Sharks on Spree
November 1st, 2011
Hello everyone, and welcome to another exciting Grave Plots, where we bring you new plot hooks and adventure ideas each and every week. This week we'll be continuing with our series of plots involving your favorite animals with another of the world's great predators (why is it no one likes harmless herbivores?): the shark. Now for those of you who didn't know, “shark” isn't an animal; rather, it's a classification of animal containing numerous subspecies, and it would be irresponsible of me to try to represent that wide variety of life in a single adventure. Now I know some of you are thinking that “wolf” or “hyena” aren't one species either, but I more or less just lumped them in together. While this is true, let it suffice to say that compared to those animals, sharks are somewhat more diverse, with over 440 different species over 8 different extant orders and 5 extinct orders (and those are just the ones we know about). As such, today we will be focusing on the large nasty apex predators everyone thinks about when they think about sharks, the ones the stats in the Bestiary are supposed to represent. These might be great whites, tiger sharks, hammer heads, or any other kind of serious predatory shark your heart desires.
Ordinarily, this is the part of the article where I break down some basic facts about the featured animal and sort of fill you in on the backstory. However, today we're talking about sharks, and chances are good that if you get the Discovery Channel you know all there is to know about sharks and then some, and if you find yourself wanting to more about these fascinating creatures I recommend waiting for the next animal show to come on TV and let them fill you in. Who knows, it may be shark week right now. For those of you without a TV or without time for TV, you can always scope out Wikipedia for some basic information and background – it's what I do when I want to know more about something but don't really have the time or inclination to do a properly thorough job researching the subject.
So, OK, sharks are cool, but unfortunately for your D&D game, they live in the water: a place your bold and mighty heroes probably avoid like their mother in-laws at Thanksgiving. So the trick becomes creating adventures that get the PCs in the water so that the shark can claim its place in the spotlight. As you might have guessed, I have a few plot suggestions for you to flesh out so that you can bring the PCs face-to-face with the most dreaded predators of the ocean deep.
The Treasure of Alice Reef
In my experience, nothing quite motivates a group of adventurers like rare and exotic treasure. Sure, every halfway decent city has somebody dealing in +3 swords and the occasional villain will leave some mouthwatering loot, but what really gets PCs to go out of their way to do something is the chance to get at the "good stuff": magic mirrors, minor artifacts, and setting-specific, DM-created homebrew treasures that you just can't get at the swap meet. This plot will serve you well in getting some of that spectacular treasure into the hands of PCs who are willing to go that extra mile to get it, and works best as a side quest between adventures which actually advance the main campaign plot. Of course, there's nothing really stopping you from finding a good way to let this adventure advance your plot, but as a matter of personal taste, I find these sort of adventures make for a good break in the action and allow your players to recover a bit from the excitement of the main story.
In a small country inn styled the Hen and Horse, the kindly old proprietor, Jaem Scon, likes to tell stories to the passing travelers about the locally famous treasure of Alice Reef. Little did he know that it was no group of common travelers who had come to stay at his in on the way to the city, but rather a group of great heroes (or at least amateur adventurers) looking for a place to recover after their last quest, when he begins his tale. 30 years ago, when he was just a boy and his father ran the inn, there was a great crash at the nearby barrier reef and a ship carrying great treasure for the royal museum was sunk just off the coast. A survivor from the ship, Thom Luuk, managed to make his way to shore and eventually found shelter at the inn. Thom had been out of sorts from the trauma of the crash and had spent the better part of the night raving about frenzying sea demons which devoured the crew. Initially Jaem believed the sailor to be addled, but in the morning when he had had time to calm down and explained to Jaem's father (who then told Jaem) just what the ship had been carrying, it made more sense that such rare and powerful magical items might indeed have attracted demons. Jaem's father obviously disagreed, as the next day, after the sailor had moved on (still perhaps a bit shaken up but eager to get on with his life) he journeyed to the site of the wreck and made an effort to recover the lost treasure himself. Jaem warned his dad not to go, but he wouldn't be dissuaded. Sure enough, just minutes after entering the water, bubbles broke the surface, a pale echo of his father’s screams, and the waters ran red with blood.
While Jaem was grieving and going about the business of trying to keep an inn afloat as a 11-year-old boy, Thom had apparently told his story in the city and a stream of adventurers came to the reef in search of the ship’s lost treasure. Despite his best efforts to warn of the demons living at the reef, the adventurers’ lust for treasure and overconfidence saw all of them going on ahead, one after another, despite the now obvious danger. Few of these so-called heroes returned from their excursions, and those who did were much like Thom, having lost friends or limbs and wrapped in a sort of amazed madness which wouldn't allow them to give full or accurate descriptions, at least not to Jaem, as to what went on at the reef. After a year or two, adventurers stopped coming from the city, though occasionally a wandering hero or some such would seek to test himself against the reef. After another few years, none but the most daring would even consider going to recover that lost treasure, and a rumor in the city claimed that adventurers in years past had made off with it all ages ago, a rumor Jaem will happily dispute as he's been present for all the attempts to uncover that lost treasure.
Once the PCs’ greed and lust for glory gets the better of them, they should likely begin to prepare for an underwater adventure where they can uncover some truly good loot. The PCs will, of course, have to contend with the fabled demons of Alice Reef, which, if you haven't guessed it by now, are actually a school of sharks that lives near the reef and preys on small fish and foolish adventurers. While the PCs might initially be disappointed at the lack of demons, they may soon wish they were fighting fiends instead as the sharks swarm about the reef, making approaching difficult without battling these fearsome undersea foes on their home turf, a dangerous prospect for even mighty heroes.
Well, that’s it for this week's Grave Plots. I hope to see you next week for more great plot hooks and adventure ideas.