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modernzorker's review
5.0
If you read my review of Tales From the Yawning Portal, then you know of my fondness for adventure compilations. Translating an adventure from one edition of the game to another is not an easy feat, so I'm eternally grateful when someone else does the hard work. A big problem with Yawning Portal is that it only existed to compile a clump of adventures between two covers. Rather than picking modules with a unifying theme from within, the Wizards team instead adapted modules with a unifying theme from without: some of the most (in)famous adventures in the game's history, all of which are long out-of-print in their physical incarnations. Excellent for grognards like me, or for curiosity seekers wondering what all the fuss with Tomb of Horrors was about, but not so hot for new Dungeon Masters looking for a campaign suited for new players.
Ghosts of Saltmarsh, by contrast, corrects much of what Wizards didn't get right with the previous translation anthology. So let's dig deeper and see what Saltmarsh holds for your party of scurvy landlubbers, shall we? Also, here there be minor spoilers. Anyone complaining will be keelhauled, then used as bait to troll for sharks.
Hoist Up the Sails!
Ghosts of Saltmarsh, as previously mentioned, compiles seven separate adventures into one campaign all themed around nautical exploration, meant to take a group of 1st level PCs all the way to level 15 or thereabouts. Anyone who gets sea-sick or hates the smell of brine will be downright miserable. Here's a quick run-down of the stories you'll find within:
- "The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh", written by Don Turnbull and David J. Brown, was originally published by TSR's UK division back in 1981 as U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. Much like Gary Gygax's B2: The Keep on the Borderlands, the adventure is centered on a remote frontier settlement which gives the PCs both a base of operations and plenty of opportunities to get into trouble. While the oceans are no place for low-level characters, this story has them investigating a haunted house on the edge of town. Once they've learned what's really going on, and are a bit better prepared to face it, they will move on to...
- "Danger At Dunwater". Part two of the "Saltmarsh" campaign written by Brown and Turnbull, this module was published as U2: Danger At Dunwater in 1982, and follows up on the events of the previous adventure. Now that the PCs have some experience under their belts, it's time to find out who was behind all the smuggling and kidnapping they rooted out in Sinister Secret. This leads them to a lair of lizardfolk, who are considerably better armed than expected, giving players the chance to engage in diplomacy instead of insisting on solving all their problems with broadswords and Eldritch Blasts. Assuming the party isn't composed entirely of murder-hobos, and they survive the trip through the marshlands, they may encounter a burly half-orc with an interesting job proposition, which leads into...
- "Salvage Operation", a 2005 adventure for 3rd Edition written by Mike Mearls and published in issue 123 of Dungeon magazine. The PCs are hired by a noble to investigate a derelict vessel in search of a considerable sum of money which their benefactor is all too willing to share with them should they recover it. Unfortunately, as anyone who has ever played Space Hulk knows, derelict ships rarely get that way by accident, and out in the middle of the ocean, there's no one to hear you scream. Whether they actually retrieve the promised fortune or not, the waterlogged party can make their way back to dry land and rest up until danger once again comes calling in...
- "Isle of the Abbey", a 1992 adventure for 2nd Edition written by Randy Maxwell and published in issue 34 of Dungeon. A local mariners guild is interested in building a lighthouse to aid passage for ships through treacherous waters, and they've found the perfect island upon which to erect it. Fortunately, the island is uninhabited: after being sacked by pirates, who burned the abbey and everything else on the remote outcropping, the pirates were themselves attacked and scattered by soldiers from the guild. All the PCs have to do is make sure the island is cleared of any remaining threats so the guild can build their lighthouse. Easy peasy lemon-squeezy, right? Suuuuuure, buddy, whatever you say.... In any case, once they've given the place the once-over, they'll be ready for a return trip to Saltmarsh to spend their coin and encounter...
- "The Final Enemy", the conclusion to the original Saltmarsh trilogy by Turnbull and Brown, published in 1983 as U3: The Final Enemy. Now that they've dealt with the smugglers and figured out what's up with the lizardfolk, the denizens of Saltmarsh want the party to lead an intelligence-gathering mission into the heart of enemy territory. If the PCs can keep a lid on their noisiest and most violent tendencies and report back their findings, they'll win the honor of being first in line when the true assault begins. After the dust settles and Saltmarsh has been saved(?), a journey to greener pastures awaits in...
- "Tammeraut's Fate", written by Greg Vaughn for 3rd Edition, and published in Dungeon #106 in 2004. Piracy is one of those high-risk occupations, so when the vessel Tammeraut sank with all hands aboard lost, nobody shed a tear. Five years went by peacefully, until the sudden attack on nearby Firewatch Island. The PCs are commissioned to investigate why the hermitage was over-run and determine if there's any further danger posed to the surrounding area, only to ultimately find themselves in the middle of a final stand where they are besieged on all sides. Should they manage to repel the attackers, they'll be only too happy to leave Firewatch and head for safer waters, which they absolutely will not find in...
