Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 7353387" data-attributes="member: 20323">I'm struggling to figure out how to run Tomb of Annihilation now – there are *great* scenes in ToA, but figuring out how to connect them all with better narrative is quite a challenge. While part of this challenge is about the book's organization (or the lack thereof), I think part of it comes from the paper-thin backstory.For example: I noticed that the adventure doesn't pay much attention to what would happen if the dead didn't go to their afterlife / eternal reward. I'd imagine in a D&D world with magic like speak with dead and, presumably, some characters visiting the Outer Planes, that this would have implications for anyone of faith. If recently deceased can't be contacted with speak with dead, that suggests court proceedings regarding admission of "dead testimony" might change. While some religions do focus on the here-and-now, there is usually an aspect of faith concerned with the ultimate destination of the soul. If one's righteous/wicked deeds didn't matter in an eschatological sense...if you end up just *gone* regardless...would people behave differently? This is huge in a world where the divine is manifest! I'd imagine there might be a minority of thuggish types who use this to justify all manner of evils. Not to mention clergy/faithful suffering a crisis of faith.Another example: Why does Acererak want to create an evil god? What is the atropal's identity? And why is it's "completion" considered *worse* than the destruction of all liches? These questions seem tied together, but the book is silent on them. "Because he's evil!" "It doesn't matter - it's *bad*!" seem to be the only answers I extract from the book. Knowing my inquisitive players, these are questions they will ask at some point, so I'm looking for good answers in older D&D sources that mention Acererak, atropals, and Chult...</blockquote>

Verification