We venture back into the jungle, discover more secrets, more depravity, and the devious deadline of the Death Curse.

When last we left our heroes, they had invaded the pirate base hidden in a secret grotto at the Southern end of Chult. After a calamitous battle involving dozens of pirates, the devastating effect of gravity upon a fully-laden ship, and the intervention of an imaginary beast called the Sneckalasquid, our heroes were victorious.

Following the battle, they had amassed a fair amount of treasure, including a cape of the mountebank, which can cast dimension door once per day and will prove disastrous in the final battle, and a gem of true seeing which needs to be implanted into the eye socket of a blind man. Our heroes know just the guy; a blind ally from Baldur’s Gate named Miles Farsight (pun still intended), but sadly our heroes our destined to never see this man again. (pun also intended).

But what calamity could possibly befall our party and ruin all my plans for the Death Curse? It turns out that life, real life, will always find a way to mess up your game. For the past year and a half, over 18 months, we have meticulously plotted our course through the Jungle of Chult, savoring all its delights and surviving against all its denizens. And we’ve loved every minute of it. But all good things must come to an end. I always thought that there would be enough time to explore more locations, uncover more secrets, live more of this fantasy life. But as that Jurassic sage, Ian Malcolm, says, “Life finds a way,” and time is running out for one of my players.

Theo, player of Roland, humble fisherman turned paladin of an unnamed god, and one who has embraced Chult as his adoptive home, has to leave the campaign. Very soon. He is moving off to college in a different state at the end of the summer and will be unable to continue his adventures with us. This is a tremendous blow to the campaign. We’ve endured other misfortunes throughout the campaign. Players exiting the game, changing the game venue, and scheduling conflicts, but this felt different. This would bring my perfect-sized group of four players down to a TPK-inducing three, and worse, Theo was the main reason we were playing Tomb of Annihilation in the first place.

Previously, Theo had been in two other groups that had tried and failed to play through Tomb. I was determined that we would be able to give him the Chult experience he so desperately craved. And we did. We were having a blast and I had a ton of more jungle content that we were going to explore. In addition to all the in-book locations, such as the red wizard infested Heart of Ubtao, the red dragon infested dwarven mine, and the shipwreck at the top of the jungle canopy infested by something; I had several homebrew encounters planned.

I expected to expand upon the Animal Mask mythology, including insect, bird, and snake masks, plus a whole story involving the already owned monkey mask that included a lost tribe of natives who used the mask to tame a giant gorilla but now live in fear of the beast. It was going to be a whole King Kong thing, where the ape would go berserk in Port Nyanzaru and later climb the spires of Goldenthrone because it reminded him of home. I had a whole quest that involved getting Miles Farsight his magic eye, but Fort Beluarian has been overrun by the return of Yumog from Session 27. I had new dragon encounters, a dinosaur haven at Lake Luo, and even an entire race of dino-humanoids that might become enemies or allies depending on the player’s interaction with them. But these plans now lie fallow, swallowed up by the very jungle of life.

I have exactly eight weeks to get my group to the lost city of Omu, which is on the opposite end of the map and more importantly, they have no idea where it is or even why it is important. Then they have to find nine hidden keys within that city while dodging all manner of beasts, red wizards, and a huge enclave of Yuan-ti. Then they have to invade said enclave to wrap up the Ras Nsi storyline, because as far as the players are concerned, Nsi is the main bad guy of the adventure. Then they have to delve into the mega-dungeon Tomb of the Nine Gods, home of the real villain, Acererak, and his seven(!) levels of traps, monsters, and multiple mini-bosses. No pressure.

I lay my cards on the table and tell my players the bad news. We can no longer dilly-dally about this awesome jungle of Chult, and now must speed-run our game into the finale. I ask my players to trust me; if they follow the breadcrumbs I lay out, then they will get to the final destination in short order, where, gods willing, they can spend one or two sessions dealing with that place, enter Acererak’s tomb, and if we are really quick, bang out that dungeon. Yeah, right! That plan went out the window within three weeks, but that is for another time. For today, we will stick to original plan to travel up the Tath River, visit the village of Mbala, and find the hidden shrine of Orolunga, since that is what I had planned for today.

