Two complete sessions: scene by scene, skill challenge by skill challenge.
Session One
"A Boat and the Old Man's Tales"
Recommended Party Level: 1–3 | Session Length: 3–4 Hours | Themes: Mystery, Social Intrigue, Survival, First Encounter with the Mythos
DM Introduction
"This session is a slow burn. Resist the urge to reveal the cult too quickly. The horror of Act I is that the party suspects something is wrong before they can name it. Let the skill challenge drive discovery. The storm that ends the session should feel sudden and inevitable."
"The night is silent, the night sky with all its stars blends with the sea in a mirroring image. One looking out in the distance can get lost in trying to find the horizon. A light breeze comes through and keeps the headwind on the sails — a pleasant and calm night indeed.
The ship 'Unsinkable III' is heading into deep water. Sailors keep watch and secure all the sails. In the galley, passengers gather for dinner. Four tables are scattered around: one large table for eight, two small ones for two, and one medium table for four.
An old sailor sits at the medium table, eating ale-sunken bread, telling sea stories to a young woman in a dark ranger-green cloak and two younglings — a half-orc girl and a human boy — who sit enraptured by his tales."
"The cook emerges from the kitchen, wiping his hands on an apron. 'Please excuse the old man. Our captain insisted on letting him sail with the Unsinkable III... thus far this one has managed to do just that.' He pauses for the joke to land. 'What can I get you?'"
Available options: Ale, mead, sunken bread, plain bread.
DM Note
The cook is on his first voyage — DC 10 Insight/Intimidation reveals this.
Elias Cobb — The Old Sailor
Criella — Tiefling Ranger
Mira — Half-orc girl, age 10 (Bloodline Descendant)
Tobias — Human boy, age 9 (Bloodline Descendant)
Two Skeptical Passengers — (secretly Cult spies)
Two Quiet Figures — (Cult enforcers)
Bartholomew "Barts" Fenwick — The Cook
Passion Moment — Scene 1
Look for opportunities to challenge Passions here. A character with Insatiable Curiosity might feel compelled to eavesdrop on the two quiet figures. A character with Heroic Impulse may feel pulled to step between the younglings and whoever is watching them. A character with Haunted might catch a scent or sound that tugs at their buried memory.
The players have free time to explore the ship and interact with passengers.
Stakes: Can the party identify the cultists before the storm hits?
| Skill | DC | Progress | What Is Revealed |
|---|
| Insight | 12 | 1 | The skeptical passengers' drunken mockery feels rehearsed, not genuine. |
| Perception | 14 | 1 | The quiet figures are watching the younglings, not the old sailor. |
| Investigation | 15 | 1 | Search of passenger quarters: strange symbols carved inside a trunk. |
| Persuasion/Deception | 13 | 1 | Get the old sailor talking about who came aboard at the last port. |
| History | 20 | 2 | Recognize the symbols as Cult of the Drowned God iconography. |
Warning Twist
End of Round 1 — One quiet figure notices the party's investigation. From this point on, Insight and Persuasion DCs against crew members increase by 2.
| Result | Progress (Party of 4) | Outcome |
|---|
| Success | 6+ | Party identifies both spies and both enforcers before the storm. |
| Partial Success | 3–5 | Party identifies either spies OR enforcers, not both. |
| Failure | 2 or fewer | Party is unaware of the full threat when the storm hits. |
If a Cultist Is Captured
Run a Social Skill Challenge to extract information. They reveal the younglings are believed to be "the Keys."
Passion Moment — Scene 2
Any character whose Passion relates to uncovering truth may add +5 to one relevant d20 Test. A character with Justice for All faces a Follow moment if they witness intimidation of a passenger.
"Without warning, the ship lurches. The calm evening sky is swallowed by a roiling mass of black clouds that seemingly appeared from nowhere. The deck tilts. Through the porthole you see the sea transformed — mountains of dark water surging against the hull. A loud scream can be heard outside the galley. Men are falling — or being thrown — overboard."
