Ghosts of Saltmarsh

• "As for the abbey, who knows for sure? We never got
  anywhere near the place. Smoke rose from the island
  for days after the pirates attacked. Maybe that means
  the island's been abandoned. or maybe the abbey
  burned and the clerics are waiting to rebuild. [don't
  know. That's what you've been hired to find our:·

WHAT HE MIGHT KNOW
Major Ursa serves as a conduit when you want to give
information to the players, particularly if they retreat
from the Skull Dunes and return to the lighthouse.
The major can offer suggestions and occasional helpful
hints. These hints should not be given on demand. and
the major might not have advice on every subject. The
major's suggestions concerning the tactical situation on
the island depend on how much information the party
gives him about the island, its inhabitants, and its traps
and monsters.
For example, questions such as "How do we gel
through the tunnels underneath the ruins?" are inap-
propriate because the major has no way of knowing
about the tunnels under the abbey. The party must first
describe the tunnels (see .. The Winding Way") and the
situation there before the major can help them.

THE ISLAND

Abbey Isle is a small island about a mile wide and two

miles long. An overview of the island, including its major

areas and features, can be found on map 5.1.

GENERAL FEATURES

The island is little more than a slab of rock rising from
the ocean. The sea has battered its crumbling cliffs so
that almost the entire island is surrounded by danger-
ous rocky shoals. The waves crashing and splashing
over thejagged rocks make it obvious. even to landlub-
bers. that any attempt to navigate the shoals can only
end in disaster.
ln fact, there is no reason to pass through the danger-
ous rocks, because the granite cliffs beyond them rise
directly out of the water, offering no place to land or
come ashore. Only the sandy area at the southernmost
tip of the island offers a safe place to land a boat (see
"The Skull Dunes'').
The island has little wildlife but is covered in grass,
small Bowering plants. and a few gnarled, stunted
trees and shrubs. What few animals there are on the
island were imported by the clerics. either deliberately
or accidentally, when they arrived and built the abbey.
Some other more dangerous creatures have also come
ashore recently.

THE SKULL DUNES

The Skull Dunes (see map 5.2) lie beyond a beach of
coarse brown sand at the southern end of the island.
The dunes are desolate; only an occasional bit of scrag-
gly grass grows here and there in the sandy hollows.
When the abbey was built. the evil clerics populated
the dunes with hundreds of skeletons brought from the
mainland for the defense of the island. The overlord
of the abbey carried a special scepter that allowed its

1 square z 500 feet

MnP 5 1· AasEv lsu

holder to safely pass through the dunes, but this scepter

was destroyed in the fire that razed the abbey.

The skeletons now form an uncontrolled minefield of

undead. When anyone passes near, the undead rush up

out of the sand and attack. The skeletons are impossible

to avoid by stealth because they can detect intruders by

noise. vibrations caused by movement. and pressure on

the sand. When the pirates landed here, the skeletons

made them pay dearly, but the pirates eventually cleared

a path through the undead and pushed on to the abbey.

When the characters enter the dunes, use the map

lo keep track of their location. Assume that the party

lands at the southernmost tip of the dunes (in the square

south of the number 12) unless the characters decide

otherwise. When the characters first come ashore,

the hills of sand are smooth and trackless. and the

loose sand counts as difficult terrain. As the characters

soon discover, the dunes are filled with skeletons that

awaken and attack when anything treads on the sand

above them.

ENCOUNTER PROCEDURE

Use the following rules to play out the Skull Dunes en-

counter with the help of the map. using a single token

or miniature to represent the characters in the square

they occupy. Each square is I 50 feet on a side. Moving

between squares can be done only across sides and not

on a diagonal path.

Pirates' Path. Before they start moving. the charac-

ters can attempt to find the clear path. The party must

11<\l'll'R , l'HI OF rllf <\11111'\