The Emerald Grotto is a great dungeon:
- The underwater setting is both refreshing and establishes an aquatic theme that will persist throughout the campaign.
- The bifurcated route does a great job of structurally reinforcing rivalry.
- The key itself is filled with a lot of delightful details and clever ideas.
But there are two problems bracketing the Emerald Grotto that I would want to address: the broken premise at the beginning and the fragile conclusion at the end.
ESSENTIAL HOOK: THE RACE
At the end of the festival, the Elders of Jigow choose the two most successful teams to compete in the Grand Finale race through the Emerald Grotto. One team will be the PCs. The other will be the Rivals.
An elderly orc, dressed in deep blue robes, stands atop a platform of crates. He smiles at the crowd… “The main event, as you know, is yet to come. Only two teams will be chosen to compete in the final challenge—a race through the Emerald Grotto, in the depths of which the greatest prize awaits!”
And this is a little weird, because literally none of the contests up to this point have been team-based events. In fact, “teams” have only been mentioned in order to explicitly prohibit competitors from participating as a team (in J3).
This is a very awkward continuity glitch to have squatting right on top of the event which is the lynchpin for the entire campaign. But I don’t actually have a great solution for it.
HAVE TEAM EVENTS: One option would be to revamp the Festival of Merit so that it would feature team events. Unfortunately, revamping the existing events to be team-based instead of individual-based isn’t very practical. So you’d basically be creating a whole new slate of team-based events.
THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF YOUR STORY: Alternatively, maybe the PCs aren’t actually a group when the campaign begins. They become a group because they are the individual athletes chosen by the Elders to form one of the Grand Finale race teams, and then their fate is inexorably bound together by the vision of the Apotheon.
Unfortunately, there are a couple problem with this.
First, what if one or more of the PCs don’t actually do very well in the contests? How would you justify the Elders picking them as the cream of the crop? (This problem also afflicts the team-based approach.) You might address this by running the Festival of Merit as a Dungeon Crawl Classics-style funnel, where the players are all running a bunch of introductory characters and only those who score highest in the competitions become the PCs. (Although since Call of the Netherdeep starts at 3rd level, it would be a very unusual funnel.)
Perhaps just a straight up lottery would work? It doesn’t matter how well you actually did in the various competitions at the festival, because the participants of the Grand Finale are selected by lot.
Second, you’d want the same logic to apply to the Rivals. But their backgrounds are all built around them being an existing group of aspiring adventurers. So you’d basically have to scrap them as characters and rebuild them from the ground up. (Which isn’t very appealing, since the Rivals are one of the strengths of the campaign.)
Like I said, I don’t really have a completely satisfying solution here.
Here are some possibilities though:
- Lottery. Participation in the Grand Finale is determined by lottery. Festival members get a number of entries in the lottery equal to the number of medals they win. (Using the lottery system bypasses the, “What if the PCs have rotten luck during the festival?” as long as the PCs win at least one medal.)
- Individual Competition. If the PCs are competing individually (and being drawn together by fate during the Grand Finale), then you can frame the Rivals as being last year’s champions. (They won, have been hanging out since then, and have decided to try their hand at adventuring. This requires some minor revision to their back story, but not so much as to require a complete rewrite.)
- Group Competition. Alternatively, people sign up for the Festival as a team. The team gets a number of entries in the Grand Finale lottery equal to the number of medals they win.
Obviously the fix is in and the PCs and Rivals will be selected no matter what. This is, after all, the instigating event of the entire campaign. The goal here is not really to take your thumb off the scale; it’s to make your thumb invisible enough that the game world still logically makes sense.
ESSENTIAL HOOK: TRIGGERING THE EARTHQUAKE
When the PCs get to the end of the Emerald Grotto they see a shark with the Emerald Eye strapped to its side. They then fight the shark and, when they defeat the shark:
The dying shark slams into the stone pillar in the south end of the cavern. The pillar cracks under the force, teeters, then crashes down against the south wall. The wall fractures and collapses, revealing a passage awash with golden light.
If the PCs follow the golden light, of course, they discover the Jewel of Three Prayers, the essential McGuffin on which the entire plot of the campaign is based.
There are a couple of minor quibbles here:
- The PCs are in the middle of a race. So, yeah, the glowy light is interesting, but they’re heavily motivated by their immediate goal to NOT check it out right now. Generally speaking, you want scenario crucial actions to flow from the established goals of the PCs, not in direct contradiction to them. (The same is true for the Rivals, of course, but since you control their actions, it’s easy enough to route around this problem.)
