My Hook for the Isle of Dread

 Introduction

My previous post about hooks for the Isle of Dread was a bit long, so I figured I'd pull out my personal experience dealing with hooks for this article. No real advice here, but hope you find it interesting and a bit amusing, as I make several obvious mistakes in my zeal to get this adventure going.

My Experience

A fun adventure for starting players
and characters.

Looking back at the way I ran this campaign, it was a glorious mess. It was my first long running 5th edition campaign, and I threw everything into it. The result was a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. It was the excitement of building this world for my players, but also fear of screwing it all up.

If I were to run this again, I would probably use the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh for new players, or start in the Guild Isles of Mystara with a cult of Kopru for seasoned players. Then have a few island hopping adventures before getting them to the Isle of Dread itself. A faster turn ramp up to the main event than I actually ended up doing.

Back in 2020, I was still a newish DM. I had tried to homebrew an adventure and failed spectacularly. Then I ran a good chunk of Dragon of Icespire Peak and had a lot of fun with it, before the pandemic shut it down. Now, I'd been playing characters in two regular games for about three years up to that point, but running the game sporadically.

So I was a bit timid to dive right into a nautical adventure, when I had only really run and played in more traditional settings. For some reason I was also convinced that I needed to have the port city be a huge impressive place. So I wanted the time to flesh that out. I started my campaign in a very traditional mountain village with a local problem with a cursed ghost. This town was miles and miles away from the big port city (based loosely on Specularum in Mystara). We ended up spending many sessions with the small village adventure and then overland travel to the city and then exploring the city and finally getting the ship. All of this was a ton of fun, and created so many memorable moments - but it was about a third of the total campaign - too much.

What is funny is that this whole start would have made a great mini campaign by itself. That starting village was great, and the situation and NPCs were a lot of fun. In fact one player admitted that it was his favorite part of the whole campaign. But I did all that, because I was world building like crazy behind the scenes trying to make this impressive city and island adventures for the journey and seeding the main plot.

This trilogy was one of my favorite during 
junior high and into high school.

In my quest to include all my favorite 80s fantasy stuff in one adventure (who knows when I'd get to run a homebrew world again) I took the world of Mystara as a skeleton, overlaid the lore from Dragonlance onto it (with the cataclysm and the gods vanishing) and then added the Chosen One concept, with one player being selected to bring the gods back to the world.

Don't do this. Ever.

Never put a player in the situation where they are the Chose One. It turns the campaign into a one person focal point. It puts pressure on that player. Or worse, you could get a player who abuses this. The poor player I did this to told me later that she really disliked this aspect of the story, and felt it forced her into too many awkward and uncomfortable situations. It was never my intent, I thought it was fun and a power fantasy - but that wasn't why she was playing. 

When I ran this, the gods were being prevented from returning by a powerful ancient monster, Kopru, who needed to be stopped. But first the characters had to find the location of the mysterious Isle of Dread, and then get a crew crazy enough to sail into the dangerous Sea of Dread. I added a bunch of other side stories and elements based on the character's backstories. It turned the saga into a very personal adventure for them - and I really love how that turned out. They were invested in those storylines and it helped build some great character moments.

One good thing about the way this all played out, was that the Chosen One elements and main storyline all evolved organically. It felt like a novel with the characters discovering what role they had to play and how it all interconnected. And yeah that is the writer in me speaking. But a novel and an RPG are very different things. Yeah, my story was linear for the most part - and in a way the opposite of what The Isle of Dread was supposed to be. And yet, the end result was a memorable campaign that ran for over a year. 

Great setting for classic D&D
adventures

For the main port city, I took the Gazetteer: The Grand Duchy of Karameikos and used that as my basis for this opening portion of the campaign. This old school resource is full of great locations, NPCs and plot hooks. You could use it to run a very fun campaign right here. I mainly used it for the town and city locations the characters encountered on the way from the starting village (that I created) and to get to the ship. While I was fleshing out the port city (transforming it from Specularum in the Gazetteer to Mystemere in my setting), I got completely immersed in city creation. I spent way too much time trying to get it "perfect". And while it was fun and interesting. Ultimately the party didn't spend a lot of time here. I really could have spent time on other things especially for the later portion of the campaign. 

