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Placing Saltmarsh

Warning

If you are a player, go no further. This is the realm of game masters and dungeon masters.

Danger

Perhaps you didn't hear me the first time. If you are a player, go no further. This is the realm of game masters and dungeon masters. Dragons - plural - lurk here.

The adventure book Ghosts of Saltmarsh is well suited for play in Antire. Let's look at a few reasons.

  1. The kind of sea going adventure definitely sits well in our 1600s-1700s mood.
  2. While there's plenty of the usual good/evil racial text in the original adventures, it's easy to filter it out and the lizard folk practically are built to challenge species based assumptions.
  3. So little is known about the sahuagin in general that it's easy to cast this as a fringe empire out of the ocean depths trying to expand its borders, not that the species is inherently evil.
  4. It's entirely possible to get through the middle adventure in the main trilogy without much combat! A crafty DM can set it up for zero with a few tweaks.
  5. The seafaring rules are a huge addition for an Oenklay campaign given how much Oenklay relies on sea routes.

So, if we're going to put Saltmarsh in Antire, where would it be?

On the Imsea (some older maps call this the Inner Sea). Romhai can be a darker version of Keoland and the backstory of Keoland being able to focus on the Saltmarsh area because wars in the north have settled down can be easily applied to a cooling off of the usually hot Romhai/Anealeas relationship.

Joring could fit easily, but I'd go for either Southsea as it's part of Romhai, or Middlesea. Middlesea is an independent town of East Province, one of the biggest net exporters of dried fish, and why not have Romhai muscling in to secure its valuable trade against the usual depredations of the Shatterend pirates, corsairs, and freebooters?

Brief notes on the various adventures follow.

Saltmarsh

In Saltmarsh itself, there are three factions we should think about who they represent in Oenklay's world. For the traditionalists and loyalists, we don't need to do much other than change "Keoland" to "Romhai". The other faction (saving the spoilers) can easily be a Cuernero faction looking to replay the Pestilence (always a threat).

If we use Middlesea or Joring, then it's easy to make the mining company one of the Einea trade houses. I'd de-dwarf it a bit but not entirely. Dwarves are still well suited to underground. Just add some non-dwarves. Gnomes, goblins and even kobolds can work the same tunnels (in universe racism should not be overdone, but it shouldn't be ignored either).

The rest of "Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh" can play pretty vanilla without too many other changes except for flavor and names.

Sea elves need a new name. I'll noodle on that.

Dunwater

"Danger at Dunwater" almost doesn't need to be touched other than to tweak some of the racial aspects. Put some thought into how the sahaugin expansionists relate to the Shatterend anarchists... maybe sahaugin agents are the reason it stays lawless?

Frankly, the koalinth aren't very well characterized in this adventure. Maybe they're an amphibious pirate band from the Shatterend?

Salvage Operation

Remember what I said about no orcs? Also, no half-orcs. Change any of the flavor to Antire flavor and this is good to go: Thee Island in question probably sits in the western Shatterend, the quest giver is from Einea.

Isle of the Abbey

This one begs for Middlesea given the role of pirates wants this to be further east (closer to the Shatterend) than Joring. Make the "Mariners guild" one of the Einean or Romhaian trade houses. The guild feels more Einea than Romhai to me, but whatever floats your boat. If you want it to be Romhai, then probably it should be a more official government quest giver than a guild.

The Final Enemy

Not much to do here to prep this now: you set the stage for this in Saltmarsh and Dunwater. Emphasize the nation vs nation, not species vs. species.

Tammeraut’s Fate

Again, not much to do here beyond name changing. The general wildness of the sea coast this is set on feels right for East Province and these hermits fit Antire's idea of religion pretty well... they are philosophers more than theologians.

The Styes

This is another adventure that can go roleplay heavy.

I might move this one to Southsea. The general squalor of the settlement feels right for a town that gets little attention from Romhai's government and Romhai is corruption personified in general. Both this and the prior one set up long term, high level plots that can play very well in and around Imsea. The big bads in this adventure can be invaders from the other realms (not all are mindless blobs of tentacles and pseudopodia) and that storyline fits Oenklay nicely.

Something to think on: Maybe the big bads expanding their own empire is what pushed the sahaugin into their own expansion?