The New D&D Adventure Is - Tomb of Annihilation!

Tomb of Annihilation is in the Forgotten Realms set in the Lost Continent of Chult - Away from the Sword Coast (the hosts of the live stream are very interested with undead dinosaurs). Acererak is, as many predicted, the source of this plotline as the Archlich is more or less "eating" resurrection magic from the rest of the Forgotten Realms and causing a zombie apocalypse. Pendleton Ward from Adventure Time is a creative consultant on this adventure.

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More updates will be coming through the Dungeons & Dragons marathon live stream live on Twitch throughout the weekend.

 

[pukunui]

I'm a former AL Coordinator and current WotC playtester ...

Then you should be aware that your comments in this thread are getting very close to violating your NDA. (I, too, am an alpha playtester.)

 

[Queer Venger]

This sounds pretty cool. I don't get the drama over the forgotten realms setting, any DM worth his/her salt can convert to another setting.

cheers,
Jocanuck

The drama you say, well, its because the Forgotten Realms is the definitive D&D campaign world ;-)
And the best!

 

[Prakriti]

Which would inspire more confidence if Mercer hadn't pronounced lemure as "lemur" for two sessions...

They did say that the pronunciations would come from WotC. On the other hand, Matt Sernett and Chris Perkins both mispronounced "Ubtao" for the entirety of the last Dragon Talk podcast. And Chris Perkins mispronounced "Vallaki," the town in Curse of Strahd, throughout Dice, Camera, Action, which is strange, considering he wrote the adventure...

Also, they showed off a few pronunciations on the stream, and I must say, every single one of them was inconsistent with my own pronunciations (FEAR-bolg?). Most notably, the pronunciation of "Sahuagin" didn't agree with the one used in Dungeons & Dragons Online. Consistency, people -- can we have some?

 

[JohnnyZemo]

You might want to re-read D1-3 and Q1. And then put it on typical FR overload. Throw in some A4 as well.

Drow city, dark lakes , Kuo-toa cities/outpost, svirfneblin communities, a labyrinth (the demonweb) and a demon lord at the end.

Not that WOTC and 2e era TSR has not harped on those things for ages, OotA is not the first...but it was all done almost 40 years ago.

Ehhh... I don't think anyone who has played Out of the Abyss would agree with you. (I've DM'ed all the adventures you mention as well as Out of the Abyss.)

Yes, the start is similar to A4, but the Maze Engine and the Demonweb are nothing alike. Saying that the adventures are alike because they both include dark lakes is like saying that all adventures that take place in a forest are the same. Lolth is very important to D1-3 and Q1, and (spoilers) she is only a background force in Out of the Abyss. Out of the Abyss is all about demon lords and Underdark weirdness. (The weirdness is what led to the early, somewhat confusing, comparisons to Alice in Wonderland.) Nothing in Out of the Abyss is like Q1.

And honestly, published adventures have changed so much in the 30+ years between the two that they read like totally different animals. The D series is mostly a big map with some fixed encounters and a lot of random encounters. Almost all of the encounter areas are sketched out in a sentence or two. There is one overarching plotline, but it is extremely straightforward.

Out of the Abyss has so much more detail in every way that the parts that overlap with the D series feel totally different. And if you really want to get picky, there is no kuo-toa city in the D series, just a big temple (and the main focus of the middle section of the adventure). In Out of the Abyss, there is a kuo-toa town. It's an important plot point, but only a small part of the overall adventure.

Anyway, having run both, I find them very different.

 

[Shasarak]

I'm thinking less Zombie Apocalypse and more Cannibal Holocaust; except with a better reason for the natives to try and eat you than racist stereotypes.

I never thought about the cannibal aspect but it is hardly racist to have angry natives wanting to kill you.

 

[Remathilis]

I never thought about the cannibal aspect but it is hardly racist to have angry natives wanting to kill you.

I don't want to derail this thread with anything political, but the classic "cannibalistic natives killing and eating the explorers" isn't the most flattering depiction of dark-skinned tribesmen out there.

 

[Jester David]

That's consistent with the lore about the Nine Hells in general. No devil can leave the Hells on their own. They all must be summoned and so forth. I doubt even Asmodeus can leave of his own free will.

That's more in line with demons, which need to be summoned. Devils have been presented as being able to leave more freely in order to make deals.
Even then, it'd only really apply to devils. Other outsiders, like night hags and rakshasas, don't seem to be as limited. So why would any of the many gods who have dwelled in the Nine Hells be imprisoned there? (The gods of the goblins, orcs, sahuagin, and kobolds have all lived in the Nine Hells at one point.)
And it certainly doesn't mesh with the idea of the Blood Wars, unless the demons and devils were summoning each other...

To say nothing of the fact the 4e Realms campaign setting has Tiamat move into Banehold with Bane.

The "devils need to be summoned" thing is reasonable headcanon, and a decent justification. But it still doesn't mesh with the "imprisoned" line unless anything that goes into the Nine Hells can't leave.
My problem is the book never bother to explain or even attempt to justify it, when all it took was a single sentence. "Tiamat angered Bane after a failed assassination of Bahaumat and was imprisoned in the Nine Hells." That's literally all it would have taken. But they couldn't even bother doing that. Or just not refer to her as being a prisoner and instead they're just trying to summon her into the mortal world.
But zero effort was made. They just did the story and decided "it makes more sense if Tiamat is trapped. Guess she's been trapped. And has been for a "long time"."

Which is why I'm hesitant about Acererak suddenly becoming a lich. And not lich a lich, but supposedly the most powerful lich. (Ummm... Vecna?) But Acererak isn't a lich. He's the iconic demilich. So I'm understandably worried he might have suddenly changed into a lich for no reason and that the adventure won't even try to explain it.

Which bugs the crap out of me. Changing canon for no good reason without even a token handwavy excuse is extremely frustrating to me.
I can't wait for the next adventure when Elminster is a 14-year-old girl. The gith/ Mind Flayer war adventure, where the gith are ruled by a giant gith golem. And the Modron March adventure where Primus looks like a giant robot planet.

Anyhoo... this threads about Tomb of Annihilation and I should probably stop filling it with my Tiamat rants...

 

[Jawsh Murdock]

I love how it is a "mediocre written adventure" when you haven't even read it yet. Can I borrow your crystal ball?

I think you'll all enjoy it.

 

[Patrick McGill]

Which is why I'm hesitant about Acererak suddenly becoming a lich. And not lich a lich, but supposedly the most powerful lich. (Ummm... Vecna?) But Acererak isn't a lich. He's the iconic demilich. So I'm understandably worried he might have suddenly changed into a lich for no reason and that the adventure won't even try to explain it.

Which bugs the crap out of me. Changing canon for no good reason without even a token handwavy excuse is extremely frustrating to me.
I can't wait for the next adventure when Elminster is a 14-year-old girl. The gith/ Mind Flayer war adventure, where the gith are ruled by a giant gith golem. And the Modron March adventure where Primus looks like a giant robot planet.

I'm not sure Acererak being a lich instead of a demilich is really equivalent to Elminster being a 14 year old girl.

 

[Jawsh Murdock]

Then you should be aware that your comments in this thread are getting very close to violating your NDA. (I, too, am an alpha playtester.)

Duly noted. I'm trying to chose my words carefully. I don't believe I've give anything away that's not already been released. My main points are to encourage folks to give it a fair chance. It's great campaign.