How I Ran the Sea of Sorrows in my 5E Ravenloft Campaign, incl. Ghastria, Blaustein & the Lighthouse

How I ran the Sea of Sorrows - as depicted in 5th edition's Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (so Pietra instead or Pieter, the Sea of Sorrows and the Nocturnal Sea essentially merged, etc.) - as part of my ongoing D&D Ravenloft campaign. I go over what resources, maps, music and hook I used, what adventures my players had while they were there, how I handled sea travel and random encounters, what types of monsters I included, what stat blocks I used for Pietra van Riese and her crew and how the fights went down (they fought her twice), how I changed Blaustein's Bluebeard to Purplebeard (a lost mind flayer who doesn't realize he's a mind flayer), and potential future adventures if/when they ever return there. And likely more. 🏴‍☠️
00:00:00 Intro
00:02:58 About the Sea of Sorrows
00:04:02 Spoilers for other 5E content
00:05:56 SoS in 5E
00:07:20 Map
00:09:23 Resources
00:12:39 Music
00:15:23 Hooks
00:16:39 How to get to the SoS
00:17:44 First encounter
00:19:15 Lost at sea (& "rescued")
00:20:37 Escher the Vampirate!
00:22:34 "Abandoned" mind flayer dungeon
00:29:02 Blaustein & Purplebeard
00:30:32 Ghastria
00:31:37 East Riding on Ghastria
00:35:49 Ship travel & random encounters
00:37:49 The Lighthouse
00:41:29 Pietra attacks!
00:43:36 Sent off-course
00:44:12 Back to Blaustein
00:45:21 Back to Ghastria
00:46:00 Pietra trap
00:48:36 Getting Pietra's ship
00:51:52 Future adventures(?)
00:57:06 Outro
RESOURCES 📚
- Ship of Horror (2E): www.dmsguild.com/product/1748...
- MereShoe1981's 5E Sea of Sorrows guides: / sea_of_sorrows_and_isl...
- Hour of the Raven on RUclips: / @houroftheraven
- Van Richten's Encyclopedia Volume 1: www.dmsguild.com/product/3850...
- The homebrewed stat block I used for Pietra: www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/28...
- Purplebeard Reddit post links: / reworking_bluebeardbla... & / random_discovery_a_min...
I also mentioned The Second Tarokka Reading: www.dmsguild.com/product/4692...
MAPS 🗺 & SHIP TOKENS ⚓
- The 5E Core map I used for the SoS and its islands: / a_new_core_redesigning...
- Limithron: / limithron & www.limithron.com/
- Vampirate map by Limithron: / who_needs_a_halloween_...
- Vampire ship (& other ships) by Silver Compass Maps: / i_made_a_series_of_dem...
- The Ghastria map I used: www.deviantart.com/falconire/...
- The East Riding map I used: / nassau_inspired_seasid...
- Ship with a giant cannon on it: / oc_a_gun_so_large_it_n...
- Lighthouse map by Cze & Peku: / chthonic_lighthouse_31x79
- The ship tokens I used for Pietra's ghost ship (I forgot to mention this in the video): / brigantine_ghost_ship_...
MUSIC 🎶
Tabletop Audio song suggestions ( tabletopaudio.com/ & / tabletopaudio )...
Combat:
- "Pirates!" (I used this as the main/general combat music)
- "High Seas Pursuit" (I used this as Pietra's theme)
- "Whirlpool" (I used this during the Kraken battle)
- "Storm at Sea"
Towns & Islands:
- "Bleakwater Docks" (I used this for Blaustein in general)
- "Den of Iniquity" (I used this for the tavern on Blaustein)
- "Fishing Village" (I used this for the town of East Riding on Ghastria)
- "Promotory"
- "Quiet Cove"
- "Down by the Sea"
Dungeons & Underwater:
- "Skull Island"
- "Skullwharf" (I used this for the abandoned mind flayer dungeon)
- "Submerged"
- "Sunken Treasure"
- "Sunken Temple"
Misc.:
- "Drowned Sailors" (I used this as a sort of out-of-combat theme for Pietra, referring to her crew)
- "Voyage Begins" [Underway] (I used this for ship travel)
Music credits (for during this video): "Pirates!", "Voyage Begins", "High Seas Pursuit", "Whirlpool", "Skullwharf", "Bleakwater Docks", "Fishing Village", "Haunted", "Cry Havoc", "Shadowfell" and "Drowned Sailors" by Tabletop Audio, and "Lamentation" and "Plaint" by Kevin MacLeod (a.k.a. Incompetech); licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/...
All images, logos, etc. are the copyright of their respective creators.

[@SlicesnDices]

Hey there @dmofthemists I just found your channel today as well! We've got a similar domain hopping campaign over on our channel - thanks so much for the great content! We're currently in the Sea of Sorrows as well; this should come in VERY handy!

[@DMoftheMists]

Ahh that's so cool! 😃 I'll check it out. What domains have you covered off so far? And what's in the pipeline...? 👀😈

[@SlicesnDices]

@@DMoftheMists so many! We started doing the MistHunters adventures (and may come back to them at a much higher level, seems a waste to end at level 8!) I wanted to key the adventure in the characters' back stories, so we've concentrated a good portion on domains that "link" them to those domains. So far, we have done Borca (House of Lament), Dementlieu, Kartakass, Barovia, Falkovnia, Mordent, Lamordia, Darkon, The Nightmare Lands, and now The Sea of Sorrows!

[@DMoftheMists]

Wow, that sounds awesome! 🤩 If you're ever planning on doing Valachan, I ran the Trial of Hearts pretty much out of the two Mist Hunters modules that are Valachan-focused - it's going to be one of my next videos (ETA a couple of weeks, all going well).
How did Dementlieu and Falkovnia go? I did them as well (and have done videos covering those, too).
So far we've done Barovia (as per Curse of Strahd), Markovia, Falkovnia, the Carnival, Mordent (which is where I put the House of Lament), the Sea of Sorrows, Niranjan, Dementlieu, the Rider's Bridge, and Valachan. Lined up we have return visits to Markovia and Mordent, plus Forlorn, Hazlan, and Darkon. Might also do Kartakass as well.

[@orgixvi3]

Shout out to PhDnD, who is also doing a lot of Ravenloft content

[@DMoftheMists]

Yes! Big fan of Dr Bowers' stuff. I ran his version of Niranjan for my players and it went down a treat.

[@orgixvi3]

@@DMoftheMists I just found your channel today, and I gotta say, it's some really great stuff. I love seeing new content for Ravenloft, as I feel it's pretty overlooked as a campaign setting.

[@DMoftheMists]

Thanks! How did you find the channel, out of interest?
I know right? It's quite surprising. AFAIK there's only a handful of people doing in-depth Ravenloft videos. It's one of the reasons I wanted to put content out as well, to help other Ravenloft DMs.

[@orgixvi3]

@DMoftheMists It came up randomly in my recommendations.