D&D 5E Tomb of Annihilation - how's it going so far?! **spoilers**

[HawaiiSteveO]

I'm hoping someone has collated the available rumors and pieces of info for easy overview.

)

You likely know about it, although others may not -

http://thecampaign20xx.blogspot.ca/2017/09/dungeons-dragons-guide-to-tomb-of.html

Looks like he's still working on it. It's really long, and a lot of information from the book is repeated (which I find unnecessary). His guide to CoS was useful, and had some great tips for putting it all together.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Isn't one of the Yawning Portal tombs taken from a jungle setting exactly like Chult?

I think I'll have my 5th level players pop up into this tomb (can't remember name right now) and place it close to Flaming Fist camp.

I will not start a clock right away, since I feel this will severely detract from the sheer joy of exploration.

Instead, they will hear about the Soulmonger, but not as pressing business. When and if I manage to kill one of them, this will change!

Hopefully they will have ~50 hp at that point, so they have at least one month and then some to complete the main quest.

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Hidden Shrine of Timoachan. It could be dropped into ToA with no real change necessary, although you could reskin the lost gods in the shrine with aome of the Nine Lost Gods from ToA for a bit of additional flavor. I plan to use it if my players are enjoying the campaign and setting.

White Plume Mountain (make Acererak the wizard who has stolen the weapons and set the mountain among the volcanoes of Chult) and Dead in Thay (as the Red Wizards are involved) would be easy to add too, not to mention the obvious addition of Tomb of Horrors.

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[CapnZapp]

Excellent

My idea is (and was long before I knew how ToA started) to feature a portal in Red Larch (the Sword Coast) than deposits the party right into a forgotten tomb in Chult.

Assuming Hidden Shrine of Tamachoan works out, the idea is to put in close to Fort Belurian. The Flaming Fist is portrayed as a bit too ineffectual for my taste, having had essentially zero success in finding and looting tombs themselves.

So the uppermost layer/level of Tamachoan (or whatever) has been explored by the Baldur's Gate mercenaries. Then the party emerges from hidden depths - thereby revealing how to get to the lower levels. As soon as they try to escape the tomb they will be confronted by a squad of Flaming Fist guards posted at the supposedly emptied site. (Assuming they don't prank them by posing as tomb guardians, and have to kill them all, that is )

This accomplishes several things: they start in media res, always good. (They're about to level up to 5th level which seems to match Tamachoan well). They immediately get a dose of what the module is about: exploration and tomb raiding

They run afoul of Flaming Fist directly, and their insistence on confiscating a half share will be a real issue. (Otherwise, I fear you can just kill off random patrols and make sure you're not caught, and pretty much ignore them, tucked away in a corner far away from the real action as they are). This way, there is riches right under their noses, and the party will have to decide if its worth risking their lives exploring the Shrine essentially doing the Flaming Fist's job for them, or if they should abandon it to move to Port Nyanzaru instead).

I quite like the idea to first reach a smaller town, so the rumors about PN can build up instead of 'porting right in. At Fort Belurian they will have everything they need to get up to speed: info on their whereabouts, supplies, rumors (including that of the Soulmonger), and even a few guides.

As for "Syndra's map" I think I'll just handwave it. Instead of making it a highly coveted physical in-game map, I'll just give it out as part of the impending hexcrawl.

 

[robus]

You likely know about it, although others may not -

http://thecampaign20xx.blogspot.ca/2017/09/dungeons-dragons-guide-to-tomb-of.html

Looks like he's still working on it. It's really long, and a lot of information from the book is repeated (which I find unnecessary). His guide to CoS was useful, and had some great tips for putting it all together.

Really looking forward to his analysis!

 

[Nebulous]

I think it works better from 5th level onward, either other adventures or unrelated adventures in Chult then spring the hook (or your own) into it. Shrine fits in nicely of course and could either be incorporated elsewhere in the jungle or the city itself.

I prefer using hooks from various adventures and see what the players decide to do so my own party has gone through elements of PoTA (and the 3e version of the Moathouse + 1 E Hommlet) some homebrews then WPM which I ran alongside some battles with frost giants and the Svardsborg section of STK which was heading towards Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth and the Frost Giant Rift (G2) which were being tied in to the Rise of Tiamat but due to introducing the ToA hook, and the adventure in general, we are now diverting big time to ToA before (assuming they survive) to the original arcs/ ideas. IMO its all about the journey not the destination and the campaign growing organically out of the players ideas, motivations and decisions which I guess is an old school way of approaching things, so say go for it Pukanui.

Stormdale

holy crap that's kinda of cool how you're weaving them together. Me, I like taking the adventures as written and adding my own twists and turns, that fills the creative niche for me. Things I don't like in a written module I just ignore or modify.

