D&D 5E suggestions for a level 8:ish adventure that starts in Port Nyanzaru?

[CapnZapp]

Hi,

My group of players are heading back to Port Nyanzaru, and I want to give them something to do before/during their final trek to Omu.

That is, a scenario that fits with the jungle setting of Tomb of Annihilation that is completed in a level or so (not a full mini-campaign or multi-level dungeon). They're seventh level so anything listed for levels 7-9 is good.

Do you know of any good ones? Any D&D system will do (AD&D, Pathfinder, ...)

Regards
Zapp

PS. It doesn't need to actually start in Port Nyanzaru. It doesn't even have to feature Chult at all. As long as it involves steaming jungles or forgotten cities or dinosaurs or whatever so **I** can have it start in Port Nyanzaru I'm good.

 

[Quickleaf]

You might check out Watchers of Meng penned by Robert Schwalb for the Primeval Thule setting. While I haven't gotten it yet myself (need more time to play D&D!), I've generally enjoyed his other works, the theme sounds good for ToA, I've heard good things about Primeval Thule, and I generally trust Merric's reviews.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Over at Adventure LookUp they list 46 adventures with a Jungle setting filter. If you add in say a 6-10 minimum starting level it focuses down to about a dozen or so. I glanced through them and some of them look like they could suit you. And the advantage of using A-LU is that they only list modules that you can currently acquire (via DMs Guild, RPG Now and so forth). See if any of those might work! Good luck!

 

[Demetrios1453]

White Plume Mountain and Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan from TftYP would both work, although the latter would need to have some threats ramped up a bit since it's made for a bit lower level (the simplest way to do this would be to make the poisonous gas do more or more frequent damage). WPM could easily be placed in one of the numerous volcanoes in Chult (perhaps Acererak built it alongside the Tomb of the Nine Gods), while HSoT fits the jungle theme perfectly, so much so that I'm thinking about putting it into my own ToA campaign.

 

[Reapernazara]

Maybe jungle treks, it's at the Dmguild. It's a collection of 6 mini adventures, not all having combat.

 

[CapnZapp]

Thanks all!

You might check out Watchers of Meng penned by Robert Schwalb for the Primeval Thule setting. While I haven't gotten it yet myself (need more time to play D&D!), I've generally enjoyed his other works, the theme sounds good for ToA, I've heard good things about Primeval Thule, and I generally trust Merric's reviews.

An excellent suggestion! Sounds rather exciting, and seems short and self-contained enough for my purposes.

 

[CapnZapp]

[MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]: I do too, but I'm afraid I have some bad news in this case: I think he oversold the module quite a bit. But let me post my comment to his site:
[MENTION=3586]MerricB[/MENTION]:

First off thanks for your review (and all your other reviews)! However, I think you shower too much praise on this adventure (Watchers of Meng). Essentially, your review reads as if the hooks (and your own imagination!) sell you on the entire adventure, despite there being next to no actual connection between the hooks and the adventure.

As I read it, sure there are a few adventure hooks, but they’re completely separate from each other and the actual dungeon. One of them – Oola – is great, sure, but that’s also all that’s great about Watchers of Meng; there is no actual follow-up to that greatness. The initial hook idea is all there is to Oola.

The dungeon itself is small and haphazardous and not especially noteworthy. It features Schwalb’s fascination for the morbid and the grim, but that’s nothing new.

On it’s own I’d say the adventure is okay:ish, a weak three stars perhaps. After your glowing review, however, it was a let-down.

best regards,

 

[CapnZapp]

After thinking a bit on this.

Keep the initial hook: "Oola has stolen my slaves, get them back alive, and get her back in any condition"

Since Chult suffers from the "one-city syndrome" (you basically never go through the jungle anywhere, if you want to travel anywhere civilized you basically go by boat), this is what I ended up with.

To bring Oola in line, her Boss, Kurtubal the Zhentarim, has poisoned her beloved Rien with a slow-acting but lethal poison. Rather than to submit/pay him, Oola intends to take Rien to a semi-legendary arch-apothecary called "the Queen of Nangalore" which she is one of the few that can find (up Olung river). To pay for this "Queen" to save Rien, she also rounded up two dozen prize slaves and brought them as payment.

She obviously does not know the truth behind Nangalore. She thinks a Queen has a court, and that a court needs poets, masseuses, singers, expert craftsmen; just the kind of (highly skilled) premium slaves she picked/stole.

For the Ziggurat of Meng, I'm cribbing on the time dilation theme already existing in Tomb of Annihilation. Just prior to Oola's passage, Meng materializes in an otherwise undisturbed patch of jungle in the vincinity of Nangalore; degenerates pouring out to explore/eat.

I'm ditching the future/alien suggestion of the original module. Instead, I'm considering connecting Meng to Mezro (perhaps Meng was meant to be a watch outpost for the hidden empire) and to place a tuning fork somewhere inside the pyramid that can help Artus Cimber to find/travel to the "real" Mezro.