Using the folding boat obtained off the corpse of the Frost Giant Ranger they fought in Mezro, our heroes paddle up the sluggish river and are soon engulfed by the jungle canopy once more. They are accompanied by Salida, the sarcastic jungle guide with a secret, whom I never intended to be their final guide. I always wanted it to be Eka, the honorable guide with an even bigger secret. But it doesn’t matter what I want; we’re stuck with Salida. We also have Grum the doggedly loyal hireling that we can’t get rid of, no matter how hard the players try. And we have the four jungle natives whom have made a life bond with each player, but they only exist to give each player an extra attack in combat. Chult is frickin’ deadly!

After a few days of paddling, the trees part and they are now surrounded on both sides by the towering cliffs of Ataaz Kahakla. I assume Ataaz means canyon in made-up Chultanese. There are a few such canyons here in Chult but this is the first our players have encountered. This one is festooned with thousands upon thousands of rainbow-hued but razor-sharp coral. Embedded amongst the kaleidoscope of color, the ivory bones of hundreds of aquatic skeletons, some never seen alive by human eyes, line every layer of the cliffs from top to bottom.

Suddenly, something fast plunks into the river right beside their boat, having either fallen from the cliffs or thrown from the top. Just then, a dozen more pelt our heroes from every direction, some into the water, others striking the boats, and a few embedding themselves into our heroes. Its spears! Our heroes cannot get a good glimpse of their attackers for they are over 200’ above them on the cliff’s edge and every time they pop up to chuck a spear, they duck back down before the players can get a shot off. Our heroes can hear this unknown enemy yelling in some unknown guttural language. Thames can barely identify it as a strange dialect of draconic, but he can make out the phrase, “Go away snake men or we kill you!” These guys must have mistaken us for Yuan-ti, which we are clearly not, right?

Our heroes panic (slightly) as they weigh their paltry few options. Gwen considers and rejects using the dimension door cloak, because she doesn’t want to be trapped up top and alone with a dozen unknown assailants and no means of escape. Thames considers using the OP vortex warp spell, (Thanks, Tasha’s Cauldron of Ridiculous Nonsense!) but that will only deal with one or two bad guys, and not really solve the issue. I swear, the next campaign I run, I’m banning this book. While the indecisive Gwen and Thames bicker, Martic and Roland take matters into their own hands, literally, and double their rowing efforts, soon leaving this beautiful but deadly gauntlet behind.

Paddling north, they come upon the massive and anomalous plateau that is Mbala. A huge granite column rises above the trees, like a perfectly vertical mountain but missing its triangle-shaped top. Think Devil’s Tower but in the jungle instead of Wyoming. I moved Mbala closer to the river, just so I wouldn’t have to deal with any overland travel. And to move this along even faster (I only got eight weeks to wrap up this entire campaign. Let’s go!), my players quickly find the single trail that leads up to the top.

Since announcing that we need to move as quickly as possible to get the players to Omu, I feel a relentless pressure that time is slipping away. All these frivolous side missions are ruining our chances to get to the Tomb of Annihilation. I want to scream, “This place doesn’t matter! Let’s move on and go!” But my players still want to enjoy the adventure as we always have, slow and methodical, which is frankly the best way. I need to let go and just accept that I will get the players as far as I can and leave it at that.

Anywho, at the top of the plateau, I ran this section pretty much as written. As a location, Mbala feels very incomplete. For such a large area, it’s mostly empty with just a single thing to interact with. There’s no real quest to bring anyone here, and there’s no real treasure. Boring. The only reason to come here is if you just so happen to have a dead character that happened to get killed nearby, and you really don’t want to roll up a new one, then fine, drag that corpse up the mountain and the creepy witchdoctor on top can turn it into a sentient zombie that will die anyway within a month no matter what you do.

Since my group does not have any cadavers at the moment, all that they have left is the rather mundane mystery of what happened here. The basic mystery is that the shaman, Nanny Pu’pu, is obviously a hag, and she has driven all the villagers mad, killed them, and eaten them. Okay, that’s great, so now what is she doing? Hanging around waiting for my players to kill her, obviously. I love how this adventure includes all the different varieties of hags, but this green hag is the weakest of the bunch. There’s just no story here, no one to save, no one to avenge, no one to care about.

I had originally intended that the four tribal warriors rescued back in Session 13 and now follow the party around were to have come from Mbala. This would have led to a whole roleplay bit where the warriors are grief stricken and upset that if they had been here, then maybe they could have stopped this tragedy. They would insist that Nanny Pu’pu is a trusted shaman who could not have been involved in these events. This would have made getting to the bottom of the mystery much more interesting. Then once the mystery is uncovered, now those villagers can be properly avenged. And to save her own life, Nanny Pu’pu would tell them that some villagers escaped and headed east into the swamp. This would lead to a whole new adventure where they have to track the fleeing villagers and ultimately rescue them from some other calamity. My plan was to have them be captured by the red wizard at The Heart of Ubtao.

But now that the time crunch is on, I have to ditch any plans that don’t lead directly to Omu. Which is a shame, because I really wanted to have a conclusion to the tribal warrior story arc, and my players never knew that they even had one. In fact, I took these warriors out of the scenario completely by having them stay below to “watch the boats”. Salida also refused to make the trek to the top. “No. My job is to guide you where you want to go. Not climb up stupid mountains.” So, with no real story for my players to delve into, this whole Mbala detour was totally blah. I tried to juice up the encounter by ratcheting up the macabre gruesome details but it didn’t matter. Sure, I can add dangling bits of flesh and desiccated eyeballs to the displayed skeletons but the whole encounter had no meat on the bones.

The encounter wasn’t bad but it wasn’t inspired. I played up the confused old lady bit to the hilt, never answering a question completely, speaking in half sentences, and muttering to herself. The party did not care about dealing with Nanny Pu’pu’s pterafolk problem at all. They still remembered how pterrible those things were back in Session 31 and had no desire to be dropped off any more cliffs. There was also a fun bit where Nanny Pu’pu offered them some lizard stew and they made Gwen try it first because they thought it might be human stew and Gwen was had been tricked into some prior cannibalism. Finally, I was able to get the players separated by mumbling about some “treasure” in the garden, where the golem is buried. Half went outside to check while the others stayed in the house. This was the best moment I was ever going to get to strike.

Now I love hags, but unless they are in a coven, a single hag is useless in combat. I always make the list of spells hags have access to be determined by the number of hags alive. A single hag can cast 1^st or 2^nd level spells (depending upon how mean I’m feeling), two hags can cast up to third or fourth, and a proper three hag coven has access to the full 6^th level spells. I also gave Nanny Pu’pu access to a single lair action. She can instantly lock all doors and windows in her hut. It’s a minor thing but proved to be a good nuisance, keeping the groups separated.

As soon as the party was split, I locked all the doors, then the golem attacked his group and the hag attacked hers. There was a fun moment when both groups attempted to get away from their respective attackers, some trying to get out of the hut and the others trying to get back in, and both were thwarted by a single door. It was even better than the classic dropping portcullis that splits the party just before enemies attack from both sides, because neither side knows what is happening on the other side of the door. If able, I would recommend holding the two combats in separate rooms to create even more mystery and tension. And while you run each fight, describe how you can just hear smashing, banging and screaming coming from the other side of the door.

Eventually, the inside group was able to get outside. I don’t remember how, but I think they smashed out a window. Now that the band was back together, they were able to fight properly and made short work of both enemies, even with the hag’s extra spell slots and her infinite invisibility which was undone by a good use of fairie fire. I say short work, but it took forever to take down the golem’s stupidly high number of hit points. It’s a good thing that Nanny Pu’pu didn’t have access to the 3^rd level lightning bolt which heals flesh golems or our heroes might still be fighting that guy forever. And yes, Gwen added Nanny Pu’pu’s skull to her grim collection. This girl needs some serious therapy.

