We bid farewell forever to Port Nyanzaru as we face off against pirates, typhoons, Star Wars battle droids and Tiamat?!

When last we left our heroes, while waiting to begin the Pirate Plunder adventure, I attempted to wrap up some loose ends involving some ingratiating NPCs. In a session that was more interesting for what we didn’t accomplish versus what we did, they split the party, barely survived several assassination attempts, were almost seduced by succubae, botched a robbery on a Merchant Prince, failed to confront their adventuring rivals, and hired the one guide who is destined to betray them. But none of that matters, because now we sail through choppy seas toward an uncertain future, but certainly filled with violence, death and soggy britches.

Dark storm clouds hang low on the horizon. Storm clouds we have to steer towards to make our rendezvous with a band of ravenous brigands, who don’t know that we know that they are hunting us. The sea was angry that day as our disguised merchant ship cuts through the waves in an explosion of spray and foam. The last time we were in these waters, a monstrous beast nearly capsized our vessel, but today even it decided the ill weather was too much to bear and stayed home. Only the desperate or the foolish would brave these waters. We were both. As we clung to the rails for dear life, we could only reflect upon the path we took that brought us into this dire circumstance.

It all began back in Session 22, when the players were hired by the benevolent Ytepka Society to uncover a connection between a faction of soldiers from Baldur’s Gate and a band of pirates that have been attacking ships leaving Port Nyanzaru. The pirates only attack the treasure laden ships and never attack any ships from Baldur’s Gate. At the Baldur’s Gate outpost of Fort Belaurian, our heroes discovered that the commander was in league with the pirates but they didn’t have any proof. Our heroes devised a plan to catch the pirates in the act. They would create a fake manifest of a ship filled with riches, then allow this manifest to fall into the bad guys’ hands. When the pirates attack, instead of treasure, the pirates will find armed guards waiting to capture them. It was a good plan, filled with plenty of opportunities for it all to go wrong.

While waiting for the Ytepka Society to set this up, our heroes went on an expedition to uncover any new info about the Death Curse that is also plaguing the land. But that is a Chapter 5 problem and we’re still in Chapter 2. After getting sidetracked by treasure hunts, necromancers, giants, a 2000-year old underwater queen, and a singular ring that could destroy the world (no, not that one), our heroes are ready to kick some scallywag butt!

Tomb of Annihilation leaves much about these pirates and their plans open to interpretation. There are three pirates captains, each with their own flavor and a unique crew. At any given time, one ship is anchored inside the pirate hideout, another is stationed outside, while the third is out and about patrolling the seas, pillaging. Which ship is where is up to the DM to decide. So, let’s examine each pirate and place them in the proper encounter order.

Captain Zaroum Al-Saryak sails on the Emerald Eye with a crew of typical thugs and bandits. Zaroum is missing an eye and has replaced it with a magical one. By coincidence, our heroes know a blind ally that could really use a magic eye and I don’t want them to have this item too soon, so I’ll place this captain down in the pirate hideout. Next, Captain Laskilar and his ship, The Stirge, is the D&D embodiment of that lovable rake, Jack Sparrow. Our heroes actually saw this captain at Fort Balaurian but didn’t know it at the time. This captain owns a magical cape that I also don’t want my players to have just yet, so down to the hideout he goes.

This leaves Captain Elok Jaharwon and his crew aboard the Dragonfang as the ship that our players will try and ambush. Frankly, I found this captain and his crew to be the most unique which will provide some cool complications during the inevitable confrontation. The crew includes first mate “Mad” Kalita, who name alone is prime for embellishment. There’s also the ship’s “sea witch”, a druid called the Eye of the Deep, to add a little more chaos to the scene. On top of all that, the captain is a were-boar in disguise which will be an awesome surprise for whoever challenges him to a fight. I changed Elok to be a were-bear simply because I owned that mini and no “boar” counterpart. Besides bears beat boars.

