A Better Turtle Island Adventure
It’s both interesting and entertaining because the RPG Site didn’t ban Zach’s malignant presence, nor mere discussion of him, but he also doesn’t have any sway there so you get to see how he and his sycophants perform when they’re permitted to speak but cannot control the conversation (or, it would seem, themselves).
At the end of the above post I also bothered to review Cube World 38, Four Pages of Very Rough Adventure Concepts Ironically Without Any Depth, my wife and I talked about our own idea for an adventure that involves a massive turtle-island, and it didn’t take long for us to devise something far more interesting than “go there to get item and maybe fight goblins on the way”.
Every massive turtle I’ve seen, when it packs terrain at all, is for some reason a forest, which is fine unless the turtle goes underwater, because then the salt water would kill all the plant life. Our thought was: why not a sort of coral forest? It’s different and it makes more sense, plus you can create a bunch of at least semi-aquatic monsters for the characters to discover and interact with:
For the turtle’s shell, I’d make it at least 60 miles wide, so it’s easier to map out using your typical hexgrid and it’ll take quite awhile to explore it all (and be able to support life to varying degrees).
As for inhabitants, the fishlion would be similar to a well, lion, but with a venomous bite/claws/spines. Eelmen are savage inhabitants that built temples and monuments out of various types of coral, wear armor made from giant crabs and other eels, and wield sharktooth clubs and coral-tipped spears. Oh, and some can channel electricity.
Speaking of electricity, the giant eel would be similar to a massive serpent, except it uses electricity to disable prey instead of venom. Could even have a reactive defense, incentivizing characters to use stormshield oil to resist it and/or ranged attacks to avoid it entirely.
Some of the less-bizarre fauna I’ve barely begun to sketch include a sort of anemone-octopus hybrid that can camouflage itself to look like a huge coral formation, an ape-like crab creature with mantis-shrimp arms that can quickly maneuver about the coral forest (and is immune to harmful coral types), and a creature based on an urchin that I’m not sure if it can scuttle about or floats, but in either case launches venomous spines.
As for adventure hooks, Melissa had an idea where the turtle could surface, trapping any ships that might be traveling overhead. Maybe the eelmen can somehow compel the turtle to surface to do this deliberately.
Going this route, characters could find themselves trapped within the forest while sailing from A to B, or hired to retrieve something that was taken by the eelmen, though that only really works if the attacks happen with any regularity. In any case, they’d need to repair their ship, or another ship, before it goes underwater again.
Whether or not it goes underwater, the eelmen could also raid coastal villages and port cities.
Alternatively, it could be a random phenomenon. While out sailing the characters could just see this strange red forest in the middle of the ocean. Some strange island that they’ve never heard of before, or perhaps as part of a rumor or legend. Or maybe it persists in one spot or small area for long periods of time, rumors spread, and the characters go an an expedition to explore it.
You could also use a time limit, here: if it has appeared before and vanishes after x days, now the characters have to go there, find what they can, and escape before it submerges again.
Another thought: the turtle could be dead, a rotting corpse that just drifts about or is controlled by eelman necroturgy. Would be a way to control its actions. Or they worship the turtle, as it carries their “world” on its back. Maybe the turtle really is divine to some capacity?
Whatever direction we go, this certainly sounds a lot more interesting than “go to a giant turtle and get some random item and oh and there are goblins maybe”.
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