- "The Styes", written by Richard Pett for 3rd Edition, and published in Dungeon #121 in 2005. This four-part adventure serves as the campaign's capstone, bringing the PCs to a down-trodden harbor city which has fallen on hard times and is now mostly crumbling ruins filled with inhabitants too poor to leave, or too thoroughly evil to overlook the opportunities presented by the slums. Initially looking to catch a ghostly murderer, the characters come to realize there's more to The Styes than meets the eyes. For as unsafe as the streets of the former city are, the dangers there pale in comparison to those lurking in the murky waters just off-shore.
With seven different adventures all themed around watery encounters, Ghosts of Saltmarsh does a far better job at building itself as a campaign world than Tales From the Yawning Portal did. The original Saltmarsh trilogy was lauded in its day for being such a different take on the "kick-in-the-door" dungeon crawl so common at the time, and the Wizards design team went to great lengths to build the town up as a base of operations suitable for low- to mid-level characters in this book. The writers assert that DMs could use both products to inter-weave a massive campaign of both sea- and land-based adventures, and given Yawning Portal offers up no such towns or cities for the PCs to call home, using Saltmarsh as the campaign's beachhead is a fine idea.
All of the adventures in Ghosts of Saltmarsh were originally set in Greyhawk, but the book includes ideas for each adventure's placement in Eberron, the Forgotten Realms, or Mystara, as well as generic information about the surrounding areas so you can tailor them into your own campaign. You'll also need to modify some of the text to reflect different pantheons as necessary, since nobody outside of Greyhawk would know or care about, for example, deities like Iuz or Tharizdun.
Otherwise, about all you'll need to get started in Saltmarsh is photocopies of the maps, and your core rulebooks. Everything else you need, including sea vessel statistics, new adventure hooks and one-shot maps + ideas, sea travel, ship-to-ship combat, water hazards, magical items, and new monsters and NPCs is contained in the seventy pages which comprise the book's three appendices. Even if you aren't planning to run the Saltmarsh storyline, the rules for travel by boat and various ship templates open up a world of possibilities to broaden your players' horizons.
I really can't say enough good things about Ghosts of Saltmarsh. The adventure choices are all solid, I didn't notice any glaring errors generated by the update to 5E the way I did with Yawning Portal, and there are as many opportunities for role-playing and problem solving as there are to lob spells and swing blades. Even if you don't use it as a full-fledged water-themed campaign, many of the adventures make for nice side-treks if you need to bolster a party's levels before they take on a more difficult task, or if you need a solid one-shot for a night when the group can't all meet up. Saltmarsh itself makes for a great base of operations for low- and mid-level PCs looking to make names for themselves before setting out for larger cities like Waterdeep.
About the only thing I don't care for with this book is the same complaint I have with many other 5E hardcovers: the designers' choice to banish the statistics for monsters, NPCs, and magical items to an appendix in the back of the book, instead of right within the text where they're needed. Furthermore, they're arranged in alphabetical order instead of broken down by chapter, which makes it even more annoying to locate the information you as the DM need to know for running a particular adventure. Why 5E went with this decision I'll never know, but it flies in the face of common sense and continues to irritate me.
Aside from that minor grievance though? Ghosts of Saltmarsh is an awesome total package which should serve to make your players think twice before going anywhere near a the sea. Four-and-a-half waterlogged halflings out of five!
Ghosts of Saltmarsh, by contrast, corrects much of what Wizards didn't get right with the previous translation anthology. So let's dig deeper and see what Saltmarsh holds for your party of scurvy landlubbers, shall we? Also, here there be minor spoilers. Anyone complaining will be keelhauled, then used as bait to troll for sharks.
Hoist Up the Sails!
Ghosts of Saltmarsh, as previously mentioned, compiles seven separate adventures into one campaign all themed around nautical exploration, meant to take a group of 1st level PCs all the way to level 15 or thereabouts. Anyone who gets sea-sick or hates the smell of brine will be downright miserable. Here's a quick run-down of the stories you'll find within:
- "The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh", written by Don Turnbull and David J. Brown, was originally published by TSR's UK division back in 1981 as U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. Much like Gary Gygax's B2: The Keep on the Borderlands, the adventure is centered on a remote frontier settlement which gives the PCs both a base of operations and plenty of opportunities to get into trouble. While the oceans are no place for low-level characters, this story has them investigating a haunted house on the edge of town. Once they've learned what's really going on, and are a bit better prepared to face it, they will move on to...