- The players might have some questions about how the shark got into this cave, since it’s too large to fit through any of the passages. (This might particularly be true if they decide to lure the shark away from the grotto for some reason.)
But the far bigger problem is that the PCs don’t have to fight the shark.
In fact, fighting the shark is probably the dumbest way for the PCs to get the Emerald Eye.
Even if you overrule an Animal Handling check (although there’s no reason that you should), that still leaves alternative solutions like mage hand (to grab the amulet), animal friendship, or even just making a Stealth check (perhaps assisted by invisibility).
(It should be noted that the writers KNOW these options exist, because animal friendship is how a druid of Jigow got the amulet on the shark in the first place.)
The short version is that if the shark doesn’t get killed, then it has no death throes. No death throes? No pillar collapsing. No pillar collapsing? No glowy light. No glowy light?
The campaign doesn’t happen.
THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: My recommendation is that grabbing the Emerald Eye triggers a thunderous voice which declares that SO-AND-SO HAS WON THE RACE. This booming announcement pulses through the water, echoes across the shore… and also triggers an underwater cave-in that reveals the glowy light.
(This also, you’ll note, ends the race immediately, so that the PCs no longer have a competing motivation driving them to ignore the glowy light.)
(It should noted that the writers KNOW these options exist, because animal friendship is how a druid of Jigow got the amulet on the shark in the first place.)
So a druid set an innocent animal up to be killed purely for sport… Was he under duress, or are we left to assume he’s just tired of being a druid?
I think there’s an unfinished sentence at the end of the Group Competition bullet point. In the parenthesis, it just says “(This works”, making it anclear whether you were going to add more or just forgot to add the ending parenthesis.
I always love reading your remixes, and I like your solution for the trigger of the cave earthquake. But it does make me wonder, assuming the festival used the same place and booming annoncement in previous years, why the cave-in hasn’t happended previously?
I also sort-of like blaming the shark, so combining the OG solution with your solution, it could play out as the booming announcement startling the shark, causing it to crash into the wall as it flees. (I do realise, that the annual booming could have caused a slow erosion, that culminated in this year’s earthquake/landslide – but no shark participant then XD )
I’m pretty sure my players’ reaction to an “announcement” *so booming* that it actually caves in the grotto, would be eyebrows arched off their faces. It might be less immersion-breaking to claim that it’s not a real shark but actually an explosive construct.
I probably shouldn’t try speculating about an adventure I don’t own and haven’t read, but … maybe the race could be scripted enough that if the PCs are winning, the rivals show up in time to fight over the shark. And since they pick opposite tactics, any clever PC animal handling gets torpedoed by the rivals trying to harpoon it.
That puts both teams on the spot when the glowy passage is revealed, but that doesn’t necessarily seem like a problem.
This wouldn’t be full railroading — if the PCs screw up their race, then they can still just lose. But the whole scene of “shark smashes pillar, cave collapse, dramatic reveal of glowy passage” is a scripted set-piece, and if you decide to commit to that kind of thing you usually can’t avoid needing some amount of railroading/illusionism.
As for getting the two teams into the race, maybe there are two factions in Jigow — rival guilds or temples or something — and each picks a team of champions as their entrant in the race. Then all you need to add are a couple of NPCs who decide the PCs look like they have the right stuff, and invite them to compete on their behalf.
@Bill: After the PCs murder the shark and emerge with the spear, a druid rushes up to them. “You killed Tommi?! WTF? You could have just cast a sleep spell, you murderous assholes!”
@TLA: I’d either have previous competitions take place in different locations or blame new ruidium outcroppings for weakening the cave structure.
Another odd missing thing in the module is the spear that the players can pull out of the Giant Shark. Does it have any sort of magical properties other than the 2 extra traits it gives the shark?
“The silver spear lodged in the shark’s hide has been enchanted by the divine power of Sehanine the Moon Weaver.”
100% the players are going to ask me if it’s at all special if they grab it, and they likely will. The adventure mentions nothing about it! Imagine if I was like “it’s a totally mundane spear!” Seems… odd
A possible solution could be to spread rumors to foreshadow the emerald grotto:
-“Caves have appeared near the coast of Jigow X months ago” (coinciding with the start of the excavations in Ank’Harel). “The elders think they could be a sign from the gods”.
-“Strange red minerals are appearing in the coast of Jigow”.