Stakes: Can the party stay aboard and reach the younglings before the cultists?
| Skill | DC | Progress | Action |
|---|
| Athletics | 14 | 1 | Maintain footing on the heaving deck without falling. |
| Acrobatics | 13 | 1 | Move across rain-slicked planking at full speed. |
| Strength (Save) | 15 | 1 | Grab a rope or rail as the ship pitches violently. |
| Perception | 12 | 1 | Spot a cult enforcer moving toward the younglings' cabin. |
| Arcana | 14 | 2 | Recognize that the storm is not natural — it arrived too fast and too precisely. |
| Result | Progress | Outcome |
|---|
| Success | 6+ | Party reaches the younglings before the cult enforcer. |
| Partial | 3–5 | Party arrives simultaneously — combat initiative is rolled. |
| Failure | 2 or fewer | Cult enforcer reaches the younglings first — forced combat at disadvantage due to slick deck. |
The Shadow Beyond the Galley
DC 15 Perception: a vast dark shape moves beyond the rain, too distant to identify. DC 18 Perception: lightning outlines a towering, winged, tentacled silhouette: the Greater Star-Spawn of Cthulhu. Do not name it. It does not approach. It watches. In Act II the party can realize it was not following the ship. It led them to the island.
Session 1 Ending
However the Skill Challenge resolves, the storm culminates in catastrophe. The ship breaks apart. Each character makes a DC 13 Athletics or Strength save to remain conscious. Failure means the character is pulled beneath the waves and awakens later among wreckage. Continue directly to Session 2 if time remains, or end on the first breath taken on the impossible shore.
Session Two
“Terror Nights: The Boat and the Island”
Recommended Party Level: 1–3 | 3–6 Characters | Themes: Survival, Investigation, Illusion, Moral Compromise, Island Horror
DM Continuity
Act I reveals consequences before causes. Do not reveal the children’s full ancestry, Criella’s complete guild betrayal, or the title “Ash Priest.” The Nameless Priest appears as a ruthless ally whose interests temporarily overlap with the party.
Cold grit presses against your face. Each breath brings seawater from your lungs and crimson sand between your teeth. The Unsinkable III rests at an impossible angle near the shore. Sailors dig beneath the hull while others pass buckets out of flooded compartments. Beyond them, pink and violet fog moves between unfamiliar trees. Their ochre-yellow leaves resemble tongues covered in black spots. A pale, web-like film stretches between the branches. The sea is an unnatural shade of blue. It has no scent. No gull circles overhead. No familiar creature calls from the forest. Far beneath the water, something moves slowly enough to be mistaken for the turning of the world.
- Collect every character’s Waterdeep motivation and one fictional buried secret.
- Establish the ship and island as one illusionary maze.
- Reveal the prisoner’s telepathic orders and unnatural death.
- Introduce the titleless tome, the Broken Star, and the Nameless Priest.
- Advance Criella through a partial confession without revealing her complete Act II history.
- Present the pirate bargain and an objective-based confrontation over Mira and Tobias.
- End at the first ruin with evidence that something beneath the island tracks the keys.
Give every player two slips. On the first, ask why the character was traveling to Waterdeep, what they hoped to gain or escape, who or what waited there, and what failure would cost. On the second, ask for a fictional secret tied to that motivation, why it is concealed, what could tempt its revelation, and what might be sacrificed to keep it hidden.
Safety: A player may mark a detail theme only. Use only the emotional theme, never the specific secret. The island’s first offer should tempt rather than punish.
| Fear Test | DC | Outcome |
|---|
| Obvious contradiction | 12 | Success: +1 Sanity; failure: +1 Madness |
| Meaningful fear or Passion | 14 | Success: +1 Sanity; failure: +1 Madness |
| Buried secret weaponized | 16 | Success: +1 Sanity; failure: +1 Madness |
Spend 1 Sanity: gain Advantage against an illusion; notice one inconsistency; give an ally Advantage on a Fear Test; determine whether a path is physically real; or prevent separation from an adjacent ally.
Madness: At 1 point, use a brief sensory distortion. At 2 points, let the island address the character directly. At 3 points, trigger a Wisdom save for a fitting Dreadful Insight such as We Are Not Alone, The Veil Is Thin, The Stars Are Alive, or Nothing Matters. Disturb perception; do not remove player agency.
The captain and crew focus on freeing the vessel. Barts and Elias will speak with the party. Criella keeps Mira and Tobias close unless a child was taken during Session One. A surviving cultist is bound to a beach rock.