With so much build-up and anticipation to this event, I really want it to be a memorable encounter. It will probably be another session-long combat similar to the epic Battle of Ten-Armies in Session 30 but hopefully not as taxing as that fight was. I try to think of these extended battles as a standard three-to-five room dungeon. But instead of being able to take your time clearing each room, a new event occurs on the tail end of the last one, creating a new scenario to contend with. The first thing I do for these large battles is create a battle sheet with all the combat particulars and maybe a few notes all on a single page. Here is the link to a clean PDF for today’s battle. ToA Pirate Battle

Beyond just the size of the battle and the stats of those involved, I wanted the play on the table to be extra special. So, I made boats. Scaled to size, miniature boats. I made mine from some scrap wood that I had lying around. I cut the shapes to size, scored them with one-inch grid marks, and glued them all together. I had wanted to make full-sized ships with multiple decks and masts, but I ran out of time. I had to settle for just the main deck including the aft and fore decks, which is called the fo’c’sle (pronounced “Fok-Sul” and short for forecastle) if you want to talk like a real pirate. Yargh. You could just as easily make your own ships using cardboard if saws, clamps and glue are not your thing.

I spread out a blue tablecloth (I don’t know why I own this) to be the sea and I used a bunch of blank character tokens to be my cannon-fodder sailors, guards, and pirates. Feel free to use coins, dice, scraps of paper, or actual minis if you have enough. Next, I grabbed a very specific set of cards from my Forbidden Sky board game (more on that later.) Lastly, I grabbed my copy of the adventure “Ghosts of Saltmarsh” and started reading.

To make this session truly memorable I wanted to have some cinematic ship-to-ship combat. Sadly, we have never been offered great rules for naval combat (I’m looking at you, Spelljammer) and the best we’ve got is in Saltmarsh. “Ghosts of Saltmarsh” gives us several ships and their combat stat blocks. Basically, the ships are run like monsters and provided it has enough crew, you can perform the various listed actions per turn. You can raise or lower sails, steer the ship, and fire the various siege weapons on board. These consist of ballistae which fire a giant harpoon and a mangonel which is like a naval catapult. On my Pirate Battle Chart, I included the stats for the player’s sailing ship and the slightly stronger pirate ship which uses the warship stat block with 400 hit points instead of 500. Okay, we’re almost ready.

A major theme of our campaign involves prophesy, destiny, and divination. Gwen, in particular, has leaned heavily into this theme. Last session, her character cast a spell used to foretell the future. She asked three questions and I had a week to come up with suitably mysterious, vague, yet truthful responses. There is just no easy way to create beautifully batty and maliciously misconstrued prophesies that reveal just a little without telling all your secrets. I start by breaking out my thesaurus to alter some commonly known names into some obscure, obtuse ones. For example, had they asked about the Ring of Winter, I might refer to it as the Boreal Band. Then I’ll construct a vague reply that might answer the Who, What, Where, or Why, but never all four in the same response. After that, it’s my players’ problem to figure out what I meant.

First question they asked, “How is the war going in Thames’ homeland?” My reply: “Nations rise and nations fall, but so long as one dragonborn breathes still so shall Sideria still stand.” Thames, of course, is that one dragonborn. Second, they asked, “What threats does Chult face?” My response: “Red is a nuisance and blue shall overrun but if left unchecked black shall consume the world.” This refers to the Red Wizards of Thay, Ras Nsi and his blue necromancer mark, and Acererak respectively. Their last query was, “What danger do we face with the pirates?” My enigmatic reply: “Beware the stirges, the fang of the dragon, the eye of emerald, men who are not men, men who are not whole, and men where they are not.” This answer gave me great joy because I knew that they had no context for any of this, but for you, dear reader, know that this refers to the three ships (by name) and their three captains (by their secrets; were-bear, missing eye, and magic cloak.) Back to the boats! But first, a wedding!

Just before the pirates attack we have one important event to celebrate. The marriage of Gwen and Roland! What! Really? When did this happen? When was their courtship? Have they consummated this arrangement? Settle down and get your mind out of the gutter. To prepare for the battle, Gwen chose Warding Bond as her main defensive spell. Platinum rings were made, vows were written, and the bond was consecrated. Ian, Gwen’s player, often roleplays her spellcasting, usually calling on her god, “Kelemvor, to embrace my foes in the warm blanket of death.” But today, he wrote out his bonding vows. So here’s an easy DM tip. Whenever a player goes to the trouble to actually write out a script for a role playing moment, you better let them play it out at the table.

