"Ideas for island adventures...?" Topic

Anyone care to offer ideas for short adventures/situations/adventure sites that may occur in an archipelago of 'lost isles'…. These isles are about two weeks sailing from civilization (minimum) and have been 'abandoned' for about 1000 years. Think old Sinbad movies, classic D&D, and greek(ish) mythology… 6 or 7 'low to mid level' characters (game-system undecided, but irrelevant at this point).
Always good to get input from different minds, clears up the writer's block and keeps me from becoming too predictable…
Thanks for any input!

I ran a maritime/lost island adventure a couple of years ago. This thread ( link ) has some good suggestions.

Look through a copy of the old D&D "Isle of Dread" module.

Volcanoes, dinosaurs/lizardmen, Raiders of the Lost Ark-style forbidden temples, jungle natives ( hostile cannibals at war with potentially friendly tribes…if you can survive their tests of friendship ) , sea serpents…

Other sources:

The Island of Doctor Moreau: Wells
The Mysterious Island: Verne
Matango: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matango

Just for fun, you could have an encounter with a polar bear.

The islands could be full of ruins or just the opposite, have an advanced civilization. Either way, maybe fill them non-humans like intelligent apes or lizard men.

Maybe the characters, without knowing it, arrive at the island a year before it gets abandoned. (Time Travel.)(If I did that to my group, they would end up being the cause for the islands to be deserted.)

A land where the zombies have re-evolved to be intelligent and more human like, but still have the bad odour/ parts falling off, slow drag your foot walk. They repopulate the island by zombifying any new comers. Live forever as a zombie!!!

Make one of the islands a giant sea turtle… the players need to get into the temple that is on its back.

island of swamps, jungle, deadly and strange creatures, a lost village, and an ancient powerful treasure.

I ran a Middle Earth campaign where there was a symbiotic relationship between pirates based underground in a cave opening on the coast, and an evil Sauronic cult based on the island above. BTW the island was permanently shrouded in an evil mist. Each knew the other was there, but for reasons of mutual security left each other alone. What could be better than pirates and evil assassins?

oh… Do a Platoon styled game where a paladin or something like that was living there but left behind/went mad and is now treated like a god by the aboriginals. Even better if he is some sort of a supervisor for one of the PC's and they have to ponder how to kill a fellow member gone bad.

Two weeks isn't very remote to anyone capable of open water navigation. The Polynesians used to go farther in open boats without benefit of metal. But I digress.

For a remote tropical archipelago, heres' some things that could have moved in in the absence of the former civilization:

Fish Men – the reason the land civilization is gone is that the sea civilization swallowed them up. Literally. Don't camp on the beach and place a watch on the anchor chain.

Whale/Sea Monster Nursery – baby whales are often very curious about boats:

YouTube link

This is a bad time to offend Mom (How *does* one distract a baby Kraken from stress-testing the hull?). Not very interesting by itself, but a fun complication in the middle of a boat race (chased by cannibals, rushing to the temple ahead of other treasure hunters, etc.). If you want to see the she-wolves in your group smile menacingly, add some whalers.

Pirates – the Brotherhood of the Coast have a base here. It's neutral ground for trading loot and replenishing stores. First place to look for a VIP abducted at sea.

Kong! – self explanatory.

Samurai – The middle of Nowhere is halfway to Somewhere. Exiled Samurai or other exotic warriors low on everything but pride and sharpened steel washed up here after a battle a long way away (with or without the child Emperor).

And that's not even getting into what's going on at the volcano crater…

The Tunnels & Trolls solo #14: Sea of Mystery.

Thanks all… Diggin' the giant turtle… Yeah, I realize 2 weeks isn't much, but I suppose the sea itself may be terribly dangerous… and the Polynesians were crrrrazy!
ideas forming now…

Two weeks is a long way depending on what lies between here and there.
A massive razor sharp coral reef would be one.

and maybe they aren't islands, but the tops of giants heads.