This professor is an archeologist and has secured funding to investigate some old ruins on an island a few days away. He needs protection and after, either hearing of their exploits around town or getting recommended by Captain Malosi, will approach the party and ask them to join him. Assuming your party takes the bait, they will step foot on a ship and sail over to the next island. This is a great time for them to stretch their sailing muscles, they can help on the ropes, they can navigate or hang out in the kitchen all day and prepare food. This gives the party a chance to try out sailing, but the ship isn’t going to crash into a rock if they mess up a roll, there will be senior officers on board who can provide advantage and guidance when it comes to sailing the ship.

On the ship

While the party is on the ship, we can include some sort of encounter. This could be anything from mephits or sharks or goblins. I’m thinking that maybe they come across a capsized keelboat with a lone goblin sitting on top of the ‘bottom’ of the upside down ship, excited to see someone else on the ocean. If the party decides to pick them up, the goblin can explain that it was just out fishing when its boat flipped over. This isn’t a very believable story, as a keelhaul is way too big of a ship to be used solely for fishing or be piloted by a lone goblin. In fact, the goblin had committed mutiny against their hobgoblin overlords and this goblin is the only survivor…. after pushing the other goblins into the water to feed the shark that was circling the capsized ship.

This goblin could prove helpful to the party… or jsut a be a general nuisance, but its for the party to decide and makes the table interact with each other about what to do with a goblin.

Upon arrival

Once the party finally lands on the island, they can help set up a small outpost on the beaches, and then follow Professor Atamai into the forest. After a day or two of traveling the island, they come across the ruins! These ruins are currently part of the territory of grungs, lizardfolk and maybe even a few yuan-ti. The party will have to pick sides in the conflict, either helping out a specific group, uniting two groups against the other or by destroying all three. It’s their choice, and there will be plenty of opportunities for them to interact with each side and come up with their own ideas. Once they secure the ruins, Professor Atamai can begin archeologing and after a day or so find a hidden tomb. Upon opening the tomb, the party can go murderhobo on some undead, loot the place and find some sweet magic items.

At this point, Professor Atamai can return back to the university to let them know what he has found and to request a larger team to accompany him. Which would then drag our party back to U’amea and to the real catalyst of the story, the siege conducted by the hobgoblins and how they must travel into the archipelago to find the missing townsfolk and find the hobgoblin leaders and put an end to these raids.

Wrapping Up

If all goes well, this post should actually save and I won’t lose a bunch of work…. hopefully. Sadly, this does mean that you get a stripped down version of my ideas as I work through them and I have learned a valuable lesson of making sure squarespace is working right when you use it… and save often. ALWAYS BE SAVING!!!!!

Next week, not yet sure on what we will be working on. We could begin work on the next beginning adventure, or jump to creating more islands or work on the end goal story. The adventure is our painting, and we can paint where we want too! Even if its outside the lines.