How to Run Naval Combat, Part 1

London, British Library, Royal MS 10 E. IV, fol. 19r

The general public's knowledge of Medieval naval combat probably derives from pirate movies and swashbuckling adventures, things centuries removed in setting and technology from the Middle Ages.  So how did people fight at sea in the Middle Ages, and how can we use that knowledge to make naval combat in D&D more interesting?  Well, not to brag, but I've recently written an award-winning Master's thesis on medieval naval warfare, and I'm obviously an expert on D&D because I run this blog, so allow me to drop some knowledge on you.

First, let me say that I know historical accuracy is not what a lot of people are looking for in their D&D game.  I would never recommend sacrificing fun on the altar of scholarly pedantry.  But when you look into it, adding a dash of accuracy can actually make things more interesting - as it turns out, people in the past really knew what they were doing.  Today, I'll talk about how naval combat worked in the Middle Ages, dispelling a few myths and anachronisms.  In a later post, I'll talk about how to mesh that information into a world where magic and monsters are very real things.

Conquistador Campaign

We awoke to the smell of smoke, one of the scariest things you can wake up to on a ship except for the feeling of rushing water or the lookout's cries of "KRAKEN!"  We ran abovedecks and saw, to our relief and astonishment, that the smoke was not coming from our ship.  Before us loomed the coast of the New World, and the horizon was on fire.

"Go back to sleep, they're just burning the jungle back," said one of the crew dismissively.  "We'll be at Paradiso in the morning."

Our party consisted of three people: Scoria Stoneturner, a dwarven archaeologist who was coming to find her missing thesis supervisor, Professor Alfonse Stonescribe; Pico de Gallo, a foppish changeling swashbuckler with delusions of glory; and Quetzalcoatl, a brightly coloured tengu ranger who would be our native guide.

Pictured?       via poohadventures.wikia

Regardless of our personal goals, we (well, we two non-natives) had been drawn to the New World with the promise of streets paved with gold, glory and riches free for the taking, and, most importantly, absolutely no snakes or spiders.  As we stepped off the dock that morning, we realized that the New World might have been oversold a little.  Paradiso was a grimy town dominated by massive smelting furnaces constantly belching acrid smoke into the air.  No matter how many Perception checks we made, we couldn't detect a single gold paving stone.  But we did see an army of downtrodden workers collecting charcoal from last night's jungle burn to feed the insatiable furnaces.  The main conflict in our homeland and its colonies was between the rationalist mages, who want to study the treasures of the New World and investigate the natives' magic system, and the Church of Horus, which seeks out native magic items, disenchants them, and melts them down into relics for the glory of the Church.  It was clear which party held sway here in Paradiso.

Monster Monday - Embalming Ooze and Pickled Zombie Template

Earlier this week I released a one-shot nautical horror adventure called Horrors of the Floating Garden.  Some of the monsters therein are pickled zombies, the reanimated corpses of preserved biological specimens.  I neglected to include the template I created for pickled zombies, so I'm presenting it here along with a sample pickled dire rat and an entirely new monster that creates pickled zombies out of the corpses of those it slays.

The curators at the British Natural History Museum insisted that this was not the star spawn of Cthulhu

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is (C)2014 Jonah Bomgaars.

Horrors of the Floating Gardens - a d20 Despot Halloween Adventure

Illustration by Kent Hamilton

Happy Halloween, players and GMs!  In the spirit of the season, I've created a brand new nautical horror adventure that you can play tonight!  Or any night, really.  Even during the day, if you wanted.

Apologies for the lateness of the post - I promised on Monday to post this sometime before Halloween, but it took a lot longer to get ready than I expected.  I suppose, technically, as Halloween stands for All Hallows'  Eve, and it is not yet evening where I live, I'm in the clear.

The adventure is available below as a PDF, with a series of maps as separate images.  One of the reasons I took so long is that I had ambitions of creating a professional-looking, publishable adventure, but after much lost sleep and hasty statting-up, I have decided to wait and pretty it up later.

I began playtesting the adventure last night, and it went quite well, though we were only able to make it about half-way through in five hours, so be warned that this one-shot adventure is pretty long.