Gwen read her vows. “In the name of Kelemvor, do you, Roland, swear to take me as your bonded companion, to shield and assist from this moment until sixty minutes have elapsed? For health but not status effects, until sixty feet do us part? Do you, Roland, declare yourself a willing creature?” Roland replied, “I do.” Great, I now pronounce you man and make-believe-wife. So let’s go battle these bastard buccaneers!

The storm is fast approaching from the port side. Suddenly, a monstrous black-sailed behemoth barges out of the rolling clouds, bearing down on our heroes’ dinghy. “Hard to starboard!” the captain yells. Part of the plan is to allow the pirate vessel to give chase, further selling the idea that our heroes are aboard a simple merchant ship. Our heroes send forth a few volleys from the rear ballista, which bounce feebly against the thick black boards of the pursuing ship’s hull. We can barely make out the name of our quarry, The Dragonfang. Well, that answers one part of our prophesy.

In turn, The Draonfang targets our heroes’ mast, scoring a critical hit that cracks the mast and destroys a sail, reducing their speed. This is okay, we want to pirates to catch us. But we don’t want what happens next. Both ships are enveloped by the tempest and suddenly we are caught in the middle of a maelstrom! Just as the black leviathan pulls alongside, we are buffeted by hurricane winds and rock-sized hail, while the seas churned like a cauldron. Initially, I did not intend for this calamity to occur, but when I rolled for our weather today, a really did roll up a monsoon, and knew I had to incorporate it in somehow.

Once the ships were side by side, planks were extended by the cocky pirates expecting an easy victory. But our heroes surprised the pirates as a hold full of Port Nyanzaru’s best guards streamed across the planks. It’s a trap. And this time our heroes were not the victims. There were only about a dozen pirates on deck. We should defeat them easily. But just then, another two dozen pirates swarmed out from the upper cabins. It’s a double cross trap! We can spend the next few sessions trying to figure out who betrayed us, but right now we have to contend with over 75 combatants on one very crowded boat. Now, I have no intention of running combat for this many fighters. In truth, I want this to be a simple fight between our heroes and the pirate captain and his named goons, hidden amongst the chaos of a giant battle and the fury of a raging hurricane.

To run the pirates versus guards battle, on each round I roll two d20 dice, one for either side. Whoever rolls highest kills 1d6 opponents, while the losing side eliminates 1d4-1. There are more pirates than guards, but I expect that our heroes will have a hand in removing a few nameless pirates (and some tragically placed guards on our own side as well) while trying to get to the real battle. And I reserve the right to throw a few extra pirates at our heroes if need be. Plus, I have a neat environmental surprise to inject even more chaos into the scene.

This set of cards comes from the board game “Forbidden Sky”, a sequel to the sequel of the very good Forbidden Island game. (You can click on the link to see what this website looked like in its early days when I actually reviewed board games to play for a non-RPG Family Game Night). Anywho, Forbidden Sky takes place during a hurricane, and has a set of custom cards to track the intensity of the storm. I used them here to track my storm. At the end of each round, I drew a card to see how it affects the battle. As the ships circled each other, the wind might change direction, or intensify, or even have a surge of electric energy, that is, freakin’ lightning bolts crashing down from the sky that seemingly always target the players. Hee hee!

If the wind suddenly changes direction, everyone rolls a DC10 DEX save to keep from being knocked prone. If the wind increases, that same check will keep people from being blown back 5’ in the wind’s direction. So many sailors (good and bad) were knocked over board thanks to this bastard card. The Storm Intensifies card increases the DC of the DEX save. But the most dangerous card was the Lightning Strike! which I used just like the spell lightning bolt targeting a “random” section of the ship. I remember one mast being utterly destroyed (with a player in the rigging), but I’ll get to that. If you do not own these cards, you can replicate it’s effect with the table below.

Of course, no one knew of the chaos about to ensue. At the start of the battle, the first goal was to wade through the horde of pirate minions to get at the captain and his lieutenants. This wasn’t a difficult task, but it did allow my main bad guys a couple of rounds of free range attacks on our heroes to soften them up. Of course, I split up my main villains, some on the aft deck and the druid on the fore deck (excuse me, fo’c’sle). The rule “Never split the party” should not apply to combat. In combat, you absolutely want to split them up, forcing each player to choose his foe. And to keep them from dog piling on one enemy at a time, which is the tactically better strategy.

