Can our heroes make to Omu? Can they save Bucketboy? Or will they be thwarted by magic cubes, red wizards, and feral cats?

When last we left our heroes, they teleported halfway across the continent in a mad dash to make it to Omu before the Death Curse become permanent in exactly ten days. There’s nothing like an arbitrary deadline to put a fire under your players’ feet. They landed at the hanging gardens of Nangalore and had a charming conversation with a medusa where they debated sacrificing one of their own to save the world. Then they swam to the swamped palace of Ras Nsi and had a cordial conversation that seethed with fury with their nemesis where they debated sacrificing an innocent child to slake their thirst for revenge. Then they ran to the towering monastery of Kir Sabal and had a contentious conversation with an impudent princess where there was no debate and they threw the prospect of completing the campaign off a cliff.

As it stands right now, our heroes have seven days to stop the Death Curse. Ras Nsi has kidnapped the beloved NPC, Bucketboy, and has threatened to kill the child if our heroes don’t quit the campaign and head home. Those two were last seen flying south, likely to the hidden city of Omu. Our heroes have no intention to obey Ras Nsi. Now they have to get to Omu immediately in order to save Bucketboy and then maybe save the world. But when Gwen assaulted the exiled royalty living at Kir Sabal they lost the only means to make it to Omu in time and they lost the only means they had to discover its location. Our heroes are just milling about in the middle of the jungle in the middle of the night, with no idea of where to go or what to do.

We’ve been forced to speed up our leisurely pace of the campaign because one of the players, Theo, is about to go off to college in another state. I planned to run the players through some serious plot hoops to get them to Omu (the location of the final dungeon) ASAP. The problem was that our heroes had no idea where it was or how to get there. My plan hinged on a positive outcome at this quirky monastery on the cliff inhabited by a mythic race of bird folk, called Aarakocra. The head of this monastery could perform a ritual that would grant our heroes (and all their followers) the ability to fly like a bird for three days, just long enough to cover the distance to Omu.

But in order to find Omu they needed a different plan, involving the spell Find the Path. How the spell works is if you have an item that is from the place you’re seeking, then the spell will create a gossamer trail that will lead you the correct way. But the only known item from Omu that is found outside of Omu is the scepter held by the Princess Mwaxanare here in Kir Sabal. Also, no one in the party can cast that spell. Or can they? Ages ago, in Session 16, our heroes were being chased through the jungle when they were saved by a secret shrine to Ubtao. This shrine also granted Thames the ability to cast, you guessed it, Find the Path. Sadly, Gwen managed to kill two birds with one slap that got them banned for life from Kir Sabal and ruined their access to that magic ritual and that Omuan staff. The last session ended with no idea how we were going to move forward.

Sure, I can just wave my magic DM hands and whisk the players to where they need to be and call it a day. I am that powerful. But that is so unsatisfying. There has to be a way to make travelling the distance needed possible, but it should cost our heroes some important resources. As for how to replace the must-have item from Omu, I got nothing. Let’s deal with the transport arrangements first. Back in Session 31, our heroes saved the life of an Aarakocra named Zephyr. Zephyr is here to repay the debt. He arrives and talks to Gwen, “What was that all about? What were you thinking? Asharra (the monastery leader) is furious. You’re lucky she didn’t order you to be flung from the clifftop.” Gwen offered up the proper apologies and excuses. Zephyr continues, “But I think I can help. And I do owe you for saving my life. I don’t know where Omu is, we are forbidden from flying there. But I can get three or four loyal Aarokocra, and we will fly you as close as we can. There are more than five of you in your party (there’s 10), so you will have to decide who stays behind. You just need to figure a way to find Omu.”

Fortunately, in between sessions, my players remembered they had this Find the Path ability and realized that this was my plan all along. Now they just need to find an item that came from Omu.  My players were wracking their brains and scouring over their inventory sheets for anything that may have come from this mysterious, lost city located far to the south in uncharted territory. They had nothing. I had nothing. It was a total dead end. Then the one who had caused all these problems in the first place, Gwen, had an epiphany. “What about my skull collection? Did any of them come from Omu?” I don’t know. Who do you have? “I got a couple of goblins, a red wizard, Xandala, a couple of pirates, hey, what about all these Yuan-ti?” No, they all come from Northern Chult. “Ooh, what about Salida, the guide that betrayed us? I got her head right here.” You know what, yes; Salida was born with the Yuan-ti tribe in Omu. Her skull is originally from Omu. We have mocked and ridiculed Gwen’s skull obsession for two years, and now it is the one thing that salvaged the entire campaign.

