r/DMAcademy•
Covid669

Tips on session 2?

Need Advice: Encounters & Adventures

So my party is Level 3 with a Spores Druid, Fathomless Warlock, Battlemaster Fighter, and Monk (2) + Cleric (1) multiclass. It's a seafaring dark fantasy campaign, inspired by Lovecraft's stories and Curse of Strahd.

The session is set immediately after they have escaped from a Triton pirate ship where the quartermaster went insane and killed the captain and started a ritual.

They are in a fishing village which I plan on making the hub for the first few sessions. I worked out a lot of the current problems and history of the village. I even worked out a small legend that the barkeep or some sailor could tell the party because one of the Warlock's character traits is that he loves hearing weird stories and legends from local weirdos.

I worked out quite a few NPCs and possible interactions for the session. Here are a few:

  • After they've docked the greedy harbor master could greet them, thinking they are smugglers. She holds a lot of political power in the village so she could threaten them with hanging unless they pay her a "smuggler's fee".
  • They could meet the alcoholic priest, passed out in front of the local inn. The guy dislikes high elves because he was a slave on a high elf ship when he was a young man. There is a high elf and a half high elf in the party so that could result in some fun interactions.
  • In my world there is a substance that is used for navigation because navigation from the stars is impossible. The people don't know it but this substance is secretly connected to the Shadowfell through one of the gods. Two sailors are carrying a barrel of this substance when they are attacked by a giant toad who steals it and eats one of the sailor's peg leg and the barrel. The party meets them after this. They ask them to track down the toad and bring back the barrel and the peg leg so they don't punish them for losing them. At the end of the quest they would find the giant toad transformed into a giant shadow toad by the substance. It would be an interesting little boss fight imo.
  • A weird hag-like lady is sitting in the local tavern. She finds the party particularly interesting and she invites them to sit at her table. I'll try my best to describe her as a sea hag when the party meets her, just to fuck with them a little and put them on edge. In reality she's just a really sweet old lady. She will offer the party to read their fortunes and future through magical cards in her cabin. It's inspired by the Tarokka cards from Curse of Strahd and similarly to those, it could point them to some interesting characters and items they could find during the campaign.
  • Finally, they could meet the local pirate captain. They could ask to join him in exchange for a ship and he could start a quest to rescue his first mate from the trading corporation the pirates are fighting. This and the toad quest is somewhat connected because one of the rewards of the toad quest is that those two sailors would put a word in for them to the captain.

So this is mostly what I have prepped for tomorrow's session 2. There are some smaller interactions that I didn't bother to put in here but these are the main ones. Thoughts? What should I improve? What more should I add?

Posted May 12, 2026, 8:21 AM UTC

31
Loading comments…