Throughout the battle, I kept moving my wooden boats around the table, simulating the two ships circling each other as if they were caught in a giant whirlpool. Which they were. Eventually, the ships drifted apart from each other, sending the gangplanks tumbling into the drink and cutting off the party from any potential reinforcements. That, coupled with the overbearing roar of nature’s fury and man’s wrath, plus the constantly shifting winds, the ever present threat of falling overboard, and the obligatory sharks that just showed up for a free meal, made for a gloriously chaotic and tense combat without increasing the actual effort of running it (too much). This was more about setting a dramatic scene over introducing new mechanics. Except for the storm cards; those were great and I highly recommend doing something similar.

As it were, I had so much fun being in the moment of this session, that I took terrible notes and barely remember what occurred during it. I just have flashes of incomplete memories. Thames casting thunderwave, pushing friend and foe alike over the rails toward a wet and bloody death (thanks to those sharks). Roland and Martic taking turns challenging the captain. Gwen trying her best to not get killed as she suffered half of Roland’s damage due to her Bond. At one point, Martic ran up the mast to get away from Elok to heal and take some pot shots at him. That’s when Elok turned into the were-bear and we learned a very important lesson. Bears can climb trees (and masts) real good. Now Martic was stuck up there, alone against a very angry and mostly undamaged lycanthrope with no chance to heal. He very nearly died. Roland, who couldn’t climb, had to move on to fight “Mad” Kalita. All the while, the evil druid was picking them off from afar. Thames had to thunderwave a path over to the bow of the ship just to take him on directly.

The battle onboard the boat raged as fiercely as the storm surrounding them. Everyone was locked in a solo death match with a formidable foe. Paladin vs Mad First Mate. Artificer vs Druid of Umberlee the Sea Bitch. Ranger vs Enraged Were-Bear in the riggings. Cleric of Death vs her own sense of inadequacies. A one point, Martic had to jump from the sails, taking fall damage just to avoid even worse damage from the aforementioned “random” lightning strikes. There was a hilarious moment involving both Kalita and Roland going over the edge of the ship, but I can’t remember exactly what happened. Maybe one of my players can remind me. I planned to have the druid beastshape into a shark, but Gwen finally did something useful and killed him with a MASSIVE blight spell before I could do it. Mad Kalita fell to back-to-back smites from the paladin. And finally, Elok was knocked out by a very lucky “non-lethal” crit by Martic.

The battle was won and all that remained was the puns. I may not remember the fight but I do recall that it was filled with terrible puns from my terrible players. “Wow. This is pawsibly the biggest fight we’ve had.” “Yeah, it was pretty grizzly.” “We bearly made it out alive.” But man, we kicked their ass. How embearassing for them.” Ugh. It was relentless and unbearable. I hate these guys. Kidding. I’m kidding. My guys are great.

Okay, where was I? Captain Elok was knocked out, Mad Kalita and the evil druid were dead, as were most of the pirate goons. The few that remained surrendered when their captain was captured. And as soon as the fighting was finished the storm abated and the skies cleared. How convenient. But who cares about that? Let’s divvy up the loot. The book does a really poor job of outfitting these guys with treasure. Even back at the pirate base, there just isn’t much gold. Obviously, this is done so the players don’t just quit the campaign after hauling in this one big score, but that runs counter to the fact that these pirate guys have been plundering the seas for months.

Plus, players feel cheated when a huge battle reaps zero reward. So, I added a bunch of loot that was thematic but presented little in the way of financial gain. The captain has a big chest of gold but that is immediately seized by our good captain in the name of Port Nyanzaru. But the players can keep any of the assorted loot and magic items harvested off the crew, most of whom were in the water. On a whim, I decided that the vicious were-bear was attempting to be more cultured by collecting stolen paintings. In his quarters were several exquisite landscapes of various Chultan landmarks, Nyanzaru Harbour, the Heart of Ubtao, and one that I described as an ancient jungle city which the players assumed was Mezro, but was really Omu (the adventure’s final destination). I would have foreshadowed the various features of that city had my group inspected that painting further, but they did not. Elok is a budding artist himself, so in addition to the fine paintings, there were several atrocious copies as well as a dozen terrible paint-by-numbers, all depicting cute little kitty cats. Many of these were further destroyed by claw marks ripped through the middle of the canvases by a frustrated Elok. There was also a full painter’s kit with brushes, palettes, and several buckets of oil paint which will be crucial to their survival in the very near future.

