Trapped and alone in a Yuan-ti prison, our heroes have to find a way out, find each other, and find all their stuff.

When last we left our heroes, they had taken a slight detour to explore an abandoned temple ruin, only to learn the hard way that it was not abandoned. They were ambushed by Yuan-ti sentries that absolutely wrecked the party. One was knocked unconscious, twice, and the others were all afflicted with various forms of debilitating madness. This resulted in my (and many of my players) first ever Total Party Kill. But all is not lost, because fortunately, the Yuan-ti don’t fight to kill. They are slavers. The players are now captured and trapped inside this dark and devious temple. Worse, they are all separated, stripped of their equipment, and they are all in immediate danger. That’s right, it’s the ultimate Split The Party adventure!

Gwen, the nearly dead cleric, is locked in a cell and just discovered that she ate human flesh because the Yuan-ti are cannibals and that’s the food she was given. Martic, the gravely injured ranger, is currently being tortured for information, even though he doesn’t know anything and the torturer punishes him even when he tells the truth. Roland, the defiant paladin, is being prepared for some sort of ritual sacrifice, and even though he just bit the finger off one of his captors, he doesn’t see any way of escaping his doomed fate. Lastly, Thames, the incredulous artificer, is bound, gagged, and blinded as he is dragged deeper and deeper into the bowels of this temple to a future unknown. By the way, for the sake of continuity Miche was left back at camp but his presense or lack thereof will still impact the campaign in the sessions to come.

Last week’s TPK was the best thing that could have happened to the party. I had a rough past few weeks running the game and was feeling feeling major campaign fatigue, I felt that I had been going through the motions of being a DM. But this unprecedented catastrophe rejuvenated me and made the campaign feel alive again. I only had to kill the entire party to breathe new life into the campaign. I just prayed that I could keep up the momentum and come up with some suitably epic escape plan opportunities.

Initially, I was just going to wing this dungeon, only focusing on a few rooms like the main temple and the boss quarters. The rest was just going to to be standard, random Yuant-ti battles. I didn’t even expect them to explore the whole thing; just sneak in, grab some loot and run away. I wasn’t even going to have an eloborate map. But now, I’ve got heroes spread out all over the place. I’ll need a bunch of set locations, numerous NPCs, and most importantly, a map. Fortunately, Wizards of the Coast included a great map in the best source book for Yuant-ti lore.

I’d mentioned before that I’d based the exterior complex on the real-world Mayan ruin of Altun-Ha. But the interior I took from Volo’s Guide to Monsters and the Yuan-ti temple provided within. This temple is perfect for all your slithery, slimy shenanigans. The map provides five levels for you to fill with all manner of despicable Yuan-ti: Malisons (the customary half-man, half-snake), Purebloods (the human-looking ones) and the Broodguards (the mindless drug-induced brutes). The dungeon is great as is, except that it doesn’t lend itself to a stealth mission, especially Level 2.

Had last week’s session played out as I expected (that is, uninspired and boring), I would have left the map as is. The party would have been all together, creeping from room to room, clearing each one as they go. But now that they were all captured and separated, it was more than likely that one or more players would escape and spend the session sneaking around trying to find the others. Level 2, where most of the sneaking would likely occur, was no good because all the rooms feed into each other. There was no way for one character to move around without alerting the whole dungeon.

I made some major alterations to that level. First, I removed most of the secret door exits to the outside. I don’t want them to escape too easily. I keep the torture chamber in the center; I like how everything radiated around it. But I moved and modified the slave pens, so that it had more cells and two entrances. Taking a cue from Elder Scrolls Oblivion, I added a secret door to Gwen’s cell as a possible escape route. The Store Room is now a separate room and not a through way, so the players can have a safe place to regroup. Finally, the remaining rooms all open onto a central hallway, so that players can sneak around, duck into a room to avoid wandering patrols, and possibly have an unexpected encounter with whatever occupies that room.

Now that I’ve got my new dungeon fully stocked with bad guys, loot, and complications, let’s see if our heroes can extract themselves from this precarious predicament. I’ll spend the whole session cutting from player to player, attempting to switch at the most dramatically frustrating moment. At the start of the session, Gwen is locked in a cell, in the slave quarters now located in the southwest corner of Level 2. Martic is actually right next door in the torture chamber still in the center of Level 2. Roland is being prepped for sacrifice or worse in the cultist chamber in the northeast corner of Level 1. Thames is currently up in the Boss’s bedroom of Level 4, but he’s about to go on a little mystery adventure.

At the end of last session, after hearing about all the squalor, sacrifice, and torture that his companions were suffering, Thames was surprised to find himself in a luxuriously appointed bedroom. Sure, he was tied to a chair and gagged, but he wasn’t injured or made to suffer in any way. Yet. In fact, he was having a rather civil conversation with the leader of this temple, a Yuan-ti who calls himself Maztil. Maztil is a Yuan-ti Malison with the head and torso of a man, but the lower body was the slithering coil of a snake. I roleplayed Maztil like a villain in a James Bond movie; eloquent, sophisticated, and obnoxiously superior to those beneath him, especially Thames. Thames hated him immediately.

During this discussion, Thames noted that all their most precious items, including his tinkering kits, the source of all his power, Gwen’s holy symbol, Roland’s and Martic’s weapons and armor, plus the priceless, indispensable map of Chult that the players own, were all here in Maztil’s possession. Naturally, this was done to compel the players to return here to confront Maztil and recover their stuff. It made narrative sense that the boss would keep all the best items, but really, it’s just to keep the players from running away at the first opportunity.

They didn’t know this yet, but Maztil is a minor wizard and he was intrigued by Thames’s artificer skills. Coupled with his dragonborn heritage, Maztil was willing to offer Thames a place within their society. In time, the players will learn that it is possible to be transmorphed into a Yuan-ti. Through pain, suffering, sacrifice, and drinking a vile, dark elixir, one may become a Vrael Olo or “favored one” as the Yuan-ti call themselves. Maztil offered Thames a choice, Death (by torture with Martic), Slavery (alongside Gwen), or Indoctrination (presumably with Roland, but their rituals would be different). Thames chose slavery. Maztil was disappointed but honored this request and sent Thames away to join Gwen in the slave pens. Only Thames never made it. Instead, he went on a little mystery adventure; a very Sherlock Holmesian adventure.

I love Sherlock Holmes. After James Bond, he is my favorite fictional character. (Indiana Jones is number 3, also very convenient for this adventure). Some of my favorite Holmes stories involve a person being blindfolded and taken somewhere, then having to use his other senses to find his way back, such as in the Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb, or the Adventure of the Greek Interpreter. So, I put that in this adventure.

At Maztil’s command, two Yuan-ti place a hood over Thames’s head and drag him away, backwards, through practically the entire temple complex, presumably to join his companions in the slave pens. Being blinded, I described everything using his other senses; what he could hear, what he could smell, his best guess as to how many feet he was dragged before turning right or left or getting dragged down a flight of stairs, etc. And it worked like a charm, Thames’s player, Wes, was writing everything down frantically as I told it to him, trying to remember every detail. I just hope he remembers to reverse all his directions, because he is being dragged backwards. We’ll see. And let’s see if you can follow along. You may even use the map; a luxury Thames did not have.

“The two guards drag you out of the bedroom and through a room that smells of sulfur, charcoal, and ammonia. Then you turn right and right again before being jostled down a flight of stairs. At the bottom you turn around again only to be dragged about another 40 or 50 feet. You hear the distinctive sound of rattling dice and a voice to your left calls out to one of your captors. “Where you taking this one Talash?” One of your captors, presumably Talash, replies, “To the pens. You going to the ritual?” “Yes, but it isn’t right. This group is dangerous. We should kill them now and dump them in the kitchen, not honor them with induction.” “Don’t let Sisava hear you or he’ll make an example out of you too.” Before the conversation can continue, you turn right once more and go down another flight of stairs.

At the bottom you turn left, move 20 feet or so, and turn left again. The heat in this area is oppressive and seems to radiate from your right. You are dragged down a long corridor, well over 100 feet. About halfway down you hear the sounds of a hammer on an anvil. At the end of the hall, you can smell cooking meat. A door opens and you hear Talash speak, “What’s for dinner tonight?” A different voice responds, “A slave died today, so fresh meat tonight.” (I really laid the cannibalism on thick.) Turning left once more, you are pulled for another 50 feet when the two guards stop. One wants to turn left, the other wants to go straight.

