pukunui
Legend
This is why having a Session 0 is super-important. Getting everyone on the same page so that the players all make PCs who will want to go on the adventure and who do have ties to things that come up during the campaign is definitely the way to go. (I've learned this the hard way, and I flatly refuse to do it any other way now.)Too bad! Your character must immediately go somewhere where the background won’t matter, there is zero chance of running into someone who might know you, and you are indistinguishable from all the other murderhobos.
I understand WHY they did that, it’s just that it is possible to make an adventure background agnostic without making backgrounds completely irrelevant.
Two of the guides do know where Omu is - the yuan-ti and the coatl.The direction on getting to Omu is relatively simple; you ask the guide you hire. They won't know, but they usually know where the Naga oracle is, who in turn does know where Omu is.
My players didn't trust the yuan-ti. They all thought she was too mean-spirited so didn't want to have anything to do with her. None of us ever felt like there was much guesswork involved, though.None of the groups I've DMed hired a guide who could help. They all got betrayed by the yuan-ti. Haha.
But it is a pretty weak connection even under the best circumstances. IIRC, the party has to guess they need to find Omu, guess who knows where to find it, guess where that person would be, etc. It's the weakest part of the adventure.
The PCs were at the tavern. The acolyte of Savras came up and had his vision, so they went to visit the priest at the temple, who had his vision. They then hired the couatl to take them into the jungle to find the naga. The naga told them where to find Omu. They went to the aarakocra to so they could find Omu from the air. And so on.
As an aside, I'd just like to say that Omu turned out to be the deadliest adventure location I've ever run. I can't remember how many PCs died there but it was a lot. One didn't even last a whole session!