Ghosts of Saltmarsh: Chapter 7 - Tammeraut’s Fate

Contact Willow June on her Instagram to commission a custom picture of your character.

Something has risen up from the waves onto the shore of Firewatch Island and has cast its dark shadow upon the monks that live there.

Tammeraut’s Fate was originally written by Greg Vaughn in 2004 and published in Dungeon 106. It has been updated for 5e Dungeons & Dragons in Ghosts of Saltmarsh. The adventure takes place on Firewatch Island which is home to a sect of peaceful monks that live in the hermitage on the small island. The dark past of the island has risen up from the ocean depths and has made the hermitage a tomb.

This is the first adventure after the sahuagin trilogy was concluded in The Final Enemy, which will require the DM to do some early seeding of plot hooks to set this up. By this time in the campaign, you should have a good handle on what drives the party and know what to do (and sometimes not (more on that later)).

The party will travel to Firewatch Island and find a place that is no longer a bustling hermitage. Monsters now call the place home that once used to house monks. The players will eventually find survivors and learn what happened.

At night, the undead rise up out of the sea and attack the hermitage in wave after wave. The players will have to figure out the best way to fortify the hermitage and defend it throughout the night. If the characters survive the night, then they can go and find the wreck of the Tammeraut and seal the portal from where the evil spawns.

The problem with this adventure in conjunction with the campaign is that the characters will not be trapped on the island. They do not have to wait for the ferry because they have the Sea Ghost (unless you decided to not allow them to keep the boat). This adventure is ripe for reworking, reskinning, or outright changing. The latter part of the adventure plays into the strengths of the campaign with it being underwater, but the early part of it is in need of some updates to work in the campaign.

There are some challenging monsters to deal with and a fair amount of exploring inside the hermitage. The treasure is decent with plenty of magic items for the players to enjoy. The bones of this adventure are good even if they don’t seem to fit into the body of the Saltmarsh campaign.

How it Played

To be honest, I don’t know how it played because my players completely skipped this adventure. The irony of them walking away from this adventure is thick and dripping with disappointment. The picture on page 143 is the one that inspired my interpretation of Donivald, the father of many of the characters in the campaign and all-around bad guy.   I had the players visit the island after Salvage Operation for some needed help and rest. I thought that the connection they had made to the island’s inhabitants would be strong enough for them to investigate what happened or to at least take a quick look around.   The players arrived on the island soon after they fought and defeated Hood’s Gloom. I had hoped to sink the Monkey’s Carnage in the Hood’s Gloom fight which would force the players to leave survivors of their crew on the island and they would have to make sure it was safe first. I had at least thought they would want to see the fate of Janore Stormswake, but the players arrived, saw that there was no one there from the dock, and said no to looking around.

The party was on a mission and believed that they could not spare the time, but I was surprised at how little they cared to see why the once vibrant island was now vacant and dead. Luckily, I had introduced the situation on Firewatch Island at the end of a session and knew that the players were not going to investigate it. This allowed me to prepare for the next session without too much wasted time. I did kick off the session where they left the island with the monstrous preyton, which the party almost killed (it was the second time that they met the monster, and the second time they failed to kill it).

What I Changed

I scavenged the adventure and took the undead and placed them on the island of the chained god. I also took some of the treasure and placed it on the Tammeraut, which was now moored off of the island of the chained god. This is what you do if your players skip your adventures. You don’t throw away the material, but you re-purpose it in other places.

I will publish the adventures that I created for the climax of the campaign on the website, but they are very specific to my party of players so you might not be able to use them verbatim. I used material from the back of the Ghosts of Saltmarsh book as the basis of some of the adventure pieces.

I made the Tammeraut the center of the Sea Shanty. A collection of ships that had gotten lost at sea and ended up stuck in the pocket realm of the island controlled by the followers of the chained god. The players refused to investigate the ship (are you getting a theme to the last part of this adventure?). There were clues to the fate of the crew and her captain (and a couple of monsters) onboard. It was a lesson that when you get to the end of the campaign and the players know it then they do not get distracted.

Aftermath

The party sailed on following the Eye of the Sunset’s glow to find the island of the chained god. The party locked up Mac because of his black eyes from when he killed Hood’s Gloom. I get why the party did that in the story, but this is a game and having a player sit and do nothing at the table was not good to watch. Mac escaped as soon as the party left the Monkey’s Carnage to investigate the island (it is hard to keep a bard captive who has dimension door).

My Ratings

Ratings are not about quality, but quantity. A low number means very little or none of something, while a high number means that it is the main focus of the adventure.

Roleplaying: 4

There are not many survivors on the island and quite a few monsters that would rather fight than talk.

Combat: 9

This adventure is all about the fight. The hermitage will need to be cleared and then defended.

Exploring: 7

The characters will need to get the lay of the land and find the survivors that are hiding on the island before they can make their stand.