Welcome! The year is 572 Common Year (CY). For some reason or reasons, you’ve decided to travel to Saltmarsh. Maybe you:

1. Are a follower of Procan and seek to make a pilgrimage to his temple, or have some other faith and wish to spread the good word to others.
2. You’re a fishermen, or a sailor, or a marine, or a shipwright, or a pearl diver, and you’re looking for a new place to practice your trade.
3. You’re a smuggler, and are looking to expand your network and get in on the trade that goes through the area.
4. You’re a soldier who completed their duty to the crown. You’re weary from campaigns up north and the stories of a sleepy, back-water town on the Azure sea have taken root and convinced you to see it for yourself.
5. You have extended family in the area and owe them a visit.
6. Your wealthy family (maybe nobility?) or an organization you represent is considering an investment in the area, you’ve been tasked with scoping the place out.
7. You heard a rumor that a group of dwarves is prospecting for precious ore in the area; there’s a potential fortune for those who stake their claim.
8. You spent your childhood there but moved away and now wish to return.
9. You’re tracking someone who wronged you, and you recently heard a rumor they’ve been sighted in Saltmarsh.

Maybe you’re traveling to Saltmarsh for some other reason altogether! As you develop your character, we’ll work together to establish why exactly you are traveling to Saltmarsh.

This is a location-based campaign centered on the town of Saltmarsh and the surrounding region. The party will have opportunities to connect with this small community, face some of the challenges and threats that it faces, and have a hand in shaping its future.  With time, their impact could extend beyond Saltmarsh…

To help fit the party in Greyhawk and this storyline, I have some requirements and guidelines.

This Party:

1. Must include 1 (or more) Dwarf species character
2. Must include 1 (or more) character who has family in Saltmarsh (or close by) or who lived there during their childhood.
3. Suggestions: 1 or more characters will be ‘at home’ on land and at sea (proficient with sea vehicles, able to swim, etc.)
4. Restrictions:
   • For Species: No Dragonborn. For races not covered on this site, please check with me.
   • Classes: no artificers. For subclasses not covered in the Player’s Handbook, please check with me.
5. Is not full-bore Murder Hobo. No evil alignments. Essentially the characters need to have some vested interest in the wellbeing of the people of Saltmarsh, even if it is tangental (i.e., they will become wealthy by taking on work that helps its people). Otherwise the various hooks and stories just won’t work.

We’ll be using the “Variant: Customizing Ability Scores” outlined on page 13 of the Player’s Handbook.

One thing I will emphasize in this campaign: Downtime activities as covered in the PHB and other 5e sources. Between adventures, characters will be doing non-adventure things, and this will help connect said characters to the setting. Keep this in your mind as you develop your characters (perhaps a craft or tool proficiency will be important for this, or perhaps some proclivity you have in mind will be pertinent, etc.).

For “house rules”: I’m considering some ‘mandatory’ down-time between sessions which I’ll get into later; other things may come up depending upon the direction our campaign goes and I’ll add them to this site here if/when they do.

We’ll review this during our Session 0 and cover any questions. Once players identify the general direction they’ll take with character creation and we address the requirements above, we can work on character backstory/location. Character backstories don’t have to be super in-depth (and I’d prefer that they not be so we have room to ‘fill them in’ over time), but they do need to have enough substance so that both the player and DM understand character motivations and goals.

Please take a look at the various pages for some detail on setting of Greyhawk. I will work to expand this content and would appreciate any feedback on particular areas/locations/facets you would like to have covered.