Immediate options: help the ship; search the wreck; question survivors; examine the shore; interrogate the prisoner; speak with Criella or the children; study the satchel; or enter the fog. Every choice uncovers something—the maze decides where progress leads.
Skill Challenge: Stabilize the wreck. For a four-character party, earn 6 successes before 3 failures.
| Approach | DC | Discovery |
|---|
| Athletics | 13 | Shift debris beneath the hull |
| Investigation | 14 | Water enters from above the waterline |
| Carpenter’s Tools | 13 | Stabilize a damaged support |
| Perception | 14 | Notice movement under the vessel |
| Survival | 13 | The tide flows in two directions |
| Arcana | 15 | Illusion overlaps the wreck |
| Religion | 15 | The vessel forms part of a ritual boundary |
Success: recover supplies, a dry footprint in a flooded compartment, pirate cloth inside the hull, and a Broken Star carved where no passenger could reach.
Failure: a corridor opens into the Session One galley. Everyone is seated in the same places. Elias turns and says: “You think the island caught the ship. You have not realized that the ship is part of the island.” Trigger one personal illusion.
Checks: DC 20 Persuasion or Intimidation; DC 15 Deception. Never lock the entire clue behind one roll.
- Automatic: “We were never told where the keys were going. Only where we had to bring them.”
- First success: “The voice came while we slept. No name. No face. Only a door beneath black water.”
- Second success: “The children carry the blood that fled.”
- Third success: “We thought we were bringing the keys to our master. Now I think the voice wanted us to bring everyone.”
The prisoner stops speaking. Their eyes turn red. Bloody foam runs from their mouth, nose, and ears. Their shadow twists violently against the sand. Then the body becomes still. The shadow struggles for one final heartbeat.
DC 13 Medicine or Nature: unnatural death. DC 15 Medicine: symptoms do not match ordinary poison. DC 15 Arcana: an existing connection was weaponized. DC 17 Religion: this resembles the severing of a bond.
Barts carries the satchel at arm’s length. “I didn’t quite find it,” he says. “It felt more like it noticed me.” A seven-pointed star has been carved into the flap, split by a jagged fracture. Nothing touches the satchel. Something inside turns a page.
The titleless tome is bound in warm green-black hide. Its page count and ink shift. Initial discoveries: a shoreline map; sketches of buried roads and ruins; the Broken Star; a tiny faceless priest; and the sentence Do not listen when he calls your name.
Private page: when a character holds the tome, write one temptation tied to the sealed motivation: “What waits in Waterdeep has forgotten you,” “The children know the road you seek,” or “Give me one key and I will return what you lost.” This is temptation, not guaranteed truth.
Dreadful Insight: The Door Beneath the Sea
The sea rises above you until the ocean becomes a second sky. Beneath your feet lies a door large enough to divide the world. Two small figures stand before it. Behind them, cultists, hunters, priests, heroes, and monsters fight over who should control the keys. A voice beyond the door whispers: “They do not have to understand. They only have to deliver.”
Make a Fear Test. Success grants 1 Sanity; failure grants 1 Madness. Failure by 5 or more may also trigger The Veil Is Thin.
Passive Perception 12 reveals the seven-pointed star on a shoreline stone. DC 12 Investigation shows the carving was cut and recut by several cultures. Reveal only that it predates the current cult, the fracture was emphasized deliberately, one point faces inland, Mira traces a spiral beside it, and Tobias recognizes it from his journal but refuses to explain.
Pink and purple fog curls between translucent trees. Blue water runs uphill over black stones. Pale amphibious creatures watch from the roots. A cry echoes ahead; a second answers behind. Pressure closes around your ears. Clothing floats from your bodies. For several heartbeats, the island feels submerged beneath an invisible sea.
Skill Challenge: remain together and reach the distant silver light. For a four-character party, earn 6 successes before 3 failures. After each round, tempt one character through their motivation.
| Skill | DC | Use |
|---|
| Survival | 13 | Track genuine change |
| Investigation | 14 | Find repeating mistakes |
| Arcana | 15 | Locate illusion layers |
| Nature | 14 | Separate life from imitation |
| Insight | 13 | Recognize manipulation |
| Religion | 15 | Resist the directing intelligence |
| Perception | 14 | Follow genuine voices |
| Performance | 14 | Make a sound the maze cannot copy |
Success: the party remains together and notices the priest first. Partial: one character emerges with 1 Madness. Failure: the characters arrive separately after short personal illusions.
