Tales From the Tabletop

Yaaaaaaaaaaas! I'm excited for this community to exist on Lemmy.

I'll be happy to kick it off with a nautical campaign mini-dungeon concept from a PF1e campaign I DM'd many moons ago.

PCs found a map with an "X" on it. And you all know what an "X" means. It also had a password printed on it. They didn't yet have a ship, so they rented a ship to get to the "X". It was in a fjord with huge, tall straight-vertical cliffs around it.

They spoke the password and the cliff face opened into a massive 50-ft wide, 100-ft tall doorway.

The whole dungeon from enterence to the end was the same width and height as the doorway but ascending the whole way with a trench running down the middle of the floor. Old half-rotten barriers with doors divided rooms from each other. The creatures there were mostly slimes/oozes/jellies.

The final door had a puzzle to it with keys they'd picked up on the way.

The final room held an ancient, legendary schooner in dry dock. They boarded and the ship itself came to life, attacking them with animated ropes.

After the fight went on for a bit, the ship recognized the fighting style of the pirate class PC. Turns out he was a reincarnation of an ancient legendary pirate. The very ancient legendary pirate who used to captain this ship. The ship accepted him as captain.

The next trick was to get the ship out of the dry dock. It was then that they noticed the ropes, pulleys, and trap doors high up all along all the walls of this room.

The party pulled ropes and the trap doors opened, unleashing a torrent of water washing the ship down the trench, crashing through all the wooden barriers as it went. (This ship had magically augmented ramming capabilities.)

With great speed, it flew out of the cliff face, crashing straight through the ship they'd rented, cleaving it neatly in two. And now they had themselves a magical ship of their own for further nautical adventures. Though the folks they rented the other ship from were none too pleased when they didn't get their ship back.