“Where are you going, Otleh? Maztil said to take him to the pens.” “We will Talash, but first this Duthrael has a surprise waiting for him. (Wes was not happy about this development). He’ll be in his cage soon enough.” Talash relents and you are taken down another flight of stairs. At the bottom you can hear chanting coming from your left. (Roland’s ritual). Next you turn right, right, then left in quick succession. You can feel fresh air to your right but are quickly pulled away down the hall 30 feet or so. Here you stop and you hear a door being opened before being dragged inside. Once inside, a new voice speaks, “Thanks, Otleh, I owe you.” “Just make it quick,” Otleh replies as you hear the door shut behind you. As soon as the door is closed, you are punched in the face while you still wear your hood. Take four points of damage. The new voice drips with menace, “You cost my friend his life, now I’m going to hurt you until you beg for yours.” You get punched in the head again. Cut to… the next victim!

We move on to Gwen. She is trapped, alone and injured, inside a locked cell. But she is not exactly trapped. Currently, Gwen has the fewest hit points and is least likely to escape by over-powering a guard. So, I put The Elder Scrolls Oblivion inspired secret door in her jail cell for her to discover. I thought it would be fun to have her sneaking around the dungeon, desperate to not be caught. But she never searched her cell. She’ll have to find another way.

After accidentally going cannibal (a moment that will likely require some atonement with her god), she learned that she is not alone. She began a whispered conversation with someone in the cell across from her. The man claims to be a captured slave from Port Nyanzaru named Gondolo. Even before the TPK, I intended to have this group of slaves here to complicate things. Would they free the slaves? Would they be able to? Would they take them back home? Or attempt to drag them through the jungle? The idea of the Yuan-ti slaver/spy network that we’ll explore in later sessions was a bonus.

Gwen continued in hushed tones, “Who else is here with us?”

“There are just over ten of us left. Five or six silent natives like your friend across from you and another five out of Port Nyanzaru. There were more but the snakemen just take them away and they don’t come back.”

“How long have you been here”

“The natives were here before us. I don’t know how long they’ve been here. Most of us have been here about a ten day, digging out that other pyramid.”

“How do we get out of here?”

“There is no way out. Even if we got past these snakemen, where would we go? Most of us wouldn’t survive the jungle. My partner and I might be okay, we’re guides and… Oh my gods! My partner. Listen if you do get out, find my partner. His name is Faroul and he’s being tortured by that traitor next door.” NPCs should never have good solutions to  the players’ problems. In fact, they should create more problems.

“What do you mean, traitor?”

“He’s a human but he works with these bastards against his own kind… Shh. Shh. Someone’s coming.” Gondolo is unaware of the distinction between a human and a pureblood Yuan-ti.

Since Gwen never looked for any secret ways out of her cell, I’ll have to give her another one. That someone is an attractive female that approaches Gwen. She would appear human except that her eyes are yellow and are slitted like those of a snake. Another pureblood. She opens Gwen’s cell with a large key and commands, “Let’s go, move.” Gwen asks where they are going. The Pureblood pulls out a nasty looking club and snaps, “Do not speak unless spoken to. Now move!”

Gwen got a simpler version of the “Where are we going” encounter, which replicated some of Thames’s tracks and Gwen had the advantage of seeing where they were going. I did this on purpose. Although it is sometimes fun to keep players apart during solo missions, this time I want them to find each other. By keeping all the “players” together at the table, they get to hear about their friend’s exploits in real time. Plus, when the players hear a bit of repeated information, they are relieved. The in-game character may not know where the others are, but the player knows that they are somewhere nearby. That is a huge relief.

Gwen is led out of the prison cells and into a long hallway. On the left-hand side there are two stairways, one leading up and the other leading down. After 100 feet the hallway turns left onto another long hall. This hall is very hot, getting hotter as you walk down the passage. You pass a kitchen of the right, then an armory with a forge. (This is the opposite of Thames’s path.) There is another door half way down the hall on the left and then three doors all near each other on the right at the end of the hall. Gwen’s player, Ian, knew that Thames had passed by here, but it didn’t matter. In a moment, Gwen would get hilariously lost.