As for magic, I added several homebrew items that were proper for the various villains but shouldn’t hold much use for our heroes. The druid wore the driftwood crown, which bestowed a permanent barkskin affect of the player. But this was lower than their normal AC, so they gave it to Grum, the NPC follower that they just can’t get rid of. Elok wielded a vicious +1 Battleaxe of Umberlee, that bumped up to +3 versus underwater creatures (basically anything with a swim speed). I loved those old AD&D weapons that proved extra good against an uncommon enemy. Modern D&D has moved away from this but I’m bringing it back! Of course, no one is proficient in battleaxe, so they gave this to Grum as well. Kalita held a Dagger of Warning which went to Thames, giving him advantage on initiative and made the group impossible to surprise. In time, I would regret giving this item as it made Thames nigh-impossible to ambush and hit him first.

The battle may be over but the quest still remained. Our heroes needed the next piece in the puzzle; the location of the pirate base. I considered having the big, bad Elok be the stereotypical tough guy refusing to divulge any info, but I didn’t want to drag out some pointless torture scene waiting for the group to guess the right keyword that would move the story along or worse, halt the investigation completely due to some poor dice rolls. As soon as the first player said, “You better talk or there’ll be trouble,” Elok turned from the terrifying were-bear into the cowardly lion. “P-p-please don’t hurt me. I’ll tell you everything you want to know.” It’s fun to subvert your player’s expectation. Elok told them almost everything; the names of the captains, their ships, and their crew; the location of the base and cave access, and even the fact that one ship patrols outside while the other is docked. Of course, I kept a few surprises hidden. If there was something I didn’t want them to know, I had Elok be ignorant and claim that Captain Zaroum (the one with the missing eye) was in charge.

Following the pirate parley, I had expected to plunge right into the “random” encounters planned en-route toward the pirate hideout. Per usual, my eyes were bigger than my skills as a DM. The pre-battle role play took longer than I planned. The battle took longer than planned. As did the post-battle wrap-up, the loot dispersal, and the interrogation of Elok. And I didn’t expect the players to spend over 45 minutes discussing their various options moving forward. Should we go back to port? Confront the Flaming Fist? Assault the pirate base? Or say to hell with Chult and become buccaneers? What do we do about the prisoners? How long should we wait before reporting in to Port? How can we root out the spy within Port Nyanzaru? On and on. In the end, they did as I expected; take command of the Dragon Fang and raid the pirate base. But it took so long to get to this decision that I had to halt the session here and make my players wait for next week. But fear not, I shan’t keep you in suspense.

Ta Da! It’s next week’s session right here. For this week, I could have just said you have an uneventful three-day journey down the coast and arrive at the pirate base. But where’s the fun in that. After months of trying to make random jungle encounters interesting, I wanted to create some ship-based adventures and utilize some of my more unique but niche minis. I pulled a lot of inspiration from pulp stories like The Odyssey, Star Wars, The Princess Bride, and Time Bandits and I came up with five: The Hydra, the Laati, the Sirens, the Whirlpool, and the Cyclops.

First up was the Hydra. We haven’t had many dragon encounters in this adventure. Sure, there was the Blue that chased them into the spore infested mines of Session 26, but otherwise, not so much. This will fix that. Our heroes are sailing down the western coast, keeping the shoreline in sight so as not to get lost out to sea. Suddenly, the ship lurches, having struck something below the surface. Was it rocks, or a reef, or worse? Oh, you know it’s worse. Regardless, Captain Carlos (yes, the same sailor our heroes rescued in Session 2, now promoted to captain), calls out, “Strike the sails, full stop. Send a scallywag down to inspect the hull.” While the skeletal crew secures the ship, our heroes lounge about, waiting impatiently to get back underway. Just then, A cry goes out, “Movement on the port side!” Our heroes run to look over the rail. Alas, there is nothing but the ripple of water. Another alarm, “Breach to starboard!” More running, more ripples. What is it? Curious fish? A whale? A mermaid? Our heroes don’t have long to wonder. The waters just off the aft rail explode in a fury of brine and foam. An enormous reptilian head bursts from the sea, its gaping maw filled with teeth, hunger, and hate. Then another. And another. And another, until five writhing heads were attacking everything in sight. It’s the dreaded hydra! And we were dead in the water.