Once the characters go their hands on a vessel and crew to sail the Sea of Dread, we were ready to dive into the voyage. But that is another story for another post.

Hooking the Isle of Dread

 Introduction

The Isle of Dread adventure is more of a campaign setting, full of interesting locations, encounters and treasures. While it contains adventure hooks to get things rolling, they are a bit bare bones. In this post I'll talk about what the adventure gives you, what other things you could try and what I ended up doing.

I'll be referencing the Goodman Games reprint for 5th edition. If I switch to the original printing, I'll let you know.

Starting using the Module

Alternate cover ahoy!

This adventure was written in 1980, and makes the assumption that your player characters are seeking treasure so they can level up. Back then, experience points were given based on treasure, and that was a great motivation for any party. With that in mind, most of the hooks revolve on finding untold riches on the Isle of Dread.

You get one detailed hook and three supporting hooks. The detailed one is an account by a sailor who traveled to the island and stopped there briefly. He talks about meeting the locals and trading with them. He discovered rumors of an ancient civilization flourishing and falling here. Its ruins are scattered across the island, the most impressive being a forgotten city filled with riches. He includes a rough map in his account.

This is a solid hook to work with. You could easily turn the written account into an actual NPC and have him tell the player characters all this and provide them with the map. Maybe he is too old or sick to go, but wants to pass this along to a dear friend or relative. As presented in the module this all happens because the PCs stumble across the account and map by pure luck. I like adding that personal connection.

One of the minor hooks is similar with a brief account of a massive black pearl of incalculable value hidden on the island. Not a bad hook. You could even say the pearl has magical properties that might entice the PCs further. This could be a local legend, but you need something tangible to kick the adventure off. Again, an NPC or chart to the isle or magical guide could be used to get the quest for the pearl rolling. 

"No, I really did see a black pearl the size of
your head. Do I look like a liar?"

Or you could combine the account of the sailor with the legend of the pearl, and give the PCs a goal to seek out on the island. If you have a group that needs or wants a clear cut goal, this could work great. With both of these hooks, you can easily skip past the voyage to the island and just start with the ship in sight of the Isle of Dread. You also don't have to develop the crew of the ship all that much, since they are pretty much around to take the players to different spots and wait for them.

Then you get the option to be working for a merchant who sees the Isle of Dread as a trading opportunity. Essentially he hires the PCs to travel to the island, scout out the resources and make contact with the locals to set up a trading post. If you have a group that likes to focus on role-play over combat, this might be a good option. They are not going to the isle to fight, but to make friends and set up trade. One thing I would avoid is turning this into an exercise in colonialism. That can lead to some very dark and disturbing areas that not everyone is comfortable with. If you do select this route, then creating NPCs for the vessel and their goal in the operation will become important. This may require some extra work on the DMs part.

The last option could be a fun one with the right group. Just start with the characters waking up after a shipwreck. They are on the Isle of Dread with a few other cast away NPCs, and then set about exploring and trying to survive in this dangerous wilderness. You could ramp up the survival aspects of the game (especially if you are using an old school rules variant). This hook throws the players right into the adventure, and you can keep the NPCs to a minimum (mostly as back up characters in case one of the player character's die).

Starting with other material

The Isle of Dread adventure is recommended for characters at level 3. If you want a full level 1 to 7 campaign, then you might need some material to get those first three levels under the character's belts. The adventure provides you with a mini world setting including some brief descriptions of lands and islands to start the adventure in. These would all become the Mystara setting in later modules and gazetteers. What you get here is pretty sparse, but you could use it as a jumping off point for some homebrew adventures

Go full classic Mystara if you
start here.

There are a couple of adventures that could provide a good starting point. One is the classic adventure The Veiled Society, which starts at level 1 and goes up to level 3. It takes place in the city of Specularum in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos, which is a massive port city. It gives the players experience in the city and then you can tie it to obtaining the ship or the hook for the Isle of Dread as part of the reward for completing the adventure.

