DnD 4e Spelljammer - SlaveShip (1.03 Slaves and a Fight Club)

Now that I had the seeds of the Return to Northmoor podcast in my head I started thinking about who, how, where and what. 

• Who could I use as a mentor or leader figure to the PC’s? 
• How would I get them to work together? 
• How do I send them on adventures? 
• Where are all of them from and where would they go? 
• What missions could I send them on? 

Turning different ideas around in my head I thought about different movies or stories that had old ships in them and suddenly it hit me. They could all be slaves on the ship and could have been captured on different planets/crystal spheres. That would explain all of the races and would give all of the PC’s a common background, but still be different. I started thinking about why the PC’s would be slaves, and if they were slaves how would they escape and take over the ship. And once they took over the ship what would stop them from just going home, which is the logical thing a freed slave would do.  

I decided I should use the Captain of the ship as their mentor, but why would they need a mentor. They were slaves. Then I dove back into the movies as I thought about Gladiator. Hey, they might be slave, but maybe they were captured specifically to fight for the owner of the ship, which didn’t necessarily have to be the Captain of the ship.  I thought what if the captain was a former slave and he freed himself by winning in the arenas? Hmm, what arenas? Do they fight in the same place? I decided to go with something I knew a little about, which is racing. 

My niece, Danielle, raced sprint cars. Every year she would run at several different race tracks throughout the season. It fit perfectly. That would even give the PC’s a reason to travel in the ship. There would be a circuit of arena fights on different planets in different crystal spheres with different battleground terrains. The fights wouldn’t be one-on-one, but instead group fights, where your team goes against another. 

I could even make the PC’s fight for their freedom as the Captain did. A big question came up though. How could I prevent the players from trying to mutiny constantly?  My thought before was that they would just want to go home, but they don’t know how to get home. If the PC’s are from a planet that doesn’t know about Spelljamming, the only one who would know were they are from is the navigator of the ship which in this case would be the Captain. Therefore, if they mutiny and take over the ship he can just refuse to tell them where there home is. 
They couldn’t go by race, because several different races could be on a planet. In the Spelljammer universe there are a hundred different planets and spheres you could be from if you’re an orc or bugbear, or even a human.  

Since the PC’s would be kowtowed into fighting for the Captain, or whomever he works for, they could probably serve on the ship as well. That could lead to sessions on various planets in between arena battles. The ship would have to stop on strange planets for food, could be attacked by pirates, etc. The ideas were unlimited now.  

I have the Who, How, Where and the What. Now I have to refine my ideas, and the Return to Northmoor podcast had an excellent tool for that. In the next entry I’ll post the worksheet I customized for my adventure, along with the responses from my group.