Ravenous Grab Bag- A "Live Blog" of Stormwrack and things I like in it

To give a little background of my TTRPG history, I've been playing table-top games in the D&D tradition for about a decade now. I began with 4th edition and have slowly worked my way backwards, running and playing in a large variety of game systems and formats.

As the years have gone on my RPG collection has grown quite large. Something I find helpful from time to time is to scour the depths of my lesser or even unused books for ideas and concepts that would be cool to implement in the games I run *right now*.

There is a *lot* of good content out there and sometimes I get a kick out of hyper-focusing on a single author or product and using it as an "idea farm" and I thought it might be interesting to record that process.

So here's what I'm going to do

I'm going to read/"liveblog" an RPG book. Much of my collection is from 3rd edition/Pathfinder which is not the system I currently play, so the actually mechanical stuff will be looked over in favor of what I could conceptually use or adapt.

There will be much skimming.
I'll probably miss stuff.
It'll be very stream of consciousness/rambly.
There will be some snark.

At the end, I'm going to make a list of "things I would steal and use in my games RIGHT NOW*" and then maybe also a list of "things that are cool but maybe not my style at the moment but would definitely be happy to play in a game with or may reference in the future or whatever my dudes"

For reference, right now my rule-set of choice are a Knave/GLOG hack-in-progress of my own making. I also have a 5e Ghostwalk inspired campaign ongoing as well.

I'm going to do the 3.5 book Stormwrack first as it happens to be the nearest book and I vaguely remember liking it. Its supposed to be stuff for an aquatic campaign.

LET US BEGIN

Authors are Richard Baker, Joseph D. Carriker, and Jennifer Clarke Wilkes.

TL:DR of "Good Stuff" at the bottom

Chapter 1 "Into The Maelstrom" 

A Poe quote as the opener.  Some generalities about ...water, I guess.

Oh this is cool. - "Adventuring in or around the water revolves around one of four basic themes: the water obstacle, the seafaring adventure, the mythic-island adventure, and the underwater adventure."

It's somewhat obvious in hindsight but I appreciate the categorization and it might be helpful to structure water adventures I guess.

There's some explanations and definitions that go on a bit too long. I know what a Lake is, thank you very much.

Some very fiddly rules about salt water vs fresh water. I don't really miss the exhaustive rules part of 3rd edition.

PLANAR bodies of water you say?

Elemental Plane of Water has no surface and big ole' bubble cities. Apparently though if you go through the right portal on a ship you can end up on the *inside* of a bubble pocket and sail around the inner-bubble-border which is pretty dope. Visually it's cool to picture a setting inside a bubble surrounded by water and looking up to see pirate ships sail above you upside-down.

This is interesting - "PORPHATYS - The fifth layer of Carceri is a infinite string of worldlets covered in cold, shallow oceans over which acidic black snow perpetually falls"

I like infinite black acid snow. Feels like the type of ocean that would fit the aesthetics of Monsieur's Thawing Kingdom.

The rest of the planar stuff is mostly just Styx and its contemporaries in heaven and elf heaven (Elysium).

Next is some very involved rules about various water hazards. I'm only lightly skimming this part.

Some rules for diseases and such. Nothing speaks to me much.

Here we go: Supernatural dangers.

Airy/Airless water does what it sounds like it does.
Dead Calm- kinda interesting when combined with "Suntouch". Big pocket of stillwater and heat that makes you insane.
Maelstrom: its a super hurricane with supernatural origins.
Stormfire: It's a....green ghost-lightning-fire that magically combusts when someone touches it. Huh.

Even more rules for....terrain this time. Yawn.

Sargasso's are cool. Kelp forests you can walk on.

Some rules for navigation that are very long and involved.

Some rules clarifying how spells interact with ships. Weird and seems unnecessary. It's like a whole page of "Yes, this FIRE spell can start a FIRE. No, this other FIRE spell cannot* start a FIRE".

20 adventure ideas:
Mostly very generic but with an aquatic twist. X is guarding Y but underwater.

...
What the hell is an ixitxachitl? googles ah yes, the evil intelligent literal-stingrays, right.

Here's the quest hooks I actually like:
A dark, still lake in the jungle is said to hold tons of gold sacrificed to a strange lake god.
A mysterious storm batters a port for months without abating.

Both of them fit into pretty much any world without the assumption that the characters have to be "heroes" to hold an interest.

Chapter 2: Races of the Sea

First up is the Aventi. They're...basically just humans from "not-Atlantis". Mutated by a patron sea god who gave them aesthetically pleasing fins. There's some adventure hooks that read like they came straight from literally any Aquaman comic.

Next is Darfellans. Orca people that are almost extinct. This is interesting "... darfellan society was a complex caste-based culture, but now too few survivors remain for a caste system to work. Still, darfellans are apt to categorize people by their occupation or function; learning someone’s job is more important than learning someone’s name." There's all these reference to being hunted by the Sahuagin but it doesn't say why, and in absence of an explanation I'm going to assume that orca-people are either delicious or produce whale-oil. Heh, one of the adventure hooks is just "...like The Seven Samurai..."

These society overviews are very thorough.

Third is Aquatic Elves which seem bland. Not enough weirdness, literally just Elves, BUT UNDERWATER!!

Hell yeah I almost forgot about Hadozee. WINGED. DECK. APES. Simians with patagial flaps. While they are very cool, there is very little else interesting about their society or background. They supposedly don't have a homeland they care about, like to work, and like other Hadozee. The adventure hooks are all very generic and have nothing to do with cool winged deck apes specifically, which makes me sad.

Here's a sub section for "regular fantasy races but they're on a ship now" AKA Seafaring Cultures.

"Salt-beards" is a good nickname for dwarfs. Amphibious frog-halflings are the other cool thing in this section but only get like half a paragraph.

Chapter 3: Classes

Oh boy speed-reading time!

...
I thought I would find something but there's virtually no abilities or prestiges I find interesting in the least. Moving on.

Chapter 4: Skills and Feats

Speed reading again.

Here's a feat that let's you use channel-energy to turn the water black-and-cold. 

"Flying-Fish Leap" technique would actually be dope as a quest reward.

And...that's it.

Chapter 5: Ships and Equipment

So many rules. A list of ship types. Some cool art for an "Elf Wingship". There's also Theurgeme, which is a "boat with magic oars". 

Some ship weapons, nothing new I can see.

Water-appropriate Armor section for characters.  

Living coral is cool, its a medallion that grows coral over you like armor, dies at sundown and regrows at sunup. Acts like plate armor and stings people who touch it which seems badass but also a little impractical.

Next is water-appropriate Weapons. 

Skipping blades are shurikens you skip on the water, very fantasy ninja, I like it.

Next is some mundane equipment. Why are pirate hats so expensive!?!?!

Chapter 6: Spells and Magic Items

One of the deity names is "Blipdoolpoop" and I love it.

Some spells:

Urchin Spines is cool (2nd level). You just...grow urchin spines.

Sink-ship (called Depthsurge) is an 8th level spell. That seems a bit high to me but I don't remember much about 3e balance.

Summon-demon-kraken is 9th level, but really* seems underpowered.

Flowsight is 5th level and just "alternative scrying" but sticks out to me as interesting because of its limitations- you touch a body of water and scry on anything in contact with it.

Megaladon Empowerment is a badass name for a spell.

Siren's Call is a 4th level "Command: Drown Yourself" spell that's kinda dark.

Stormwalk (6th level) is one of the weirdest teleportation spells I've read with multiple steps. Basically you summon TWO storms, one where you are and one where you want to be. Then you poof and 10 minutes later you pop into a random spot somewhere the storm was "touching". It specifically lists that you could show up somewhere on top of a castle, but not inside it. Freaky.

Blood-to-seawater (4th level) is cool flavor for a damaging spell but doesn't do anything else interesting. 

There's some epic-level shenanigans and psionic powers too but none of them strike me as particularly noteworthy or relevant to the sort of games I run.

Next is the Magic Items section.

Some mechanical bonus enchantments....

I like the Sharkdoom Spear- hit things with it to make them sink. 

There's a bag of teeth that turns into piranhas. Single use. Its kinda cool.

I do love a figurine of wondrous power: this one is a giant pearl sea-turtle used as transport, either ridden or used to pull a boat.

A living figurehead for ships do a variety of things, like breath weapons or make the ship fly. Classic but good.

Heh, the Sails of Displacement work like a displacer beast effect for the whole ship. That's awesome. Would make a great piratey magic item for Skerples' pirate crawl.

Chapter 7: Monsters

Blackskates are cool- they're undead manta rays made from random bones/scales/cartilage. Blend on the sea floor and can track prey across the whole ocean once they've had a taste of its blood.

Hammerclaws are a giant lobster/pistol shrimp hybrid.

Ramfish are cool conceptually but the art is a bit dorky.

Seawolves are a weird werewolf-shark mashup. Not a were-shark, but a shark-with-a-wolf-head-that-can-turn-into-a-human. Also they turn you into one if they bite you.

Giant Diving-Spiders are scary.

Good-gracious this book is long.

Chapter 8: Adventure Locales

First is a pirate ship run by goblin-wererats and goes into detail on their tactics. It's ok. The whole ship is basically a trap. There's also a bunch of rat-swarms that obey the captain which is neat. 

Next is an island with a sea-witch coven.

Then there's an adventure about some Sahuagin and another one about an evil storm giant that makes it's own Bermuda triangle thing.

The book ends with some encounter tables.

THE END

Fuck I'm tired.

THE GRAB-BAG - USEABLE STUFF FOR MY GAME

• An underwater bubble city/civ with localized gravity that treats its borders like the surface of water is a cool alternative to "wet outside not wet inside".
• Grey-shallow oceans where infinite amounts of acid-snow falls is good.
• Those two quest hooks of "A bunch of gold at the bottom of a black lake in the middle of the jungle" and "An infinite storm harrying a nearby port" are probably going on my rumor table. They aren't groundbreaking but feel pretty good.
• I really like the Hadozee (Simian race with flying-squirrel flaps), but would need to write a unique culture/civ for them since they don't really have one
• Skipping Blades/Living Coral Armor Medallions/Sharkdoom Weapons/Bag of Teeth can go on a treasure horde somewhere.
• Urchin Spines and Stormwalk are good spells that would fit without much tinkering
• Displacer Sails makes me want to start a list of ship-specific fantasy magic stuff just in case my players ever drop everything and go be pirates like I keep telling them to
• The Goblin-wererat ship is deece

Bonus Ruminations:

It wasn't super easy to comb through and find relevant stuff. I had forgotten just how much of 3e supplements were just numbered rules for stuff. I'm very tired but this whole thing made me appreciate the sleek layout, design, and focus on utility that you see in alot of OSR products. Next time I should probably pick one of the books that have more stuff for players who aren't pirates.