You many notice that one of the pre-made characters is a swashbuckler, but not the swashbuckler that they've released in the Advanced Class Guide.  This swashbuckler is a sneak peak at my upcoming, original homebrewed class that I hope to have available to you sometime soon.  My patrons on Patreon can currently view a PDF of the Swashbuckler on my Patreon page.

Alright, the adventure is below!  I only ask that people who are currently playtesting this with me, or who are likely to play this with me in the near future, not read the adventure.

Horrors of the Floating Garden: Teaser

Illustration by Kent Hamilton

You awaken, as you have ever since the shipwreck, in your small rowboat.  The seas around you are placid and waveless, as smooth as a silver mirror, but the fog is so thick that you cannot tell whether it is day or night.  The lamp hanging from the prow of your boat still burns, casting a shimmering golden disc on the water around you.  Bobbing alongside your boat is a corpse, floating face down, a hole the size of a gold piece bored into the back of its skull.  The boat striking it must have been what disturbed your slumber.  In passing, you think it strange that the sharks have not come to feast on the body.  But then, maybe the sharks know something you do not.

Just then, you notice a massive hulk of a ship rearing out of the fog.  Could this be your salvation, at long last?  You silently rouse your companions and point out the dark vessel.  As you draw closer, you notice that there are no lights aboard the ship, and the whole thing is covered with vegetation.  Thick vines wind up the three masts, blankets of moss hang from the forecastle, and mushrooms sprout from the hull. 

There's no post today because I'm working on a Halloween one-shot horror adventure called Horrors of the Floating Gardens.  The adventure is designed for 4-6 third-level characters, and it will be available on this website as a PDF sometime later this week.  

If you're a GM on the lookout for a Halloween adventure for your group, check back later this week!  If you are in my gaming group, I will be running this game for you later, so maybe don't check back later this week.  

-your derelict d20 despot

Polearm Feats and Polearm Ranger Style

Hello, dear readers.  Long time, no see.  I'm pretty well settled back on my home continent now, sadly very far away from any castles but very close to all my RPG books.  I'm sorry for the lack of updates recently, but that changes now.  I'm getting back on schedule and bringing you more content every Monday.

Today, as I promised long ago, I've written up a selection of feats centered on making polearms a more appealing weapon choice for adventurers.  While all of these feats are great for people that use polearms, a number of them will also be of interest to adventurers who don't keep their weapons on the end of a ten-foot pole.

And, now that polearms have more feat support, I've also made a polearm fighting style for rangers.  I know at least two of my players have expressed a desire to play a polearm ranger and been frustrated by the lack of options available to them.  Rangers seem like they would be well-suited to polearms; they tend to seek out and fight a lot of scary stuff, and in my experience it's often best to have ten feet of weapon between you and scary things.

Crumbling Construct - A Template for Ancient Golems

First off, wow, I am way behind on my posts.  Sorry about that.  Things are pretty hectic at d20 Despot HQ right now (currently a hotel room down the street from Beaumaris Castle on the Isle of Anglesey).

Moat may contain otyughs

I know I said recently that you would be seeing a new PC class here soon, but that has been delayed due to technical difficulties.  As soon as Kent sends me the awesome illustration, I'll post that new class for you, no matter what day of the week it is (there is a complete PDF of the new class, minus illustrations, on my Patreon available for $1+ patrons).  Updates over the next few weeks will be sporadic or entirely absent, as they have been for most of this month.  I happen to be moving to a different continent soon, so please forgive my irregular schedule.

For today's update, inspired by a recent trip to the British Museum, I've created a 'Crumbling' template that you can apply to any constructs to nerf their power, making them appropriate for lower-level parties, and giving them that ancient feel which you might expect them to have from waiting around in an eroding tomb for 3000 years or so.  Due to my aforementioned hectic schedule, I've only been able to test this new template on the stone golem and caryatid column, so the CR adjustments might need some tweaking (determining Challenge Ratings is an inexact science in any case, especially so when working with templates).

The following material given in gold text is available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is (C)2014 Jonah Bomgaars.  Crumbling stone golem and crumbling caryatid column are based on material published in Pathfinder Bestiary 1 & 3, (c) Paizo.