Adventure Sites 3: Rockall

​For B/X, Levels 5-7
By Stooshie & Stramash
This adventure can be (1) dropped in as the location on a treasure map, “here be sea monsters!”, showing Rockall and the name of one of the named sunken vessels areas 2-5, or (2) to investigate strange weather, lost ships and reports of sea devils.
   There’s something romantic about the lonely sea stack of Rockall, remote and tiny and barren set amidst the storms and surf in the middle of the North Atlantic. It’s just a little dot on the map in the middle of the north Atlantic Ridge, but something about it calls to the imagination. So it’s odd, then, we don’t see more sea stacks in our dungeon adventures. Stooshie, second-place winner of Adventure Site Contest I, aims to rectify this lack.
   Story on this one is pretty normal, a horrible custom sea hag lives deep within the sea stack, hanging out and occasionally doing Hag Things, but otherwise chill. Rocs nest on the stack top, natch. This isn’t a site that reaches out to grab you, this is a rumor to plop on the map, as said above. The sea stack is a small part of a bigger seamount, most of which lies just a little under the water and is dotted with crashed ships, monster oddities, and a merman village. Despite the centrality of the above-water portion of the site, it’s very much all about the whole plateau. 

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​   …as you can see in the maps. So, so many maps. Levels 5-7 is just a little into True Expert zone so there’s no handholding here with free water breathing or other gimmie solutions, you’re just suppose to figure out the “outdoor” site here. Given the nature of swimming this is almost a “fly anywhere” site, so just a collection of locations. It’s a smart collection in a very realistic site, but I’m not sure how much the proposed “kelp forests block pathing” aspect works. Still, a lot of interest in exploring here, definitely in the “DM maps this” category though.
   Our first challenge is in underwater combat. B/X don’t do it, so the writer tells you a correct answer (use 1E) or the popular answer (here’s a rule kludge). The in-module rules all look sane upon first glance, but I have no idea how they’d work in edge cases. It does look like the module expects players to be walking around on the seafloor with water breathing.
   I get a little nervous about the balance at the lower end here, there are a lot of wrecks around the sea stack for a very good reason; those two rocs are horrifically dangerous for most boats. They’re supposed to just be kidnapping lawful characters, but hard to communicate their intentions. Add in the (abstracted) bad weather too, I’m not sure how we envision pick-up and drop-off. Everything monster-wise is tough, especially to fight underwater…plenty of D&D sea monsters, of course, but there are also humanoid undead and I’m particularly fond of “panicky school of fish” acting like bat swarms but underwater. Tough as the hag is the real big fight is Gronda the Dragon Turtle, who, to be fair, takes a lot of effort to wake up/activate. I’m not sure why you want to wake her up, but hey, adds some chaos. The mermen are stated like a tribe of combatants but we’re mostly assuming negotiation with them. They’re reluctant to fight with the PCs but do provide some of their considerable treasure if an alliance gets hammered out. Traps and hazards are mostly “you’re in the ocean”, but there’s also the chance of trapping yourself in a giant clam, that’s fun…it’s baited by a skeleton arm with a gold ring, so you can’t complain that the module didn’t warn you. My favorite NPC is a desperate cleric trapped in a giant clam who’s been down there for years, sustained by magic. Kind of loot, all the best henchmen are the deranged and traumatized ones.
   Treasure here is appropriately fantastic, sunken wrecks with holds full of gold, magic weapons among the bones of monsters, jewelry and gems and in one place 2,000pp hidden under guano. The biggest pile of loot is under the hag and is extremely mobile (includes the rocs’ egg so if you did manage to talk to them there’s a sticky wicket). Dredging up piles of coins from undead-infested wrecks is a Logistics & Dragons moment…I like it, but some will complain.
   This is a big, tricky, and somewhat confusing environment but it’s also very cool, and very easy to insert into any campaign world with an ocean. I’m not quite sure how aspects of the underwater adventuring will play (particularly in B/X), but underwater adventures are rare and I’m impressed with the effort to make a good one here.

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