The Spit. An archipelago of subpolar islands, lightly forested. The handful of mountains are covered with snow, the lowlands and rocky beaches are lashed with wind and rain.
A once-in-a-decade low tide has pulled the water far back from shore, revealing hidden things.
THE IRON CUP FORT
There's a small Iron Cup outpost in the fattest part of the peninsula. Two dozen bowmen (muskets are useless in this weather) man the fort's walls. Expedition leader and Cleric of the Knacker Tovosia runs the operation. Her face is scarred by disease from her time working a brothel in the Big Depths colony, before the church cured her. Gnome Ranger Limerick manages the defenses and eeps the garrison, and his pet Carrion Crawler Polnikof, fed with wild game. An enchanted Oil Lamp mounted on a pole above the gate negates any attempts at stealth, no matter how thick the fog grows outside the fort's walls.
Iron Cup is a trading company that scours the earth for exotic and luxury goods, plundering them for sale in the Commonwealth. The fort on the spit sells metal weapons, candy and lamp oil to the Elves of the Coast. In exchange they get Tardigrade shells, a magical reagent in high demand by artificers. Ships from the Commonwealth visit every few months, sending longboats out onto the rocky beach to deliver and pick up goods.
THE ELVES OF THE COAST
The Elves of the Coast are experts in minor magic, using Endure Elements rather than clothing to survive the harsh weather. They wear masks, kilts and paint. They eat kelp, fish and seals. Their weapons are made from wood, stone and animal parts. Fuel is scarce, blubber lanterns are a common source of illumination. Wood fires were a status symbol until the Iron Cup traders introduced modern refined fuels.
Their harsh existence makes them brutal but unpretentious. They feast their friends and flay their foes and, trusting no one, never weep that they are betrayed. They are ignorant of the wider world but not stupid, making ingenious use of new technology and adapting quickly when it's used against them.
TARDIGRADES
Something in the water makes the water bears enormous, the size of their terrestrial counterparts. Their favorite foods grow only on land, prompting them to trundle ashore and graze on mosses and lichen. They're immune to almost everything but physical damage and their piercing mouthparts can deliver a lethal bite. If you do manage to harm them they trundle into the sea to escape.
The Elves use long spears to hunt tardigrades, keeping them from biting or retreating underwater. Until recently had little
reason to do so. The meat tastes foul and the hides are too heavy to
swim in, making them useless as armor in the cross-island raids.
THE DRUID
Adder Stone the Druid is ill-liked and rarely bothered by the Elves of the Coast. Unpredictable murderous outbursts of destructive magic aren't funny when you live in a constant state of near-starvation and severe resource deprivation. Nevertheless they do respect his power.
Adder Stone read in the skin of a rock viper that the people in the fort are only the beginning. The more skins of Moss Pigs they take back to their island, the more people will come to The Spit. They'll pay a bounty for every pointy ear placed at the feet of their clan chief, and the Elves of the Coast will be exterminated.
Many Elves ignore Stone Adder's ravings. Even being near him risks random flaying and dismemberment when he gets in one of his moods. Some of them listen.
THE DOLMEN
On a small outlying island is a heap of rocks with a single krummholz tree missing most of its branches. Beneath the rock pile is a megalithic tomb, a chamber made from two huge stones with a third stacked on top as a roof. Nobody knows where it came from. The Elves use their dead to lure prey, not fill holes in the ground.
The entrance to the tomb is unsealed, earth and rock cleared away. There's a narrow passage and an interior space tall enough to stand in. The inside is damp because it's normally submerged, water seeping in through fissures in the rock. In the back, heaped by the action of the tide: a gold torc, bangles, rings and amulets, encrusting the barnacle encrusted things that were once the bones.
On the stone where the body should rest: a heap of fresh leather, meat, bones, corpses, stitched clumsily together with the limbs sticking out in all directions like a basket star.
The tomb is haunted by an Alpine Spectre, ghost of the warrior buried there. It recognizes the Elves as friends but drains energy from anyone else who violates the sanctity of its grave. It wishes to live again.
