dailyadventureprompts:Random encounter: Flotsam of a Far off Shore All rivers flow together, and wha

dailyadventureprompts:

Random encounter: Flotsam of a Far off Shore

All rivers flow together, and what is lost on one bank may yet be discovered on another. 

Adventure Hooks: 

• Tales of strange flora and mutant fish in the river bring the party to an isolated valley in the highlands, where they find an alien landscape has taken root and a derelict ship run aground in technicolor mud. Searching the ship’s cargo hold they find long spoiled crates and vessels full of unidentifyable goods, as well as a wealth of raw rubies and a a few esoteric magical devices. Figuring out how these treasures work and where they came from will be a puzzle in and of itself, and may require someone with esoteric skills, or a lot of trial and error. 
• Cages in the ships hull reveal that it was also carrying live cargo, though whether these were livestock or prisoners is impossible to tell given the small scattering of aberrant bones or hollow carapaces that remain in the few unruptured enclosures. These alien beasts now populate the valley, stalking the party as intruders into their territory. 
• Perhaps the oddest salvage from the ship is it’s log, not a leger but a midnight blue crystal about the size of a satsuma, that the party finds in possession of a sharp toothed skeleton near crumbled to dust. When attuned, the crystal floats about the head of the activating creature and silently observes, occasionally pestering them with alien words projected into their mind.  After a long enough time together, the crystal will begin probing them every couple of days with a random word it has overheard and a concept that might be related to it. Should the party indulge this game, eventually the log will synthesize their language, being able to communicate everything it has eidetically recorded. 

Setup: Though trading barges are known to take roundabout routes through the highlands in hopes of reaching resource rich frontier settlements, it’ll become obvious to a party with a lay of the land that this particular valley is bracketed by rapids and waterfalls, making the strange ship’s appearance even more implausible. As it turns out the vessel the party discovers hailed from the miasmic plane of Leng, a place of terrors and traders most of the multiverse would prefer forgotten. and was brought to the valley by a teleportation accident brought about by a cutrate ship’s mage. 

Intending to teleport the vessel to a prosperous trading port somewhere across the astral sea,  this Leng mage used poorly made maps that ended up conjuring the ship a few hundred feet in the air. The crash killed most of the crew, shattered the hull, and released those creatures it was intending to sell. Coincidentally, it also released all the parasites and spires infesting that hull, which over the subsequent years took root in the surrounding muck. 

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