SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

Ok let’s start with the painting of the cliffs.

On 3 of the cliff tiles I added some flock. Which was way way too light. I thought I was going to have to clean it off and forget it.

However I was hit by a brainwave, yeah unusual for me I know. So I broke out the green wash and dabbed it on the flock.

I’m now much happier with the results.

Decided to start on the cave tiles with two of the larger ones I currently have. In the photos below the wash is drying so looks glossy. But they won’t end up like that.

I’ve done a supplies restock, and have more of the colours I’m using for the cave tiles on the way.

I now have the Ghosts of Saltmarsh source book (a post will appear over the next couple of days on that). So I can now feed information from there in to my planning.

Such as I now have a location for Saltmarsh on the Sword Coast. I’d originally in my head had it in the area below. But about a week ago when things started to click I moved it much further south. South of Baldar’s Gate and nearer to the border.

However in Ghosts of Saltmarsh they suggest that Saltmarsh is between Neverwinter and Waterdeep. It gets further narrowed down when they say that Thornhold is south of Saltmarsh. So based on the information given, I’m placing Saltmarsh at the northern end of the Mere of Dead Men.

I’ve also identified the islands that the opening encounters will take place on. I was going to treat the second island as a wilderness encounter. But thanks to the new book I have stats for seals! So if they land on the opposite side of the island to the small fishing huts, they will come across seals on the beach.

The fishing huts are a summer resting spot for fishermen while they catch fish, cure them, before returning back to their community with their catches. Which will be fresh fish they caught on the journey back, and the cured stuff. These fishermen will give the party a ride to Kythyss. The fishermen know about the pirate base. There is an accommodation between the pirates and the fishermen. The fishermen say nothing about the pirates, provide them with fish. In return the pirates keep the fishermen safe.

Once the party have reached Alaron for the festival I want the party to get a boat. Most likely a keel boat. There will be one or two ways for them to get one. I like the idea of them owing a powerful figure. And you can be sure that at a later point they will be calling in that debt.

The town map for Kythyss will actually be the Saltmarsh town map. Makes sense because my players won’t be exploring Saltmarsh for a long time. Saves me prep time, and one less thing to create.

There are one or two adventures in Ghosts Of Saltmarsh that I can use for the campaign. So if I fancy a break from planning I can use on of them.

I’d also at some point like to run some underwater adventures as part of the campaign. But at the moment I don’t have a credible excuse for allowing the party to breathe underwater.

Anyway I hope you found this thought sharing interesting.