There are a dozen Elf Cultists in Stone Adder's cult. In addition to casting blights they are flawless swimmers and masters of concealment in rough terrain. Their goal is to create an artificial body for the Spectre to inhabit, like a Wicker Walker but made from sealskin, tardigrades and dead people. Maybe half of them are on the island, the rest are hunting for sacrifices to complete the taxidermy.
If the Elves kill enough people to animate it, the blob thing leads an attack on the Iron Cup fort and destroys it.
THE STEAMING VENTS
Elsewhere on the Spit, steam billows from sea caves at the base of a large rock formation. Low tide lets you walk right in, as long as you avoid the sucking action of the waves that threaten to pull you into the sharp rocks.
The steam comes from thermal vents in the cave. Inky Red Worms cluster around cracks in the stone, slurping anything that passes through with bloodsucking proboscises. Improbably, the further inside you go the drier the air gets. Around the point the light from the entrance is no longer visible, a red glow comes into view at the opposite end of the tunnel.
A narrow squeeze opens into an artificially cut passage. Opens up into a larger room hewn from the native stone. A large Salt Elemental totters around the room, keeping the room dry and reflexively sucking moisture out of anything living that enters. The room is full of Alchemical doodads, magickal rations, potions and pearls of power for replenishing spell slots. It's all trapped with a curse that casts Breath of the Deep on thieves, filling their lungs with water until they return the stolen items.
The red glow comes from the next chamber, where the mage Koku the Patient sits motionless under a red lamp, whose dim light illuminates a huge fossil insect embedded in the wall. It looks like a giant ant, the size of the visible head implies the whole thing is the size of a cottage or bigger. Koku is attempting to call the spirit back into the shell so he can draw the strength out of it - who wouldn't want to lift twenty times their own body weight?
Problem is, if Koku gets interrupted while the soul is still in the body but before he drains it, the fossil bug will wake up and trigger an earthquake as it madly scrambles out of its rocky prison. The Elves aren't worried about this because if the ant chases them they'll just swim in the ocean where it can't float. It would be disastrous for the fort and for whatever city the bug marches off to destroy after.
Above Koku is an escape tunnel he carved before initiating psychic contact, leading up to a sod hatch at the top of the rock formation.
Mignola
OOPS, ALL HAGS
Still elsewhere, a coven of Sea Hags live in a shipwreck off the coast, four junior Hags led by the pebbly green matron Oeobazia. They love setting false lights and wrecking ships, adding to their labyrinth of rotwood and kelp. Tormenting the Elves is a waste of time because the Elves either run or fight back, they never squirm in the trap or fall for the Hags' tricks.
The low tide has left most of the hags' sunken ships high and dry, with only the bottom levels still flooded. They haven't retreated to deeper waters because of their vanity and greed - someone might rob their homes while they're out.
The hag labyrinth is a maze of wrecked ships. Take a bunch of ship floorplans and lay them over each other randomly. Draw lines through them to make passages. Place points of interest in the most interesting looking rooms.
- Enormous beached jellyfish from the Hags' garden of pain pulse and slide around like Oozes, stinging anything in reach with lethal poison. The thickest concentration slide over a sealed pot of precious ambergris, which the Hags enjoy using as bait.
- A gallery where the tattooed skins of shipwrecked sailors are preserved. The hides are pregnant with residual Hag magic, acting like scrolls that work magic based on the topic they depict - charm mermaid, raise anchor, hold fast, etc.
- Hag vault with a bronze treasure chest, half submerged, holding all the plunder taken from sunken ships. A huge Electric Eel lives in a hole in the space under the box. It shocks all the water in the room unless fed tasty chum before the chest is disturbed.
The youngest Sea Hag Drowny is in love with a magic user, who promised to visit when the tide was low.
THE PYROMANCER
Saltar the Pyromancer met Drowny on the seashore years ago. The Great Lord of Embers, God of courage and uncompromising inspiration and destruction by fire, gave him the courage to wade out into the surf and embrace the howling madwoman who prophesied his instant death.