The other option is to take the first adventure of Ghosts of Saltmarsh (5th edition adventure collection) and use that as starting point. This adventure contains pirates and smugglers, and ends with the party possibly obtaining their own ship! It makes for a solid starting point, with some of the NPCs from that adventure and in the town of Saltmarsh being accessible as crew for the voyage. This is a great option if you are using 5th edition to run this adventure, and want to use published material to flesh out your adventure.

For even looser starting points, you could select ports in any campaign setting you wish, and build some low level adventures tied to those locations. Waterdeep in the Forgotten realms could work fine, with someadventures around the docks being a good way to start things off.

If you want to stick to the Mystara setting, but want the voyage to start a bit closer, you can pick up the gazetteer for the Minrothad Guilds which contains a bunch of information about these trading guilds and their rivalries. It includes several low level adventure ideas that you can use to build the characters up to level 3. This would be a solid fit for a group that wants to explore trading and role playing options on the Isle of Dread. 

Starting with home-brew

Magical trident on a lost island? Go for it!

If you want to craft your own material then even more options are available. Focus on your players and what they enjoy in a game. If you aren't sure, then you can give them a goal, but allow for some wiggle room to expand beyond that if you wish.

The great thing about this module is that it is very flexible and you can fit it into a campaign very easily. I see three obvious ways to make this work (and I'm sure you can come up with more). 

The Isle of Dread is the location of:

• A potent magical item or lore
• A dangerous enemy that must be defeated
• A powerful ally that must be bargained with

The first two are the easiest to manage, since the adventure provides you with plenty of material to work with. There are magical items scattered throughout the island, and you could pick one as a goal for your party. Or pick a magic item from the Dungeon Master's Guide (or other similar resource) that fits your campaign, and slide it into a location that is suitable. 

Forgotten lore works the same way, with plenty of ancient locations and artifacts waiting to be discovered on the island. You will need to seed hints about the location of the lore, and turn the adventure into an investigation as they piece together the location of the treasure or lore and discover it.  This option works great with the exploration focus of the original module.

When it comes to antagonists, you have a lot to pick from on the Isle of Dread. The two obvious one are the pirates and the monstrous Kopru. 

Did someone say orc pirates?

Focusing on the pirates is easy enough, making the Isle of Dread their base of operations. If this is the focus of the campaign, you probably need to flesh out the pirates a bit more, giving them more ships and captains. At the end of the Goodman Games update, you'll find a couple of pirate crews ready to be added to the adventure. One with ties to the shark cult and one that is undead. You may want to figure out a goal for the leader of the pirates, and how the players can interfere with it. For added flavor, make it a confederation of multiple pirate groups on the island, and the players can pit them against each other. While the rest of the island kind of turns into side quest material, it can also serve as hidden resources the pirates are attempting to find and use to complete their goal - whatever that might be.

Kopru are unique monsters in D&D history and most new players won't know anything about them. Their mental powers and specific biology make them tricky and dangerous opponents. Turning them into the focus of evil spreading out from Isle of Dread can be a lot of fun. Essentially allowing you to make a cult of Kopru that is bent on dominating as much of your campaign world as possible. This can be an insidious evil that starts with corrupted cultists doing evil deeds in the port city (a connection to The Veiled Society adventure). As the players uncover more information they find that the origin of the cult is across the Sea of Dread. They then seek out the source of the cult, leading to island hopping adventures - gaining levels until they reach level 3, and arrive at the Isle of Dread. Here they seek out the source of the cult, interacting with the various locals (who have cult member embedded within or may already be completely loyal to the Kopru). Eventually everything leads to the plateau and the hidden temple within. 

Don't see enough bronze dragons these days.

