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.

View attachment 84778​

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

 

[darjr]

Xanathars guide to everything?!

OK that's cool.

 

[timbannock]

Well, I was about to say: Hey, cool. It's set on a lost continent, has undead and dinosaurs, which all sounds pretty generic. I don't know, well, anything about Chult. If this spends most of the time on the lost continent, it could be a blast.

Then, someone posted that it was (apparently) announced that this is a Chult source book that happens to have an adventure included.

So, my discussion on the actual product is that I hope that's an incorrect statement. I won't otherwise threadcrap, but do consider my disappointment in this being a Realms product to be as relevant as anyone who says, "Awesome, more Realms" or those who are excited or disappointed by undead dinosaurs. Those are practically the only things to discuss, right now.

I could be very wrong, but my prediction:

The adventure will involve a hexcrawl-like travel section to hit various pre-determined spots as well as include a bunch of "random" adventure locations. As the party explores the hexes, information is written up about the locales and plenty of adventure hooks ensue.

In other words, while it can act as a campaign guide, it will be presented as an adventure, in much the same way Isle of Dread was.

 

[Mercule]

I wish they used new threats and locations instead of existing ones....that way I could complain that they ignore existing lore in favor of trying to be nu and kewl!!!!!

Seriously....they can't win. Personally, I like that they draw on existing lore and give it a new spin. I've used the material they've put out to varying degrees in my game...and Chult figures prominently in my game, and I've been thinking of what I can do with Acererak, so I think I'll be getting this for sure.

Definitely sounds cool!

All it would take is a "Van Ritchen's Guide to Zombie Guts" or "Tenser's Guide to Everything" and they could say, "We're using IP from other settings, not just the Realms."

 

[guachi]

Cautiously optimistic. Not a fan of Acererak or undead, but Indiana Jones style exploration is perfect for D&D.

Though Tomb of Dread would be a sweet title. Combining Gazetteer and adventure is probably the best way to do things. FR suffers from far too much cruft. Give people enough to play the game and nothing more.

 

[Blue]

What is the source of the zombies? Resurrection magic is failing/incomplete and causing zombies instead of fully returned individuals? Or those who were resurrected are devolving into zombies? Isn't resurrection high-level/rare enough to sort of limit this as a source of plague?

I was going to snark that it's the Realms, every little hommlet has a cleric of high enough level to cast it.

But if it's just as you put forth, then it's only the RICH and POWERFUL turning into zombies. I'm sure that will still get lots of adventurer attention.

 

[Prakriti]

They just posted a photo of "Xanathar's Guide to Everything"

https://twitter.com/Wizards_DnD/status/870710703111393281

Hm. Two possibilities, I guess:

(1) This is "Midway," the new mechanical expansion. The cover is pretty different from all the other books, but I can imagine it being the "limited edition" version, like the in-store version of Volo's Guide.
(2) This is a prop for one of the stream games.

I wonder...

 

[vecna00]

They just posted a photo of "Xanathar's Guide to Everything"

https://twitter.com/Wizards_DnD/status/870710703111393281

That gives me some hope....but I'm not trying to get my hopes up at this point.

 

[hawkeyefan]

All it would take is a "Van Ritchen's Guide to Zombie Guts" or "Tenser's Guide to Everything" and they could say, "We're using IP from other settings, not just the Realms."

Sure, they could do that. But I don't know how that would go over....I mean they're using Acererak here, and some folks seem upset. Strahd, Mordenkainen, now Acererak....they are using IP from multiple settings.

I suppose I just don't see the hard division that most folks see between the settings. I use many of them, and I see them as all being connected anyway. This kind of cross-pollination has been something I've don for years, so I don't mind it at all.

 

[Mercule]

I could be very wrong, but my prediction:

The adventure will involve a hexcrawl-like travel section to hit various pre-determined spots as well as include a bunch of "random" adventure locations. As the party explores the hexes, information is written up about the locales and plenty of adventure hooks ensue.

In other words, while it can act as a campaign guide, it will be presented as an adventure, in much the same way Isle of Dread was.

It's a fine line. Chult is far enough away from "mainline" Realms (Sword Coast) that I'm not going to rule out an adventure set there. But... I don't really want something that could be classified as a Realms source book, even by stretching things.

On the other hand, not knowing anything about Chult, my first impression was that I might be able to easily convert this to use Xen'drix as the lost continent, using Q'Barra, or Shadow Marshes instead of Chult, for that part of the adventure. It really depends on how much it tries to define Chult vs. using a place names and just telling a good story about undead dinosaurs and a crazy lich.

 

[Abstruse]

"WotC is only using Forgotten Realms!"

The last season of AL and the big published adventure in 2016 was Curse of Strahd in Ravenloft.

"Only using Forgotten Realms!!"

They could bring Hickman, Weis, Baker, Stark, and Cook to design a sprawling mega-adventure that goes from Planescape to Dragonlance to Dark Sun to Eberron but, if it started in Waterdeep, everyone would STILL complain everything was Forgotten Realms...