My New Favorite D&D Encounter

this video is sponsored by into the am check out their dope graphic tee collection by checking the link in the pinned comment down below Ahoy and welcome to monster of the week the only show on the internet with booty to spare I'm not doing the pirate voice for this whole video I think we can all agree that's for the best but what I am doing for this entire video is telling you all about one of the most fun RPG monsters I've come across in quite some time because I feel like the last few monsters we've talked about have just been complete nightmare fuel so I figured it's time we give ourselves a little break talk about something nice for once in a while something Whimsical something that doesn't Inspire actual nightmares I am genuinely stoked to lighten the tone and tell you all about a monster that actually brought a smile to my face when I first read about it the bottled Armada I know I usually do my little intro and then lead into the part of the video where I tell you all about the creature but this one I figure might take a little bit of explaining because it's not immediately clear what you're even looking at I mean it's a ship in a bottle that much is clear but but today's monster is no ordinary knick-knack it is the result of a ship in a bottle that has been possessed by a magical force and brought to life the ship then has a mind of its own and can sail through the air in much the same way a proper Ship Sails on the waves of the ocean and when you have a whole swarm of living ships and Bottles gathered together that's when they formed an armada and it's also when you might be in trouble so as always today we're going to talk about every bit of lore ecology and publication history there is to be found on the bottled Armada and then of course we're going to convert it into d d fifth edition so you can use it in your DND campaign I'm very excited to talk about this monster it's a lot of fun and surprisingly brutal plus I've added a few optional rules I think you're really gonna like so let's set sail and see if we can't find ourselves some treasure thank you [Music] foreign [Music] this creature has its origins in d d third edition's Chad cousin Pathfinder for those not aware of how they do things on the other side of the RPG fence Pathfinder has these serialized Adventures called Adventure paths which Adventure path is like a chunk of a larger Adventure the idea being rather than one massive campaign book like we often see in D and D you get smaller bite-sized pieces of the adventure rolled out over a longer period of time one such Adventure path released in 2012 was called skull and shackles which as you can imagine was a pirate themed adventure and in the third segment of this adventure path called Tempest Rising that's where we find our monster of the week and the ship in a bottle is exactly what it sounds like it's a model ship meticulously crafted through the opening of a bottle and it's a ttrpg monster most ships and bottles are made by devoted sea captains as a form of tribute to the actual life-size ship they sail by recreating their vessel as a model ship it shows dedication and probably makes the long months at Sea go by a bit faster I mean it's not like they had Warhammer minis in the age of sale now where this impressive albeit mundane object becomes a monster with stats is a whole different story the idea here is that on rare occasion a mischievous water spirit might make their way onto a passing ship and possess the ship in a bottle Captain the Captain's Quarters usually turning it into a magical animated object once the spirit is taking control of the ship its Essence becomes infused with the model and a few things happen for one little tiny Sailors all aspects of the water spirit can be seen crewing the ship swabbing the decks rigging the sails and all that other nautical stuff there was a poop deck joke in there somewhere foreign also fills partially with an Arcane Mist that behaves like water lapping at the ship's Hull and most importantly the ship along with its glass bottle housing gains the ability to fly through the air and often the water spirit does this for the sole purpose of harassing the captain of the ship it will fly towards them possessing their model vessel in an attempt to inflict bodily harm on a creature that as far as the water spirit is concerned should have remained on land either way in this scenario the water spirit wins because if it manages to actually kill the ship captain somehow great and if it doesn't then it's presumably caused some damage and forced the land lover to destroy the model ship they've likely spent months assembling basically water Spirits are dicks however sometimes the water Spirits are forcibly bound to the ship in a bottle through an Arcane ritual that has essentially the same effect except it also charms the water spirit into believing its captor or someone designated by them is their Admiral in this case it will follow them around taking orders almost like a familiar would and that's pretty dang cool but of course this video isn't just about the ship in a bottle it's about the bottled Armada so let's take things just another step further when a group of these animated model ships are brought together they instinctively form up into an organized swarm of bottled ships forming an armada that fights and acts as one cohesive unit sometimes this is done deliberately by a talented conjurer who has access to a bunch of model ships other times it's merely a large group of water spirits that have coalesced somewhere that many ships and bottles are present such as the souvenir section at The Peggy's Cove gift shop but either way what may have been an almost cute adversary on its own has become a true force of Destruction which is a perfect segue into our next segment [Music] it's just a little ship what could it possibly do to me violence violence is what it can do to you this week I actually have two stat blocks for us so let's start with the less intimidating one the ship in a Bottle on its own clocks in at a challenge rating of one this puts them in the same threat range as a ghoul or a tiger in other words it's not a huge threat to a group of adventurers but if one of these things gets