It Is Not the Destination but the Journey... Part I: Sea Travel

After reading a flurry of blog posts by other great writers on the "problem" of making travel in tabletop RPGs fun/interesting/story serving/useful I have tried my hand at making a travel table that I can use in my Ánemos campaign.

I've used it for about a month or two now, and it seems to work pretty well. The important thing to keep in mind is that each of these events can be interacted with, they aren't the end all be all. If you roll a 4 and a 2 you get "sneaky sand bars" the ship is beached and it takes all day to wait for high tide and digging in the sand to get it out. Now say that the party wizard has some sort of spell that turns things into water, they could use it and unbeach the ship in a jiffy, successfully addressing the issue with problem solving. So encourage and allow for creative solutions.

Roll 1d8	Encounter	Sub Rolls	Sub-Encounter/Effect
1	Coral Reef	1	Abundant fish! Extra rations
		2	Hull stuck on the reef, day lost waiting for low tide
		3	Mermaids (gossip or food?)!
		4	One roll on ingredient table
2	No safe harbor	--	Sail another day farther, but point of exhaustion the next day
3	Heavy Winds	1	Make good head way, travel two days distance, but point of exhaustion the next day
		2	Blown off course, loose a day of travel, and point of exhaustion the next day
4	Small Inlet	1	Light House: Aids in navigation, travel two days distance
		2	Sneaky Sand Bars: Grounded, loose a day of travel
5	Other Ship	1	Trading Galley, trade or gossip!
		2	Pirates! Lives or money!
		3	Shipwreck! Loose day of travel if searched
		4	Wandering cleric/paladin seeking nearby Spirit
6	Psári pod	1	Adolescents (1d8+2), migrating
		2	Adolescents (1d8+2), hunting!
		3	Adults (1d4), migrating
		4	Adults (1d4), hunting!
7	Sea Monster	1	Kraken
		2	Dragon Turtle
		3,4,5	Giant: Snake/shark/octopus/other animal
		6,7,8	Spirit! Roll on Spirit Generator
8	Ship Board Event	1	Normal day, so roleplay!
		2	Supplies have spoiled, loose half the rations
		3	Crew is exhausted, demand a few days in port
		4	Shipwreck! Beached on near by random island

Floating islands optional

A tidal wave is a good reason for a ship wreck

Probably not Ánemos, maybe Vindjord