That said, ToA talks about Artus Cimber and the Ring of Winter A LOT. I have not dropped any hints about that yet, our first session was jam packed with over a dozen NPCs already, maybe more like 15 or 16 NPCs, so there wasn't really room in 2 hours to add yet another plot hiccup.

 

[Nebulous]

There are literally dozens of NPCs scattered about, and many of them hold some clue. A list of all the NPCs, all the clues, all the locations and all the treasures is mandatory to be able to run this as a sandbox, without walling off parts of the adventure merely because it's impossible to prep everything at once. Instead, the slow travel is the DMs friend: it is actually impossible for the party to be everywhere at once, so you only need to prep, what, the locations within half a tenday's travel at a time (unless you run mammoth all-day sessions)

That's how I see it. Progress will be slow, messy and dangerous, especially at low levels. Randomly rolling three dangerous encounters in day could easily destroy a party, or encompass an entire session, without making any plot progress.

 

[Banesfinger]

I have a plot question for the boards:

At the start of the adventure Syndra Silvane directs the PCs to Chult, saying the origins of the curse is there. While the adventure doesn't explain how she know this, the DM'sGuild adventure "Cellar of Death" explains that a Lich (Zaldara) had "researched" it. Although neither NPC knows the exact location of the Soulmonger.

So, as others on this board have indicated, PCs will just have to wander the jungles blindly, while picking up bread-crumbs of info to lead them to Omu. (Sandbox).
While some groups might revel in endless random encounters in the jungle, others might flounder at the lack of a clear location to head towards.

Apart from somewhat eliminating the sandbox-style of this adventure, is there any risk in just telling them Syndra/Lich have discerned the Soulmonger's location is in Omu? Few PCs at 1st-level will have the resources to go directly there anyways (mitigating the risk of getting in over their heads too soon)...

 

[HawaiiSteveO]

I have a plot question for the boards:

At the start of the adventure Syndra Silvane directs the PCs to Chult, saying the origins of the curse is there. While the adventure doesn't explain how she know this, the DM'sGuild adventure "Cellar of Death" explains that a Lich (Zaldara) had "researched" it. Although neither NPC knows the exact location of the Soulmonger.

So, as others on this board have indicated, PCs will just have to wander the jungles blindly, while picking up bread-crumbs of info to lead them to Omu. (Sandbox).
While some groups might revel in endless random encounters in the jungle, others might flounder at the lack of a clear location to head towards.

Apart from somewhat eliminating the sandbox-style of this adventure, is there any risk in just telling them Syndra/Lich have discerned the Soulmonger's location is in Omu? Few PCs at 1st-level will have the resources to go directly there anyways (mitigating the risk of getting in over their heads too soon)...

Does it really make that much of a difference ..? Not sure, although idea of lost city is cool and fits in well with mood of adventure. Sam & Frodo knew where Mount Doom was the whole time!

Your group can learn about Omu right in Port Nyanzaru from Grandfather Zitembe, and the encounters at the Heart of Ubtao / Orolunga also point to it.

Whether they wander around or head straight to it, your gang is still going to have to explore Chult on the way, unless you put Omu right outside Port Nyanzaru but where's the fun in that ..?!

I'm sticking with letting them explore but swapping in locations I like and dropping those I don't . The group will know about lost city early but won't know exactly where it is until later on, but for sure not going to have session after session of them just wandering around lost.

 

[Nebulous]

Does it really make that much of a difference ..? Not sure, although idea of lost city is cool and fits in well with mood of adventure. Sam & Frodo knew where Mount Doom was the whole time!

Your group can learn about Omu right in Port Nyanzaru from Grandfather Zitembe, and the encounters at the Heart of Ubtao / Orolunga also point to it.

Whether they wander around or head straight to it, your gang is still going to have to explore Chult on the way, unless you put Omu right outside Port Nyanzaru but where's the fun in that ..?!

I'm sticking with letting them explore but swapping in locations I like and dropping those I don't . The group will know about lost city early but won't know exactly where it is until later on, but for sure not going to have session after session of them just wandering around lost.

Eku, the shapechanged coutal guide also knows the location of Omu, and as of the end of our session last night, I think that is the NPC the heroes are going to pick. Will she blurt out the location right away and take them there? I dunno. Maybe she wants to see how tough these guys are first and if they can live long enough to survive the trials of the jungle.

 

[pukunui]

Speaking of guides, an odd thing I noticed is that Azaka, the weretiger who wants to take the PCs to Firefinger to recover her mask, is afraid of heights and won't willingly go anywhere where she might fall more than 60 feet. The description of Firefinger assumes that if Azaka is with the party, she accompanies them all the way to the top. I would think it more likely that she'd wait for them at the bottom.