Sand Sailing
Overview:
In this encounter the PCs are sailing on an ocean made of sand. Along the way they are attacked by a giant worm that shoots offspring onto the ship. It’s a fairly safe but action packed encounter which should be a lot of fun as a encounter during travel.
Initial Description:
Your travel across the great sand desert has been fairly smooth so far. You hear the turning of the sand below as the ship sails over the rolling dunes. A voice from the crows nest cries out “Incoming Worm! To your stations!” The ship suddenly gets busy fast. The ballistas get loaded in the front and on the sides. You watch as something shoots off the worm. 4 sharp pods land on the ship, opening and revealing smaller worms with acid dripping from their mouths. Roll initiative.
Enemies:
Purple Worm - More a set piece than a threat itself.
Purple Worm Spawn - Carrion Crawlers from the DMG.
NPCs:
Captain and Crew - Load ballistas and keep the ship moving.
Objectives:
Main:
Take it Down - Get the Worm. 3 Shots that hit it with the ballista will scare it away.
Side Objectives:
Clean up the boat! - Keep the carrion crawler population down that those on the boat do not get overwhelmed.
Map:
Overview:
Essentially PCs are in a confined space. The only real importan feature of the map is where the worm pops up, but this fight could be done pretty easily using only theater of the mind.
Key:
Red Triangles - Ballistas
Red Numbers - 1d3 location for worm to come up from the sand.
Special Mechanics:
Hit it Thrice! - When the Worm is above ground the PCs need to fire a ballista arrow at it. It is a DC 15 DEX check (no proficiency unless the character would have proficiency in firing a ballista for some reason). Once the worm is hit three times it leaves. However they only get one turn to fire when the worm pops up and each ballista can only be fired once per a round.
Strap in! - This is an optional rule to make this encounter a bit more friendly. The ship may be equipped with harnesses clamped onto the ship. This way if they fall PCs are getting dragged along the desert sand instead of being left behind to face the worm.
What are those? - When the worm shows itself it spawns 4 pods which shoot onto the boat and open revealing Carrion Crawlers. It stays up for the duration of the turn then goes under until the carrion crawlers are dead or 1d6 turns (either one is fine, dead carrion crawlers may make the fight a bit easier)
Where is it coming? - Roll 1d3 (half of a 1d6) to determine where the worm will appear when it comes up from the sand. On a 3 the worm appears directly in front prompting the ship to make a hard left or right turn at which point the PCs (and any enemies if they are on the ship) need to make a DC 15 DEX save or begin to fall. 0-10 they fall off the ship, 11-14 they are knocked prone on the ship.
Extras:
How We Used it - This was a fight in our longest running campaign early on. The PCs were finding an island in the center of the sand desert.
Easy Re-skins - Could be sailing on water, an alien entity in space, or on a wagon as well. The exciting part is the movement.
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