Dungeons & Dragons 5E gets seafaring tales and ship combat in nautical adventure book Ghosts of Saltmarsh

Dungeons & Dragons’ next big release will take the fantasy roleplaying game (back) to the high seas.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh brings a combination of adventures previously released for the fantasy RPG’s first edition and scenarios published in Dragon magazine to D&D: Fifth Edition, including tales set both above and below the waves.

Among the adventures in the 256-page book is the complete Underwater series – also known as the U series – that originally kicked off with 1981’s The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh and featured ghost ships and haunted mansions, before continuing with Danger at Dunwater and The Final Enemy.

Other adventures in the tome include Salvage Operation, Isle of the Abbey, Tammeraut’s Fate and The Styes. The adventures can be played as a single campaign arc that runs from level 1 to 12, or played as standalone scenarios – with several of the adventures previously published as one-shots.

There’s also a good deal of background information on the port region of Saltmarsh itself, a fishing village beset by smugglers, the reanimated corpses of drowned sailors and a Lovecraftian cult. It’s not exactly Brighton.

As well as lore and narrative hooks, the book includes gameplay additions for Fifth Edition, such as systems to enable combat between ships, extra magical items and, of course, monsters.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh will be released physically and digitally on May 21st, with an alternate soft-touch cover edition coming to game shops. It’ll cost $50 (£38) in the US. (Publisher Wizards of the Coast has dropped European RRP/MSRP, leaving shops to decide the price of its D&D books.)