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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ART!" data-source="post: 7974790" data-attributes="member: 79926">I'm running Tomb of Annihilation, D&D 5E, and the Big Bad is Acererak. I did some research to add to what ToA has to say about him. He could easily become a death god if he wanted, but he would rather make death gods than be one. This begs the question: why? My reading is that he doesn't want the responsibility and wants to have death gods who owe him favors - and has the power to resist if said death gods want to get rid of him.Also, he absolutely delights in torturing/toying with adventurers and do-gooders.So, this is a guy who likes his freedom, and one of his main things he likes doing with his freedom is messing with adventurers. Also: he's been to other realms/universes/multiverses.So, I'm running him as someone who wants to communicate regularly with the PCs so he can taunt them and egg them on. He might even "help" them now and then - all in the interest of watching them squirm in the long run. He talks like Emperor Palpatine if Palps had a sense of humor and exposure to the pop culture of other universes. He's incredibly powerful and theatening, but also makes light of things, is flippant and dismissive, and is having a blast.Resurrection spells feed his project - the creation of a new death god, using the Soulmonger and an Atropal - so he made sure the PCs got their hands on a magic item than can cast Resurrection. Will they use it? It will be fun for him to watch them decide.They've already met him - at 2nd level! - so I could establish the threat immediately and make it personal for the PCs - and I've added a set of magic items - the heads of famous necromancers, which can answer 3 questions each but also allow Acererak to track the PCs. Every key location in the adventure will have one, so the PCs can burn through them, learn stuff from them, thus expediting the adventure some. Those ket sites are amplifiers for Acererak's death curse, which draws life energy from those who have benefited from resurrection magic. The PCs will be led to believe that taking the necromancer skulls is a big win for them, that it will lessen the amplification of the death curse, but really Acererak is using the PCs to accumulate the skulls for him.</blockquote>

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