We’re gonna get to Omu! Huzzah! Our heroes camped the night at the base of Kir Sabal. The next morning, Zephyr and four other Aarakocra arrived to provide transport. We had to bid farewell to Benedict and the four native warriors whom were released from their vow. Too bad, I always intended these tribesmen to boost up the combats in Acererak’s Tomb, but now our heroes will have to go it alone. Benedict’s last order is to get to Port Nyanzaru and give a status report to our allies there. With Salida’s skull in hand, Thames cast his spell and a faint blue line streaked due south into the deep jungle. Bourne upon the wings of the Aarakocra, Gwen, Roland, Martic, Thames, and good ol’ Grum took to the skies, and flew south into the wild blue yonder all the way to Omu. I guess you could say that in the end, it really was Salida who guided our heroes where they needed to be.

Even with the speed of the Aarakocra and unimpeded by the hazards of the jungle, it still took over three days to fly to Omu. In my original plan, the ritual spell was going to expire just before reaching Omu, leading to a spectacular crash landing and a short trek through a far more dangerous jungle. But these birds are able to get the party all the way there without any issue. Oh, well. Along the way, I described all the cool things that we would have done if had more time. There was an enormous lake to the east that was the watering hole for thousands of dinosaurs. The Peaks of Flame were to the south east; three huge volcanoes where the Yuan-ti god, Dendar the Night Serpent, was rumored to be imprisoned. To the west there was a blasted wasteland called the Valley of Lost Honor where Ras Nsi went on his murderous rampage of the Eshowe people. They even saw the red dragon, Tinder, flying far to south. Oh, what will never be.

On the fourth day, the ghostly blue trail led them to a giant crevice cut into the jungle canopy. As our heroes flew closer, they saw that the entire city has been plunged down into an enormous sink hole over 100 feet deep, during some ancient cataclysm that swallowed the city whole. The thick jungle has grown over it so that even from the air, one would not see the crater unless you were right on top of it.

Flying over the ruins, our heroes could see that the lost city of Omu has suffered some catastrophic damage but remains largely intact. A huge waterfall cascades over the eastern edge, flooding much of the city, snaking through several long boulevards until it tumbles over another cliff into a churning crater of lava that consumes the southern edge of the city. The scalding steam rising from the crater obscures the entire area in an oppressive haze. Much of the area is in ruin, but dozens of structures remain standing, including an amphitheater to the northwest, a ruined palace in the flooded east, and several smaller shrines scattered throughout the city. A sloped pathway in the south west appears to be the only entrance that connects the surface jungle with this sunken city. Welcome to Omu.

Our heroes avoid that sloped entrance, convinced that it would be obviously trapped and guarded. These fears are unfounded, but players will forever be wary of an open door. They picked the exact opposite and asked that Nephyr land on the northern rim of the crater. The Aarakocra deposit their passengers, bid their farewells, and promise to apologize for Gwen and attempt to persuade their leaders to lend whatever aid they can for what will likely be a war for the fate of world right here in Omu. I think my players are on to me. I was planning exactly that.

Our heroes were trying to be stealthy while they scouted the area looking for the best spot to descend into the canyon. Of course, the suck at stealth and the guardians of Omu decide to investigate. Three gargoyles rise up from below and immediately pick a fight, trying to pull our heroes over the edge to their doom. They hovered in mid-air just out of melee range then swooped in for a grab and drop. There was an abundance of held actions during the course of this combat. Soon, the gargoyles were all dead and I love the image of these three stone monstrosities plummeting out of the sky and shattering on the ground 100 feet below in a shower of debris and rubble.

Convinced that whatever is beneath them (there was no one) is now fully aware of their presence (they wre not), our heroes moved along the rim and past the waterfall on the eastern face to make their climb down the cliff face here. They didn’t even give Gwen a chance to screw this up and lashed the clumsy cleric to both Roland and Thames, who climbed down while Gwen was lowered like a sack of potatoes. Martic used his magic bugs to float himself down into the crevice. Sadly, they did not consider that this side would be guarded as well. Well it is, and now they were fighting more gargoyles with a sword in one hand and clinging to the life-saving rope with the other. Soon enough, Roland fell, who was lashed to Gwen, who could do nothing about it and fell also. Thames jumped after them, casting feather fall, as it was intended finally, to save the party from disaster. Once on solid ground, these gargoyles were quickly dispatched also.