- Recognition: show something familiar.
- Invitation: offer what the character wants.
- Contradiction: include one detail proving the scene false.
- Choice: require the character to reject, redefine, or surrender to the desire.
Examples: a safe road to Waterdeep where travelers walk backward; companions revealing the exact words of a sealed secret; dead children casting the priest’s shadow; or an intact Unsinkable III that will depart only if the character boards alone.
A narrow line of white light appears between the trees. A robed traveler steps through it, a metal holy symbol in one hand and a dark wooden staff in the other. His eyes pass over your weapons, the tome, and Criella. Only then does he look at Mira and Tobias. “Which of you,” he asks, “called them the keys?”
He belongs to an ancient guild that hunts rogue cultists. He truly does not recognize the exact Broken Star, but he understands the methods of merciless cults. DC 15 Insight reveals that he is withholding dangerous context.
- What are the keys? “A key may be blood, memory, a spoken name—or a person standing in the proper place.”
- Do you recognize the symbol? “No.” On a successful Insight check, his confusion is genuine; his claim of total ignorance is not.
- Would you harm the children? “I will prevent the door from opening.”
- Why trust you? “You should not. Determine whether our objectives remain aligned.”
DM Secret: he will sacrifice himself, another person, or even the children if convinced it prevents the keys from being used. Do not call him the Ash Priest during Act I.
When asked by what authority she guards the children, Criella first says, “Because no one else did.” If pressed successfully, she admits: “I was not sent to rescue them. I was sent to find them. I saw enough in their village to know they could not remain. I was supposed to finish a contract. Instead, I ran.” She will not identify her employer.
“Every night I see something standing behind them. I never see its face. I know I could fight it—but in the dream, I always run. The worst part is that I cannot tell whether it is chasing us or driving us somewhere.”
Preserve the bounty guild, grooming program, and children’s ancestry as later revelations.
Figures emerge through violet fog. Their coats are rotten; their cutlasses red with rust. Coral grows from one pirate’s shoulder. Their leader points at the children. “There. The little mapmakers.” A pirate behind him laughs. “They said they were children last time too.” The leader raises an empty hand. “Give us the maps. We’ll take you back to your ship. We’ll all leave this place together.”
The pirates believe Mira and Tobias are living maps to their lost vessel and treasure. Permit negotiation, deception, surrender, retreat, or combat. They seek to seize a child, not kill every hero.
Negotiation: offer the tome as the map; promise to guide them; accuse the priest of stealing their ship; challenge the leader; reveal Tobias’s charts; create false children; or pretend to accept the bargain.
| Party | Opposition |
|---|
| 3 characters | 2 Pirate Toughs + weakened leader (26 HP) |
| 4 characters | 3 Pirate Toughs + leader |
| 5–6 characters | 4–5 Pirate Toughs + leader; optional Dream-Speaker if well rested |
AC 12 | HP 16 | Speed 30 ft.
STR 14 (+2) | DEX 12 (+1) | CON 13 (+1) | INT 9 (−1) | WIS 9 (−1) | CHA 10 (+0)
Skills Athletics +4, Perception +1
Maddened Conviction. Advantage against being Frightened while able to see either child.
Cutlass. +4 to hit, reach 5 ft.; 1d6 + 2 slashing.
Weighted Net. +3 to hit, range 10/20 ft.; Large or smaller target is Restrained until freed with an action.
Seize the Mapmaker. Attempt to Grapple a child or a creature adjacent to one.
AC 14 | HP 34 | Speed 30 ft.
STR 15 (+2) | DEX 14 (+2) | CON 14 (+2) | INT 11 (+0) | WIS 9 (−1) | CHA 14 (+2)
Skills Athletics +4, Deception +4, Intimidation +4
Voice Beneath the Waves. When first Bloodied, creatures within 15 ft. make DC 12 Wisdom saves. On a failure, the battlefield appears submerged until the end of that creature’s next turn and it gains 1 Madness.
Multiattack. Two Cutlass attacks.
