Boats in the Sunscorched Marshes

Following up on my post about sailing rules, here's a few boats you might find in the Sunscorched Marshes.

Typical boats with large amounts of their bulk submerged are useless in the Marshes because they just get stuck. Specially-built swamp boats have low, flat bottoms and can be bought in the city.

• Wood rafts, easily made by hand and very simple. Crew 1, Float 1, Bulk 1, Cargo 1. 5 gp.
• A simple dugout canoe, propelled by oars. Crew 1, Float 2, Bulk 1, Cargo 3. 45 gp.
• Airboats, a type of very fast boat with a large air propeller cunningly rotated by intricate machinery at its back that powers it forward. If the propeller takes any damage at all, the airboat moves as though uncrewed until repaired by a specialist. Crew 2, Float 5 (but only a +2 on stealth-related rolls unless you turn the propeller off), Bulk 3, Cargo 6. 500 gp.
• Swamp trawlers are large steam-powered boats with cabins and everything! Activating the fishing gear lets you catch enough fish to feed a whole adventuring party for a day, but Float is lowered to 2. No need to roll for environmental decay when you’re in the cabin. Crew 8, Float 4, Bulk 7, Cargo 20. 1250 gp.

You can upgrade your boat, too, and get it painted and named and all that. Here’s a few ways to do it.

• Glass bottom- The entire bottom of your boat is replaced with a pane of clear glass, so you can look down through the swamp’s waters. 100 gp, lose 1 Bulk, you can impress anybody with how cool it looks and spot underwater hazards more easily.
• Armor plating- Your boat is encased in thick, heavy plates of metal. Per 75 gp spent, gain 1 Bulk and lose 1 Float.
• Weapon port- For 175 gp, a ranged weapon port is installed into the boat, which permanently takes up 1 Cargo slot. It fires one projectile per round if somebody is using their turn to manually reload/fire it, and also has space to store about five extra projectiles at a time; any more will need to be stored as Cargo. Here are d4 weapon types- you have to pick which one the port is for when the upgrade is purchased.

1. Shellbarbs. A sort of barbed harpoon made from sharp serrated shells, which can also be used to anchor the boat or function like a grappling hook. A shellbard projectile remains attached to the boat by a strong rope after it is fired, but its serrated points break off after one use. 2d6 damage to non-boat foes, 100 gp for a crate of six of them.
2. Swamp muck cannonballs! The weapon port sucks up nasty swamp mud and shoots it out as gloopy cannonballs. They only deal 1d4 damage and they’re useless against other boats, but hey, they’re free.
3. Sunlight beam- By crushing packets of enchanted sands and herbs, the weapon port converts their magical energy into a beam of light that scorches foes. 2d6 damage, 150 gp for six packets. A well-learned alchemist can make the packets for free, but every time a homemade packet is fired, roll an easy alchemy check. On a failure, the packet explodes too early and instead of firing, your boat starts to sink.
4. Normal cannonballs. The old standby. They’re slow- you can only fire them once every 2 rounds- and they deal 3d6 damage. 200 gp for a crate of six of them.

• Mangrove-wood ship’s wheel- this enchanted ship’s wheel, carved with imaged of frolicking manatees, can be installed for 200 gp. It can be controlled mentally by anybody who is either specified during the purchase or spends a full day studying the runes. A person controlling the wheel can steer the boat and act as a Crew member if they are anywhere in a 100 foot radius of the boat.
• Figurehead- For 10 gp, a figurehead of anything you want is created and installed onto the ship. It looks very cool.
• Bigger boat- The boat is made larger. For each 150 gp spent, the boat gains 1 Crew, Cargo, and Bulk and loses 1 Float.
• Newfangled magic propulsion- for 300 gp, a magical propulsion engine is installed, taking up 1 Cargo slot. It constantly belches foul black tar. The boat’s Float stat is doubled. If the system takes any targeted damage, the propulsion system is useless until repaired by a specialist, and the Float stat returns to how it was originally.
• Truesighted spyglass- For 1000 gp, a magical spyglass embedded with glittering blue gems is installed onto the deck. While looking through it, you can see in darkness as though it were bright daylight. Once per day, if looking for something or someone hidden, simply speak its name. The spyglass will swivel to face in its direction. When looking through the spyglass, the hidden thing will appear illuminated by an outline of blazing blue fire.

Sailing the Sunscorched Marshes

I'm working on writing a hexcrawl through the Sunscorched Marshes, which are a fantastical analogue to the Florida Everglades.

The slow-moving river that flows towards the northeast throughout the entirety of the Sunscorched Marshes is navigable by foot, but it’s a slow, arduous, and muddy endeavor. A boat can help. Any boat has four stats:

• Crew, the number of people who must be actively engaged in propelling the boat and keeping it functional in order for it to move. If the boat is not sufficiently crewed, it may travel only one hex per day.
• Float, the measure of a boat’s maneuverability, stealth, and speed. The number of hexes a boat can travel per day (assuming nothing goes wrong) is equal to its Float stat. When the boat makes a tricky maneuver, roll a d20 and add its Float stat to find out how well it does.
• Bulk, the structural integrity and sturdiness of the boat. When the boat must defend against damage, ram into something, or otherwise utilize its strength, roll a d20 and add its Bulk stat.
• Cargo, the amount of stuff a boat can hold before it gets too heavy, given as a number of abstracted inventory slots. When a boat has too much Cargo on it, it will begin to sink. Only significantly heavy things are Cargo- a single ration doesn’t weigh the boat down but a crate containing enough to feed the party for a week counts.

The Marshes’ river is slow and placid enough that sailing against its current is actually just as easy as sailing along with the current when the weather is alright. During a storm the boat can only move northeast or it’ll have to roll on the storm table twice per hour.

Boats get damaged by all the things you’d expect. When that happens, add a point of Damage. When the Damage total is higher than its Bulk stat, the boat begins to sink.

To stop a ship from sinking, it must be fully crewed with an acceptable amount of Damage and Cargo. Each crew member must devote 1d4 turns to rescuing the boat.

When a boat must face one of the vicious storms of the Marshes, roll on this table once per hour and whenever the boat does anything risky: