Seas of Vodari
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Seas of Vodari is a swashbuckling themed 3rd-party campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. It is set on a world that used to be normal, until a cataclysmic battle between the gods literally smashed the continents to splinters and raised the sea level, reducing the world to a mostly oceanic planet dotted with countless islands. The survivors of that cataclysm promptly shifted their culture to emphasize naval traditions, and the result centuries later is a world built around dashing explorers, swashbuckling pirates and sea monsters.
Official Description[edit]
Long ago, a vast continent was annihilated. The devastation left only a scattered few to start rebuilding their civilization on a ring of islands…
Vodari contains all of the iconic things you expect in a fantasy setting, but the familiar becomes surprising and new. Dungeons can be found above and below the waves, in the form of caves, shipwrecks, and lost temples. From island to island, you’ll find variety and wonders, ranging from bustling ports filled with travelers from distant lands to the unexplored wilderness, ruins, monsters, and other dangers. Halflings live in villages made of interconnected boats and anything that can float. Dwarves are respected shipbuilders, sailing the seas in search of relics from their sunken homeland and battling an enemy below in the Night War. Elves dwell high in the treetops and below the surface of the seas. Gnomes find themselves on opposite sides of a battle between machines and nature. Goblins are as likely to be encountered as raiders riding waveskippers as working as a tinkerer living in a city. Instead of land armies, Vodari has navies and pirates that battle with flintlocks and cannons to control the seas. The most dangerous monsters are found in the seas, such as sea dragons and white whales. Nature is as deadly as the most powerful monsters, with furious hurricanes, catastrophic tsunamis, and fiery volcanoes.
Playable Races[edit]
Vodari is home to all of the standard PHB races (minus some subraces, such as svirfneblin and duergar), plus the iconic goblinoids (goblin, bugbear, hobgoblin) and, at the DM's discretion, aasimar, aarakocra, tabaxi, genasi, goliaths, kobolds, lizardfolk, orcs, tritons and tortles. It's also home to six unique races:
- Dwarf Subrace: Sea Dwarf
- Elf Subrace: Aquatic Elf
- Cursed One
- Minotaur
- Siren
- Voda
Religion in Vodari[edit]
For obvious reasons, the gods are very important in Vodari; everybody accepts that they're real, although there's a tongue-in-cheek mention of atheists who are secretly being guided by Istoro. The Vodarian pantheon goes as follows:
Deity | Alignment | Suggested Domains | Symbol |
---|---|---|---|
Aerako, god of wind and mischief | CG | Nature, Tempest, Trickery | Gust |
Aubori, goddess of nature and beauty | CG | Nature, Light | Flower |
Dokahi, goddess of the deep sea, epic poetry and monsters | LE | Nature | Sea monster |
Fortana, goddess of freedom and luck | CN | Knowledge, Trickery | Coin |
Istoro, god of wisdom and knowledge | LN | Knowledge | Owl |
Kalder, god of winter, survival and valor | NG | Death, War | Snowflake tridents |
Mirta, goddess of birth and death | LN | Life, Death | Circle |
Morto, god of necromancy and secrets | NE | Death | Broken circle |
Okeano, god of the sea and sea creatures | CN | Nature, Tempest | Waves |
Scatho, god of conquest and tyranny | LE | Knowledge, War | Ram |
Sindri, goddess of creativity and invention | CN | Forge, Knowledge | Hammer |
Taeva, goddess of civilization and war | LG | Knowledge, Order, War | Three points |
Tero, god of light, love and healing | LG | Life, Light | Rising sun |
Toamna, goddess of agriculture and fertility | LG | Life, Nature | Grain |
Vesi, goddess of chaos, storms and darkness | CE | Tempest, Trickery | Swirling storm |
Volkan, god of fire and destruction | CE | Death, Nature | Volcano |
Classes[edit]
Obviously, as a swashbuckling piracy themed setting, Vodari has a whole class dedicated to the Gunslinger, with the Arcane Gunmaster, Musketeer, Pistolero and Sniper subclasses. However, it also has at least one new subclass for each class from the PHB.
- Barbarian: Path of the Buccaneer
- Bard: College of Nature, College of Shanties
- Cleric Domain: Spirit
- Druid: Circle of the Deeps
- Fighter: Cannoneer, Corsair
- Monk: Way of the Wild
- Paladin: Oath of Discovery
- Ranger: Stormcloak
- Rogue: Mask, Scoundrel
- Sorcerer: Tidal Sorcery
- Warlock: The Council
- Wizard: School of Mistwalking
Beneath the Waves[edit]
You might be wondering: since this is a heavily sea-focused campaign setting, does it give any love to the idea of underwater adventuring, long regarded as the ultimate black sheep of the D&D adventuring world? Well, not so much in the corebook, although it does establish the existence of underwater kingdoms, but inevitably the designers promised a splatbook expansion for the setting which would tackle the underwater realms, seeing as these are effectively the Underdark of the setting. Titled "Under the Seas of Vodari", it was initially scheduled for release in February 2022... but got screwed particularly hard by various factors, including world-wide shipping disruptions and a decision to revamp many of the new races and subclasses in the "5.5" style, meaning it was delayed until around September/October 2022, though early access PDFs that were complete, just lacking some of the desired artwork, did launch around the expected time.
The drowned lands of Vodari are are specifically divided into three regions; the Sunlit Seas, the Twilight Waters, and the Midnight Depths.
The undersea races of Vodari are a mixture of those amphibious races seen in the original setting splatbook, and several newcomers; Merfolk, obviously, as well as four variants of that race; the octopus-merfolk Cecaelias, the shark-headed, shark-tailed merfolk Tiburons, and the Grindylow, who are goblin-merfolk with the heads of shark-people and octopus tentacles for legs. There's also Selkies, Sea Dragon and Coral Dragon lineages for Dragonborn (known in this world as "Draga"), an Atlantean equivalent called the Varu (or "Ancients), and a race of Crabfolk called the Karokans.