Your ship is suddenly slammed by a storm gale. Violent waves crash over the deck, and the ship is sucked into a powerful current, leaving your oarsmen helpless. Lightning flashes, illuminating a massive whirlpool just ahead of you. As your ship draws closer, you can see two massive stone hands reaching out of the maelstrom, beckoning you into a broad funnel of water, which leads down into the deepest fathoms of the sea.
This is Charybdis, an infamous whirlpool known to all Thylean sailors. It is a portal to the Nether Sea that is kept open by two of Kentimane’s hands, and it is legendary for swallowing entire ships. By the time the heroes can see Charybdis, the ocean’s powerful currents have already started to drag their ship toward the whirlpool. Spells such as Gust of Wind and Wind Wall, or a conjured
- Air Elemental will allow the character’s ship to skirt the whirlpool and avoid it. If magic is not used, then someone must steer the ship with a successful DC 20 Wisdom (Survival) check. If that fails, then the ship will be sucked into the whirlpool and transported to the Nether Sea. Refer to the Nether Sea chapter to continue the adventure.
Rather than sucking your ship down to the ocean floor, the whirlpool has apparently transported you to a dark, abyssal sea. The waters that now surround you are black and expansive, stretching in all directions under a claustrophobic sky, which is full of strange lights.