They were directly behind the palace complex but it was crawling with Yuan-ti. They considered bursting in and finding Bucketboy right away, but there were far too many snakemen for a frontal assault. They choose to search around a bit first, to maybe find a better way in or even find some allies to help them do it. The first thing they came to was one of those aforementioned shrines they had seen from the air. So, what the deal with these things?

Turns out they are a very big deal, but with absolutely zero build up or foreshadowing beforehand. At the start of this chapter, and only at the start of this chapter, the book devotes four pages to the background, lore, and uniqueness of Omu and these shrines for the DM to revel in, but provides no good way to share it with your players. The basic lore is that the god Ubtao (another glossed over detail) created the land of Chult and then his chosen tribes settled there. Over time the tribe that settled in Omu became obsessed with greed and avarice, causing Ubtao to turn his back on those whom had lost their way in the maze of life. The people of Omu took this as a sign that Ubtao had abandoned them.

With Ubtao gone, the people of Omu turned to new gods to answer their prayers. But these gods were not true gods and thus could not grants spells to clerics and such. These gods became known as the Trickster Gods. But this didn’t stop the Omuans from trying in vain to gain these god’s approval. They created elaborate shrines and trials to test the mettle of prospective worshippers. There are nine gods in total, each devoted to a certain skill or attribute, and each shrine challenged that skill. For example, the Shagambi shrine will test your bravery, while Kubazan’s is devoted to toughness. But the price for failure in the shrines was death. The Omuans came to revel in this death, which beget more death, and led to the moral degradation and downfall of the city. When exactly the city fell into this chasm is never mentioned. Presumably, during the Spellplague, the catch-all cataclysm used to explain any weird shit in the realms.

Eventually, along comes this crazy lich who decides to build a giant death trap tomb right here in the city. He just loves his death traps and he is totally vibing with these wacky Omuans and their zany death trap shrines. So, what does he do to reward them? He enslaves all the people, forces them to build his death trap dungeon, then he kills them all and seals them up in his tomb. He’s a swell guy. On top of that, he kills the nine trickster gods; off stage of course, so don’t worry about the how. And then he has them sealed up in his tomb too, hence the name. After all that, he locks up his Tomb using nine magical puzzle cubes as keys and hides those cubes inside each of the shrines devoted to those now dead Trickster Gods.

Oh wait, there’s more. At some point, the Yuan-ti moved in, Ras Nsi showed up, turned himself into a Yuan-ti, took over the Yuan-ti, then inconceivably decided to become a minion of this lich and help guard his Tomb. But none of that is important right now. All that matters, is that our heroes need to get those nine puzzle cubes from those nine trap-filled shrines. Got it? If only there was a good way to convey all this vital info to your players. Unfortunately, most of the lore delivery is lame and all of it is front loaded in the first few areas of Omu. If your group comes in through the back door, like mine did, then you are screwed.

Thank the gods that I choose to introduce the Trickster Gods into my campaign from the very beginning. Back in Session 8, my players participated in the Port Nyanzaru festival called the Trickster Trials; a series of playful competitions based upon the various attributes of those “gods”. The people of Port Nyanzaru treated these spirits less like gods and more like patron saints in animal form that represented valued qualities for survival in the jungle. Later, throughout the adventure, my players had encounters with almost every animal represented by a Trickster God to remind them of their importance. This importance was further established by the local calendar that named each day of the week after one of these gods. Plus, their order during the trials and on the calendar was a big clue to solving the puzzle involving these cubes to gain entry into the Tomb. (Not that my players had any idea of this at the time.)

Thanks to all this work throughout the campaign, when my players came upon their first shrine, they immediately recognized the iconography and symbols of Nangnang, the crafty, self-serving grung. My players were thrilled to have found something they knew of, and they proceeded to investigate. I was thrilled because finally I get to run a grung encounter. I had been saving the grungs for when my players got to Dungrunglung, the proper grung village in the center of Chult, but we just never got there. Now I get to make up for that and introduce these silly poisonous frogfolk, their even sillier form of “society”, But mostly I get to show off my gloriously painted minis.

I am notoriously guilty of not getting my minis painted on time, I buy them weeks, if not months in advance, then they sit on my mini shelf, unloved and forgotten. By the time the actual session arrives, I still haven’t painted them and when the epic mini reveal occurs, my players are treated to little hunks of plastic in glorious primer grey. But these guys were different. I love these guys. I bought four packs of them just for this silly encounter because they are so cute. I split them up into their various castes and even modified some of the minis so that some held wands, others had staffs and one had a cane. Then I broke out all my brilliant primary (and secondary) colors; blue, green, red, yellow, orange, and the extra special gold paint for the big boss man. But you don’t care about my trials and tribulation of my mini collection, let’s go gaming with the grungs.

