Now that Under the Seas of Vodari is in the hands of (what I hope is) an adoring public, we’re putting together a Patreon for ongoing setting support. Think of this blog post as me doing some writing warm-ups, getting back into the mindset of the surface regions of the setting.

The Frost Door

In the Arushi city of Meri, the characters notice a door that glitters with frost, even on the hottest days of summer. The door seems to change locations each day at midnight – there simply ceases to be a door there, and this frost door shows up elsewhere. If they observe the door from hiding, a small number of unusual figures find the door, enter, and go through, and a similar number emerge from it. Most of these people seem to be arcane spellcasters of some kind.

While it is closed, the door requires a magical password to open. Once the PCs have noted the door and, ideally, become curious about it, they finally come across it when it is ajar. If they enter, it soon becomes clear that this is an extradimensional space for a mixed group of arcane spellcasters and their allies, including both mortal warrior-types and frost-touched fey. They are newly arrived to Meri, and the door’s random daily movement around the city provides them a measure of security while they expand their influence among the city’s power groups.

The Arachni Extraction

This adventure is for PCs willing to take a bounty-hunting contract. It’s a difficult job, with a client offering a mind-boggling amount of money – 15,000 gp or more. The target: Drouan, a lunori elf mage who stole a powerful grimoire from the Violetta Colitta, the Arcane Council’s master of Conjuration. Drouan is the head of Lunori’s spy network and very much in favor with Anneke. Initial diplomatic overtures for any form of remedy have been coldly rebuffed, so the Arcane Council seeks an alternative solution – dead or alive, as long as Drouan is punished and the grimoire returned.

The archmage of Illusion, the dragonborn Torun, offers to place long-duration illusions over the PCs, making them look like lunori elves. The mission is possible without his magic, but much more difficult – non-elven people stick out like sore thumbs in Oro. His offer comes with a further complication: he wants the PCs to find a hidden grotto on Arachni, where a powerful spell is inscribed on a submerged golden plaque.

Until My Dying Day

Ghost, one of the Pirate Isles, is mentioned only in hushed tones in taprooms across Vodari, for it lies under more than one dread curse, and is haunted by many kinds of undead. Yet the last daughter of the Pitcairn line still lives, long past the time that old age should have claimed her. Once the PCs have a reputation for courage in fighting the undead, she approaches them with her story.

When she fled Ghost, she would have fallen under the same curse that bound the rest of her family, but the god Aubori was paying attention just then and granted her his blessing. She would be renewed by the seasons, growing as ancient as oak, for as long as she needed protection from the curse. Now, at last, she hopes to lay down the burden of her centuries, and asks the PCs to take her back to Ghost, lift the curse, and let her roots grow deep in the earth as she sheds her humanity and fully embraces the god’s blessing.

On the Red Sands

Day after day, distorted sea monsters beach themselves on the sands of one of the small islands northeast of Taevara. Their beaks, toothed tendrils, and razor-sharp fins slice one another to ribbons, staining the sands, as they drag themselves up the cove toward the center of the island. The isolated religious community on the island is an ascetic order dedicated to purification of self and surroundings. They contact the Taevaran Church for aid, who put out a call for investigators.

Fighting the creatures on the sands is meaningless and unhelpful – they don’t survive more than a few hours above water anyway, though each new day brings the last surviving creature a few feet closer to the monastery. Investigation reveals that Dokahi’s servants have placed a mutagenic curse upon a spawning pit a few miles from the cove; one solution is to go down to the spawning pit and break the magic.

Alternately, the PCs might build a seawall defending the cove (this makes strange things happen), or might discover what it is at the monastery that draws the creatures to it – a relic of Dokahi concealed within the monastery’s vault. Disturbing the relic unleashes horrific transmutation and conjuration magics, unless it is given a blood offering to make it quiescent and immediately returned to the deep sea. The relic was stolen from Dokahi by a cultist with a grudge against the Taevarans, and Dokahi rewards anyone who returns her treasure with a minimum of bloodshed.

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You can now buy Under the Seas of Vodari in PDF!

Under the Seas of Vodari is a 300-page book that provides 5E/Fifth Edition material for both gamemasters and players to dive into a world full of action and adventure set beneath the waves of Vodari or your own campaign world. This book is a follow-up to The Seas of Vodari, a setting book filled with swashbuckling action and magical adventure. Dive into your first adventure today!