For now, the Pureblood guard ushers Gwen into the middle door. It opens into a narrow room filled with heat, smoke, and ash. A pile of coal lies at the far end. Two braziers line the opposite walls, feeding heat into the adjacent rooms. There are shovels in a corner. Perfect for shoveling and bashing guards over the head, another unused option. The guard orders Gwen to feed the furnaces with coal. Gwen didn’t know it now, but she was supplying heat to the Yuan-ti egg chamber on one side and the other is a luxurious heated bath because the Yuan-ti like to be pampered. At one point, she heard a voice hiss forth from one of the bath for “More heat.”

While Gwen shoveled, she attempted to butter up the guard and gain a potential ally and maybe even her freedom. Gwen made some pretty persuasive arguments about the power dynamics among the Yuan-ti and the guard’s placement near the bottom of that hierarchy. I would normally place the difficulty challenge of “turning” a Yuan-ti at 20. They are incorruptible in their hatred of inferior races. But I was intrigued by the prospect of having a Yuan-ti ally in this situation, and thought it would be a unique way for Gwen to achieve her freedom. I lowered the DC to 10, but it was all for naught. Gwen rolled horribly. I wish that I had just allowed Gwen to succeed automatically, but this group prefers to live or die by the dice. So, the guard threatened Gwen and she continued shoveling in silence. Well, she still has the super-secret door in her cell to find. Cut to…

Meanwhile in the torture room, Martic was getting annoyed. He was sick of getting punished even when he told the truth and this torturer was being an absolute tool. But I knew something about Martic’s subclass and I just prayed that James remembered it too. Turns out, I need not worry. James was just waiting for his nemesis to turn around before unleashing his pestilent revenge.

Like many of my players, James mined Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything for his subclass. He chose the Swarmkeeper, which was well suited with his favored terrain and backstory in the swamp. This gives him control of his own personal swarm of insects. This swarm is constantly buzzing around him, and gives him some unique abilities. Primarily he uses it in combat for extra damage or to forcibly shove enemies around. But it also gives him the ability to cast mage hand at will. Perfect for say, untying one’s bonds when strapped to a table. Which is exactly what Martic did here.

Now I know that mage hand, the spell, requires a somatic component to cast. This means he would need his hands free to cast it. But I don’t treat Martic’s ability like a spell. It is part of his telepathic bond with his insects that allows them to grab objects and manipulate items. He doesn’t tell the bugs to attack things. The bugs simply know what he wants them to do. Is this cheating? Maybe, who cares? It’s a one-time use moment that was stupidly cool. To heck with the rules! So, to the shocked awe of his fellow players, as soon as the pureblood turned away from Martic, his bugs untied the ropes that bound him, then he grabbed a dagger and attacked.

This was still going to be a difficult fight. Martic was injured, unarmored and using an inferior weapon, while his would-be torturer was at full health, wearing breastplate and wielding a nasty looking spear with a snake motif coiled up the shaft and molded into the blade itself. And if that weren’t bad enough, the blade deals poison damage. I’m a big proponent of bad guys actually using the magic items they own instead of collecting dust in the treasure chest found after the fight. You want it? You earn it.

Fortunately, Martic managed to dodge most attacks and saved against the one time he did get hit. Then he used his mage hand bugs to grab the spear and pull it out of the pureblood’s hands (another strictly illegal move, but still cool). Martic then used the poisoned spear against its owner. Sadly of course, the pureblood is immune to poison. On top of that, just as Martic gained the upper hand, I upped the stakes. Cut to…

Gwen and her captor had finished shoveling coal and were walking back down the long hall to the prison cells, when… They heard a commotion coming from the door to the right. The captor investigates and discovers a prisoner beating the crap out of the temple’s torturer. Naturally the guard joins the fray while Gwen watches from the sidelines. Gwen was so close to death that she couldn’t risk combat, but she was able to perform some distractions and keep the Yuan-ti at disadvantage. Cut to…

Thames getting punched in the face again. I’m really enjoying this cutting back and forth between the players. It keeps them on their toes and it allows them a moment to think of a new or better strategy. It also implies that all this action is happening at the same time, ramping up the stakes because each player knows that his companions are engaged in some other scenario and won’t come to rescue them. But there is a downside to this.