After the fight, despite an excessive amount of hints and hand holding, our heroes still could not find the hag’s real treasure at the bottom of the well. But I really need them to get the comprehend languages scroll hidden there. Oh well, I’ll just have to find another way. Of course, the real reason to come up here is the view. The plateau offers a picturesque panorama of the surrounding jungle, filling out 200 square miles of the map that their patron, Raindon Moonwhisper, hired them to chart. Of course, our heroes have completely forgotten about this guy or his quest. But they did get a great view of the Aldani Basin, Camp Vengeneance, the floating Heart of Ubtao, and more importantly, the lost ziggurat of Orolunga.

The next day, our heroes make a beeline straight to Orolunga. This is the first stop on the Chultan Express that will railroad my players straight to Omu; after making some mandatory pit stops and nearly derailing the campaign. First, they have to get to the top of this pyramid, meet with the prophet inside, get whisked across the breadth of Chult to Nangalore, grab the first ingredient for an important spell, then hike to Kir Sabal to complete a magic ritual that will fly our heroes to Omu. This will bang out the last remaining important jungle areas to explore pre-Omu, get our heroes to Chapter 3 in a suitably fantastical way, and keep us on track to give Theo his suitably epic finale. All aboard! Woo woo!

In the box text, I add that they can see a field of orange/blue orchids all around and the trees are filled with dozens of red plumed parrots. I want them to get to the top as quickly as possible and I don’t need them fumbling around looking for flowers and feathers. The “challenges” to climb up the steps of the ziggurat are not hard at all (though the snake swallowing one is suitably gross), and I did not change them. But I was happy when Thames sent his flying crutch (I mean, construct) over the temple to scout and I had that thing smash into an invisible force field, killing it instantly. Thames was all out of large gems and couldn’t build a new one for a while, so hah ha ha. RIP Seppi III. Also Salida, Grum, and the tribal warriors stayed below because I got other plans for them too.

Once inside the temple I lay it on thick with the Ubtao and Chultan mythology that I have been seeding since the beginning. Check out my Explorer’s Guide to Chult for more details. This may be the last time I get to delve into this lore, for once they reach Acererak’s Tomb the whole campaign shifts. I also changed the oracle from an uninspired non-canonical guardian naga into a mythical couatl. “You may have heard my name as Saja, but you probably know me best as Ecatzin, Chosen by Ubtao to lead the people of Maztica to this fertile paradise of Chult.” I have mentioned this demi-god and her connection to Ubtao before, not that anyone listens. If we had time to work the Nyanzaru guide Eku into the campaign, I would have made her be this demi-god couatl, but we don’t, so I’m making changes as we go. Regardless of her true identity, her prophesies remained the same.

First, our heroes asked about Ras Nsi. “Ras Nsi must pay for his crimes, but he is not your true enemy. Ras Nsi works for another. A man who is not a man and not of this world. The Lord of Unlife seeks to raise an ancient evil by feeding it souls. On the night of the next full moon the titan shall be sated and the world shall be consumed.” The next full moon is in 10 game days, a totally arbitrary time line to force my guys over the finish line. This is the first they’ve heard that Ras Nsi is not the main guy but they have heard of the Lord of Unlife in some notes written between two hag covens and not the hag they just killed. There’s a lot of hags.

Next question, Who is the Lord of Unlife? “He hides from me, shielded by fey magics. He has many names; The Devouer, The Eternal. He fights me. Tell me your name. Who are you?” Then in a deeper darker voice, “Acererak. See you soon.” This is the same voice and threat that I use at the end of all the player nightmares that have occurred throughout the course of the adventure. Finally, our heroes know the name of the true villain of the story.

Where can we find Acererak? “Hidden between the Valley of Lost Honor and the Peaks of Flame, the ruined city of Omu lies in wait. There you will find what you seek. But first you must find your own path to this lost city.” They have heard the name of Omu several time before and now they knew the location of the finale.

How can we get to Omu? “The city of Omu is too far to travel by foot. To make it on time you will need to take the crossing to Nangalore where you must obtain the black orchid from Zalkore, then in Kir Sabal you must be given the Eshowe Scepter from Mwaxanare to receive the Song of the Seven Winds.” I have dropped all these names during the campaign and some of them are mentioned in other prophesies they have been given, from the vision dreams in Session 18 and the fortune teller in Session 22. Finally, these things are all coming together.

