The Curse of Cypress Isle – An Island Hexcrawl Adventure
This is the other big RPG idea I currently have in development. For whatever reason, I had begun watching the Curse of Oak Island on the History Channel (man, I’m old enough to remember when the History Channel was awesome, and actually showed stuff that wasn’t ‘reality’ TV and Ancient Aliens…) a few months ago. I had already been looking into other RPG systems to try that weren’t D&D 5e before WotC did their OGL thing back in January, and had been looking for a more old school experience in general. Then, one day, the idea just struck to do an adventure based on the Oak Island story!
The possibility of buried treasure is one that will always get the PCs eager to go adventuring, and with as many twists and turns as the Oak Island story has, it’s ripe for adaptation into an adventure. I’ve just started reading a book about the history of the island, and it’s fascinating just how much effort has gone into plumbing that island’s depths, physically and historically. And how best to handle such a story of long lost treasures in adventure form? Why, a hexcrawl, of course!
Hexcrawling for Fun and Profit
I’ve been fascinated with hexcrawling for several months now, and have wanted to try it out in a proper game sooner or later. The last time I did a hexcrawl was probably…early to mid 2010s, a year or two after the Kingmaker AP was released, probably. I used the first book of that as a base for a game I ran for a couple of friends who were quite keen on building up their own kingdom. It was a fun game, and lasted several months best I can recall, though it was never properly ended.
I had attempted to develop a test-bed post-apocalyptic setting for my (currently on hold) homebrew revision of the Star Wars Saga Edition system, with the original idea being to do a hexcrawl there just to try out different elements of the system as they developed, but due to some life and medical issues, I had to stop working on it. The idea is still there, as indicated by my #Dungeon23 project, but in a slightly altered state.
The urge to do a proper hexcrawl is strong, though, so when the Great OGL Kerfuffle of 2023 happened and I found myself delving deeper into the OSR, the time seemed right. D&D 5e was already on the way out at our table, and this seemed like a great opportunity to make the leap to something different. I’ve started a Pathfidner 2e game, running the Abomination Vaults and associated adventures, and having ran one game, enjoyed the feel of the system immensely already. Yet, I also purchased the Castles & Crusades starter bundle, and have been eyeing those awfully hard. Ideally, once the Abomination Vaults have been cleared, we’ll take a break on PF2e (unless things change, I’ll likely run the Ruby Phoenix AP as a follow up) and try out C&C. And what better way to do that than to do an old school hexcrawl adventure?
Inspirations and Ideas
With the Oak Island story firmly in mind, and the urge to develop an old school hexcrawl strong, I began writing down all the ideas that came to mind. There needed to be a treasure of course, some legends about the island, a history of failed attempts to recover said treasure, a bunch of traps and obstacles, villainous types to impede the party, so many things! I started off with the original idea, though, and wanted to keep my focus on the Oak Island legend and history.
To that end, my goal is to create an island environment that is necessarily larger than the Oak Island, but retaining some of the key details about the real hunt for the treasure. Some physical details of the island will need to be represented, like the Money Pit, the Swamp, flooded tunnels, the mysterious rune stone, and ruins of previous inhabitants. Further, the historical aspects will need to be referenced, such as possible ties to a disgraced knightly order, rumors of pirate activity, previous expeditions that have failed, etc. There is a lot of history there, and as I’ve been reading the book (Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World’s Longest Treasure Hunt by Randall Sullivan), it’s quite murky at times. Translating that into a fictional account for a fantasy world will be quite the interesting challenge.
But, seeing as this will be set on a fantasy world, there will need to be plenty of fantasy elements added into the mix as well. The old D&D adventure ‘Isle of Dread’ was the first place I looked to for inspiration. It is a hexcrawl itself, though the plot elements are few if any; it’s mostly a giant sandbox to explore. But there are plenty of good things to pull from it. Its island is quite large, so will likely be a good way to scale Cypress Isle, and has a variety of random encounters and inhabitants, ranging from undead to dinosaurs to various savage tribes. As a quick aside, probably my favorite encounter in the book is with an ankylosaurus that is whacked out on loco weed.
But, I don’t want to just make a sandbox; I want there to be some history there, and something of a plot line to follow, however meandering it might be. So, I started thinking about my fantasy setting. I need to work on developing it more, as it’s basically the ancient history period of my sci-fi setting, so there should be plenty to delve into there. To that end, I’ve begun considering when exactly this adventure will be set in the timeline, what factions are around, who claims Cypress Isle, and why the treasure is there in the first place. It’s turning into a very interesting exercise to say the least.
