Ocean D&D Report 09/09/2026
Players Bay Taking the Place - Jay Zero
Creel Crusher - Arkbrik
Jimmy the Polyp - Brwagur
Polpo Rosso - Me
Recap:
The reefers decided to explore the strange light to the southwest of the reef. Charting their way as they went along they first encountered a worm making their way towards them when they explored the sand field. Jimmy summoned an anemone to conceal the reefers from the worm, whose intention wasn't known.
Moving on from the sand field the reefers reached a deep trench across from the strange light source. While investigating the edge of the trench some jellyfish descended upon the reefers, instantly paralyzing Polpo! Luckily his companions held their own and defeated the 4 jellies. Polpo wore one as a hat afterwards.
Moving further south the reefers saw a cave where the light was emanating. Upon entering the cave, all save Bay were mesmerized by the sorcerous light, which was reflected throughout the cave via shiny clam shells scattered through the tunnels. At the first clam shell, the reefers had to fight off two hostile stomatopods who were also ensorcelled by the light. They knocked creel out during the fight before they were defeated by Bay's backside.
While waiting for Creel to come to, 3 more stomatopods attacked the reefers on sight. Polpo used his electric discharge to fry one of the shrimps, but the remaining two knocked the reefers out. Luckily, Creel woke up and pretended to be allied with the stomatopods. They planned to drag the other reefers to the source of the light. While their backs were turned, Creel knocked out the two shrimps. When the rest of the reefers awoke they explored the caves further and found a large broken clam that reflected a beam of light.
They attempted to move the clam to shine a light down the dark passage south of them, but were surprised to find a secret passage behind that ended at a sponge wall. The reefers managed to move past the sponge wall and surprised two stomatopods behind it. They instantly killed one and knocked out the other. When the unconscious one came to the reefers realized these shrimps were not ensorcelled. Creel spoke with this stomatopod and learned of the light source having teeth, and the stomatopods who feed it. The shrimp spoke of the stomatopods coming here to start a community, but then they fell victim to the light's influence. Creel lectured him on independence and the value of punching hard. The stomatopod wished to serve Creel as apprentice and so Peacock the Stomatopod joined as a retainer.
With that, the reefers managed to make their way out of the cave and back to the reef, carrying 3 large shiny clams as trophies. A good haul.
Thoughts:
Ocean D&D is very charming! A great change of pace for the Wednesday game. Now that Sinners is wrapped up, I am happy to spend some time in the ocean. OD&D works surprisingly well as the system this campaign is built upon. I'd never have thought the 1974 fantasy wargame game would work underwater, but here we are.
Hex-crawling across the ocean floor was very chill this session. The weather rolls were favorable and the rolled encounters were not that threatening. Though rolling 4 jellyfish on a d66 is one hell of a lucky result. The dungeon was much more dangerous. Stomatopods have very powerful knockout attacks, especially for a 1HD recipient. It was very cool to see a stomatopod punchout.
The big thing I'm adjusting to with this game is how sensory details are very different when engaging with the world through as a fish. As I mentioned prior, omnidirectional movement is kinda crazy. You also can only carry things that you can actively hold onto with a limb. So if, like me, you are playing an octopod, you have a bigger carry capacity because you just have more limbs to grab things with. This creates a unique style of problem solving where you can't rely on what you would normally do as a human being but rather to think about how you'd act as a completely different animal. That's way cooler than pretending to be an elf.
So far, I think it's still too early to see what threads will unravel with this campaign, but I can see the potential. It's experimental and a new mode of D&D that I'm sure no one has played before. This may indeed be a rare case of something new happening in the OSR and that's really exciting! So far this novelty is keeping me invested. I like how fresh it all feels.
I'd be very curious to see how the reef evolves and what new dynamics get introduced based on player activity. I know that there are "hidden" classes that need to be unlocked through discovery and factional allegiances, so that's definitely something we players can work towards. From a meta-standpoint, I am excited to see how the actual game itself grows from these early stages. It's still nascent but there are so many possibilities of where things can go from here.
I hope to tune in more regularly on Wednesdays to find out.