Our players had a few more questions. What other dangers do we face? “Do not be distracted. Threats to Chult await at the Heart, the Peaks, the Gate, and the Port, but they will have to wait. You must enter the Tomb of the Nine Gods before the next full moon or all will be lost. Time is not you friend.” This referred to several side quests that I intended to run involving the red wizard at the Heart of Ubtao, the threat of Dendar the Night Serpent at the Peaks of Flame, the return of Yumog at the Baldur’s Gate outpost of Fort Belurian, and the invasion of Thames’ dragonborn people at Port Nyanzaru. But alas, I will run none of these.

What help can you give us? “I have two gifts for you to help you on your journey. The Blessing of the Silvered Tongue and the Crossing of Sisters.” The silvered tongue will replace the scroll of comprehend languages that they missed in Mbala but my players are curious. What is the Crossing of Sisters? “Long ago, before the Eshowe claimed her, Nangalore and Orolunga were sisters and as such they shared a connection, a crossing; what you would call a teleportation circle, such a pedantic term. The buildings that housed them are long gone but the crossings still persist. You will find ours west of the ziggurat. Once inside the circle speak Nangalore’s true name, Ka-nanji.”  Obviously, the crossing is invented by me to get my players where they need to go, but the names are all from the book.

Our heroes had one last question about Artus Cimber. “Yes, your frigid friend and his scented companion were here about ten days ago. He asked about Mezro and how to find her. I told him what I will tell you. As you know, Mezro will only return once all threats to Mezro are eliminated. Right now, those threats are Ras Nsi and the Death Curse, both of which could be found at that time in Omu. Artus Cimber and his saurian left on foot, headed to Omu.” With nothing further to be learned, Ecatzin dismissed them. “May Ubtao guide you through the maze of life. Fare thee well.”

When the exited the ziggurat, my players were annoyed that play time was over here in Chult and they had to get serious about stopping the Death Curse. When they realized that time was all funny inside in it was now morning of the next day, they were upset. But they were positively mad when they discovered that all their allies had been captured and they were being held at spear point by a mob of bipedal sentient dinosaurs! They were yelling at the party in some strange yet familiar guttural language. Good thing they had the Blessing of Silver Tongue to translate. “Surender now or we kill all you Yuan-ti devils!” These must be the same guys from the cliffs. We don’t have time for this.

Oh man, I had so many unfulfilled plans with these guys. I know it’s a Warhammer set and not D&D, but it’s frickin’ dinos riding dinos! Total bad ass. But I just never got to pull it off. They were gonna have their own village, with its own hierarchy, dino politics, and some fetch quest in order to obtain their allegiance. But sadly, they were reduced to just this solo encounter. I never even got to paint them! Well, let’s make the most of it.

Fortunately, all the ziggurat “challenges” have vanished and our heroes are easily able to climb down to the first step. The head dino-man (the one riding a dinosaur) speaks, “That’s far enough. Who are you? You, that invade our lands and travel in the company of snakemen?” Our heroes professed their innocence. “What are you talking about? We hate the Yuan-ti. In fact, we rescued every one of these guys from being Yuan-ti slaves.” They lumped Grum in that group even through that isn’t strictly true. Everyone of us has killed dozens of those bastards. I mean, the only one of us who hasn’t is our guide, Salid… Oh, you bitch!”

 

Now it was Salida’s turn to profess her innocence. “Who are you going to believe? Me, who’s never steered you wrong or given reason to doubt me. Or this savage inferior race of lizard spawn?” But before our heroes could make their choice, a new complication arose. Twenty zombies marked with the blue triangle of Ras Nsi burst into the clearing and surge in to attack. The head dino-man calls out to our heroes, “These undead abominations bear the mark of the snakeman. Kill them and prove you are not aligned with them.”