The ally option is a bit trickier because you would need a reason for the ally be on this very dangerous island. Are they a prisoner here? Are they researching the ancient ruins, seeking out forbidden knowledge? Are they obsessed with taming and training dinosaurs? You can have your ally be willing to help the PCs in exchange for something they need done. It can be as simple as retrieving the black pearl from the hidden temple or as dangerous as destroying the ancient monster Kopru. You have a lot of options to play with and build a fun story around. Your biggest hurtle is creating an interesting NPC with a valid reason for being on the island. One option would be to have a bronze dragon living on the island. These underused dragons live on coasts, are intelligent and helpful to a heroic party. Could make for some fun and interesting interactions. 

And this post is long enough. Next time I'll tell you what I attempted. Including all the silly mistakes I made.

Isle of Dread - Advice and Experiences

 Here is a spot where I will collect all my article about running the Isle of Dread adventure for Dungeons and Dragons. I ran this as a 5th edition campaign, but my advice is pretty system agnostic. I hope you find it entertaining and useful.

• What is the Isle of Dread? - Explanation of the adventure and a brief history of my experience with Dungeons and Dragons leading up to me running it for my group.
• Why Isle of Dread? - Why you should consider this adventure for your group and what it offers.
• Hooking the Isle of Dread - Exploring adventure hooks you can use for your game to hook the player characters into seeking out the island.
• My Hook for the Isle of Dread - I take a critical look at the path I picked and what I did wrong.
• Voyage to the Isle of Dread - How do you get your players to the island in the first place?
• Village of Dread? - Inhabitants of the Isle and how to use them.
• Dragons of Dread - Here be dragons and what they are used for.

Why Isle of Dread?

 Why run Isle of Dread?

With so many published adventures and campaign settings out there, why should you consider the Isle of Dread for your group? Here are a few reasons:

Ranger ready to range in the jungle

A lot of fifth edition hardback adventures focus on plot and combat, and the exploration angle to Dungeons and Dragons takes a back seat. But Isle of Dread leans into the exploration portion of the game pretty well. With this massive island almost completely unexplored and pockets of civilization rare, it really becomes a setting where characters like Rangers and Druids can shine. There are also a few abilities and feats in the game that are focused on the exploration side, and these will finally get some play. Finally there is a real element of the unknown to this setting. Upon landing on the Isle of Dread it really feels like the characters are entering a unique land with different rules, culture and natural phenomena.

As a campaign setting Isle of Dread is extremely flexible. You can run it right out of the book, and create a very classic 80s D&D experience. You can pick and choose your favorite set pieces, NPCs and monsters and use them in your homebrew world. There are plenty of fascinating elements to this setting that could work in just about any game with only a minor adjustment or two. I've also heard from several old timer GMs that they have run Isle of Dread multiple times over the years and it has been a unique experience each time. Some GMs shifted the focus of the campaign each time, but usually the players explored the island in a unique way from party to party. You can get a lot of use out of this setting over the years.

I'm sure it was all a mistranslation.

When this was released in 1980, this adventure was very unique compared to its contemporaries. Most D&D adventures of the era stuck with the traditional medieval inspired fantasy. But Isle of Dread is a unique setting. It is a tropical island filled with dinosaurs and long extinct giant mammals like saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths. You've got the villagers of Taneroa who use the undead was a workforce. There is an enclave of pirates - full on eyepatch, peg-leg pirates. Add to that the unique creatures you encounter like the flying squirrel/monkey hybrids the Phanaton. You also meet the wickedly intelligent giant spiders known as the Aranea who have disturbing chitinous hands. And then the first of the cat-people in D&D, the nomadic Rakasta. And of course who can forget the sinister Kopru and their mind control powers. Mix this in with some classic movie and novel tropes ranging from King Kong to Jurassic Park and you have something that your players will remember.

And that is the final reason to run this adventure. Because it has been around since 1980 and included in a widely available box set and then adapted several times over numerous editions of D&D, you run into a lot of folks how have played it. Isle of Dread links generations of game players, and they can share war stories about meeting the phanton tribe, their encounter with a T-rex and how they dealt with Kopru. 

For me those are four great reasons to give the Isle of Dread a try, or at least pick it up and read through.