Tomb of Annihilation Is Here - What Do You Think?

Today's the day - WotC's latest Dungeons & Dragons adventure, Tomb of Annihilation, is out! Head on down to your friendly (or unfriendly) local (or not so local) gaming (or comic) store and pick up your copy. Alternatively, if you use a virtual table top, it's available for Fantasy Grounds and Roll20.

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm not an AL participant, so I'll totally grant that I don't understand the implications of switching worlds. I also don't have any idea of how much business the AL drives to WotC.

I would assume the AL plays close to zero part in these kinds of decisions.

If WotC decided to publish an adventure outside of the Realms, it would be up to the AL to deal with it. Which they would easily do.


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[Mercule]

Is there anything in the module that prevents you from simply lifting out "lich" and dropping in "demilich" in its place?

I mean, I can understand the annoyance if he's described doing something a demilich can't do.

Funny enough, the flavor text for demilich calls out Acerak as the archetypal demilich. Of course, Chris Perkins also mentioned in an interview that Acerak hasn't exactly been depicted consistently over the years.

I'd probably run with Acerak being some sort of special demilich who can produce a lich-like "avatar" for anything he does that requires such. His essence is still in a skull somewhere.

 

[Jester David]

Yup. This one actually doesn't bother me being set in the Realms other than just general Realms fatigue. There's a non-zero chance that I'll buy it and run it, as-is -- unless it really is easy to port to Xen'drik.

I'm planning on making Chult an island in the Feywild for my campaign.

It has a lot of Realmslore in it. References to gods, old novels, Thay, and more. It's probably the most actual Realms in an adventure. Which is a nice feature-bug, as Princes of the Apocalypse and even Storm Kings Thunder were pretty generic with the Realms just being used rather than slapping names on a generic blank map. (Which is really the point: the Realms is used so they don't have to design a generic placeholder world from scratch, like they did in 4e.)
But, if you just run Acererak's tomb that all is easy to ignore.

Is there anything in the module that prevents you from simply lifting out "lich" and dropping in "demilich" in its place?

I mean, I can understand the annoyance if he's described doing something a demilich can't do.

Liches tend to do a whole lot more than demiliches, and lack all of the soul sucking abilities.
Plus, he was the first and most iconic of the demiliches. Making him a straight up lich feels like making Strahd a zombie or Lolth a unique giant spider...

 

[Mercule]

I'm planning on making Chult an island in the Feywild for my campaign.

Oh... I like that idea. Maybe put it in Lamannia. If Acerak is trying to establish a Tomb on all sorts of worlds, that might be the migration between the Realms and Eberron, since Eberron has a different cosmology -- Lamannia might touch on the Realms' Feywild at certain points. Thelanis is more straight-up faerie, but Lamannia has more swamps and captures what Perkins(?) said in an interview about the Feywild being about dynamic life.

It has a lot of Realmslore in it. References to gods, old novels, Thay, and more. It's probably the most actual Realms in an adventure. Which is a nice feature-bug, as Princes of the Apocalypse and even Storm Kings Thunder were pretty generic with the Realms just being used rather than slapping names on a generic blank map. (Which is really the point: the Realms is used so they don't have to design a generic placeholder world from scratch, like they did in 4e.)
But, if you just run Acererak's tomb that all is easy to ignore.

Wow. I kinda thought they might be setting in Chult to ease away from strong Realms-lore. I know very little about the old novels besides the Avatar Trilogy and Drizzt. I might have to check it out at the game store to see what I think. Chult may or may not have the same sort of feel that bugs me about the Realms. I may or may not be able to tweak the adventure to move to Xen'drik/Lamannia. Depending on exactly what bits are hard to scrub, Lamannia might be a nice way to allow the inconsistencies while purging the really distasteful bits (if any). Unfortunately, the Realms deities are one of the things that really bug me. Unless they picked some that are unusual, that might be a sticking point.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Not sure that's the correct conclusion.

Interesting then, isn't it, that they keep porting Greyhawk ideas to the Realms but don't really touch any Realms ideas in the Realms. Most everything we have so far updates a classic GH module and relocates it to the Realms.

Were the old FR adventures just so bad that they aren't worth tapping for this? Or does this policy implicitly acknowledge that Realms-origin stories are even less interesting than the GH ones?

 

[Jester David]

Oh... I like that idea. Maybe put it in Lamannia. If Acerak is trying to establish a Tomb on all sorts of worlds, that might be the migration between the Realms and Eberron, since Eberron has a different cosmology -- Lamannia might touch on the Realms' Feywild at certain points. Thelanis is more straight-up faerie, but Lamannia has more swamps and captures what Perkins(?) said in an interview about the Feywild being about dynamic life.

Lammania works too. As you say, it's more savage and less magical/ fey than Thelanis.
There's a few weretigers and tabaxi in the book that could be replaced by shifters. And Port Nyanzaru could be presented less as a sea port and more of a planar port where people from Khorvaire enter that realm through a coterminous location.

For me, the Feywild is also a neat way to explain dinosaurs if they're uncommon in your setting. And it makes it easier to use the names of the unusual gods and just describe them as "archfey". And the Realms elements that slip in (like Thay) are explained as people from the Realms actually going to the Feywild as well for the same reasons as the party.
(Plus... no oceans in my setting. It's that or I try and pull out all the locations and associate them with places in a mountain ringed lizardfolk infested swamp area of my world...)

