The Nature GM

Where to begin. There’s the question of how you breathe. And the question of how far you can swim. And the question of whether or not ranged weapon attacks work normally. And perhaps most importantly of all—

The question of whether or not you can cast Fireball underwater.

Truly, there is no mundane environment more poorly suited for a fantasy adventure than the ocean depths. But under the sea my players did go, for the heroes were tasked with putting to rest the Creatures of Land, Sky, and finally Sea to restore elemental balance to the Smoldering Isles.

It all began with an eccentric bell-diving elf, and tales of the Triton kingdom.

Laying the Ground Seawork

Many sessions before the player characters took up the quest to defeat the Creature of the Sea, I introduced them to Pool, the eccentric jungle elf. Pool, you see, was a scientist who wished to solve problems with technology rather than magic. And he had invented a diving bell.

The triton city of the Smoldering Isles is situated on the shelf of Omoroca’s Trench, which descends all the way into the Elemental Plane of Water. The city itself is named, of course, Omorocopolis. Pool wanted to use the diving bells to make trade with the tritons more accessible to the general public.

This established that the triton world was relatively isolated and difficult to reach. It also provided an NPC to reveal how little I personally know about bell diving. Fortunately, it often seems that the more spurious the invention of an NPC, the more beloved they are to the players, and Pool was nothing if not brought forth on the spot. So my players took Pool at his word and did not press the point.

(Pool is named after Paul Atreides from Dune, whose name I initially misheard due to the audiobook reader’s accent. Omoroca is from the Stargate SG1 episode “Fire and Water”. Extra nerd points?)

Exploration as a Means of Armament

In the previous quest, the player characters set off to face the Creature of the Sky and conveniently found useful resources to aid their battle.

Afterwards, I felt that I had somewhat cheated the aarakocra player character from having a chance to establish much about their people’s culture. So this time I wanted the characters to earn their sea creature-defeating resources both for the sake of risk yielding reward and to give the triton player character more worldbuilding opportunities.

The party knew that the Creature of the Sea was a giant squid which created large whirlpools that they used to sink ships. They needed to find: 1) a way to breathe underwater for the duration of combat, and 2) something that would neutralize the whirlpool effect, and 3) a way to strike hard at a behemoth with grasping tentacles.

For some reason they wanted to buy a lot of rope and grappling hooks to try to tie up (?) the giant squid. I believe there was also discussion of a harpoon gun. Not liking the direction this was taking, I dropped in rumors of more fantastical items with all the subtlety of a brick.

This is what I prepared for them.

Undersea Magic Items

Conch of Disruption

• Blow as an action to disrupt magical effects.
• Effects from potions, spells of level 5 or lower, and powers from creatures level 14 or lower end immediately. 30ft radius.
• Continuous effects (e.g. environmental, ritual, etc.) renew at the end of your next turn.
• It has two charges remaining that do not replenish.

Located in the home of the popstar singer Oceana, who was out touring on land. Specifically, it was in her private collection of exotic and dangerous sea creatures. Obstacles include getting through a locked door (which gave my party a much longer pause than anyone expected), electric jellyfish, singing anemones, and a couple of blink sharks.

And yes, I was teased for having an underwater aquarium.

Lance of Behemoth Slaying

• Mithril handle with a long blade of white light that can be activated or deactivated with a bonus action.
• 2d6 piercing, reach 10ft, two-handed, slow (cannot multi-attack).
• +5 magic weapon to Huge or larger creatures; -1 magic weapon to anything smaller.
• Deathly Rush. If run 15ft in a straight line while attacking, add an additional 4d6 to the damage dealt.

Located in the Hall of Heroes, which was a well-guarded museum in the Omorocopolis Senatus. Obstacles included triton guards, alarm trip wires, and glass eyes that shot visible targets with octarine lasers, causing a random effect from this generator.

Potions of Water Breathing, Etc.

Since some trade did occur between the tritons and landlubbers, I had this take place directly above Omoroca’s Trench on a loose collection of ships lashed together around a floating deck pub called The Happy Clam.

The party had no interest in speaking with the waxed-mustached (human) proprietor of the Happy Clam, whose name was Ceviche. Perhaps because he was premeditated. Instead, they heard rumors of the above Conch of Disruption and Lance of Behemoth Slaying from the two tritons who sold them an overpriced Potion of Water Breathing.

Realizing they already had in their inventory a spell scroll of Water Breathing, which works for groups of up to ten people, they made up for the price gouging by charging ordinary citizens for an “exclusive tour of the triton city” and bringing some civilians along for their deep sea adventure.

Where The Water Problems Began

As soon as the party went underwater, so many assumptions of ordinary life were called into question.

The ocean is dark. Above the city of Omorocopolis, I hung a mesh with glowing orbs that provided both ambient lighting in the city and the ability to have a front gate.

You cannot exactly drink underwater, which means tritons have no bars. So we decided that tritons hang out at chill lounges with names such as The Sandbar.

You also cannot have a cooking fire underwater, so tritons must eat fish raw or acid-cooked.

At some point it was asked if everyone could talk underwater. We all said yes and moved on without much discussion, because the alternative was not something that anyone wished to entertain.

We determined that bows were not usable underwater, but thrown weapons were (this may even be rules as written). I think we decided that Fireball could be cast, but it would do half the ordinary damage. I may be misremembering this.

The stand up and cheer moment was when the triton fighter charged at the Creature of the Sea with the Lance of Behemoth Slaying, teleported away with Misty Step, and then used Action Surge to charge in again.

Sometimes Fifth Edition hits exactly right.

Stat Block: The Creature of the Sea

I initially said the giant squid elemental monster has eight tentacles, which is clearly an octopus. I have reduced the grabbing tentacles to only two.

The original version also had a fling feature that it could use to throw grappled creatures. This works great on land where it causes fall damage. It works less well underwater, particularly for a monster that is trying to pull creatures towards its beak to bite them.

The Creature of the Sea’s design is again inspired by the elemental creatures in MCDM’s Flee Mortals!, but it is not terribly like any of their elementals. I do recommend checking out their psychic kraken; it is truly original.

Closing Thoughts

As a child I wanted to grow up to be a mermaid. But people were not meant to live underwater.

Has anyone led a successful underwater campaign that they were happy with how they managed the setting? I think this scenario was enjoyable, but I did find it challenging to prepare for and run.

That may be in part because I am quite ignorant of marine ecosystems. Nature did not provide me with its typical level of inspiration.

But happily for the Smoldering Isles, the elemental balance has once again been restored. We will surely uncover the next calamity as we keep exploring.

(Post cover image Image by Anja.)

P.S.

Between running two games, plus my snail-paced text game, and a change in workload, I may be moving to a once-monthly post cadence. Subscribe to receive the latest posts as they are published.