As soon as our heroes approach the shrine a gaggle of tiny colorful frogs pop up from the roof and throw daggers, shoot bows, and cast some plant-based nuisance magic at them. As the grungs attack, they yell down to our heroes, “We tell you before, leave us alone or we kill you. Go away.” The beauty of a line like this is that I get a free round of combat and it signals to the players that the opponents think that our heroes are someone else and that this is a great opportunity to resolve this combat with a conversation and maybe gain a new ally. If I had more time, I would have played up the fact that these guys only speak their own language, but I don’t,  and just rule that the chief can speak a crude amount of common.

Our heroes quickly deduced the deal here and tell the frogs that they are friends and ask who they are mistaken for. The golden grung replies, “You sneaky snakemen, you no lie to me. Yorb smart.” What followed was a very fun exchange as the players try to convince Yorb that they are not Yuan-ti and Yorb keeps making them do more and more ridiculous things to prove that they are telling the truth. “Chief Yorb say show me skin. Me see no scales. You got tails? Stick out tongue.” Finally, Yorb decides, “Maybe, you no snakemen. Okay we talk.”

It’s a good thing that Yorb and the grungs are here, because this is easily the most boring of all the shrines. The “puzzle” is dumb and there is no real trap, but playing as Yorb kept things entertaining. Eventually, a deal is struck. If our heroes can get past the “no open door” and into the treasure room, then they can keep any one item in exchange for the “shiny gem sword” our heroes took off the corpse of Captain Zaroum back in Session 34.

Even with the vague clue found in the shrine, it took a surprisingly long time of trial and error before they happened to hit on the correct solution of one (and only one) character approaching the door while carrying some of the “fake” treasure scattered around. In the book, the only thing listed in this treasure room is the single puzzle cube. Since the party made a deal to take only one item, I added a whole bunch of other treasures to tempt them, like the carpenter’s cup test in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. My players were good. They ignored the chests of gold, basket of gems and jewelry and choose the boring old rock. Yorb laughed at them, “You pick dumb rock? No trade back. You may be no snakemen, but you stupid.”

Once my player chose the puzzle cube, I handed them a very unique handout. While it is not necessary to have a physical prop to represent these stones, the puzzle to get into the Tomb involves placing the stones into a proper order and it is useful if the players have something tangible that they can move around. You could print out nine squares, one for each cube, but I wanted these props to be special. I created nine unique cubes using the images of the Trickster Gods, and you can to. Go to my Tomb of Annihilation Resource Page and there you will find a section that includes all the instructions and templates needed to create you own set of Puzzle Cubes. Enjoy.

Despite lacking all the handholding exposition at the start of this chapter, our heroes knew these Cubes were important and set out to collect them all. I’m sure it helped that I just handed them a very elaborate prop and even the dimmest meta-gaming player could guess that I made eight more. Moving around and away from the Yuan-ti palace, they came upon Papazotl’s Shrine, but the half dozen crocodiles outside dissuaded them from trying to go inside, They were pretty banged up from the gargoyles and the grung so they didn’t want to get into another combat before finding a safe spot to hole up and rest. They marked its location and moved on. Little do they know, but this just made a later decision for me that much easier.

Another thing I want to impress upon the group is that although this is an abandoned ruin, it is teeming with life. For now, I increased the number and frequency of random encounters, but in each one the party saw the monster first and was something the party could avoid. In just their brief time here, they have had three encounters. In addition to the crocodiles, gargoyles, grung, and Yuan-ti that they’ve come across, they also saw a band of kobolds walking in the distance, a group of ghouls behind some houses, some vegypygmies, a shambling mound that almost caught them, and even one of those bastard Red Wizards of Thay with a group of mercenaries but our heroes were able to hide before they were discovered. This led to a brilliant idea by Gwen who shaved her head bald and wore the robes of a dead red wizard they killed a while back. Now if Ras Nsi or his minion happen to see them, hopefully they will be mistaken for those red wizards and not our heroes. But they still needed to get away from this hot bed of activity quickly. Since they were in the flooded area, they decide to break out their collapsable boat and paddle downstream, which should make it easier to escape any more monsters they might see.

This started out as a great plan, they could see the location of two more shrines, one on the east bank and the other just to the west. They could also see a large and mostly intact boulevard, just beyond that second shrine that would probably lead to more. Then it all went wrong. First, a posse of Yuan-ti spotted them and began shooting at them. Thankfully, Gwen’s disguise worked perfectly. One of the snakemen ordered another to report back that more Red Wizard scum were spotted in the Forbidden City. To further enhance their deception, I allowed each to make a stealth roll to duck below the edge of the boat and not be seen. Two passed, so at least the Yuan-ti do not know their actual numbers and maybe Ras Nsi won’t know it’s them. We hope.