loose amongst a bunch of commoners say there's gonna be a few deaths the ship itself has a flying speed of 40 feet which means it's pretty fast and it has flyby as a trait so we can easily avoid any attacks of opportunity as far as actual attacks it can make it go a solo ship in a bottle has one attack option which is to fire its tiny ballista at the enemy it may be small but it's also infused with Arcane Magic from the water spirit possessing the thing so it deals one D6 plus two damage aside from that it has dark vision of course and it's immune to all the stuff constructs are typically immune to it does however have one little Quirk called shattered glass which is pretty fun basically the first time it takes damage or fires off that micro ballista the glass bottle containing the ship shatters and causes one D6 piercing damage to anyone within five feet all in all it's a cr1 monster with a couple neat little quirks and I like it a lot it can make for a great companion to a tougher enemy or it can provide just a nice little challenge in and of itself and hey going up against a few of them at once can actually be kind of tough for a new adventuring group in fact if you're facing more than one of them at the same time say I don't know between 6 and 20 give or take you might find yourself actually facing off against our second stat block the bottled our motto clocking in at a much more lethal challenge rating of five you'll find that the bottled Armada does not mess around for one there's a bunch more ships involved so it's little ballista attacks are gonna cause a bit more damage also instead of just firing off a Ballista the ships can combine their strength to make a ram attack that deals two d8 plus four bludgeoning damage this of course gets cut down to 1d8 if the Armada is at half its HP or less to sort of signify that some of the ships have been destroyed but that's no joke the Armada also gains the Swarm trait which you've probably seen before on swarms of bats rats or gnats basically this just means they can move through enemy spaces and through openings that are large enough for one of the ships and bottles to fit through and the other major change with our Armada variant is that the shattered glass damage applies not only to the first time the ship takes damage or fires the ballista but every time they take damage or fire the ballista the logic here is that there's always going to be at least one ship in the Armada with their bottle still intact which can shatter upon any unsuspecting foes but hey if combat goes for like 20 rounds or more or you just get to a point where you feel like all the bottles have conceivably been broken feel free to stop raining shattered glass on your players at any time both of these creatures even the more powerful Armada are relatively low CR on the grand scheme of things so combat is gonna be pretty straightforward they'll be flying in and out of range to make attacks with their ballistas and the Armada will want to make a few Ram attacks here and there but the most important thing in my opinion is that you characterize the cruise on these little ships because to your players they're going to be fighting off a swarm of annoying const drugs but the water Spirits controlling the ships they're in a life or death fight on the high seas against the nefarious gang of Giants all those little sailor Spirits should be bellowing orders firing their weapons during and unleashing their little battle cries as they Ram into their enemies yelling out cries of Revenge when their comrades are smashed to the ground it's all about the drama which is yet another dope segue into the final segment of this video [Music] there are very few places you might encounter a ship in a bottle or a bottled Armada in the wild but it can happen most likely a random encounter with one of these creatures would happen in an antique shop where the animated ship suddenly comes to life or maybe even within the wreckage of an actual ship as I mentioned historically most ships and bottles were made by actual sea captains so I could totally Envision a shipwreck either on land or at the bottom of the ocean where the sole survivor was an animated ship in a bottle in either case though combat might not be the only outcome here the water spirits that inhabit these ships aren't exceptionally intelligent or anything but they do understand both common and Aquin as languages so communication isn't entirely off the table if the players are slick and manage to offer the water spirit something in wants or the promise of something it finds enticing the ship in a bottle might even come with them or going back to that situation where the captain of a ship is being attacked by his now possessed ship in a bottle maybe there's a hostage situation the party has to resolve where the captain of a ship they're traveling on is being held at ballista Point by a saucy water spirit for something a bit more dangerous and perhaps a bit Whimsical maybe the party encounters a creature such as a goblin or a Cobalt who declares that they are the Admiral of their own Fleet the players might find this kind of silly at first until the little creatures bottled Armada appears and starts chasing them out of the dungeon and I mean there are lots of different reasons why these water Spirits might be working with this Cobalt but I would encourage you to incorporate that into part of the story maybe the Cobalt found an enchanted pool where the water spirits will possess anything dropped into it or enhance it in some way so the Cobalt's been stealing ships in bottles and slowly amassing this Fleet for some purpose Tails might be spreading across the town at this Cobalt in his Fleet of ship are attacking local merchants and preventing them from reaching Town causing supply chain issues and the cost of gpus is starting to Skyrocket I'm not traumatized you're traumatized there are all kinds of little stories like that you could tell surrounding this creature whether you're using the individual ship in a bottle or the Armada version and I think it's just great inevitably though many of you watching this video who use this monster are gonna have one player who asks can I make one and the answer to that question is yes in my fifth