if he could react in time to snag the bard or the priest with his chain.

He won initiative, and tried for the bard. The house rule for that chain to wrap around someone is to roll 3 over the required to hit. The bard is AC 2, he needed a 14 to hit, a 17 to snare the fleeing bard. He has a +1 to hit with the chain.To stop the bard from fleeing into a magically induced panic into the water, for 2-12 turns no less, he had to roll 16.

The bard player dropped to the floor when that happened, he was convinced he was charging off to his death.

Sinzo had the bard wrapped up, pulled him back, picked him up (17 str) and dropped him off at the feet of Zimmerlin Suel, as Suel’s direction. They have decided on a spell to cast while the ghosts rage at each other.

The priest is still heading to the water.

The ghosts howl at each other, raging oblivious to the party. I rolled for that, the two ghosts hate each other, so they bickered.

Now, the players asked me, what can they do? The party Druid has dispel magic, but he’s under a hold person. And if he or any of the others are released they go charging into the deep in terror.

They look over the warlock’s sheet and find the globe of invulnerability, it has a failure percentage, and a harm percentage, but it neutralizes 1-4th level spells, would this break the fear effect, as it was magical (e.g. from  a magical monster)?

Warlocks in my setting are all sages with a major and a minor field, and two special categories within their major field. I hadn’t specified Zimmerlin's, so we rolled on the spot, if he had a relevant area of expertise, perhaps he would know if the spell would break the fear effect.

So they rolled major field supernatural and unusual, minor field humankind, with special fields of Metaphysics and Planes (Astral, Ethereal and Elemental).

Was the effect of an abjuration spell on a ghost induced fear a specific question in the special field of Suel? I decided yes, so they rolled and had an 86% chance of knowing. He did, and I decided it would work to break the effect. I ruled that it should pair with a fear spell for level, and it’s 4th, within the scope of the globe.

So the decide he will cast Globe and since the ghosts are still screaming at each other (I rolled for that) Sinzo went after the blue priest. He moves faster than the priest, but the priest has a lead, so I calculate the distance to the water and when Sinzo will catch the priest, he reaches him when they are up to their shins in water! He grapples the priest and takes him down on the beach.

Now, Suel’s spell culminates, and he is surrounded by the globe, 10’ in diameter, and the bard’s fear is dispelled.

The ghosts now stop screaming at each other as they see what is happening below (I rolled that).

The bard steps out, just freed from the terror, and says, “What do you want, how can we set you free!”

I kid you not.

Apparently, that’s what he’s learned about ghosts from "movies and stuff", that they have an unfulfilled need that keeps them around.

I figure I should reward that, so I have the ghosts stop bickering and then the Rinar the Wily says,

“I hate Kalab, destroy him and I will be freed!”

Then Kalab howled in an ancient, dead voice, “End Rinar, and I will show you our treasure!”

I thought that was fair reward for being smart.

The party bard then asks if he can make a legend lore roll to see if he knows any ways to slay ghosts

He rolls (7% chance) and fails.

Then they ask if Suel’s sage ability would tell them any way to slay a ghost.

I tell them it’s not specific enough.

So they talk for a bit, and asked if Suel would know if the Globe of invulnerability would destroy a ghost. That was an interesting question. There is no rule for this so I decided this would be an exacting question in his specialization, as it was asking what happens when a ghost enters an area of abjuration magic, normally spells need to be cast from the ethereal plane to impact a ghost, but he was a specialist in ethereal plane knowledge, so I decided that if he made the lore roll, he would know if the spell could neutralize a ghost.

He had a 70% chance of knowing if this could work. He rolled a 60, so I had to decide!

Here is what I decided on the spot, I would look at the list of up to 4th level MU spells, and if I could find comparable spell effects in those levels to the powers and features of a ghost, things that ghosts can do in lore (make doors open or lock shut) or powers that they have (e.g. immunity to missiles and their immunity to non-magical weapons), I would say the magic of the globe would dispel them.

I found:

Affect normal fires, dancing lights, hold portal , push, unseen servant, ventriloquism, audible glamer, invisibility, knock, levitate, magic mouth, ray of enfeeblement, scare, haste (ages target), protection from normal missiles, confusion, curse, dimension door and fear.

Those are all in the 1-4 range, so I said yes.

So now, in my game world, a globe of invulnerability can destroy a ghost, saving throw applicable.

I did this all with the players so they saw how it worked, how I adjudicated it. We agreed it was fair.

So the bard turns to the ghosts and in response to their demands for the party to kill each other, and he says, “Why not both?”

I roll an encounter reaction, with the bard’s +15%, I roll a 110%, so the ghosts are going to go along with the suggestion, destroying them both and keeping them from their respective afterlives, they were obviously bad men and feared judgment! So they fly into the globe, one fails his save and is blasted away, gone forever! I decide the other ghost doesn’t want to be judged when released, and dives into the globe again, this time being destroyed.

Who knew a D&D encounter would veer into existential territory.

The fear effect then ends on everyone. Suel dispels the hold person.

Everyone screams for a bit. They are alive. They spend the next hour searching the islands for the loot, which they find near a pile of bones. It’s platinum coins in a small chest and 10 gems, no magic items. Rolled on the spot.

Next session they will cross the rest of the sea to the far shore, and at some point between when they wake (they will want to sleep and restore spells) and when they arrive (determined randomly) another green warrior will join them, sent forth when the last one was sent back, in a boat pulled by a pair of kapoacinth (water gargoyles). Then they will find the Mask of Horus, and culminate their campaign.

I have no idea what the last encounter will be like yet, I haven't planned it. But I fancy Horus showing up if they manage to retrieve the mask, that would be a nice touch. I'll have to roll for it though...

Next session is going to be wild.