I want the action to culminate with an epic battle during the Yuan-ti ceremony to sacrifice Roland. And that means Roland has to stay captured until the others can rescue him. This was easy to manage; I simply never cut back this character. If he is never given the opportunity, then Roland can’t escape. But this also meant that his player, Theo, never got to actually “play” this session; he was just an observer.

I would generally never advocate focusing play on just a few players while excluding others. Sometimes this occurs naturally but always with the consent of the party. Most notably this happens during a Stealth mission, where the sole sneaky character scouts out an enemy lair while the other players wait and watch. But this was different. Here I forced a player to play the damsel in distress, needing to be saved, which is something many players would hate doing. Heroes don’t need to be rescued!

I chose Roland to be the victim for two reasons. First, the paladin is the strongest fighter and removing him from any battle puts all the other characters in greater danger, and thus greater drama. Second, Theo is a player I’ve played with before, and I knew I could rely on him to put the “story” above his character. I apologized afterwards that he never got a chance to play. But he was totally fine with it; he loved watching the story unfold even though he wasn’t directly involved.

Theo brought up a good point about being a DM. The difference between agency and interest. Yes, yes, yes, player agency (allowing them to make all decisions and determine all outcomes) is the most important thing in the world. I guess my only job is to present scenarios then step back and let the players be awesome. But the DM is a player too. Now I accept that 99% of all my villains and their plans have to end in failure, but I can at least make them interesting until they are killed by those pesky players. So yes, sometimes, to tell an interesting story, I will temporarily deny a player agency. This can be a dangerous proposition, in fact it cost me a player earlier in this campaign. This time I was lucky, but I still wished that I had discussed it with the player beforehand.

But I digress, back to Thames. He still bound to a chair, getting pummeled by a very irate (and alone) Yuan-ti. Thames has one obvious weapon available to him even when restrained. His breath weapon. But I didn’t want him to use this last week when talking with the Yuan-ti Boss, so I had him gagged. But now I can’t just remove it, Wes has to earn it. I threw out a line and had the Yuan-ti demand answers from the dragonborn. “Who are you? Who sent you? How did you find this place?” Wes took the bait.

Wes roleplayed mumbling his answer. I had the Yuan-ti get even angrier. “What was that? Speak up!” Thames mumbled, “Take off the gag and I’ll tell you.” I had Thames roll an easy Deception check. This creates an interesting dilemma. Wes wants the gag to come off. I want the gag to come off. But players hate automatic success. They want the dice to determine success. So when something should obviously succeed, have them roll anyway. If they roll high, he succeeds. If he rolls low, the subject gives them a doubtful look, and he still succeeds. Only on a “1” would I have the player fail and find another solution.

Fortunately, Wes rolls high and the Yuan-ti tears the gag from the Thames’s snout, only to be met by a blast of frigid air that knocks the snakeman off his feet. Wes asks if he can jump up while still tied to the chair. Of course he can. The chair is smashed under the weight of the heavy dragonborn. Now both enemies rise up to fight mano y mano, or in this case drago y snako. The yuan-ti unsheathes a nasty looking dagger and charges. Oddly and on purpose, the Yuan-ti do not carry their deadly and poison-laced scimitars inside the temple. You’re welcome.

But this is still a nasty fight. A full strength Yuan-ti has his poison breath and more than double the hit points of our plucky artificer. To even it out, this Yuan-ti is the same one that helped captured them earlier, who was damaged in that fight and has yet to heal. After several rounds of spitting at each other and a lot of grappling and biting, the Yuan-ti decided to punk out and call for help. Just as the Yuan-ti opened the door, Thames was looking frantically for anything to throw at him.

