Dungeon Crawl Practice 4 - Wilderness Random Encounters

Do not taunt the Sharktopus

APPROACH THE DROWNED COLOSSI

Tilted observation spires and the deck castles of the wrecked fleet are visible above the mangrove canopy from ½ a day’s distance by sea or land, and approach is possible from either direction. No sane captain, familiar with the waters and legends of the Morass will approach closer and neither will Crouch swamp guides or polemen.

Seaward, modern wrecks begin to appear in the shallows about a mile out from the first ancient ships, grasped by claws of bright coral with the newest still awash or with masts above the surface. Anchoring or staying among the wrecks is sure doom for incautious vessels, as within hours wandering coral will surround the vessel, a jungle of poisonous varicolored life drawing a tighter and tighter circle until it reaches up to tear the bilges open with calcified spires.
Vessels smaller than 20’ or those that can be pulled onto shore such as jollyboats, pinnaces and canoes escape this fate, but may fall prey to predatory sealife warped in the Morass’s strange esters. Every turn that a smaller boat spends in the water roll a random encounter check. Note that a standard rowboat will take about 2 turns to reach shore from a mile out.

Each turn in the waters near Green Flow Delta (including during passage between wrecks) the GM should roll a Wilderness Encounter Check - a D6. On a 1 a second D8 roll provides for an encounter with one of the delta’s denizens. Further details and statistics for each type of creature follow below the table. Rolling a 2 on the Wilderness Encounter Check calls for a roll on the Sights and Signs table that follows.

For random encounters it’s important to determine the distance at and exact location where they take place, but that’s easier at sea. All of these events or encounters occur on open water, where the clear azure of the Pyre Sea mingles with the murky currents of the Green Morass like oil is a clean pool, hiding the white sandy bottom in silt and dead leaves. Most creatures will be spotted 2 + 1D6 rounds from a small boat and 1D6/2 turns from a masted vessel with crows nest or other lookout. Likewise, not all creatures will be hostile, rolls 2d6 to check the current attitude of the creature with a low roll indicating hostility, the broad middle uncertainty and a high roll (11 or 12) a positive impression of the party. Reaction is dependent on the creature involved of course - a friendly Sharktopus will simply be curious and playful, limiting its aggression to a tipping a boat or nipping at anything in the water, while even hostile Scavengers are unlikely to attack unless they recognize the party as enemies. Some creatures such as polyps and sea dead don’t have a broad range of emotion beyond hunger and fear - but there’s always a chance they are currently well fed and placid.

D8	Denizens of the Unwholesome Sea
1	Polyp Cloud (1d6/2): Raising from the deeps to surround a canoe ( 3 in 6 surprise at min distance) the fruiting bodies of wandering coral are razor edged and voracious.
2	Sharktopus (1): Chimera of shark and octopus, always hungry with the greater vigor and cunning of an arcane hybrid.  An imposing mass of teeth and tentacles, the Sharktopus is worshiped as a god by the Salt Cults that plague the Maritime Provence.
3	Sea Dead (2D6): Bloated corpses roll in the tide and occasionally one writhes with supernatural life. Nocturnal hunters, the Sea Dead bake and feed the crabs in the sun.
4	Scavengers (1D6+2): A canoe or jolly boat filled with members of the Lost Lambs (See Area A). Nervously rowing on a errand of scouting, recovery of a lagan, fishing.
5	Blood Jellies (1D6): Huge disks floating placidly in the tide, their pink translucent flesh and trailing tentacles glisten sparkle in the sun and glow a soft red at night.
6	Flying Maws (2D6): Carnivorous fish the size of a child, they circle and cavort. Leaping high, fins fluttering, they drop like arrows to snap at limbs and exposed faces.
7	Bishop Crabs (1D6): Backs piled with ornate cathedrals of weed and shell the pig sized crabs peer over one bone cracking claw, held forward like a shield.  With crustacean calm they regard intruders from bright, ice-blue human eyes.
8	Malign Thrall (1): A ragged figure crouches in a coracle staring down into the water. Eyes sunken, sweating, and emaciated, the stranger turns, waving wildly and hailing you  with croaking speech.