Saltar's coupling with Drowny raises clouds of steam. He spends half his time with her in the Hag den and half his time in a camp on shore, warming up by a bonfire of greasy fish and driftwood she harvests for him. He can't get too wet or his flame will go out and the Lord will no longer speak to him.
The other Hags don't mind. They're voyeurs and Saltar loves performing for an audience. Plus he brings them gifts of bright colored pigments that don't run in water. Cooks barbequed seals slathered in delicious spicy sauce.
They'd take more issue if they knew Drowny wanted to run away with him. That she dreams of walking on land and seeing the world by his side. He'd also be scared of this because even with the Lord's courage he's afraid of commitment.
Naf
ALICANTOS
The rocky shore of the Spit are home to a colony of Alicantos. These flightless birds dive in the water for metal objects spilled from wrecked ships. They are cowardly but will bumble into dangerous situations anyway if they sense treasure and don't spot a threat. When they panic they conceal themselves with a veil of magical darkness. Run down a beach full of them and watch the world disappear into a void.
Hunting Alicantos lets you harvest all the precious metals in their gullets. It also pisses off the Elves, who consider it bad luck and attack anyone who does it. Without them, passing sailors would have wiped the birds out already. Some clans keep them as fishing birds, putting snares around their neck so they can pick up treasure off the seafloor but not swallow it.
MAN'S FATE
The Pirate ship Man's Fate fled into the raging waters of The Spit after losing a fight with a merchant ship. They found a secluded bay shielded from the storms and anchored there to repair. Then the tide went way out, turning their escape route into a plane of sharp wet rocks. They're waiting for the water to rise so they can leave, nervous about sticking around in swimming distance of the Elves.
Man's Fate is a brightly painted blue dhow, equipped with two slender masts and a couple lightweight bronze cannons. The Halfling captain Passerine Walnuthand is worried about the crew calling a snap election to depose him, alternating between bribes and terror tactics to keep everyone in line. The ship's Wizard Yulia loves the stormy weather but is afraid of the Elves, partially because the prospect of being kidnapped excites her. The other dozen pirates (mostly humans) want to go ashore so they can hunt and pillage. They aren't afraid of the Elves and resent the captain's caution.
Among the loot taken by the pirates,
- A pallet of fogwood, valuable lumber that smells wonderful and changes shape in response to the sculptor's thoughts.
- A whole case of Potions of Sleep, destined for outposts at the edge of the nightmare wastes surrounding Heart-of-the-World.
- Ser Kyren, low level Fighter, petty noble from the Baronies. Offered himself as a hostage to save his party. Enjoying captivity and the attentions of his jailor/protector, the ship's carpenter Shim.
The Elves view all sailors as just another tribe to fight, trade or mate with. During the day the boats fire cannons at the Elves. During the night the Elves swim onto the ships and cut their throats. Same as they'd to to anyone else.
John Stobart
WHY ARE YOU HERE?
The players are...
- Privateers pursuing the Man's Fate.
- Bounty hunters pursuing Saltar the Pyromancer.
- Scalphunters pursuing a bounty on Elf Ears.
- Beast wranglers capturing Tardigrades for a farming operation.
- Hired by Koku's archrival to foil his plans.
- Delivering a Potion of Polymorph, ordered by Drowny the Hag so she can become human.
The spit is a good place for a nautical adventure, especially if the players have their own ship.
THE MAKING OF
I used the Monster Manual Overhaul to create the nucleus of this area. I rolled
- A Salt Elemental summoned by a Wizard
- An Alpine Spectre
- A Giant Ant
- A Sea Hag w jellyfish Oozes
- A coven of Sea Hags
- A Pyromancer in love w an Ice Hag
- A cabal of Cultists
- Tardigrades
- A Druid reading omens off a Snake
The Elves, Eel, Carrion Crawler, Pirates, Hostage, and the Fort are my own inclusions. The Elves of the Coast are named after the Simon Swerwer song.
This adventure has not been playtested.
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