Reading Skerples latest post, https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2025/05/pulp-adventure-location-trindade-martim.html?m=1
"[Edmund] Halley invented an early diving bell, capable of reaching depths up to 20m. Using one near Trindade seems like drowning with extra steps"
I like this plot seed: "the abandoned houses, paths, and fields provide an eerie setting. In a fictional alternative version, it looks like the settlers died of starvation and were stripped to the bone by land crabs where they fell... but who carried off the skulls, and why?"
"You and your fellow PCs are chickens, released into a strange and hostile world" - henritter!
Quoting from "The Cruise of the Alerte" by E. F. Knight:
"The type of man who is willing to toil hard, endure discomfort and peril, and abandon every luxury for nine months on the remote chance of discovering treasure... there is a likelihood of a fair percentage of these volunteers being adventurers in the unfavourable sense of the term—men anxious to get away from England for reasons not creditable to themselves"
Adventurers indeed!
More from the book, via Skerple's post:
"It would be impossible to convey in words a just idea of the mystery of Trinidad. The very colouring seems unearthly—in places dismal black, and in others the fire-consumed crags are of strange metallic hues, vermilion red and copper yellow. When one lands on its shores this uncanny impression is enhanced. It bears all the appearance of being an accursed spot..."
The post is well worth reading (here's another link: https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2025/05/pulp-adventure-location-trindade-martim.html). One final thought from me is how creepy the various visitors to the island found the crabs that live there
I really want to make more use of dungeon denizens that are not particularly hostile, but are too many in number to get rid of, and you just have to put up with them following you around, wondering if at some point they will suddenly become a threat.
martin