Well, there is all the shattered bits of chair in the room. Thames cast catapult, hurtling the debris into the back of the fleeing Yuan-ti. The snakeman was blasted out of the doorway, across the hall, and smashed into the stone wall with a sickening thud, dead. The Yuan-ti slid to the floor, painting the wall in blood as he did. The table cheered, they’ve finally killed one of these bastards. Thames quickly grabbed the body and dragged it back into the room and closed the door, leaving a bloody streak on the floor right in front of this no-so-abandoned shrine. Cut to…

Martic and Gwen having the fight of their lives inside the torture chamber. I expected this fight to be more evenly matched since Purebloods are weaker than the Malison that Thames just fought. But both Yuan-ti were at full health and I didn’t expect Gwen to avoid all combat. Yes, she was critically low on HP and yes, as soon as she did join the melee, she got knocked down to 0. Again.

Fortunately, Martic is a tank, and more fortunately, he was able to save against all the Yuan-ti poison and suggestion attacks. Remember, this torturer had Roland’s magic cards which are now scattered on the table. I had deliberately placed and mentioned that there was a bucket of water in the room, just in case James wanted to unveil this item here and now. Martic chose to keep his secret for now, but it didn’t matter, he didn’t need them.

In the end, Gwen’s captor with the whip lay dead, and Martic had one more trick up his insect-covered sleeves. During the battle, Martic positioned the torturer into a particular corner. Then, instead of using his bugs to cause more damage, he used them to shove the Yuan-ti into the open iron maiden and close the lid, trapping the sadistic snakeman in his own torture device. Martic brushed off one last suggestion to “Let me out of here!”, and then he created a new idiom.

Instead of shooting fish in a barrel, Martic spent the next few rounds stabbing a snake in an iron maiden. He thrust his new spear in through the air holes until the Yuan-ti was dead, impaled on the deadly spikes, blood pooling out of the seams at the bottom. Gwen was revived. Again. Then they looted the room. Cut to…

Thames searching this oddly out of place shrine. The map provided in Volo’s depicts numerous smaller shrines, presumably dedicated to some suitably slimy snake gods. But I liked the idea that these Yuan-ti have desecrated and repurposed this ancient temple, previously dedicated to Ubtao, whom I’ve referenced repeatedly as the creator god of Chult who has seemingly abandoned his people hundreds of years ago. He hasn’t, but that’s something for my players to uncover later in the campaign.

According to the lore I continuously shove down my player’s throats, Ubtao has two major allies. Thard Harr, the dwarven god of the wilderness and Ecatzin, a coatl demi-god. A coatl is a lawful good celestial being depicted as a beautiful flying snake with brilliantly-colored feathered wings. A different coatl plays a significant role in the latter half of the adventure, but again there is no lead up to her introduction and there is no mention of Ecatzin. Let’s fix that.

“You are standing in what looks to be an abandoned shrine. You can barely see the outline of a stylized sun in the floor tiles, but it is covered in decades of grime and dust. On the far wall on a pedestal stands a large statue of a snake. Stand is the wrong word. The snake appears that it should be flying or hovering, but there are no wings or means of support. On the sides of the torso, there are two places on the statue where pieces of the sculpture have been hacked off. Looking around, you find two pieces of stone carved wings, discarded in the corner.”

Wes asks, “Can I cast mending on the statue?” Wes has been trying to cast mending on everything I’ve been determined to break, ever since the beginning of the adventure when he tried to salvage a sinking ship, the Narwhal II. But here in this temple, of course, you can cast mending. Officially, he can’t cast the spell because it requires a material component (lodestones) and his magical focus (his tinkerer tools) are held in the boss’s chamber. But never let the strict rules keep your party from doing something cool. Just let him cast the spell, or find the lodestones nearby. Maybe bless could work, or mold earth, or some dwarven skill, or just by holding the pieces together while saying a prayer can magically fuse them. Whatever reasonable solution the players have should work; don’t be locked into only one path.

“The moment you repair the second wing back into position, you feel a sense of peace sweep through you. The statue seems to glow and radiates out filling the room with light. The dust and grime of centuries dissolves and the room is restored back to its original glory. You hear a click and a drawer opens up in the base of the pedestal. Inside the compartment are two objects. A vial filled with a crystal-clear liquid and an amulet with a quartz gem in the middle. The gem is etched with face of a calm man on one side and a shield on the other.”

