Black Panther and Tomb of Annihilation

Hey all,

So I cannot have been the only person to view BP as highly inspirational for a ToA campaign. What changes or improvements come to the collective minds now that we’ve got some highly visible afrogeekism to draw on?

If nothing else, I know what soundtrack to play during character creation...

One thing that the film did is to crystallise a niggling concern about the adventure: that it presents this interesting and vibrant melange of African cultures in the Chultans, and then starts the story off in such a way as to prevent anyone from actually being a person from Chult! As written, the party starts in Baldur's Gate, speaks to Syndra, and then teleports into Port Nyanzaru. I think that, if my group decides to go for it (they might insist on Out of the Abyss instead), I'll change both that and the ticking clock. Instead, they will be a group formed in Port Nyanzaru to find out the location of the lost city of Omu, and then after they reach level 3 or 4 the Soulmonger will activate, divination magics will spit out 'Omu' as the location of it, and they'll be approached by Very Important People as the group best placed to find and stop it. That way I can promote some jungle exploration without the time rush and it is a lot easier to justify having Chultans and Albino Dwarves in the group.

I'm running, reading and preparing ToA these days and having a blast. It's a great adventure, but I see absolutely no reason to include another mediocre superhero movie that people politicize to an extreme degree. There's so many of these movies out there, I have no idea how people keep up any level of enthusiasm.

... it presents this interesting and vibrant melange of African cultures in the Chultans, and then starts the story off in such a way as to prevent anyone from actually being a person from Chult!

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These stories provide a framework. They always have. Just change things! I have two PCs from Chult and it was literally zero issue.

Charles Rampant said:

One thing that the film did is to crystallise a niggling concern about the adventure: that it presents this interesting and vibrant melange of African cultures in the Chultans, and then starts the story off in such a way as to prevent anyone from actually being a person from Chult! As written, the party starts in Baldur's Gate, speaks to Syndra, and then teleports into Port Nyanzaru.

Click to expand...

It doesn't prevent Chult characters.

It just assumes the exotic locale will be seen by foreign eyes, that is, eyes for which the locale really is exotic.

It's simpler if nobody has prior knowledge - that is all.

And I have zero issues with that

I wish I'd thought of BP before I ran the Laughing Gorge bridge encounter.
I'd have changed what the stone golem looks like to a legendary Chultan king named T'Challa & altered the legend of why he guards this bridge.
If (ok, when) the golem activates to attack I'd have it's look morph into the BP suite. It'd give me an excuse to use a BP mini/chess piece I own.

I think I'll use Klaue as an encounter. He'll be searching the jungle for the dwarven mine.

The laugh rating was for this little piece of awesome:

Charles Rampant said:

If nothing else, I know what soundtrack to play during character creation...

Click to expand...

DRF said:

I'm running, reading and preparing ToA these days and having a blast. It's a great adventure, but I see absolutely no reason to include another mediocre superhero movie that people politicize to an extreme degree. There's so many of these movies out there, I have no idea how people keep up any level of enthusiasm.



These stories provide a framework. They always have. Just change things! I have two PCs from Chult and it was literally zero issue.

Click to expand...

Don't let that nonesense let a really fun movie be ruined for you. Honestly I don't even really concider it a Superhero movie, I see it as a movie about a King, who occasionally sidelines as a Superhero.

ccs said:

I wish I'd thought of BP before I ran the Laughing Gorge bridge encounter.
I'd have changed what the stone golem looks like to a legendary Chultan king named T'Challa & altered the legend of why he guards this bridge.
If (ok, when) the golem activates to attack I'd have it's look morph into the BP suite. It'd give me an excuse to use a BP mini/chess piece I own.

I think I'll use Klaue as an encounter. He'll be searching the jungle for the dwarven mine.

Click to expand...

This is created use of mini. Hmm hey I saw minecraft minis at Walmart this morning. I know what is going into the next encounter.

Charles Rampant said:

Hey all,

So I cannot have been the only person to view BP as highly inspirational for a ToA campaign.

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure I have some old Heroclix that would make great minis this.

Charles Rampant said:

One thing that the film did is to crystallise a niggling concern about the adventure: that it presents this interesting and vibrant melange of African cultures in the Chultans, and then starts the story off in such a way as to prevent anyone from actually being a person from Chult! As written, the party starts in Baldur's Gate, speaks to Syndra, and then teleports into Port Nyanzaru. I think that, if my group decides to go for it (they might insist on Out of the Abyss instead), I'll change both that and the ticking clock. Instead, they will be a group formed in Port Nyanzaru to find out the location of the lost city of Omu, and then after they reach level 3 or 4 the Soulmonger will activate, divination magics will spit out 'Omu' as the location of it, and they'll be approached by Very Important People as the group best placed to find and stop it. That way I can promote some jungle exploration without the time rush and it is a lot easier to justify having Chultans and Albino Dwarves in the group.

Click to expand...

That sounds like a good approach!

With ruins everywhere – fallen Omu, fallen Mezro, etc. – I could imagine portraying Chult as a sort of fallen Wakanda that found a new mercantile identity post-royalty. Once they had magical marvels and great technology (similar to neighboring Lantan, but more spirit-focused maybe?) that eclipsed the outside world, overseen by the royalty, but with the collapse of Omu all that was scattered/lost. Maybe pieces of the old magic/tech remain in some Merchant Prince's personal collection, or are traded in black markets of the Beggar's Palace, or are in a ziggurat deep in the jungle? ToA even mentions Acererak being impressed by the feats of engineering & trap-construction he saw in Omu.

If we do end up playing ToA, I'm starting the 3rd-level party on a boat - The Brazen Pegasus from ToA - off Chult's coast at the end of a 10-day voyage. They are either foreign travelers or Chultans returning to their homeland after several years away. Various individual hooks based on background, race, and death curse...but they've banded together after gaining a sentient ornskull. The ornskull claims to have once been a lich but suffers amnesia after it was killed and didn't revive via its phylactery; the ornskull is how they learned to investigate Chult for the source of the Death Curse. It is regarded as "ancient magic/tech" by Chultans who have heard stories of such skulls existing long ago. Basically, I'm writing in a cabal of necromancers (The Horned Skull) who aided Acererak's take-over of Omu (seems like there were plenty of disgraced barae and exiled followers who had a bone to pick with Omu's royalty) and created these devices from skulls of their magic-using enemies...a twisted adaptation of a Chultan tradition holding skulls as sacred...Acererak found this tradition intriguing and also used it in parts of the Tomb of Nine Gods. The sentient ornskull will start off as a bit of comedy (a la Morte from PS:Torment) and convenient source of plot information (a little better than "because divinations!"), but may develop in any number of directions from there...