Cutlass. +4 to hit, reach 5 ft.; 1d6 + 2 slashing.
Take the Mapmaker. One Pirate Tough moves up to half Speed and attempts to Grapple or net a creature adjacent to either child.
| d8 | Distortion |
|---|
| 1 | Pink fog heavily obscures one zone. |
| 2 | A duplicate Mira or Tobias appears. |
| 3 | The ship’s bell rings underground. |
| 4 | The clearing seems submerged for one round. |
| 5 | A pirate repeats part of a character’s secret. |
| 6 | The priest’s shadow reaches toward the children. |
| 7 | A path to the beach appears to only one hero. |
| 8 | Blue water flows uphill; one zone becomes difficult terrain. |
The Priest’s morality: have him destroy an escape route with an ally still on it, endanger a child to stop an abductor, ward the children from both sides, or ask whether a hero is prepared to kill a child rather than permit capture.
The fog recoils. Beneath the vines stands a wall older than the forest. Fallen columns disappear beneath ochre leaves, but one section remains intact. A broken seven-pointed star fills the stone. Beneath it, a single line survives: May the sea never speak his name again. Beside the star stands a small priest carved in stone. Its face has been removed.
The pirate leader’s map changes to show the wreck, the first ruin, seven ritual stations, two moving points corresponding to the children, and a third point beneath the island.
Recommended line: The priest studies the map. “That is not showing us where they must go. It is showing something beneath us where they are.”
- Children safe: the tome writes, THE KEYS HAVE ACQUIRED NEW KEEPERS.
- One child taken: THE FIRST KEY IS IN MOTION. Criella pursues immediately.
- Both taken: the sea withdraws and something beneath the seabed breathes. The priest says, “We are trying to reach the ritual first.”
- Pirate bargain: the fog reveals the Unsinkable III with duplicate versions of the party already aboard.
- Priest custody: he wards the children and says, “Protecting the keys and protecting the children are not necessarily the same duty.”
- The cultists received telepathic instructions.
- The children were called keys and ‘carry the blood that fled.’
- The prisoner can be killed through an unseen connection.
- The tome mixes genuine warnings with manipulation.
- The Broken Star predates the current cult and has been altered by multiple cultures.
- The priest does not recognize the exact symbol, but he understands the danger.
- The priest considers sacrifice acceptable.
- The ship and island are connected through the illusionary maze.
- The maze uses motivations, Passions, fears, and secrets.
- Criella was sent to find the children and chose to flee with them.
- The pirates believe the children are a map.
- Multiple groups are being directed toward the same keys.
- Protecting the children may still benefit the hidden design.
- Collect motivations and secrets; explain Sanity and Madness.
- Describe the wreck and impossible shore; establish survivor status.
- Run the ship challenge if the party stays.
- Interrogate the prisoner; trigger the unnatural death.
- Let Barts present the satchel and tome; deliver one private temptation.
- Discover the Broken Star.
- Enter the colored fog and run the living-maze challenge.
- Use one personalized illusion.
- Introduce the Nameless Priest; use DC 15 Insight.
- Pressure Criella into a partial confession.
- Present the pirate bargain; allow negotiation or objective-based combat.
- End at the first ruin with the changing map.
| Check | DC | Result |
|---|
| Fear Test — obvious contradiction | 12 | Earn Sanity or gain Madness |
| Fear Test — meaningful motivation | 14 | Earn Sanity or gain Madness |
| Fear Test — buried secret | 16 | Earn Sanity or gain Madness |
| Prisoner — Persuasion/Intimidation | 20 | Telepathic orders / keys |
| Prisoner — Deception | 15 | Telepathic orders / keys |
| Medicine or Nature — prisoner | 13 | Death was unnatural |
| Investigation — Broken Star | 12 | Recut by multiple cultures |
| Insight — Nameless Priest | 15 | He withholds dangerous context |
| Insight — Mira | 12 | She tracks something invisible |
| Persuasion or Arcana — Mira | 16 | She describes what she senses |
| Persuasion — Tobias | 10 | He discusses the cult |
| Insight — Tobias | 14 | He conceals his journal |
Endpoint: The party reaches the first ruin. The Temple of the Broken Star remains a later destination. End with a choice, disappearance, or impossible image—not merely a defeated enemy.