- "Danger At Dunwater". Part two of the "Saltmarsh" campaign written by Brown and Turnbull, this module was published as U2: Danger At Dunwater in 1982, and follows up on the events of the previous adventure. Now that the PCs have some experience under their belts, it's time to find out who was behind all the smuggling and kidnapping they rooted out in Sinister Secret. This leads them to a lair of lizardfolk, who are considerably better armed than expected, giving players the chance to engage in diplomacy instead of insisting on solving all their problems with broadswords and Eldritch Blasts. Assuming the party isn't composed entirely of murder-hobos, and they survive the trip through the marshlands, they may encounter a burly half-orc with an interesting job proposition, which leads into...
- "Salvage Operation", a 2005 adventure for 3rd Edition written by Mike Mearls and published in issue 123 of Dungeon magazine. The PCs are hired by a noble to investigate a derelict vessel in search of a considerable sum of money which their benefactor is all too willing to share with them should they recover it. Unfortunately, as anyone who has ever played Space Hulk knows, derelict ships rarely get that way by accident, and out in the middle of the ocean, there's no one to hear you scream. Whether they actually retrieve the promised fortune or not, the waterlogged party can make their way back to dry land and rest up until danger once again comes calling in...
- "Isle of the Abbey", a 1992 adventure for 2nd Edition written by Randy Maxwell and published in issue 34 of Dungeon. A local mariners guild is interested in building a lighthouse to aid passage for ships through treacherous waters, and they've found the perfect island upon which to erect it. Fortunately, the island is uninhabited: after being sacked by pirates, who burned the abbey and everything else on the remote outcropping, the pirates were themselves attacked and scattered by soldiers from the guild. All the PCs have to do is make sure the island is cleared of any remaining threats so the guild can build their lighthouse. Easy peasy lemon-squeezy, right? Suuuuuure, buddy, whatever you say.... In any case, once they've given the place the once-over, they'll be ready for a return trip to Saltmarsh to spend their coin and encounter...
- "The Final Enemy", the conclusion to the original Saltmarsh trilogy by Turnbull and Brown, published in 1983 as U3: The Final Enemy. Now that they've dealt with the smugglers and figured out what's up with the lizardfolk, the denizens of Saltmarsh want the party to lead an intelligence-gathering mission into the heart of enemy territory. If the PCs can keep a lid on their noisiest and most violent tendencies and report back their findings, they'll win the honor of being first in line when the true assault begins. After the dust settles and Saltmarsh has been saved(?), a journey to greener pastures awaits in...
- "Tammeraut's Fate", written by Greg Vaughn for 3rd Edition, and published in Dungeon #106 in 2004. Piracy is one of those high-risk occupations, so when the vessel Tammeraut sank with all hands aboard lost, nobody shed a tear. Five years went by peacefully, until the sudden attack on nearby Firewatch Island. The PCs are commissioned to investigate why the hermitage was over-run and determine if there's any further danger posed to the surrounding area, only to ultimately find themselves in the middle of a final stand where they are besieged on all sides. Should they manage to repel the attackers, they'll be only too happy to leave Firewatch and head for safer waters, which they absolutely will not find in...
- "The Styes", written by Richard Pett for 3rd Edition, and published in Dungeon #121 in 2005. This four-part adventure serves as the campaign's capstone, bringing the PCs to a down-trodden harbor city which has fallen on hard times and is now mostly crumbling ruins filled with inhabitants too poor to leave, or too thoroughly evil to overlook the opportunities presented by the slums. Initially looking to catch a ghostly murderer, the characters come to realize there's more to The Styes than meets the eyes. For as unsafe as the streets of the former city are, the dangers there pale in comparison to those lurking in the murky waters just off-shore.
With seven different adventures all themed around watery encounters, Ghosts of Saltmarsh does a far better job at building itself as a campaign world than Tales From the Yawning Portal did. The original Saltmarsh trilogy was lauded in its day for being such a different take on the "kick-in-the-door" dungeon crawl so common at the time, and the Wizards design team went to great lengths to build the town up as a base of operations suitable for low- to mid-level characters in this book. The writers assert that DMs could use both products to inter-weave a massive campaign of both sea- and land-based adventures, and given Yawning Portal offers up no such towns or cities for the PCs to call home, using Saltmarsh as the campaign's beachhead is a fine idea.
All of the adventures in Ghosts of Saltmarsh were originally set in Greyhawk, but the book includes ideas for each adventure's placement in Eberron, the Forgotten Realms, or Mystara, as well as generic information about the surrounding areas so you can tailor them into your own campaign. You'll also need to modify some of the text to reflect different pantheons as necessary, since nobody outside of Greyhawk would know or care about, for example, deities like Iuz or Tharizdun.
