D&D 5E Acererak's Tomb of Horrors is in Chult

[Helldritch]

Part of the reason ol' Mordy was lame in Curse of Strahd is because you could literally swap him out for anything else and the adventure wouldn't change. It might as well have been Jeff Goldblum. There's no reason it should or has to be him. It's like a Family Guy manatee joke. "Hey! Look at this wacky out of context reference! Remember this character?"

If we're going to be more thoughtful about Acererak in Chult, it might be okay!

Yep, you did change the archmage into a generic one. You said so and you did well to do that. This is what I like about D&D. You can do whatever you want with the setting, the adventures and even the rules if you feel that you need to.

Will they be more thoughtful for the inclusion of Acererak? I sure hope so. But if they don't; I bet you that I can modify it to be great, interesting and fun (at least for my players anyways.). I have no doubt that you'll do it too.

 

[Parmandur]

Yep, you did change the archmage into a generic one. You said so and you did well to do that. This is what I like about D&D. You can do whatever you want with the setting, the adventures and even the rules if you feel that you need to.

Will they be more thoughtful for the inclusion of Acererak? I sure hope so. But if they don't; I bet you that I can modify it to be great, interesting and fun (at least for my players anyways.). I have no doubt that you'll do it too.

No matter what they do, I am sure filing off the serial numbers and repurposing will be easy enough.

 

[CAFRedblade]

Think of Mordenkainen's appearrance a bit like a Stan Lee appearance in Marvel movies. Those familiar with him can go, oh cool. Those unfamiliar to him will miss the reference, but might have it pointed out to them by others. Some players are more than just familiar to the name, having played in Greyhawk, may have wanted more, but to myself it's just a cool reference since I started play in FR and home brew back in 2nd Ed DND. All these named spells had no real ties to FR, but as players we just went with the idea that someone in FR's past was named this and they created the spells. Wasn't till years later I learned the history and ties to Greyhawk. FR is the current Prime world, but I hope to see more references and releases for others like Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Eberron (my fav) and so forth, with system support mechanics so I don't have to do all the conversion myself.

 

[Uchawi]

Not awesome. Lazy design.

It would not call it lazy, but uninspired. However, if the masses buy into the nostalgia factor, then any point we make it mute. To be honest I would rather have them explore Vecna and why the body was severed and link it to a labyrinth or extra dimensional dungeon.

Acererak has been discussed and/or explored to death (no pun intended). I guess they should have Acererak and Drizzt in the same adventure.

 

[Mirtek]

Absolutely; whether Spelljamming abd/or plane walking, Wizards is bringing various settings closer together.

There's bringing closer together (here, you can buy a plane ticket to get from Chicago to New York) and just jamming all together (Statue of Liberty? Sure, it's right at the Navy Pier, just turn right after Mount Rushmore, cross the Golden Gate bridge and you can't miss it)

And there are those of us who like the shared universe of D&D's cosmology. My campaign takes place across Faerun, Oerth, Golarion, a home brewer world, and Athas, all connected by Sigil and the planes. So nods to that larger world...which has long been established...are something I enjoy quite a bit.

But they are just doing the exact opposite. Instead of letting us travel the width of the D&D universe they let us stagnate on Toril and just drop everything into it

The other players going on about how powerful and cool Mordenkainen

And yet losing to a chump like Strahd. What a disgrace for poor old M.

That style of play and treatment of malleable settings within a multiverse (down to table specific variations being endorsed), is what they are mainly supporting at this point.

Disagree. Stunts like this are the opposite of that.

 

[Corpsetaker]

Most of those modules and characters weren't originally from Greyhawk anyway. Greyhawk just simply worked at the time (years later) as a place to put those things and help promote TSRs published world. Almost the same process WotC is following now for FR

That's fine and all but I think people are forgetting that the Forgotten Realms has a long, established, and well documented history. It doesn't matter what other world they come from, it matters how something that has been established in one world enters another. When you have a lot of us Realms fans who know the ends and outs of the setting.

 

[I'm A Banana]

There's bringing closer together (here, you can buy a plane ticket to get from Chicago to New York) and just jamming all together (Statue of Liberty? Sure, it's right at the Navy Pier, just turn right after Mount Rushmore, cross the Golden Gate bridge and you can't miss it)
But they are just doing the exact opposite. Instead of letting us travel the width of the D&D universe they let us stagnate on Toril and just drop everything into it

You know what this metaphor reminded me of?

Las Vegas. Or Disneyland.

FR doesn't need to be the theme park version of D&D, with little potemkin dungeons all over the map, evoking some bygone splendor that it will never truly achieve, with no real sense of it's own history or place in the world.

So far in 5e, they've mostly managed to avoid this problem. In whatever adventure comes out of this, they may be able to avoid it too. "Arcerarak in Chult" might be OK! But there's always ample room for skepticism when faced with that.

Not that it should stop folks from gettin' hype if they're hype.

 

[Parmandur]

You know what this metaphor reminded me of?

Las Vegas. Or Disneyland.

FR doesn't need to be the theme park version of D&D, with little potemkin dungeons all over the map, evoking some bygone splendor that it will never truly achieve, with no real sense of it's own history or place in the world.

So far in 5e, they've mostly managed to avoid this problem. In whatever adventure comes out of this, they may be able to avoid it too. "Arcerarak in Chult" might be OK! But there's always ample room for skepticism when faced with that.

Not that it should stop folks from gettin' hype if they're hype.

Disneyland is a lot of fun, too! Especially with Jedi and Marvel superheroes!!!

 

[hawkeyefan]

There's bringing closer together (here, you can buy a plane ticket to get from Chicago to New York) and just jamming all together (Statue of Liberty? Sure, it's right at the Navy Pier, just turn right after Mount Rushmore, cross the Golden Gate bridge and you can't miss it)
But they are just doing the exact opposite. Instead of letting us travel the width of the D&D universe they let us stagnate on Toril and just drop everything into it

Not so. We can play in whatever setting we want. They're publishing adventures for the FR, yes that is true, but you can take any of their adventures so far and play them in your homebrew setting or on Oerth or wherever else you want. They don't "let" you do anything.

It's all make believe. It's not the real world. If you want to make a city that has the Statue of Liberty, Golden Gate Bridge, and Navy Pier you can do that because it's made up.

 

[Lenny J]

I'm currently reading RA Salvatore's latest Drizzt novel, Hero, and it has some interesting information about Acererak that might be relevant to upcoming APs.

Basically, the book's villainess received a Mirror of Life-Trapping from Acererak. The frame is shaped like the green-devil faces from Tomb of Horrors. Aererak gave the mirror to her so that she could fill it with trapped souls then return it to his tomb, so Acererak could feed on the prisoners. Acererak, we're told, is "a powerful lich who resides in a tomb in a land you call Chult."

Considering Dungeonology also mentions Acererak and the Tomb of Horrors, I think we can anticipate a Tomb of Horrors-inspired AP in the near future. There's also the fact that Volo's Guide includes a number of new dinosaurs, paving the way for a Chult-based adventure.

Of course, we also know from Storm King's Thunder that Artus Cimber and the Ring of Winter play a role in an upcoming adventure. Perhaps they are one and the same.

This was all true. You, my friend, are an expert at predicting this.

I'm sorry but I'm sick of them using FR as their dumping ground. Acererak is from Greyhawk, not the Forgotten Realms.

I don't pay much attention to the lore of the multiverse but... Planar Travel...? D&D has planeswalkers now, so It's not entirely out of the question he plane-shifted to Forgotten Realms.