Apologies if this has been discussed before. I’m planning on running ToEE for my group, but half of them have already played the Village of Hommlet so I decided to use Saltmarsh instead (N1 was also considered but vetoed for the same reasons). None of my players are familiar with U1, and it’s one of my personal favourites (I’ve DM’d it several times over the years). We’ll be using 5e rules, but that’s not really what’s important here (I own Ghosts of Saltmarsh and will be using some of the town that is detailed in that book).
***U1 AND T1-4 SPOILERS AHEAD***
There’s approximately 800 miles between Saltmarsh and the Temple, so I’m brainstorming ideas to link them. My first thought is to have the smugglers moving weapons, slaves and supplies from the Sea Princes northward to the Temple, basing their operations from the house as per the module. That seems like a natural fit. I figure the assassin Ned can even be from Nulb.
But I’m always looking for and open to more ideas/suggestions tho, so I thought I’d reach out to the CF community. Any other thoughts?
Rather than building long-distance connections between Keoland and Verbobonc, I suggest moving Saltmarsh to the Wild Coast, perhaps somewhere west of Narwell-ish.
Then you can still use Nulb and the pirates from there and connect them to the Saltmarsh gang. U1 is also a nice lead-in to A1, so moving U1 to Wild Coast gives you play with the pirates and A1-4 Slave Lords, if desired (and U2-3 can shift into the Wooly Bay, too).
Thanks for the responses, Grodog and Vulcan. The idea of just moving Saltmarsh had crossed my mind, if my type A personality can get over it lol (silly I know…I adhere too strictly to the written word).
Grodog, when you said “west of Narwell-ish”, did you in fact mean east of Narwell? Saltmarsh is a coastal fishing town after all, or were you suggesting moving it more inland along a river? Just curious.
Change the names of the NPCs along with the name of the town and 'Saltmarsh' becomes... say, 'Mistmarsh' or some such. Then Saltmarsh in Keoland remains Saltmarsh, and you've expanded your world.
Or use the expanded and developed 'Saltmarsh' in one of 3E books, I think it was Cityscape as 'Saltmarsh', and the Saltmarsh in U1 to launch ToEE.
I've heard of DMs who use Homlett over and over again as their 'generic village', just changing names and making minor alterations to the NPCs motivations, without their players ever catching on. Others have done the same with the Keep in B1. And the plethora of maps available online nowadays makes it even easier.
Grodog, when you said “west of Narwell-ish”, did you in fact mean east of Narwell? Saltmarsh is a coastal fishing town after all, or were you suggesting moving it more inland along a river? Just curious.
River’s an interesting idea, particularly if you wanted to olay more with Rhenne, but I was simply dyslexing my directions ;)
@Vulcan : yeah I think there’s a version of Saltmarsh in the DMG 2 for 3.5, wasn’t my cup of tea. I thought they did a decent job of the town in Ghosts of Saltmarsh so I’ll use some of that along with some of my own material.
There is definitely a lot of mileage to be had from Hommlet. I had also considered reskinning the town and switching some of the NPCs around, and if that’s all it was I probably would have. But at the end of the day, the party still needs to do the moat house. I would have to change all of that as well, and at that point I may as well just use an entirely different adventure.
@grodog: ah okay, that’s what I thought. On the topic of the Rhennee, I have plans to insert them into the adventure whether I set the town on the coast or a river (the smuggled goods could be then transported upriver to Nulb). I have never really used them much in my campaigns over the years so I think it’s a terrific opportunity.
While 800 miles is a long distance, I believe "Visions of Greyhawk's" most recent issue introduced the Low Road through the Lortmils, which provide a means of easily covering about half of the distance...
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