Another set of inspirations were rather obviously, namely Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, Uncharted, and the like. Action and adventure, with dangerous traps and puzzles. Specifically, I’m interested in big traps, like mutli-room event kind of traps. That will require coming up with some interesting way to handle some of those big cinematic events, basically trying to give everyone something to do during a high-intensity, action-packed scene. Plus, there’s the Tomb Raider 2013 reboot that was specifically set upon an island with supernatural beings and wild weather that is a massive source of inspiration.
As I wrote my initial few pages of notes, I quickly came to the decision that I’d like to have kobolds be a part of the adventure. I’ve always enjoyed kobolds, especially as they seem to have taken on more draconic aspects over the years. I’ve actually seen them as something of a draconic race for some time, and had tentatively had them be the only link to the long lost dragons in my sci-fi setting, claiming proud heritage despite their small stature. Interestingly, this kind of goes back to that Kingmaker inspired game I ran, in which there was a particularly skillful kobold ranger who happened to be out hunting the humans that were invading their territory, and had setup a whole zone full of traps, having something of an archery sniper duel with one of the players (orc inquisitor), who eventually managed to make the kobold an ally.
So, kobolds are in. They love traps, and a treasure hunt adventure should be full of them. Are they the primary antagonists of the adventure? Why are they so keen on protecting the secrets of Cypress Isle? I feel like there needs to be something deeper here than just the local kobold tribes being the standard enemies within the adventure. Something more to the history of the island.
Oh my…I seem to have opened the door to something much, much larger…
Kobolds, Dragons, and A Much Larger World
This idea came about most recently and has greatly expanded the original scope of “make an island hexcrawl adventure” into something that an entire campaign could be built upon. It started with developing the kobolds into something more robust as a race, specifically tying them much more closely to dragons. As such, they will be sharing some draconic aspects, specifically scale colors and some additional traits (like elemental resistances, potentially water breathing, magic, maybe even weaker breath weapons), which is likely how they will be separated upon the island (basically into their own tribes). Also, they will likely be training drakes as mounts and guard animals.
But…that can’t just be it. There needs to be more. Why are they so closely tied to dragons, and why do they call this island home? What’s so special about the island besides the fact that there’s a treasure here that outsiders would desperately want, even though they’ve been getting killed for centuries trying to get it? Why is this particular treasure so special?
Well, this is where I started delving much deeper into the history of the world (likely the very same world that the city of Arcavarlon is located upon), and began to consider the dragons. By the time of my sci-fi era, they’ve not been spotted in the galaxy in thousands of years. Perhaps they were already gone from the fantasy era by the time this adventure takes place, and had been for hundreds of years at least. There was a world-shaking cataclysm at one point, so perhaps they had somehow sensed it was coming and made plans to leave, and in doing so they gathered up their treasures and took as much as they could with them?
Ah, but keeping the original Oak Island in mind, perhaps the dragons were working with retainers and allies, perhaps a knightly order dedicated to them, who would eventually find themselves disgraced by the world at large due to actions that were recorded by history to have been disgraceful and traitorous to the powers that be. Perhaps the kobolds were actually the closest servants of the dragons, and perhaps the dragons had their own sacred empire, in a far away land that outsiders were rarely, if ever, permitted to see.
Ah, but what if during the course of the cataclysm, the world was reshaped? Earthquakes, tidal waves, all that kind of thing? So, what if, this sacred dragon empire, perhaps once a massive continent on its own, now lies beneath the waves, and Cypress Ilse is but one of several islands that formed the highest peaks of the original continent? “The Dragon’s Tail” sounds like a fun name for a group of islands, and fitting given the history.
So, perhaps Cypress Isle is the last island in the chain, and maybe the only one that can be safely reached. Maybe there are terrible storms and hazardous seas that keep people away from what lies further along the chain, and those who venture into the islands are never seen again. Thus, the treasure of Cypress Isle may simply be riches, or it could be a way to get further into the chain of islands, and eventually into the heart of the ancient dragon empire itself.
As you can see, this went from a simple island adventure to something much grander in scope; this could literally be an entire campaign. The Cypress Isle adventure can still be developed as a standalone adventure, and likely will be for starters, but I am likely going to continue with developing the larger project now, and creating something much grander in scale. I’ve already got a lot more details formed in my notes, and will be refining them as I go, but I’ll leave those to a future update. For now, this is the basic overview of the Curse of Cypress Isle project, and an idea of where it may eventually lead. What do you think about it? Am I aiming too high, or does this sound like an interesting concept?
Let me know what you think!
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Until next time, out!