RPG Saturday: The Sinister Secret of Salt Marsh

    The Sinister Secret of Salt Marsh was the first of a series of three interconnected adventure modules for first edition AD&D--the other two adventures being Danger at Dunwater and The Final Enemy. The Sinister Secret of Salt Marsh was first published by TSR's UK division in 1981.  It was resurrected for 5th Edition D&D, together with Danger at Dunwater and The Final Enemy, and collected together with some additional adventures in a volume entitled Ghosts of Salt Marsh. 

    I probably purchased The Sinister Secret of Salt Marsh back in 1981 shortly after it was released. The primary appeal to me was the idea of exploring a haunted house--something very different from the standard delve into abandoned crypts, orc lairs, or fighting giants. In fact, the general setting seems more appropriate for something set in the past few hundred years rather than a Medieval setting.

Adventure Summary 

     The general scenario begins with the character party coming across the sleepy harbor town of Salt Marsh where they hear stories of a haunted mansion atop a seaside cliff outside the town. Either on their own, or with encouragement from the town leaders, the characters will then journey out to the haunted house to explore the house to drive out whatever evil is lurking there.  

  

    In true Scooby-Doo fashion, the mansion is not truly haunted--at least not in the sense that the town folk believe--but is being used by a gang of smugglers who are taking advantage of secret caverns beneath the house that lead to the bottom of the cliff. A ship is used to smuggle goods to just off the coast from the house, and then moved into the caverns by boat before being further distributed and sold off. 

    The characters are intended to explore the house. Unlike a Scooby-Doo mystery, however, there actually are dangerous creatures in and around the house. There is a poisonous snake in a well outside the home, and giant centipedes and large spiders can be encountered in the house; a group of small creatures called stirges lurk in the attic; some animated skeletons are locked in a crypt underneath the house; and, of course, there are the smugglers themselves. And there is the chance of randomly encountering giant rats, goblins, or a few other creatures in addition to those attached to specific locations. Additionally, there is a "prisoner" tied up in one of the bedrooms who actually is an assassin, hired by a merchant who works with the smugglers to infiltrate the adventurer's group to take appropriate action to prevent them from ever escaping the house. 

    And below the house, hidden behind a secret door in the celler, are the tunnels and caverns used by the smugglers, including members of the smuggling gang that are living in the caverns. 

    Whether from prisoners or clues found throughout the house, the characters will learn of the smuggling and the system to signal between the house and the smuggler's ship. This gives the characters the opportunity to then attempt to sneak onto the smuggler's ship and apprehend the leader of the gang and capture the ship and collect a generous reward from a grateful town council (or abscond with the ship and its cargo). 

     Aboard the ship, however, the characters will learn that the gang has not just been smuggling goods to bypass tariffs and taxes, but have been selling weapons to a colony of lizard men that have recently moved into the area. The adventure is continued in the next adventure, Danger at Dunwater. 

Influence

     The general scenario--the haunted house atop a cliff, hidden caverns down to the sea, and smugglers--may see familiar to those of you who were fans of the Hardy Boys mysteries as it is the basic premise used in the second Hardy Boys' adventure, The House On The Cliff. This was particularly apparent to me when I read the original 1927 edition of the book which emphasized the aspect of the house being haunted and decrepit, and I used some of the descriptions from the book when I last ran the D&D adventure. 

Additional Thoughts 

     This is a great adventure for low level characters (levels 1-3) and one of my favorites to run as a Dungeon Master. It is not too long and has a mixture of mystery and action. It also splits neatly into two parts (the house and the ship) so that it can be easily played over multiple evenings. The town can be used as a base of operations for additional adventures--something that naturally results if you use all three adventures in the original trilogy or use the adventures in the Ghosts of Salt Marsh book.

    I will note that the adventure as published in the Ghosts of Salt Marsh is not too different from the original 1981 adventure. The basic scenario is the same, although some of the monsters have been changed and few new surprises have been added. 

    When I purchased The Sinister Secret of Salt Marsh in the 1980s, I did not get the follow up adventures. It may have been because I never saw them or lack of cash--I don't remember. The result is that the follow up adventure created by my friends was much different than that envisioned by the authors. The adventurers, as noted above, will discover on the ship that the smugglers have been selling weapons to the lizard men. If you continue with Danger at Dunwater, you will discover that the lizard men are mostly peaceful, but are under threat from yet a third group of creatures; which is why they need the weapons. Thus, in the final of the trilogy of adventures, The Final Enemy, the characters, the townsfolk and the lizard men all unite to fight this common enemy. 

    But my friends and I didn't know any of that. So we created our own follow up adventure where the lizard men were the enemy, gaining strength in order to attack the settlement at Salt Marsh, and it was up to our characters to stop it.  

    The original adventure booklet can still be found for sale here and there for exorbitant prices. If you don't need an original, you can purchase a PDF copy and/or a print-on-demand copy from DriveThru RPG. Internet Archive also has a PDF of it that you can download.

     If you are playing 5th Edition, you will probably want to track down a copy of the Ghosts of Saltmarsh book (which is apparently out of print, although it is available to purchase in electronic form if you subscribe to D&D Beyond).  

    Additional resources--maps and suggestions for running the adventure--are available from the DM's Guild.