Elemental Water

An endless sea with no surface and no floor. Near its heart the water is warm and filled with light, coral and great shoals; toward its edges it turns cold and dark. One arrives by spell, through a whirlpool or by the deepest trench of a mortal sea, and leaves the same way. Without magic to breathe, a visitor has only one breath. Its people are as changeable as the tides: welcoming one day, furious the next.

Light
Dim
Going
Hard

Hear it

Hazards

  • No air. There is no surface to reach: every breath has to be brought or conjured. D&D 5e: A creature can hold its breath for 1 plus its Constitution modifier minutes, never less than 30 seconds. After that it gains 1 Exhaustion at the end of each of its turns, and loses all of it as soon as it can breathe again.
  • Weight of the water. Far from its heart, the water presses hard and drains the strength of swimmers. D&D 5e: After each hour of swimming here, a creature without a Swim Speed makes a DC 10 Constitution save or gains 1 Exhaustion.
  • The cold reaches. Toward the edges, the water is cold enough to stop a heart. D&D 5e: A creature can stay in icy water for as many minutes as its Constitution score. Each minute after that, it makes a DC 10 Constitution save or gains 1 Exhaustion. Cold resistance or immunity, or a body made for icy water, passes automatically.
  • Fighting in water. Swords drag, arrows fall short, and fire hardly bites. D&D 5e: Without a Swim Speed, melee weapon attacks have Disadvantage unless they pierce. Ranged weapon attacks miss beyond normal range and have Disadvantage within it. Everything underwater resists Fire damage.

Adventure hooks

  1. A sunken bell rings in the endless sea and calls drowned sailors from every mortal ocean. A widow wants to hear her husband’s voice once more, and has already paid for the passage.
  2. Patrols of sea folk have closed a current-road because something enormous is passing along it. A merchant needs his pearls through before the season ends, and offers a share to anyone who will ride the current anyway.
  3. A drowned sailor, now part of the sea, asks the party to carry a message to his son: he is happy here, and the boy should stop rowing out to look for him every night.
  4. A whirlpool between this sea and a mortal one has opened, and mortal ships are falling through. The sea folk want it closed; a pirate captain who has learned to steer through it wants it kept open.

What may happen

  1. A city grown from living coral, its towers open on every side. Fish swim in and out of the windows.
  2. A strong warm current runs like a road. Those who ride it travel three times as fast, but not always where they meant to.
  3. A huge bubble of air drifts by, big enough for the whole party to rest and dry out inside.
  4. A patrol of sea folk with tridents asks the party what it carries and where it goes.
  5. A shadow larger than a ship passes overhead, and every fish in sight goes still.
  6. A bronze bell from some mortal church hangs in the water, still ringing faintly on its own.
  7. A shoal of glowing fish surrounds the party and lights the water for an hour.
  8. A whirlpool forms out of nothing and starts to pull.
  9. A field of giant clams, each guarding a pearl as big as a fist. One of them is open.
  10. A drowned sailor, kept by the water, swims beside the party and points toward home.
  11. The water around the party grows cold and choppy. Something here has taken offence.

Creatures

To bring back

Elemental Essence, Marid Water, Water Sentinel Pure Water, Leviathan Scale

Other planes

Feywild, Shadowfell, Ethereal, Astral, Elemental Fire, Elemental Earth, Elemental Air, Infernal, Abyssal, Celestial, Hades

This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 ("SRD 5.2.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at https://www.dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

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