I’d like to think that if I wasn’t in such a rush to move things along, that I would have had this whole “Who is my true enemy” scenario play out in a much more uncertain and nuanced approach. Well, I ain’t got time for nuance, so throw some zombies at them. This fight would have been incredibly boring were it not for one spectacular moment at the very beginning. While the rest of the party tried to free their captive warriors to help fight, an overly confident Gwen stepped up and said, “Stand back. I got this. Thames, warp me into the middle of those zombies.” The dutiful dragonborn did as asked and used vortex warp to teleport Gwen right in front of over a dozen undead. Still certain of victory, Gwen reached for her holy symbol and cried out, “By the power of Kelemvor, I command you unholy undead to flee before me!” With as much sweet irony as I could muster, I got to deliver the tragic (and hilarious) news. “Gwen, you do not have your holy symbol. It is not on your person and you have no idea where it is.”

Gwen freaked. “What the hell do you mean, I don’t have it? I used it yesterday in Mbala. We camped. I had it on me when I went to bed. In the tent… I shared… With the only other female in the group… Our. New. Guide… Salida, you bitch!” After this epiphany, the realization of her precarious location hit her. “Guys, get me the fuck outta here!”

But the other guys were busy. Gwen would have to take the brunt of a dozen zombies before she could be rescued. I let her take the dodge action but that was cancelled by the fact that she was flanked on all sides. She is going to take a lot of damage this turn and the next. This may not have been the most sophisticated betrayal Salida could have perpetrated, but it was memorable and we still talk about it to this day. And yes, I rolled and passed all the needed stealth checks for Salida to pull it off. And I would have played out getting caught had she failed.

Next round, Thames used vortex warp again to get Gwen out of the kill zone. I hate this spell, so it was very satisfying to watch him burn two spell slots on this catastrophic attempt at being cool. Our heroes were spread all over the battle field and that was when Salida had one last trick up her scaly sleeves. She charmed the dino-man leader and commanded him to “Get me out of here as quick as possible.” The dino-man scooped up Salida onto his dino steed and ran away as fast a possible. She almost got away.

Thames had to burn his last vortex warp on Roland, moving him in front of the fleeing traitor and her duped dino-minion. Roland was able to lay a smite on the conniving Salida, breaking her concentration and ruining her escape. After that, it was simple matter to kill her and her summoned zombies and thwart her failed betrayal. Again, I wish I had time to tease out Salida’s treachery, but if I had kept her around, it would have pulled focus away from getting these guys to Omu, so she had to go. Of course, Gwen collected Salida’s severed head for future interrogation. That chick’s got issues, man. On the plus side, this single skull ended up saving the entire campaign.

After the combat, the dino-men and our heroes were instant friends. They explained the world-ending apocalypse that they were trying to avert. The dino-men were convinced of the urgency and promised to report this to their leaders and hopefully join our heroes in Omu with a some dino-reinforcements. I’m still toying with the idea of a giant multi-faction war that will take place in either Omu or Mezro if our heroes succeed in Acererak’s Tomb. We’ll see.

It is also a simple matter to find the Crossing teleport circle on the far side of Orolunga. Before using it, Thames had a great idea that set up the most momentous roleplay encounter of the adventure. Salida had on her person another sending stone that was connected to Ras Nsi. (They now have 4). Using the stone, Thames send a proposition to Ras Nsi. “This is Thames Dasow and company. We have killed another follower of yours. You have been recruited under false pretenses I request a proper conversation.”.

Incredibly, Ras Nsi responded right away. “I’m impressed. We should finally meet face to face. Be at my former palace in two days. I promise safe passage til then.” From one of my multitude of handouts, my players knew that his original palace is located just east of Nangalore in a swamp conveniently called the Rsi Wastes. Well, my players are going that way anyway, so without further ado, our heroes step onto the Crossing Circle and into…

Next week, we barely escape the evil eye, dine with our enemies, and suffer the wrath of a necessary ally.

As always, sometimes life can be a real D&D downer, just make the best of it and Game On!

“Give me back my symbol, you bitch! – An uncharacteristically vengeful Gwen

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 legends, lore, history, religion, and culture that I used to bring even more life to this adventure.