A Table for Giant Sea Monsters

More ideas about Skerples pirate game:

What foul things lurk in the depths? (1d20):

1. The Angler Crab: An enormous telepathic crab. It slept in the waves so long that dirt and grass grew atop it. After a while, a fisherman, his wife, and their daughter came and built a home there with a lighthouse. As the crab began to awaken from its slumber, it realized what had occurred on its back and, being a wicked and tricksy crustacean, began to assault their minds with nightmares. The crab caused the wife's death and threatened to do the same to the daughter unless the fisherman used his lighthouse to draw more unsuspecting ships to feed the crab. It awakens as night falls to feed on all ships docked at his false island, drawn by the shining lighthouse and the fisherman's beautiful daughter.
2. Mother Blortfish: There was a famine on the island. Everyone would have starved if not for Mother Blortfish. The town cleric forsook the gods and called on something from below. That's when Mother Blortfish came with her children. She filled their nets with her pale bloated, many-eyed fish. It wasn't good meat but it would do for a starving people. But the deal was children for children. Each year, the town must supply Mother Blortfish with children to feed her. Some notice that the chubby fish that they eat look something like the children that were sacrificed. It is a dark revelation they push deep down where it festers in the dim places of their minds.
3. The Sapphire Lurker: Its eggs are the rarest of precious gems. Most are no larger than the palm of your hand and they look like the most exquisite sapphires ever discovered. The eggs fill a man's mind with terrible greed. They will ignore jewelers that appraise the gems at their true worth of nothing but to the collectors of oddities. Any that steal from its undersea nest will be forever haunted by a shadow that moves beneath the water that is larger than anything could possibly be.  Its eyes are oceans of sapphire stars.
4. The Barnacle King: Perhaps a terrible weapon from days long past. Perhaps a very sleepy aquatic giant. Either way, thousands upon thousands of barnacles have called this giant home. Barnacles worship it as their god and creator. They bring back news of ships and their movements in their silent barnacle tongue. He collects all this information and if any nation were to obtain his aid, it would mean a major swing in power on the world stage.
5. The Clawed Guardian: A lobster-shaped construct, left to guard the sunken ruins of an ancient civilization. The magitechnology that could be found there is of fantastic value to any world power. The Guardian itself has a weakness: it leaves for a time every day to accept the offering of one old woman who believes it to be a benevolent ocean deity. It brings her fish and would keep her safe at any cost. 
6. The Whistling Serpent: They say it crawls along ancient steel beams along the bottom of the sea, whistling blasphemies and shining its one bright eye. This might prove useful:  https://sheepandsorcery.blogspot.com/2018/08/trains-trains-trains.html 
7. The World Leviathan: Aquatic creatures have built civilizations along the back of this fantastically large whale. They say that the whale is the wisest of all creatures should you be able to consult it, but these civilizations are at war over who can approach the whale's head. Some have forgotten that this whale isn't an entire world and have no idea of why they are fighting.
8. The Face in the Mountain: Each time this enormous face in this undersea mountain opens its mouth, alien oceanic life from other times in distant history (the far future or the far past) flood forth into the seas of the now.
9. The Swarm: A massive swarm of glowing men 'o war lights up the seas. It is almost hypnotic... don't you just want to jump in?
10. The Crewless Ship: A vengeful giant sea-turtle with a ship chained to its great shell attacks any ships that it finds out of a terrible madness. If you see a ship with tattered sails that seems to be crewed by no one, turn the other way and pray.
11. The Viral Spider: A snow-white, semitransparent creature that has arachnid qualities but with far, far too many legs haunts the lowest crags and valleys of the sea floor. Sometimes it rises to the surface to stab someone in the neck with one of its many legs. That person grows a white, spidery mark on its neck that spreads down into one of the victim's fingers, manifesting a tiny white spike out of said finger. Any stabbed by this suffer the same fate. The spider controls them all from its haunt, driving them to play a part in its incomprehensible schemes.
12. RELEASE THE KRAKEN!!: A giant octopus-creature that is made of the pure hate of damned souls in Davy Jone's Locker. It was lulled into a slumber by a child's music box long ago. That music box was stolen by a dread pirate and now it is used to control the beast. However, it hates its servitude and will strike out as soon as its box is returned to it.
13. The Devil in the Deep: A great shambling creature made of teeth and eyes and claws. It is truly an alien creature that sinks ships, bringing their crews down to its crashed ship. There is performs excruciating experiments on people, some to expand its knowledge, most out of boredom. Its lair is surrounded by its collection of sunken vessels that it likes to peruse like a real collector. It does not like it when things are stolen from its ships and will notice immediately if something significant is missing, hunting down the thief to the earth's end.
14. The False Sun: A black sphere that radiates malice, rising from the sea on the horizon like the sun. Where it shines its anti-light there is madness, mutation, and death.
15. The Flying Manta Ray: A giant flying manta ray. It can live below or above the waves. It is little better than a playful animal, not understanding the suffering it causes with its play. It searches for a mate it may never find.
16. The Scorned God: Tribesmen erect idols in worship of a massive scarred shark. It is believed to be the oldest thing in the sea. To witness it, you would go mad and die simply from the sight of its enormity or weep yourself dry from the sadness that it radiates from its body so covered in scars, harpoons, bullets, cannonballs, arrows, swords, spears, and anything else man has ever made war with. Some say that it is war incarnate and the grief of all wars ever fought follows it like a shadow.
17. The Sea Stallion: Seahorses are beautiful and cute when they are small. It is a different story when they are larger than your boat. Its pouch is full of young. If the seas are to be safe, they must never be allowed to leave that pouch.
18. The Monolith: A huge large red monolith covered in barnacles. It is actually alive, all its barnacles are eyes that open in a terrifying instant of revelation. It eats undersea ruins in a mad endeavor to preserve history.
19. The Rotten One: This dead, rotting, gigantic fish swims through the water with a fell ease. It leaves poison in its wake. Leaving a trail of dead fish behind it.
20. The S.S. Vengeance: This massive submarine, built to fight a forgotten war lurks in the depths. An undead crew mans her, believing that they are the sole survivors of their nation. They carry their people's last act of vengeance: a full load of nuclear weapons. If they can be convinced they have arrived at the enemy shore, they will unload these weapons upon the target and then crumble into dust, their mission finished.