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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 7248690" data-attributes="member: 12731">I'm putting the hidden Shrine three hexes due south of Fort Beluarian, and I'm having the party start off the campaign and enter Chult via dimensional travel right into room 1. (They just levelled up from level 4, fyi)The reason is I feel Fort Beluarian works best as the "starter town", rather than some kind of extra HQ (and one that is inferior to Port Nyanzaru in every way to boot). It feels much more logical and dramatic to get the first info-dump (the "no, you are in Chult" speech, the map, the curse, the initial rumors) separate from the overwhelming sensation that is the city.Of course, since I don't want to spend the first three sessions or whatever just escaping the initial tomb, I'm having the staircase (room 6 I believe) be excavatable from below. As they reach the sunlight and the heat, a pair of sweaty but surprised Flaming Fist mercenaries nervously greet them...Once they have had a chat with Commander Portyr at the Fort they can decide whether to keep adventuring in the Hidden Shrine (despite having to give away half their loot), or decide to not play by the Flaming Fist rule (and thus walk away - to the city, or simply south in the jungle). The poison gas is stated to take weeks to evaporate so everything will still work pretty much as written. They can even approach the Shrine from the top down. The poison gas will explain why the mercenaries won't join them.Of course, this module is infamous for loads of traps and wordy descriptions - and very little loot. But they don't know they won't lose out on too much money (if there isn't much loot to be had, there isn't much loot to be handed over to the Flaming Fist).Ideally they will not focus too hard on this module - there's plenty of other stuff going on in Chult. But it provides an easy insert for the "exotic jungle vibe", adds hugely to the sandboxy feel "wherever you go, the DM has adventure for you" - and since my barbarian player rolled a 20 on recognizing the creator gods depicted, I have already been able to introduce the Nine Trickster Gods of Omu to them <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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