Thursday saw Ghosts of Saltmarsh hit the shelves of your FLGS in the UK (thanks to a small delay of a couple of days with the distributor) and elsewhere round the globe.

I have seen the odd comment online that copies of the book have been damaged somewhere down the line. Not sure if this damage is from the printing process, packing or transportation. But whatever the cause of the damage, my copy was damage free. So I was happy to avoid that issue.

As an incentive to buy your copy of the book from your FLGS and not from an online retailer WotC have produced an exclusive alternate cover art version of the book, that is only available from an FLGS.

Before I look any further at this fine tome, let me state for the record this is not a review. It’s a first impressions look at the book. A written unboxing almost. I’ve also not played the adventures in the book.

Disclaimer over let’s get on with it.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh is the latest campaign source book from WotC. A tome that consists of 256 pages, made up of background info, updated classic adventures and appendices and expanded mechanics.

The actual D&D realm that they place Saltmarsh and it’s related adventures is Greyhawk. Although with the aid of something I mention below you can use them with any setting.

Here is how the chapters breakdown.

• Introduction
• Saltmarsh – background information on the town itself.
• The Sinister Secret Of Saltmarsh – 1st Level characters U1 (1981)
• Danger at Dunwater – 3rd Level characters U2 (1982)
• Salvage Operation – 4th Level characters Dungeon 123 (2005)
• Isle of the Abbey – 5th Level characters Dungeon 34 (1992)
• The Final Enemy – 7th Level characters U3 (1983)
• Tammeraut’s Fate – 9th Level characters Dungeon 106 (2004)
• The Styes – 11th Level characters Dungeon 121 (2005)
• Appendix A: Of Ships and the Sea
• Appendix B: Magic Items
• Appendix C: Monsters and NPCs

The great thing about these updated adventures is that there is a small breakout box with that at best can be described a paragraph about the original adventure. There are also larger breakout boxes that give ideas for how to integrate the adventure into Eberron, Forgotten Realms and Mystara.

I also like that in the introduction they credit the giants whose shoulders they stood on to create this book.

If you use this as a campaign it will take your characters from level 1 through to 12.

I love the Saltmarsh chapter, it covers the town, major NPCs, politics/factions, the local area. Gives you adventure hooks, and linking the adventures included with those from the Tales from the Yawning Portal campaign book. You get new background information to use with player characters or NPCs.

The Appendix A is “everything” you need to use boats/ships with your campaign. From stat blocks, deck plans etc for a handful of common ships. To some upgrades that can be purchased for the ships. There are expanded rules for ships in combat, travel at sea. Lots of tables for various types of aquatic hazards, encounters, generating random ships, creating mysterious islands. Plus some example underwater locations to use in campaigns.

I think the titles of the remaining appendices describe what they are adequately.

For me this book looks fantastic, and has already sparked off ideas for my campaign that hasn’t started yet. Plus once the party gets to suitable levels of experience some side adventures that I can plug straight into the campaign.

I’ll close this post off with an image of a third party product by Gale Force 9 (who by the way are rather poor at putting information on their website, I couldn’t find anything about this on there for starters!) that comes out in June I believe. If I’m lucky I’ll be able to pick a copy up at UKGE.

There is also a world map coming out at the same time I believe.