Otherwise, about all you'll need to get started in Saltmarsh is photocopies of the maps, and your core rulebooks. Everything else you need, including sea vessel statistics, new adventure hooks and one-shot maps + ideas, sea travel, ship-to-ship combat, water hazards, magical items, and new monsters and NPCs is contained in the seventy pages which comprise the book's three appendices. Even if you aren't planning to run the Saltmarsh storyline, the rules for travel by boat and various ship templates open up a world of possibilities to broaden your players' horizons.
I really can't say enough good things about Ghosts of Saltmarsh. The adventure choices are all solid, I didn't notice any glaring errors generated by the update to 5E the way I did with Yawning Portal, and there are as many opportunities for role-playing and problem solving as there are to lob spells and swing blades. Even if you don't use it as a full-fledged water-themed campaign, many of the adventures make for nice side-treks if you need to bolster a party's levels before they take on a more difficult task, or if you need a solid one-shot for a night when the group can't all meet up. Saltmarsh itself makes for a great base of operations for low- and mid-level PCs looking to make names for themselves before setting out for larger cities like Waterdeep.
About the only thing I don't care for with this book is the same complaint I have with many other 5E hardcovers: the designers' choice to banish the statistics for monsters, NPCs, and magical items to an appendix in the back of the book, instead of right within the text where they're needed. Furthermore, they're arranged in alphabetical order instead of broken down by chapter, which makes it even more annoying to locate the information you as the DM need to know for running a particular adventure. Why 5E went with this decision I'll never know, but it flies in the face of common sense and continues to irritate me.
Aside from that minor grievance though? Ghosts of Saltmarsh is an awesome total package which should serve to make your players think twice before going anywhere near a the sea. Four-and-a-half waterlogged halflings out of five!
jzupp's review
4.0
I really enjoyed this sourcebook and found it very easy to integrate into my homebrew world and campaign. I personally think some of the adventures are a little lackluster but what are sourcebooks if not mostly guidelines for you to follow? I do think some of the politics and geographic history are a bit too specific to seamlessly mesh into some worlds and is very much built into the canonical world of D&D but that doesn’t make it a bad sourcebook. Would definitely recommend to anyone hoping to add some sea faring adventures to their campaigns.
chrisshorb's review
4.0
Good mix of adventures. As an anthology, of course they have different places in anyone’s given campaign/game night. There are a couple I plan to use right away in one of my campaigns, potentially giving my players a choice between these and one or two from Yawning Portal.
snazel's review
4.0
The updated central adventures were fun (already ran a modified version of one and I'm definitely going to offer the others as options to my players), but I think my favourite parts were actually the new-to-this-edition parts— the character creation options at the front and the maps and possible adventures at the back.
The character options in particular have just got such a sense of buoyant joy and relishing the possibilities that mechanics can give you, story-wise— and the map adventure threads go in such wildly different tonal ways— I'm just delighted and applauding over here. If this is Kate Welch's handiwork, 5e is in good hands. (If it isn't, whatever you have in the coffee at WotC, keep buying from that supplier.)
The character options in particular have just got such a sense of buoyant joy and relishing the possibilities that mechanics can give you, story-wise— and the map adventure threads go in such wildly different tonal ways— I'm just delighted and applauding over here. If this is Kate Welch's handiwork, 5e is in good hands. (If it isn't, whatever you have in the coffee at WotC, keep buying from that supplier.)
dylansmphillips's review
3.0
Ghosts of Saltmarsh by Wizards of the Coast is an immersive non-setting-specific campaign that allows DMs to take their players to the coastal cities of a fantasy world and engage in naval-related combat and travel. While this does sound intriguing on the surface, there are a few issues with what this book attempts to sell itself as. While the campaign information and world-building certainly lends itself to being a great setting for either an entire campaign or a piece of a bigger world, the mechanics are incredibly clunky. There is next to no exploration of naval mechanics, combat, or travel, instead just making it a throwaway as part of the coastal setting. For someone who was looking to make naval travel and island hopping an exciting part of their own homebrew world, the promise of these mechanics being tested and used in an official WoTC let me down when it ended up being such a minuscule part of this book's new additions.
TL;DR: Intriguing setting and campaign prompt, but falls very short of the promise of boat mechanics, and water travel for more island-based adventures.
TL;DR: Intriguing setting and campaign prompt, but falls very short of the promise of boat mechanics, and water travel for more island-based adventures.
ddavis3739's review
5.0
Seafaring and adventure ahoy! The actual sea-based parts of the adventure require homebrew on the part of the DM but even so this is an excellent book for setting, enemies, and adventures. There are plenty of guides for linking the adventures into a campaign but each one can be run independently as well.