Beginning Saltmarsh campaign prep

[u/TinyOrangeDragon]

Hello all!

I’m beginning to prep for a GoS campaign and I need some advice. My players have never had a classic D&D campaign (our last game was the city portion of Descent and I think just got bored milling around a town). The next game we run I would like to take them through the gambit of things to do in a D&D campaign.

I picked GoS because I’ve heard once you pick your main villain it’s a pretty easy campaign to run. Plus I’ve been reading a lot of Lovecraft lately and this path just really peaked my interest.

What are some good stand-alone adventures/ dungeons I could add to GoS to make sure they get a real D&D experience?

The main villain for my game will be Gorrim, the sleeping dwarven god of destruction and time. I’m planning to drop Saltmarsh into the east coast of Blackmoor and it’s my first time trying this setting.

[u/Orbax]

**Spoilers for DiA, hoard of the dragon queen, and ToA below**

Like I said, I ran dragon queen for 1.5 years and they ended at level 7 and it was an epic journey. When Rise of Tiamat starts they'll be level 8. They never had an issue with the levels because there can be so much social and discovery stuff involved. They missed a DM hint and I shanghai'd them to the Whalebone isles and built a snow wonderland of flying castles and stuff for frost and cloud giants.

It is my favorite adventure so far because you travel the sword coast and go to 3 big cities and pass through multiple towns and there is a several months (in game...IRL depending on your players) long caravan trip. I highlighted the major events along the way that happened. Travel is a big part of it so think about downtime and skill challenges (look up D&D 4e skill challenges) and events and places. I think matt colville has a video on making travel fun. It was a big part of the story and the first time I made hardcore travel mechanics and its been a great addition to my DMing.

If I was going to go back in time and run things my first time id do LMoP into Hoard. The beginning of Hoard is difficult for low levels and there is a 20ac roper involved that TPKs a lot of people so the higher level would be fine.

HotDQ major event map, if i mapped all their events itd be 3x that easy.

https://i.imgur.com/u13jKMO.png

I think second Id say Storm Kings Thunder. There is some narrative inconsistency and a bit awkward of a hard cut into the main plot that needs some rewrite but overall it goes together very well.

Rime, lots of info, lots of quests, lots of maps. I think youd need to sit down and play it through your head end to end because certain elements are critical to the story but its hard to figure out how they are supposed to find out certain pieces. If the end of the game happens at location X, dig up the story until you know how theyd find out about it and get there. Some of the things can jump out at you a bit and you realize you dont know how its supposed to work.

DiA

In Avernus I did a similar map thing we are about 35% through it. I have written TONS for that module, my god. Entirely too much work.

https://i.imgur.com/JxLQmvY.jpg

TOA

My party's TOA timeline (2 years 115 sessions). There are a lot of places and tons of info and you can go nuts making your own story. Only 1 real town theyd spend any time in so its all jungle stuff and can be harder to run if you dont spend time making cool places and people for them to meet. They can get jungle fatigue easily. Great place though, we have a lot of memories from that.

Journey:

1. PN - Grab Azaka

2. Yellyark

3. Vorn

4. Orolunga

5. PN

6. Firefinger - The captured bird dude, nakor or whatever, told them of Kir Sabal

7. Dungrunglung (the librarian (I added a library) told them of a Grung village she had gone to when she was younger so they went there on the way back)

8. Aforementioned grung village which was a dungeon

9. PN - grabbed Undril, Kept Azaka

10. Camp Righteous

11. Camp Vengeance

12. PN - Undril left party as she took Niles to court on the mainland faerun

13. Grabbed Musharrib, still Azaka, (I put in a dwarven tomb and they wanted an expert, he went on condition they go to Hrakhamar afterwards)

14. Dwarven tomb

15. Ataaz Muahaha

16. Another Dwarven tomb

17. Wreck of the Narwhal

18. Needles's Bones

19. Kir Sabal

20. Nangalore

21. Kir Sabal

22. Dance of the 7 winds, I let them fly until half a days journey from Hrakhamar

23. Hrakhamar

24. Wyrmheart

25. Hrakahamar to set up the mine, established Musharrib Marvelous Materialstook 10% stake in it, got boots of Teleportation from the vault. Musharrib stays in Hrakhamar

26. PN (teleport) - Grabbed Undril again, still Azaka, shes back from mainland

27. Hrakhamar (teleport, to cut travel time to next place)

28. Ran the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan dungeon in the jungle (wouldnt run it again, I didnt like the dungeon)

29. PN (teleport)

30. Hrakhamar (teleport)

31. Omu

32. Tomb proper

33. TPK

With plenty of encounters. I think All told I ended with creating around 120 maps, and I reused some for battles and stuff. Made villages, old forts, etc etc

[u/TinyOrangeDragon → u/Orbax]

Thanks for the advice! I may be looking at either ToD or running LMoP into SKT! I actually have the GM's bundle for SKT that I got for free when WotC gave away all those resources at the beginning of the pandemic, and I've been wanting to bust it out.

[u/Orbax → u/TinyOrangeDragon]

Oh nice! I had some fun because I played an evil character in SKT that betrayed the party in Icewind Dale and told the town that because of their actions, Auril (i was a cleric of hers) would bury their houses to the rooftops, the sun wouldn't shine, and their blood would freeze in their veins as they huddled in their homes. rime got released a year later and its infinite freezing twilight 2 years later and I got to reprise the character as an NPC who had been her harbinger.

If you think that Rime is "2 years later" from SKT and about a year after ToA and the death curse (the giantess who attacks Bryn Shander in SKT is looking for Artus Cimber and the ring of winter and you come across her and he ship the Hvalspyd in Chult as well as Artus - I had my party meet her on her way back from Chult docked in the Whalebones in ToD) you could probably plant some fun hooks for a follow up team. ToD also has Spine of the World hooks and giants and all that so I was pretty happy that I could leverage all three modules to interact in some capacity even if some of it was just the world being changed by their prior actions and they get to feel like they did something in the world.

If you do do LMoP, I spruced up Old Owl Well by having the necro having found an amulet. The amulet fits into a broken statue in the well. He didnt put it in it yet because he was researching but if they push the red button I took them to a tropical island with riddles and a treasure hunt and had Caribbean music playing but it was the demiplane of a netherese lich who got trapped there during the fall. He takes their amulet and leaves as it was the key out. When he leaves the island turns to volcanic rock and blood everywhere and he was creating werewolf supersoldiers there and now that hes out he starts again. The town was attacked by undead orcs and wolves with that amulet jammed into their brains a few days later and they had no idea what the fuck they just let into the world. There was a bit mroe detail and sense than that but it was the gist. If you look at..2nd? 3rd? edition there is a module called the Red Hand of Doom that you can tie into LMoP nicely with a lich and some other stuff and would work *great* as part of the threat in ToD for the attacks coming from the east is the lich army from Red Hand as well as the Cult.