With its long necks, the hydra stayed just out of melee range, forcing the players to use their range options, which were sorely lacking. Even worse, the rear ballista had been damaged in the previous battle and was inoperable. On top of all that, the hydra could submerge at any time it wanted and resurface away from the party, forcing them to constantly change their position and their tactics. Furthermore, I ruled that each hydra strike was like the lash of a whip. The head would snap in like a cobra, attempt to devour some hapless fool, then immediately recoil back, and thus not provoking an opportunity attack. Unless the reacting player first passed a DC 15 DEX save. This was going to be a deadly encounter.

The first victim was a sailor from the Port Nyanzaru guard who volunteered to be the first mate due his coastal knowledge. I had a whole backstory where he was the brother of a pirate on one of the other pirate ships, but it was a moot point because now he was dead and our heroes were truly on their own. Yet again.

But hold on, there may be hope. One of the hydra’s heads fell limp, succumbed to a critical strike from the paladin’s arrow. They might have a chance if they just keep up the barrage. But just then two new heads sprouted from the hulking hydra’s torso. Now there were six! Next round there were 7. Then 8. Then 9! 10! This beast got even more deadly as it took damage. How can we possibly defeat this monstrosity?

Although all my players knew the hydra’s secret weakness in real life, they did an admirable job not metagaming and no one could conceive of a BS backstory reason why their character would know it. They struggled to remember any detail that might help them fight this monster and “learn” its weakness. I gave each one a DC 12 Nature check (which nobody ever takes proficiency in) to recall something, anything. They all failed. I gifted Martic advantage because his backstory said he grew up in a swamp. He rolled a 12! From the dark recess of your mind, you can think of only one word. Fire.

Oh, it was on! Our heroes threw every source of flame that they could at the beast. Burning Hands, flaming arrows, faerie fire (which does not actually burn but does give advantage to hit it), lanterns, even torches. They did some damage, and more importantly kept the heads from regenerating. But every time the beast was hit with fire, it would just submerge again, extinguishing any chance to set the creature alight. They needed something that would continue to burn even when doused with water. But what?

Thames solved it first. OIL! Quick, give me all your flasks of oil. They came up with eight. But then they made the classic blunder of putting all their hopes upon the single roll of a single die. Thames cast catapult using every drop of oil they had. The roll: a terrible miss. Wait, faerie fire, Roll with Advantage. Also a Miss. I use my Inspiration. Another Miss! It was catastrophic. All out of rolls and re-rolls, the spell (and the oil) flew harmlessly over the hydra’s head, sinking into the sea with a despondent plunk. Their precious oil was all gone. There was no more.

Without a word Gwen abandoned the party and ran down to the captain’s quarters. Presumably to hide. Cursing her name, the other “real” heroes refused to admit defeat and did the best they could while the wretched wyrm killed numerous sailors and nearly ate Roland and Martic. They had knocked the hydra down to the original five heads but they were all out of fire. They were screwed.

Just then, Gwen came running back holding something in her hands. It was buckets! Buckets filled with paint. Oil paint! (I swear I had not even considered this possibility when I made Captain Elok a frustrated artist.) Every one grabbed a bucket and launched it at surging serpent. Red, White, Green, Blue, and Black, the sky was awash with color as the paint flew toward its target. Each one landed square in the face of a different head. Now the horrible hydra had been inexplicably turned into the terrifying Tiamat! At least in appearance and thankfully not in breath weapon capability.

But our heroes had run out of fire. Except for one lonely lantern at the other end of the boat. Our heroes bravely defended against the newly anointed queen of dragons while Martic (the one with the highest move speed) frantically ran for the life-saving light. He dashed the length of the boat, grabbed the last source of flame and ran back, but he couldn’t cover the distance. But Martic had a plan. Can I grab a rope and swing across the ship, adding to my total distance? Of course you can. If you roll a DC 13 Athletics check. Success! Cheers all around. But doing the math; he was still five feet short. There are some purist die-hard DMs that would say, “Too bad, you fail in your attempt. Try something else.” But the math is made up. The world is make-believe. Never, never, ever let 5 feet stand in the way of awesomeness.

