Salvage Operation is, in essence, a simple little adventure until the final act. You explore an unusual dungeon – a wrecked ship! – fighting the foes aboard, until you reach your objective: a treasure in the hold.

The tricky bit about the adventure is running the final section, where your group needs to escape with the treasure!

Your players may want to discover what happened to the ship – what was its fate after being lost in the storm fifteen years ago? This is tricky: the background is a bit too complicated for the players to easily discover. The heroes can discover that the ship’s crew were overrun on an island inhabited by orcs, goblins and vermin from the Captain’s log, but details about the civil war on the island that cast the ship back into the sea and led to its current predicament? Only Krell could tell the party. It’s more than likely that the party will kill him in combat, and the mystery remains.

If you have a party that likes learning the truth of the matter, you could include a journal written by Krell in the shrine area, detailing the background.

The dungeon crawl section can be run as a mood piece: it’s dark and claustrophobic and there are webs everywhere! Not all groups play this way, which is fine, but if you try to set the mood with your initial descriptions of the setting – playing up the dark, the creaking of the ship, and the feeling of webs on the faces of the characters – then see how they react. If they’re role-playing based on the environment, then you can continue in that vein. If it’s a more casual approach, don’t try to force it. The dungeon is challenging enough on its own.

Because this is a low-level adventure (recommended for level 4 characters), the players may run short of hit points and need a short rest. You can probably find time for one rest during the adventure. The main thing to ask is “Will the monsters come looking for them while resting?” I think that’s unlikely if the group rest up on deck. Below deck, if spiders and Krell remain, then it’s likely they’ll disturb the character’s rest. I don’t think Krell leaves his shrine lightly (and the spiders tend to lie-in-wait) but using a spider attack to just drive home the uncomfortable nature of the environment may be worthwhile.

The best time for a short rest is likely after Krell and the spiders are defeated and before the group enter the hold. If the players don’t think of that, you might want to suggest it to them, because the final section is brutal if everyone isn’t on full health.

The opening section of the dungeon crawl is not that long: 12 areas in all, most of them empty of threats. I’d expect many groups complete this in 2-3 hours.

The real challenge in running the adventure comes once the party gets the treasure.

Here’s the things to look out for:

• Movement and Carrying the Box. Most likely (unless you’ve got a very strong character), two characters carry the box, at a speed of 20 feet a round. Keeping track of their movements precisely is important. As written, the characters can’t dash if carrying it together, and the floor is considered difficult terrain as is rocks back and forth. At a reduced speed of 20 feet per round – then halved again for difficult terrain – they have to travel about 100 feet to reach the main deck. That’s ten rounds, or near about. It’s then ten further rounds until the boat appears (unless someone rushes forward to signal it quicker – that didn’t happen in our game!) I recommend you use a map/battle grid to keep accurate track of the players’ movements during this. This is difficult to run using purely Theatre of the Mind.
• Surviving Monsters. My group didn’t leave any monsters alive before descending into the hull. If there’s a group that did, let me know! I think it’s most likely that, if any survive, it will be a few Maw Demons. With a battle grid, you can keep precise track of their movements. With Theatre of the Mind, I suggest employing them when it feels appropriate, rather than keeping a strict track of where they are.
  
• Octopus Attacks! Dodging tentacles is easy enough to run. The trick here is how badly the players roll. It would be very easy to inflict a TPK on them. If characters are struggling, then skipping an attack for a turn may be worthwhile.
  
• Attacking the Octopus. This is the one area that I think is poorly designed. Inflicting 20 damage to the octopus on one player’s turn is impossible without a good spell, unless the characters realise what the condition is and use the Ready action so that they all attack at the same time (on one creature’s turn). This isn’t that fun. Instead, I suggest that each character gets one attack on their turn against an AC of 12. If they hit and deal 5 or more damage, then they drive off the octopus for that turn and don’t need to make a saving throw against its attack. If they don’t deal enough damage, it gets to attack them at the end of their turn (save or take d6 damage). Of course, characters carrying the box may have trouble attacking! Allow a player can defend another player instead – they stop the octopus from attacking one but take the attack themselves!
  

This final section of the adventure needs to be fast-paced, but as-written it can be a bit repetitive. 20 rounds of this? Urgh! It works well if the players come up with innovative tactics to keep themselves safe. Allow those to work! However, it’s possible for it to fall a bit flat.

Salvage Operation is an evocative short adventure that should take a single four-hour session (or less!) to run, but you’ll need a bit more care with the escape to make it work well.