D8	Sights and Manifestations at the Delta of the Green Flow
1	Ghost Ship: Manifesting with a sickly cascade of balefire, this spectral vessel of ragged sails and coral encrusted hull hauls hard seaward, the tormented eyes of it’s damned crew stare hatefully back into the life they gambled with and lost.
2	Spire Eruption: A spire of wandering coral breaches in an enormous gout of spray.
3	Grub Cloud: Reddish water filled with a newly hatched cloud of Flotsam Grubs, a dangerous ship parasite. Any action other then immediately backing oars and sailing away and the worms will infest a wooden vessel. Borrowing in, the infestation will destroy a small boat in 1 day unless careened and charred or tarred over.
4	Sea Corpse: The remains of some awful beast from the deep.  (D6) 1: Rotted to jelly 2: Sharktopus, mangled by a larger predator 3: A Leviathan, digging within may (3 in 6) recover ambergris worth 500 GP 4: Sea Wyrm, reeking with the poison of war. Roll on the encounter table for the enraged foe that feasts within. 5: Tentacled horror of the vasty depths 6: Zombie Leviathan (see below)
5	Glittering Prize: Something sparkles on the seafloor where the tides have shifted the sand. Among a field of white skulls and jutting bones sits a scatter of golden ornaments and coins (1D6x100GP) ready for the courageous diver.
6	Hot Wind: The wind shifts, blowing hard from the shore: sweltering, moist and debilitating.  Slowing progress inland for 1D6 turns and exhausting (1 level or point) all on the water.
7	Sunken Spectres:  The waters below glow and from the depth, sea-changed faces look upward mouthing silent pleas, spectral limbs caged by weed, rope and wreckage.
8	Wreckage: A large chunk of waterlogged vessel, without value. And torn by coral: broken spars, soaked sailcloth, tangles of rope, bobbing barrels and putrid bodies.

Wilderness Random Encounters
The wilderness, long distance travel and really any exterior space has to be treated differently as an arena for play than the dungeon, and the more expansive, larger and open a space the less design principles appropriate to dungeon design and play apply. Long distance travel and wilderness exploration have traditionally relied on board game like progression across maps interspersed with scenes generated by random tables. The original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set even suggested the use of the 1972 Avalon Hill board game “Outdoor Survival” as a way of running wilderness travel and adventure. The “hex crawl” still uses at least the basic conceit of the board game - terrain types and a hexagonally tiled map - and wilderness adventure generally has a more gamified scope then dungeon exploration: time ticked off in hours or days instead of turns, and while spatial considerations are still involved, the environment is necessarily more abstracted. This compels wilderness travel to include Scene Based design - encounters, obstacles and other interactions within the wilderness will be discrete scenes, informed perhaps by the larger map, but separate from the wider scope or frame of the travel mechanics.

Scene Based design should be familiar to readers of contemporary Dungeons & Dragons products as the Encounter Design described in the 5th Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide is a variety of it. However, unlike a lot of scene based design, random encounters within a classic wilderness or dungeon are only loosely tied to a larger narrative, they primarily serve the purposes of embodying the risk of inaction, placing time pressure on party and threatening party resources -- largely as a counter balance to cautious play and goad to take risks. Yet each random encounter is a scene, perhaps more so then the dungeon random encounter, because there’s no larger location to wrap it in and to offer descriptive help to the GM. Because their design is so unconnected from a level or each other wilderness encounters are best when they carry their scene or location with them, and when they supply some larger context. This context can lodge even a random encounter within the setting introducing factions, creature types, hooks, rumors and secrets that contextualize an area and give clues about its contents or ecology. Fans of pure wilderness exploration adventures, generally the “hexcrawl” style of adventure, often enjoy the way that the juxtaposition of several random elements and encounters over the course of a session or play offer tools for a GM and players to interpret a story or relationships between them - sometimes labeling this phenomenon “emergent play”. In as small a space as Plague Ship’s Green Flow Morass this sort of design isn’t really effective, as the number of outdoor encounters is likely to be limited. Still the random encounters here offer introductions and information about all the major factions within the Green Flow Morass as well as examples of its characteristic deadly fauna and magical corruption.

Because wilderness travel (even the two turns it takes to row ashore) should offer more than encounters with roaming monsters, I’ve also included a second table. Unlike later supporting tables this is not a list of clues that hint at the identity of the random encounters but memorable events that provide setting context or detail. The purpose of these is to both indicators of what’s to come, and break up any monotony in travel. In a larger wilderness (and indeed in the later section on land encounters and the peculiar environment of the Morass’ arcane sink) I would use multiple tables, mirroring the “exploration die” or “overloaded encounter die” mechanism I use for tracking supply depletion in dungeon locations. Specifically I tend to roll an exploration die 3 times a day for the periods of dawn to noon, noon - dusk and dusk to dawn. The numbers on that die each correspond to a table for the region: 1 for encounter, 2 for signs or clues regarding encounters, 3 for changes in the base weather, 4 for a landmark (useful for color and as a reference point for future trips in the hex or as a new point), 5 for an event, obstacle or occurrence and 6 for exhaustion. At night 4 and 6 have no effect.