A Watery Dungeon Crawl

by Tony Sandoval

AD&D 1E/OSRIC

for a party of 4 to 6, levels 2 to 4, PC’s

In the Kingdom of Agua Pescado, the High Priest/ruler of the land has asked for help in finding a lost item.

When the party comes together and arrives in the temple courtroom, Ol-Obsidian, the High Priest explains that a very valuable item has been stolen from the temple that is of the highest value to the kingdom. The Divine Pearl was taken by thieves. An artifact that was a gift to the people of Agua Pescado from the sea god Kra-Kon himself for some of the fishermen of the area finding and rescuing one of his daughters, protecting her from harm. It is by the presence of this pearl that the kingdom by the sea has not suffered sea storms or any trouble from the sea in the past 300 years. in it’s absence, the kingdom has been experiencing storms and attacks from sea creatures which they have been unprepared for due to never having to face them for so long.

The High Priest knows exactly where the pearl is because he asked the sea god Kra-Kon to strike down the thieves and return the pearl to them. While Kra-Kon did indeed punish the thieves in a most unmerciful manner, he was only able to provide a map to the current location of the pearl after the ship it was on sank beneath the waves in the onslaught against the thieves.

The pearl is in a locked chest in the wreck of the ship on the sea floor. Kra-kon has set certain creatures to guard the chest from would be pirates and new thieves, but the creatures find it difficult to tell friend from foe, so the going will not be easy as the sea itself aggressively defends the chest and pearl.

It is the party’s task to retrieve the chest and pearl to the High Priest. Ol Obsidian tells the adventurers that if they do manage to find and retrieve the chest to him, Kra-Kon has vowed that the party will find vast treasures from nearby shipwrecks on the sea floor that have been sunk or wrecked over the centuries in the area. Once the pearl is safe on land, the sea and creatures will allow safe passage to the adventurers to investigate and retrieve the treasure.

The map indicates that the party must strike out from a beach about 3 miles south of the kingdom to a rock island approx. a mile or so offshore near a rock formation. From the rocks, the adventurers will have to get down to the sea floor, some 100 feet down, find the specific sunken ship among that are down there and retrieve the chest with the pearl to the rocks before they will be allowed to bring any treasure up.

The area of sea is renowned for being infested with all manner of dangerous sea creatures such as sharks, octopus and other mysterious creatures that rumors only guess at.

DM Note: The party will have to make their way to the rocks and dive down to the floor and search each of the ships to find which is the correct ship, then searching the ship for the chest with the pearl. This will likely require multiple trips from the surface to the floor as they investigate each of the ships in random order of discovery or in order of DM preference.

More details to come