By Zachary Velcoff
A sahuagin plot threatens to drench the region in blood. An apex predator hunts a derelict ship, threatening to send the precious treasure in its hold to the bottom of the ocean. An undead horde rises from the dunes of a mysterious island to repel trespassers. Cultists of Orcus seek to open a rift to the Abyssal realm of their master. And in the slums of a dying port, an ancient power extends its influence over a desperate people.
Ghosts of Saltmarsh, released on May 21st, 2019, is a module anthology featuring several classic Dungeons & Dragons adventures updated for 5th Edition. The eponymous fishing village of Saltmarsh serves as the backdrop for the bulk of these adventures. It is home to a slew of vibrant characters, three competing factions, and numerous plot hooks beyond those explicitly explored in the book's adventure modules.
This blog post will highlight ten Czepeku maps for use in Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaigns–not to replace the maps from the modules but to supplement them, empowering Dungeon Masters with visual aids for locations the book references but does not explicitly depict.
Needless to say, this post contains big spoilers for Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Players, proceed at your own peril!
The Dreadwood
To the northeast of Saltmarsh lies the Dreadwood, domain of Granny Nightshade. The Dreadwood is split into three regions, each darker and deadlier than the last.
Dark Woods Edge
Dark Woods Edge is the perfect map for the Outer Fringe, where the party might contend with jackalweres, goblinoids, orcs, ogres, or trolls but are unlikely to meet the night hag's meaner minions. Eliander Fireborn might send them here in pursuit of bandits or cultists, or Jilar Kanklesten might ask them to seek rare wood for her latest strange invention.
Depths of the Festerwood
If the party delves deeper into the Dreadwood, the Depths of the Festerwood makes an excellent map for the Middle Reaches. Here, the party will likely be forced to camp beneath the haunted forest's thick canopy, though doing so may invite Granny Nightshade to pay them an unwelcome visit in their dreams. Even if the night hag herself doesn't make an appearance yet, the party might encounter her green hag baronesses here or one of her vampire consorts if they're especially unlucky. I suggest using the Original Night variant to capture the Dreadwood's gloom.
Shadowfell Fortress Interior
If, spurred on by the Wet Rot Coven or Brinecane Ulganoth, our heroes dare enter the Dreaded Deeps of the Dreadwood, you can use the Shadowfell Fortress Interior for Castle Spiral, the ancient night hag's stronghold. Since the castle exists in a liminal space between the Prime Material Plane and the Shadowfell, you might start the party out on a more innocent variant, such as Rain. Then, at the cinematic entrance of Granny Nightshade and her elite oni guard, plunge them into the otherworldly Original map!
Tammeraut’s Fate, Extended
Tammeraut's Fate ends (ideally) with the party sealing the Pit of Hatred, preventing Orcus's Abyssal hordes from overrunning Oerth. The module offers three further adventure hooks to extend the story, all additional opportunities for your party to go toe-to-toe with the cult of Orcus.
Pirate Lord's Lair
The first of these adventures, The Death Fleet, features a coalition of pirate captains led by a priest of Orcus, who provides the pirates with undead spies to supplement their mortal crews. What could make a more dramatic setting for the showdown with this vile priestly commodore than the Pirate Lord's Lair? If you are prone to the pathetic fallacy (like any good DM), you could change up the variants to make the weather increasingly worse as tension heightens: start on the Dark Sea variant for your party's stealthy approach to the lair, then switch to Rain when they (inevitably) trip the alarm, putting the floating fortress on high alert. Then, once the priest launches his last-ditch effort to open another rift to the Abyss, switch to the Storm variant for the final showdown.
Open Ocean
The next of these adventures, The Devouring Gyre, features a whirlpool with a portal to the Abyss at its bottom. This vortex slays all who enter it, turning them undead before unleashing into the nearby ocean. The Maelstrom or Rock Maelstrom variants of the Open Ocean map are perfect for this. Your party must navigate their ship carefully around the treacherous whirlpool, fending off its undead guardians while figuring out how to seal off the portal for good. If you want to be especially cruel to your players, pit them against an undead kraken with the Krakenstorm variant! As an additional bonus, the eighty-one other variants of this map could serve as excellent backdrops to your party's nautical adventures across the Azure Sea: pursuing Kiara Shadowbreaker's bounties on the Sea Princes, guarding a shipment for Ingo the Drover, or sailing aboard one of Eda Oweland's fishing boats.
Dead Angel Reef
The last adventure in this series, The Isle of Bones, features a palace of Orcus rising from an island that grows with each sacrifice the cult makes. For the party's final showdown with the Orcus cultists, we recommend the Dead Angel Reef, particularly favoring its more macabre variants: Blood Angel, Fallen Angel, or Massacre.
Smuggler's Fen
Just west of Saltmarsh lies the bombed-out ruin of the Tower of Zenopus, which the wizard Keledek the Unspoken uses as a base of operations for one branch of Gellan Primewater's smuggling enterprise. The Original and Fog variants of this map are excellent for the ruined tower. The Natural variant is perfect for a trek across the nearby Hool Marshes: en route to the Lizardfolk Lair or Sahuagin Fortress, on the hunt for Thousand Teeth the Devourer, or pursuing a sidequest for Jilar Kanklesten or Eliander Fireborn.