And I like the epic feel of having Acererak's plan span multiple worlds and effecting the ressurected everywhere.

Wow. I kinda thought they might be setting in Chult to ease away from strong Realms-lore. I know very little about the old novels besides the Avatar Trilogy and Drizzt. I might have to check it out at the game store to see what I think. Chult may or may not have the same sort of feel that bugs me about the Realms. I may or may not be able to tweak the adventure to move to Xen'drik/Lamannia. Depending on exactly what bits are hard to scrub, Lamannia might be a nice way to allow the inconsistencies while purging the really distasteful bits (if any). Unfortunately, the Realms deities are one of the things that really bug me. Unless they picked some that are unusual, that might be a sticking point.

It references a lot of Chult. Much like how SKT referenced bits of pieces of the lore of the North. But more so as there are characters from novels set in Chult, references to what happened in Chult during the Spellplague, lots of Chult gods, and the like. Bits of it might be tricky to entirely work into Eberron. Even Acererak's tomb, which - spoilers - the gods of Chult are involved with.

It's somewhat nice in that it actually feels more like a Realms adventure rather than just an adventure that just so happens to be set in the Realms (albeit with a Greyhawk villain), but harder to file the serial numbers off.
But not impossible mind you...

 

[CapnZapp]

Interesting then, isn't it, that they keep porting Greyhawk ideas to the Realms but don't really touch any Realms ideas in the Realms. Most everything we have so far updates a classic GH module and relocates it to the Realms.

Were the old FR adventures just so bad that they aren't worth tapping for this? Or does this policy implicitly acknowledge that Realms-origin stories are even less interesting than the GH ones?

Accusing the Realms centric publications to not have enough Realms in them is new, that I haven't heard!

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[CapnZapp]

Liches tend to do a whole lot more than demiliches, and lack all of the soul sucking abilities.
Plus, he was the first and most iconic of the demiliches. Making him a straight up lich feels like making Strahd a zombie or Lolth a unique giant spider...

Sure, but that doesn't answer my query

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[DEFCON 1]

Interesting then, isn't it, that they keep porting Greyhawk ideas to the Realms but don't really touch any Realms ideas in the Realms. Most everything we have so far updates a classic GH module and relocates it to the Realms.

Were the old FR adventures just so bad that they aren't worth tapping for this? Or does this policy implicitly acknowledge that Realms-origin stories are even less interesting than the GH ones?

No, I just don't think there are very many Realms-centric adventures out there to begin with. Most Realms stuff has all been mainly setting material and gazetteer stuff, with most adventures made specifically for the Realms falling in the 'Living Realms' type of thing. On top of that, Realms-cetric modules are all from like the mid '80s on... and all of these repurposed "classic" adventures that are being used for the 5E APs are the really old ones that came out before then back in the '70s and early '80s. I mean, it's not like WotC is repurposing 2E or 3E generic adventures either.

But let's also not forget that all of these classic modules that WotC is repurposing are NOT Greyhawk modules. They are generic modules used for tournaments and stuff and it was only after they released the World of Greyhawk box set that they assigned places on Oerth where you might find these modules. So people only started thinking they were actual Greyhawk modules after the fact. And even further... none of the APs released prior to this one with Acererak had anything in them that was actually from any other setting. Yes, the ideas for these APs were inspired by previous modules that people attribute to Greyhawk... but nothing within any of the adventures actually were Greyhawk related. So WotC never "stole" anything from that setting and gave it to the Realms to begin with.

I mean, if anyone can name an actual classic Forgotten Realms module and what that module's central story is about... maybe that could eventually become the story basis for another AP down the line. But god knows I can't think of any "classic Forgotten Realms module" for the life of me. I'd say maybe 'Under Illefarn'... but they already did repurpose that one for their D&D Next 'Scourge of the Sword Coast' adventure. Which means all we really have are our other "classics" to repurpose, all of which are our '70s and early '80s famous ones... all of which get thought of as Greyhawkian despite them not originally being that.

And besides... everyone who wants other campaign settings are going to get their wish next Autumn 2018. The last great "classic" module remaining for WotC to steal from is "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks"... so the plot line of the next big AP is going to be Faerunian adventurers finding a space ship in like the Graypeak Mountains, and once they explore it and get the ship running... this 'Spelljammer' ship will take them to Sigil and then out to a bunch of the other campaign worlds, like Oerth, Khorvaire, Athas, and Krynn.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

As per Mearls and the gang, the actual setting situation is that all World of the Material Plane are now part of one large multiverse- travel between them is possible utilizing things like the city of Sigil or (theoretically) spelljammers. So Greyhawk exists, and someone from Greyhawk can leave and pass through Sigil, or Barovia, or whatever to get to the realms, or to krynn, or whatever. In this case acerak is a powerful enough magic user to be able to wander between the planes and the various worlds of the material plane and was attracted to chult as a location for his plans. We can see this in action on the streams- The Waffle Crew for instance, is from the realms, but they meet up with Mordenkainen (who is explicitly from Greyhawk) in Barovia (which is in the Shadowfell). Stryx is from Sigil... then factor in that other Dread Lords are from other worlds as well, such as Sothe being from krynn and you can see the sort of multiverse they have in mind.

As we start to see support for Plane-hopping, we'll see support for places like Eberron, Krynn, Oerth, Sigil and so forth as well.