edition conversion I've included rules for cost and the Spells you have to cast in order to bind a water spirit to a ship in a bottle and make yourself a little magic item while not every group is going to find this useful if you have a pirate wizard in your party who has dreams of a bottled ship companion that floats around beside them you can make those dreams a reality we've seen tons of ship captains with parrot friends but one with a living model ship that's fun and cool you can also have the the ship in a bottle be the object of another Quest maybe a very important ship on a scouting mission was confirmed lost at sea its log book contained Vital Information about something and the King will pay handsomely for its retrieval but sadly it seems that ship its crew and the logbook have all been lost however the captain was known to keep an animated ship in a bottle at his side so maybe if the players can find that and convince the water spirit to give up its tiny logbook of events the information can still be saved granted it would be written from the perspective of a little water spirit playing pretend ship captain while infesting a tiny little boat but some information could still be gleaned there and who knows maybe that water spirit will send the party on a quest to retrieve more ships and Bottles so it can make itself the Admiral of its own little Armada and with that total lack of segue I want to take a moment to thank this week's sponsor into the am into the am is a clothing brand that specializes in graphic tees like the one I'm wearing right now and other expressive clothing their stuff is super unique and if you regularly watch my content you will definitely have seen me wearing their clothes in the past all their stuff is really high quality comfortable and they just got a bunch of new designs in stock they have a dope selection of brand new printed tees in store right now and if you use the discount code dungeon at checkout you get an extra 10 off just for being part of the community and if graphic tees aren't really your thing they do have a sweet collection of Basics too from t-shirts to joggers in fact they just got some new button-down v-necks in their basic line which is like my favorite kind of shirt I genuinely love their clothes and it's awesome that they want to sponsor my videos so do yourself a favor check them out they are a certified dungeon dad approved brand if you do want to check them out all you need to do is click on the link in the pinned comment down below and we'll take you right over there so once again thank you so much to our sponsor those are for sponsoring this video about living ships infested with spirits I know I've said there's a bunch already throughout the video but ultimately I think the bottled Armada and it's less daunting solo counterpart are just joyous monsters they're just fun little guys and I personally am very excited to use this in a DND game it's just a fun concept and I guarantee your players will be into it whether they're battling against it or building one to act as a little companion I want to give a big shout out to all the patrons who make this show possible and a special shout out to our patron of the week this week's randomly selected Patron is star Knight 75 thank you so much for all your support and for posing in this van Gogh painting it definitely wouldn't have been the same without you and thank you you for watching as always if you do want to use this monster in your d d campaign Link in the description down below is the 5th edition conversion of this monster in the form of a Google Document which contains all the information you need and if you are one of my lovely patrons over on the patreon page you can find the hi-res PDF step block with the new original artwork done by the ever talented Tam this week thank you so much Tam by the way for doing that artwork you did an amazing job and it's just like a little fancy thing that you can bust out at the table helps support me help support the content you get a neat stat block I'm sure you've heard this Spiel a thousand times and you're sick of it you know the deal and if you are new here please consider subscribing helps me out a bunch helps get more monsters into your sub box every week win-win situation we all walk away happy with traumatized players although this week's monster wasn't really that traumatizing honestly I just think it's cute it's a cool monster I'm excited to see what stories come out of this creature I was just flabbergasted when I saw this and if you want to be on the flabbergasting and defense situation please let me know in the comments down below if there's a monster from a previous edition of d d or another tabletop game as you saw today we do cover monsters from Pathfinder and other games I mean it's usually Pathfinder when we venture outside of d d but we've done stuff from new Monera and other games in the past so let me know we also have a monster suggestions Channel over on Discord where you can do that same thing let me know and the monster will be added to the list and who knows you might just see it show up in an episode of Monster of the week it's 3am it's 36 degrees in this room so I'm gonna sign off now turn off all these hot lights and go to bed summertime was a mistake I'll see you in the next one till then guys [Music] did you know there's more than one type of creature with backwards hands the rockshasa isn't the only fiendish Spirit to find its way out of the nine they have a distant cousin who is just as conniving and twice as deadly next episode nazaroon tune in next time for lots more fan service [Music]

Channel: Dungeon Dad

Views: 77,221

Keywords: How to play Dungeons and Dragons, dungeons and dragons lore, dungeons and dragons combat, d&d lore, d&d story, d&d online, d&d basics, d&d battle, dnd monsters, d&d monsters lore, dnd monsters explained, dnd monsters for level 1, d&d game breaking monsters, best d&d monsters, d&d cool monsters, creepy d&d monsters, d&d 5e custom monsters, classic d&d monsters, Dungeon Dad, Monster of the Week, D&D 5e, Dungeons and Dragons 5E, aj pickett, mr rhexx, D&D explained, homebrew

Id: tbEcp0BRirY

Length: 18min 13sec (1093 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 28 2023