This is a potion of mind immunity and a necklace of mind resistance. Both are intended to be used during the coming fights with the Yuan-ti to combat their suggestion ability. Unfortunately, no one in the group bothered to learn identify. So, every magic item I give them is useless because they don’t know what it does and apparently everyone is terrified of curses, so they refuse to use them. I tried to give them a hint with the descriptions, specifically listing the potion as “crystal-clear”, but no one had the guts to drink it. At least Thames threw caution to the wind and put on the necklace, so that will help.

Before moving on, Thames had another trick he wanted to try. Unbeknownst to me, Thames recently learned the spell disguise self. Thames used the spell to make him appear identical in appearance to the Yuan-ti that he just killed. The disguise would have been complete if Thames knew what the Yuan-ti name was. It was Otleh. The name was mentioned but Thames couldn’t remember it. I’m sure he’ll be fine. Hold that thought. Cut to…

Gwen and Martic ransacking the torture chamber. They got a fair amount of loot here. As mentioned, the spear is magical and can inject addition poison damage twice a day. The bronze breastplate is magical, weighs next to nothing, and protects against poison (an ability wasted on the Yuan-ti). But this useful to Martic who took both items. The other Yuan-ti had her regular whip and a +1 club, both going to Gwen. Usually, I tailor magic items to augment each player’s preferred weapon or ability. This time around, I gave out sub-par magic weapons that were thematically appropriate and to see if they would continue to use them after they found their original gear.

They also got some decent treasure finally. Chult is awesome for unique monsters but terrible for treasure. Nobody carries any. How is the group supposed to fund future expeditions if they can’t find any good stuff on the first one? That’s another reason I included this temple here. If I had played out this jungle journey as written, just visiting the locations along the river, the party would end up with a few coppers and an alchemy jug. Big whoop. Now they can add some gold, several gems, the exotic (and expensive) torture tools, plus a ornate turquoise box and some other goodies. Also, similar to Thames, they both disguised themselves the best they could in the clothing of the two Yuan-ti they had just killed. What could go wrong?

Now they have a decision to make. There are four exits from this room. One on each wall. The doorway to the south led to the torturer’s room, which they explored and looted. The door to the east is where Gwen and her captor entered from. To the west is a back entrance to the prisoner cells. To the north is an unguarded store room and most of their gear. I didn’t want the search for their stuff to be a boring slog, so I planned they can find that right away. The good stuff is still in the boss room; they’ll have to fight to get that. But as with all plans of mice and men and D&D players, nothing ever goes as planned.

They refused to investigate either door and immediately went back into the hallway Gwen came from and then got immediately lost. They were less than 20 feet from the slave quarters when Gwen convinced herself that she had used the stairs. She had not. They went up the stairs and almost got caught by several Yuan-ti lounging around in a big room Gwen had never visited. They went back down the stairs one level, then down another level (also a mistake) where they could hear chanting coming from the right.

Now thoroughly confused, they avoided the chanting and wandered aimlessly through several twisting corridors until they came to a door with a large splash of blood on the wall and a streak of blood leading under the door. Suddenly, the door opens and out walks a Yuan-ti malison with the legs and torso of a man but the head of a snake. He is holding a wicked looking dagger in his hand. Cut to…

“Thames, as soon as you open the door, you nearly crash into two humanoid looking people wearing the clothes of the Yuan-ti. One is wearing a hooded cloak, holding a whip and a club. The other is wearing breastplate and an ornate mask of a snake’s head. He is holding a nasty spear with a metal snake coiled up the shaft. Cut to…

Next week, Will the party survive an encounter with themselves? Plus, the penultimate battle as our heroes defile the Yuan-ti temple to save their friend from a fate worse than death.

As always, sometimes the perfect disguise is just too perfect, and Game On!

Don’t forget to check out my Tomb of Annihilation Resources Page, filled with all the stuff I use to make this epic campaign even more epicier: My full Campaign Diary, plus Handouts, Maps, Charts, PDFs, Images, and more to use, abuse, or ignore at your peril.

And written specifically for this adventure, read my Explorer’s Guide to Chult to delve into all the legands, lore, history, religion, and culture that I used to bring even more life to this adventure.