“Pushing yourself to the limit, you grab a rope and swing out over the ocean, trying to aim yourself toward the back of the boat. You’re not going to make it. At the last second, you release the rope, heaving your body and willing it to fly the extra few feet needed to land back on the deck. Just before you crash in a heap on the boards, you toss the lantern to Roland. Roland, you catch the lantern. What do you do?” Duh, I throw it at the hydra. Roll to hit. Success! “You launch the lantern at the heaving hydra just as it bears down upon you. With a shatter of glass, the lantern explodes upon contact, engulfing the red head in a massive fireball. The hydra recoils in pain, surprise, and for the first time, fear. In a panic, it whips its head around, smashing into the green head and setting at ablaze. Soon all five heads are burning and the hydra becomes an inferno. Consumed by fire, thrashing to and fro, its screams rend the air until it succumbs to the flame and slips dead beneath the waves with a sizzle and a wisp of smoke. Against all odds, you’ve survived once more to fight another day. Congratulations. There is no treasure.”

“The next day, as the ship slowly sails further south, you hear the roar of an unknown thing high in the sky, like a shriek of steam forced through a very small hole. Looking up, you see an unknown metal object, shining in the sun as it streaks across the sky with a thick plume of smoke trailing behind. It flies over your heads and just past the cliffs that line the western coast of Chult, when you hear a loud crash and explosion less than a quarter mile away from your position. A thick plume of smoke rises just beyond those cliffs. What do you do?” Duh, we go and investigate. Good boys. I love these guys.

Sailing the ship as close as you can, then bundling into a rowboat, you paddle over to the shore nearest to the rising smoke that you can still see atop the cliff face. Gwen let out an audible groan. “Ugh, we have to climb, don’t we?” Yes, my -2 Strength modified cleric, yes you do. In the end she didn’t technically “climb”. Everyone else did, even Roland who had to free climb up the cliff to attach the rope at the top. Then they tied the rope around Gwen and hauled her up like an undignified sack of potatoes.

Atop these cliffs of insanity, it is an easy walk to find the crash site. A strange vessel of alien origin lies smashed and smoldering among the rocks, its metal frame mangled beyond all repair. Several strange creatures are scattered around the crash site. They look like man-sized insects with gangly limbs and beady eyes. They have some sort of armored carapace, but instead of bone or chitin, it appears metallic. Many lie broken on the ground but a few slowly rise up to stand, and with a strange chirping whirl, shake their heads as if they are clearing the cobwebs from their systems. Suddenly, they all turn to glare at our heroes. With a metallic voice, they all speak in unison, “There they are. Kill the rebel scum. Roger, Roger.” I tell my players to roll initiative, while they all cry out in unison, “What the hell is going on here?”

My players have clearly not realized that we happen to be playing this session on May 4^th. As every self-respecting nerd knows, today is Star Wars day and May the Fourth be with you. Although I do not collect Star Wars stuff, I happen to have a model of a ship called the LAATI, and that’s good enough for me to base an encounter off it. I’m also using some robot minis from a discontinued Mech Wars RPG that I last used in my Waterdeep campaign. I tell my group that these are Battle Droids. Wes is not impressed with my substitution and tells me that he has actual battle droid minis in his car. Why do you have battle droid minis in your car? Never mind. I don’t wanna know. Hell, yeah! Go get ‘em.

For their stats, I used the Nimblewright stats from Dragon Heist: Waterdeep and I gave them each a blaster weapon that does 1d10+Dex damage. The damage is plasma damage which no one is resistant to. Also, the blasters are powered by the droid’s body. That way a certain unnamed enterprising min-maxing artificer can’t claim one as his new favorite toy. Other than that, it’s just a standard monster.

The battle was silly, simple, and quick, with loads of Star Wars gags and references from the group, mostly along the lines of, “These aren’t the droids we’re looking for”, and tons of robot-speak from me, “Roger, roger.” In the end it was great fun, which is all any DM can ask for. Of course Thames tried to harvest everything he could off the ship and droid corpses, specifically he wanted those blasters. Called it. The ship is too large and damaged to move, but I did let them mark the location, so they could come back for it. I also allowed Thames to collect two droids and their attached weapons so he could attempt to reverse engineer some tech “to help with his homeland’s war effort.” In the back of my head, I maybe planned for the group to somehow use the ship as the means to fly into Omu at the end of the day, but sadly the adventure is about to ramp up very quickly and we never got to do it. Oh, well.

