Voyage to the Isle of Dread

 Introduction

Let's get this out of the way right at the start. You don't need to include a voyage if you run Isle of Dread. I know that sounds odd since this adventure takes place on an island. But it is very possible to start the adventure with the ship coming into sight of the island, or the players waking up after being ship wrecked on the mysterious island.

But if you decide to include a voyage portion, here is some advice on how to run that.

The Voyage

First you need a crew and a ship. If you are playing 5th Edition you have a few resources to help you with this. The Player's Handbook provides the costs for passage on a ship (1sp per mile) and the cost and speed of a few types of vessels. Both of these appear in the Equipment chapter. And, um, yeah that's about all there is. I was hoping the Dungeon Masters Guide would have a few specifics for sea travel, but it is very focused on overland and dungeon exploration. There is a solid weather table you could use for travel, but that is about it.

I'm sure this is fine... right?

The 5th edition resource you may want to pick up is Ghosts of Saltmarsh which has an appendix all about ships and crew. It gives you plenty of material to work with, but some folks found the ship combat rules, and crew roles to be underwhelming. I think it depends on how much time you are going to spend on the ship and how involved you want to get with ship to ship combat. 

I found it all very helpful, and even though I referenced other sources like the old Rules Cyclopedia which has pretty detailed ship combat mechanics, and some of the material from The Mintrothad Guilds gazetteer to inspire some crew concepts, those were not necessary.

Ghost of Saltmarsh includes some solid sea travel/exploration rules, and I found those pretty inspiring to add hazards during the voyage. I think if you are going to spend a good chunk of your time at sea, then picking up this book for the appendix (and a few really well written adventures) is worth the money. 

When building out the crew, I would make most of them friendly and helpful. Maybe have one see a player character as friendly rival. Take some time to flesh out a few of these crew members, giving them a reason for taking to the seas, and seeking adventure. Make the crew likable and engaging, so when things start to go wrong on the Isle of Dread, you have a way to increase the stakes. It makes for a great tool to put some of the crew (or the whole ship) in danger. For a 5th edition game, this can be very important, since it may become harder and harder to actually cause tension for the players.

I would also decide on the danger level of the Sea of Dread. I mean, it has that name for a reason, so you may want to add some perilous natural features, weather or pirates. The trick is to not go too crazy with the bizarre and the terrifying. You want to save that kind of thing for the main event: The Isle of Dread. But you may want to make the voyage have some interesting and memorable moments.

Ragtag? Sure. But lovable just the same.

From a storytelling perspective, talk up the danger of the Sea of Dread. Perhaps most voyagers stick close to the coast and known islands. But the Sea of Dread is uncharted and filled with danger. Only the crazy or the fearless go there. Maybe the voyage starts off simple enough with some trips to local known islands. But that last stop, have the crew get nervous. Have the quartermaster triple check the supplies, because they are sailing into unknown waters. If you gave your group a nautical chart, have the navigator obsess over it, wanting to make sure they understand the distances at play. 

Then the ship leaves the known and heads into the unknown. This is a key moment in your adventure, and there should be a moment where the players and the crew let those emotions play out. Then the next encounter should reinforce that feeling of danger and oddity. Maybe a freak storm with magical properties erupts. Maybe some merfolk hail the vessel from a coral reef, and provide a hint about The Isle of Dread, or some bizarre sea creature attacks or tries to interact with the vessel. 

If you are going to include the voyage, make it memorable, but don't let it take up too much space in the adventure. The Isle of Dread is the star, the voyage is the warm up act. Pick your encounters to contrast with the world left behind, and preview the world they are entering. Then have them catch sight of the isle, and once again the crew can react. They did it! They survived the crossing of uncharted waters. And now riches and fame lie ahead - as long as they can make it back alive.

My Experience

The good thing about really turning the voyage to the Isle of Dread into an event in itself was that I really got to play up the mystery and danger of the island. When the players got a ship and crew they started the voyage into the very civilized Guild Islands (borrowed directly from Mystara).

More gazetteer action.

As the players continued south, the island civilizations became less advanced. I borrowed concepts from the Mystara gazetteer about the island Kingdom of Ierendi for this portion, and it was pretty neat. But let me clear - it was also a ton of extra work, reading these gazetteers, pulling them apart for pieces, and building adventures on them. It was fun. But it was also building up my DM Overload meter. Something I didn't realize I had. Burnout was coming right for me. 

Finally I added a magical barrier between the known sea and the mysterious islands to the south. I had been building up the dangers of the barrier for a good chunk of the game. And now I unleashed it on the players. It turned into a mini-game of insanity - literally warping the characters minds and causing them to do foolish and dangerous acts. My players were pretty resilient (this is 5th edition after all) but the crew of the ship wasn't. And putting them in danger made my players leap into heroics. 

That was the other side effect of building out the voyage. My players made friends (and in one case a lover) among the crew and officers of the ship. They really liked some of these NPCs, and to this day you can mention one of these character names, and the players will get nostalgic and happy with memories. It worked great for the barrier, because the crew was having a tough time with it, and the heroic players were doing everything they could to keep the crew from hurting themselves or others. Great stuff, and another moment that one player called his favorite event from the campaign.

After passing the barrier the sea encounters became more dangerous, the islands more wild and magical. There was more evidence of the works of ancient civilizations and gods. The players really felt like they had passed into a wild frontier of unexplored lands. And once again, I built all kinds of stuff here because I was afraid to screw up the actual Isle of Dread itself. Some of it was great, like the entire island of Colossa pulled from one of my favorite adventure movies as a kid The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. In fact it had elements from all three Harryhausen Sinbad movies, and was something I would love to run again some day. 

Oh yeah, she was there. Sadly the party never
ran into her.

All this was more work as I home-brewed more material, and tied it to more backstory elements. And continued updating the Isle of Dread with more homebrew content, so that when they arrived it felt unique and exciting. So much extra work. DM burnout was hurtling like a runaway train. And it was going to hit all too soon.

It was around this point that I really understood how powerful 5th edition player characters were. One player was running a simple Champion Fighter. Nothing special, and with simple Feats added. But the amount of damage he could dish out caught me completely by surprise. And the amount of punishment he could take was impressive as well. I also made the mistake of handing out a couple of very potent magic items to the group. Looking back, I should have nerfed them as soon as I was aware how broken they were, but I chickened out. The party really started to steamroll through encounters I thought would be very challenging. And suddenly an island full of dinosaurs looked much less impressive for this group of characters. It was one of the reasons I started to add more and more homebrew to the Isle of Dread itself - because I felt the encounters as written are just not going to be a challenge.

Eventually the party arrived at the northern islands of the archipelago including the Isle of Dread. The long overland journey, the dangerous voyage leading to this moment. I had spent two thirds of this campaign building up the isle, I felt there was no way it could live up to it. 

I was freaking out.