-“The elders are planning for a special competition this year for the end of the festivities. A test of valor”.
In reality nobody knows what’s in the cave. The elders think it may be sacred and that’s why is so important. Hopefully the PCs will explore it for adventure, treasure or just to prove their worth (continuing with the festival theme).
Before arriving to the dungeon, you can add a scene where all the teams explore the underwater caves and labyrinths where most of them get lost. Make a survival roll to find the way or fail and get lost and rescued by the rivals. Just the PCs and the rivals arrive to the important part.
At the end of the cave, they can choose if they want to fight the Shark (and take the emerald eye). What is important is that they see the lights (if they kill the Shark just play the scene as written).
I was thinking that the emerald cave can be corrupted, with minuscule fragments of the crystal becoming red (it gets more obvious as they go deeper). The Shark and the Eye can be corrupted too.
I like the suggestion from @eduardo that perhaps the shark has been corrupted by ruidium. Maybe it started as a simple shark placed there by the Druid, and the last time they came to check on it getting use to its habitat, it attacked resulting in the spear attack. The ruidium further corrupted it, resulting in its gargantuan size. Thoughts?
For anyone reading this, I also saw a lovely redditor say they gave the shark a lair action that was kind of a tail shockwave, so it could break down the wall during any kind of fight or movement. The shark could also run into an escape route somewhere around, be a bit big, bring down some rocks and crack it open that way, once the amulet is taken. It could be a pet or something else. Idk its not a big glaring problem once I see everyones cool ideas, this is awesome 🙂
But also, if its destiny, maybe the players are all drawn in? Or it speaks to one of them, or even the shark gets like a little ruidium touches and wont let the players leave until they inspect the crack, as the apotheons urge to be rescued takes over it. Idk
I’m about to start this campaign and are using lots of ideas from this remix so thank you!
For the grotto I’ll be making the spear moon-touched and have it lodged in the wall so when the players take it (who can resist a glowing spear) the wall collapses, revealing the tunnel. It made no sense to me that it was in the shark!
I think I’ll make it so that the race is first to grab the emerald rather than return with it, just to remove that risk of them wanting to turn and run back to win. Maybe through an announcement or perhaps it’s actually a sending stone they then win. Not decided yet.
I know I’m a little late to the discussion but my party just finished the first chapter of CotN and I think a few of you missed some things…
1. Some of the games are actually multiplayer.
There is no reason multiple PC’s can’t enter the Meat Pie contest, they will just be competing against eachother, which is part of the fun and team building.
The maze says that multiple attempts can be made, so one would think multiple winners as well.
I let multiple PC’s enter The Ifolan Plunge even though the module says only 1, because I thought Ayo was going to walk away with it clean. To my delighted surprise Ayo rolled horribly and it came down to 2 of my PC’s trying to sabotage eachother to the sharks which was great fun.
I let all my PC’s Arm Wrestle each other for the right to face off against Maryle, then I turned Maggie’s challenge into a side bet for bragging rights for the PC who came out on top.
Wetwalks Paddywhack is literally a team event.
Herding the Horizonbacks also says that as many PC’s that want to participate can, just that there is only 1 winner. At this point, some of my PC’s who have already gotten medals started helping out those who haven’t (i.e. animal handling checks and charms) was a great team building event.
And by dumb luck, my PC’s did manage to answer all the riddles on the first attempt, by working together and each of them using their real life strengths to help eachol other out.
I’d say that this was probably the BEST team building – first day session to explain why they all decided to become a party of any module I’ve ever ran.
So moving on… Nothing in the module states that the druid stabbed the shark with the spear. The druid charmed the shark and them put the Emerald Eye on the beast and then left quickly. How the spear got there is a mystery, so I played it off as the Goddess herself cast down the spear after the competition was set up, and that it was Devine intervention that put it there. There is no way for a lvl 3 anything to sleep a npc with 126 hp even if they rolled max dice. For my game, the fact that the shark had a spear impaled into it, I raised the check for animal handling since I figured the shark was too distracted for it to be reasoned with.
While it didn’t happen, I did plan for my PC’s to grab the amulet and run, which they did attempt. Had they succeeded, they would have won the Festival of Merit, sure, but by the next day, the talk of the town would have been the Rivals defeating the killer shark and the grotto they opened up and the orb they found in there, I think this would have been enough motivation for my PC’s to follow after the Rivals as their “Epic” victory wouldn’t even get them a free breakfast after the new events unfolded…
(Also, just make it a Moon Touched Spear)