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Animated maps

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Animated maps

Unread postby icycalm » 22 Nov 2021 03:37

Sinister Secret of the Saltmarsh | Animated Battle Maps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbyKdIU34uE

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Incredible animated maps for the classic 1981 Greyhawk 1E adventure The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. It's for levels 1-3, so it could well be the first adventure we play when some group unlocks Greyhawk. Only thing is... it's designed for 5-10 characters lol. I never realized 1E adventures went up to 10 characters. The most I thought they went is 8. Pretty fucking radical. Imagine rolling 10 characters for one party? How many fighters? Wizards? You could have 5 priests lol. You could basically have every class twice, almost. I need to look inside this adventure. The enemies must be insane. It's the first part of an underwater trilogy too.

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What's even more interesting is that Wizards updated this trilogy for 5E, adding a bunch of other adventures in the mix and creating an entire campaign out of them called Ghosts of Saltmarsh that takes you from 1st to 12th level: https://dnd.wizards.com/products/tablet ... -saltmarsh

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Wizards of the Coast wrote:Ghosts of Saltmarsh combines some of the most popular classic adventures from the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons including the classic ‘U’ series and some of the best nautical adventures from Dungeon magazine:

  • The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
  • Danger at Dunwater
  • The Final Enemy
  • Salvage Operation
  • Isle of the Abbey
  • Tammeraut’s Fate
  • The Styes

All adventures have been faithfully adapted to the fifth edition rules of Dungeons & Dragons. Furthermore, this book includes details on the port town of Saltmarsh, as well as plenty of hooks to kick-off each adventure. Play through each story in a seafaring campaign leading characters from level 1 through level 12, or pull out sections to place in ongoing campaigns in any setting. The appendices also cover mechanics for ship-to-ship combat, new magic items, monsters, and more!

“The Saltmarsh series consistently ranks as one of the most popular classic D&D adventures,” said Mike Mearls, franchise creative director of D&D. “With its ties to ocean-based adventuring, it was an obvious step to augment it with additional sea-based adventures and a robust set of rules for managing a nautical campaign.”

Hoist your sails, pull up anchor, and set a course for adventure!


This is basically D&D's Skull & Shackles. It looks cool af, and I am sure 5E is more complex than 1E—everything is more complex than 1E—but on the downside they've rebalanced for 4-6 characters, so you lose the 10-character dynamic. So perhaps a solution to keep all the good stuff from both editions would be to play the first three adventures in 1E with 10 players, using the animated maps above, and then when you get to the fourth adventure you switch to 5E, converting the characters to that edition.

At any rate, the great news about all this is that more creators are popping up who are making 2.5D animated maps of classic adventures. Here's this guy's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LivingRealms

Check out his trailer:

Living Realms - 2020 Highlights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D41QbRp9ic

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It's unbelievable.

More videos on his channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCm6Wv ... 5L-LI02-dw

These two are even more incredible:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XhtpzLpmUU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa1jzXWc8CI
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icycalm
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Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

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