Back on board their functioning naval ship, our heroes journeyed further southward. They came upon a channel that would be faster to reach their destination but it was treacherously narrow or they could spend extra time to go around it. They choose the quicker route. They chose poorly. Shortly after entering, the channel opened into a wider inlet and our heroes breathed a sigh of relief. Until they realized that their speed had picked up and they were being pulled into a giant whirlpool at the center of this remote inlet. Faster and faster they were being dragged toward the edge of this abyss and a series of tragically bad dice rolls brought them closer and closer to the precipice and the point of no return. They could now see into the whirlpool and what they saw stunned them. It must have been an illusion but it seemed that whirlpool led into another world. They were looking down onto a fantastical land as if they were floating above it high in the sky. A fantastical land filled with fields of purple wheat and forests of maple trees with pure white leaves and the sky was a sky of emerald green. With a little bit of meta-gaming, our heroes correctly surmised that this was The Feywild.

But our heroes are very busy, with lots of things to do and Death Curses to stop here in the real world. They didn’t have time to go traipsing about in the Fey right now. This is not Wild Beyond the Witchlight. But how are they going to get out of this? Had they not failed every roll they needed to get out of this, they would have been fine. But they did; and they were about to pass over the event horizon into this purple, white, and green hole. Until good old Gwen remembered some rare items they had found back in Session 26 during their Goonies-styled treasure hunt.

There they had discovered two magical Feather Tokens of Quaal. Who is Quaal and why did he lose all his feathers? That’s not important right now, but what is important is what these tokens can do. Rummaging through the community sack, Gwen pulls out a feather and throws it onto the deck of the doomed ship. This is the Anchor Token and the ship comes to an immediate stop, dead in its tracks impossibly ignoring the relentless current that is currently smashing up against the ship’s stern. Everyone roll me a Dexterity save to keep from falling over and possibly sliding toward the edge of a rail and overboard. Fear not. All the important people passed. A few unnamed sailors fell off the ship, got sucked into the whirlpool, and disappeaered, presumably crash landing somewhere in the Fey.

Our heroes were saved but not safe and could not very well spend the rest of their lives trapped on the edge of a trans-dimensional vortex. But using the second token, The Fan, Gwen throws the feather high in the air in front of the forward mast. Hurricane winds buffet the sails from an invisible source just off the bow. Releasing the Anchor Token, the ship is blown backwards at full sail with enough gale force to break the unbreakable grip of the whirlpool. Once the ship was safely away from the incessant draw of the whirlpool, the crew righted the ship and our heroes were safely underway once more.

Now, the real purpose of this whirlpool is to set up a possible adventure after we’ve finished exploring Chult. There is a high probability that following the fall of Acererak and his plans, our heroes might decide to solve the little Ring of Winter dilemma. The official canonical way to destroy said ring involves the Summer Queen of the Fey. Should our heroes take this course, they now know of a portal into that world.

Had our heroes been sucked into the Feywild today, I would have run a short one-session side quest to get back to our regularly scheduled adventure. After falling through the whirlpool, the ship and her crew plummet a 1000 feet to land in a tiny shallow pond that barely contains the size of the ship. The water from the whirlpool does not cascade into this pond and is either evaporated or otherwise returns to the real world. Looking up in the sky, you see no portal through which you came. You must find another way. Aside from some very angry geese there is no one around but you do see a golden palace off in the distance. Following a series of misadventures, many involving Summerwise, the seldom used fairie dragon bonded to Martic, our heroes learn that to get back they just have to pull the cork at the bottom of the pond.

But alas, our heroes do not get to go on this adventure and are stuck, for now, in the real world of Yuan-Ti, jungles, and death. Also alas, we’ve run out of time and don’t get to do my Cyclops and Sirens scenarios. I’ll just keep those in my back pocket. Instead, our heroes arrive at their destination; a point just beyond the hidden anchorage and their destiny with those scurvy sea dogs, the Jakarta Pirates.

Next week, we finally raid the pirate base, summon a mythical Sneckalasquid, and nearly have a reunion with our arch nemesis.

As always, subvert expectations, be wacky, and Game On!

But I was just promoted! – Commander Droid B1 just after his head was decapitated by a medieval and definately non-light sabre.

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.