Secret Sailor Lair
On the southeastern side of Saltmarsh, just on the cusp of Crabber's Cove, sits the Carpenter's Guildhall, where Jilar Kanklesten weaves oddly ominous woods into her constructions. One of the stranger items on Jilar Kanklesten's shopping list, a stake used to slay a vampire, might not be too far-fetched to acquire, with Xolec as her neighbor. Of course, if the vampire ever were to escape from his cellar prison, the carpenter would be the nearest warm-blooded target. The Secret Sailor Lair would make an excellent Carpenter's Guildhall map for that showdown and could give your party someplace to dock and upgrade the Sea Ghost, should they acquire it at the end of the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh.
Haunted Ghost Ship
From the Temple of Procan, deity of the Seas, Wellgar Brinehanded offers clerical services–including free castings of the raise dead spell–in exchange for the party's retrieval of drowned sailors' remains from shipwrecks around the Saltmarsh region. Four such wrecks are detailed in the book: The Marshal, Sinker, Escape, and Curiosity. There are no jewelry stores in Saltmarsh; diamonds are not especially abundant in this corner of Oerth. If you run a game as deadly as mine, your players are going to need more than four resurrections. Of course, it wouldn't be as exciting if their salvage mission went off without a hitch. Start your party on the No Ghosts variant, and once they've touched the first gold piece of the ship's sunken treasure, switch to the Original and let the fun begin!
Slum District
The last module in the anthology, The Styes, takes place in the polluted slums of a declining port city. Although the mystery that unfolds there features maps for the bulk of its locations, it offers none for the scenes of the crimes that occur before our adventurers arrive in town, nor for any of the district's decaying streets. The Slum District is a perfect map for the many random encounters that might befall your PCs in the Styes, for the crime scenes, and for any follow-up adventures you may wish to include in that unfortunate town. The Rainbow River variant is of particular use in the Alchemist's Quarter to show the runoff of unregulated industry there. The Drought variant works well for the district's mud-choked east and for the Hemlock Pit outside Mr. Dory's Warehouse. The Blood River variant may be a bit over-the-top, but if you really want to drive home the brutality of the Lantern Ghost killings, it remains an option!
Honorable Mentions
The following maps didn't make the cut for the Top 10 but are still likely to prove useful for your Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign:
- Mushroom Infested Mines. The party is likely to visit the Dwarven Mine outside Saltmarsh on a sidequest for Manistrad Copperlocks. This map, whether the vibrant Original or staid No Mushrooms variant, is perfect for the PCs' battles against duergar, troglodytes, slavers, or undead.
- Village Blacksmith. The Dwarven Anvil is Saltmarsh's forge, where human smiths Mafera and Jasker craft with dwarven tools of dubious provenance. If, as tensions mount between the town's Traditionalist and Loyalist factions, the dwarven miners hire the party to steal these tools, you can use this map to showcase their heist.
- Floating Market. Although the architecture in this map has more East Asian flavor than the New England-coded Saltmarsh, it's still a good fit for Saltmarsh's Weekly Market on the east bank of the Kingfisher River, where the party can buy supplies, purchase the freshest fish, or stop for a meal. It's also ideal for a chase scene–perhaps with the party in hot pursuit of Skerrin Wavechaser, having uncovered the butler's heinous crimes for the Scarlet Brotherhood.
- Abyssal Fall. Appendix A of Ghosts of Saltmarsh contains rules and tables for naval combat and exploration. The party, sailing the Azure Sea, can find blue holes, kelp forests, sandbars, and more! Why not throw in an abyssopelagic whalefall as another intriguing marine discovery?
- Mycelial Gate. In the Drowned Forest northwest of Saltmarsh, fungal spores choke the air, screaming toadstools alert every monster in a 300' radius to the party's presence, and human-sized mushrooms leap up to join in battle against trespassers. The Spore Storm variant is perfect for the heart of the Drowned Forest, where a portal to Zuggtmoy's Abyssal realm of Shedaklah continues to ooze out corruption. Perhaps Eliander Fireborn or Jilar Kanklesten has sent the party here on a sidequest, or maybe Ferrin Kastilar, druid of the Sea Grove of Obad-Hai, has sent them here to restore ecological balance to the region.
- Harpy Cove. At the start of Tammeraut's Fate, on a coastal road en route to the village of Uskarn, the party must face a harpy matriarch and eight of her brood. This is a perfect map in which to stage that combat.
- Bullywug Swamp. If the PCs travel to the Lizardfolk Lair by land during Danger at Dunwater, they are ambushed by three waves of bullywugs who've set up a defensive camp around a treasure they've discovered. This map is ideal for that camp.
- Ancient Tech Treasury. What lies beneath the Tower of Zenopus? The answer, of course, is entirely up to you! An entire dungeon awaits beyond Keledek the Unspoken's sea cave, and I, for one, think the Ancient Tech Treasury is an excellent fit for it.