Our visible heroes paddled faster away from the snakemen but now the current has also begun to pick up and they can’t slow the boat down. They whisked beneath a fallen log connecting the two banks of the split city. On the log is a crazed tabaxi with green feathers in his hair. Without warning, he fires several arrows at them with deadly accuracy. As the boat zooms past his perch, the tabaxi yells to our heroes, “Come back and fight, you Red Wizard cowards. Bag of Nails will not be denied another glorious victory. Come back!” I did not know it at the time, but Bag of Nails was destined to become a vital part of the campaign and this was his inauspicious introduction. It also led our heroes to quickly abandon their disguise as red wizards since apprrently everybody hates them, just as much as the players. As soon as they could, they changed out of their robes, but Gwen was still forced to be bald for the rest of her life.

But of heroes had bigger problems to worry about. Their boat was barreling down stream and up ahead disaster awaited. In about 250 feet, the stream plunges over the edge of a huge waterfall into the churning pool of molten lava and instant death. They had mere seconds to come up with a plan. Their one and only brilliant idea? Paddle as hard as they can to the nearest bank. So how do I adjudicate the DC for this unexpected challenge?

The book states that a swimming PC trying save himself must roll a DC14 Strength check to avoid plummeting over the edge. But this is a big heavy boat with five people in it. Everyone is at risk. I have everyone grab an oar and roll that same DC14 STR check. Since this is a group challenge, I decide that the group needs to roll five successes before they roll five fails. I even allow for the NPC Grum to stand in for Gwen, since her strength is always a disaster. I will also count any Nat 20 as two Successes and a Nat 1 as two Fails. The first sets of rolls were 5, 8, 15, 17, 19, 7, 12, & 18; Four Pass and Four Fail. I wasn’t expecting this either.

The next set of dice rolls will decide it all; Nat 20, 11, 9 & 8. But which came first, the Pass or the Fails? The final tally has more fails, but the last Pass was a Nat 20. That should count for something, right? I hate these ambiguous decisions. I always feel that I’d made the wrong choice and that these arbitrary calls by me destroy the verisimilitude of the game. But I usually err on the side of the heroes surviving, saved by the skin of their teeth. Although it might come at a cost.

That last second Nat 20 surge saved them. Our heroes run the boat aground mere inches away from the precipice. But the boat has been dashed upon some rocks. Everyone takes 5 points of damage from the jolt. Worse, the magical boat has been damaged beyond repair. Numerous gashes and holes have broken the hull. Not even Thames and his overzealous use of the mending spell can fix this. The boat will still collapse, but she will never float again. At least not during the course of this adventure.

 

Our heroes came ashore near Shagambi’s shrine, but I let them take a short rest in an empty house before they took on the shrine. It’s a good thing too, because this shrine kicked their butt. It’s not a really a trap but the combat against four gladiators is really hard. Our heroes tried to be sneaky on this one too, and slip in through a hole in a back wall. Of course, this was the only shrine where the exterior guardians, two kamadans protecting their young, were waiting. Thankfully, the players had no desire to kill such noble creatures. They magically held one of them and keep the other at bay until every one could disengage. This act of mercy would go rewarded in a little bit.

As for the gladiator fight inside. This also involved a tactical retreat when they realized that twelve attacks per round from the gladiators was too much for even our heroes to handle. At one point, Grum went down and they had to drag his body back to the entry room, where they had their final stand, bottlenecking two enemies in a narrow hallway while dodging spears being thrown at them from the giant hole in the floor. I played that the spears magically reappeared back in the gladiator’s hand when thrown, giving my party a clue that these things are important. Our heroes may have retreated, but I can play that game too, so I had my gladiators retreat and make the party come in after them, triggering another retreat from the heroes, and so on until finally our heroes chopped down the last guardian. I ignored the rule that a gladiator killed outside the lower arena reformed with full health. That would only succeed at dragging out this already too-long combat, with no point or purpose. For us, a kill anywhere in the shrine counted. Once they collected all four spears and placed them with the unarmed statues, our heroes gained another puzzle cube.

Our heroes were really low on health when they exited the shrine. Outside were the dead bodies of three Yuan-ti, ripped to shreds by claw and tooth. They caught a glimpse of a large striped cat with snakes on its shoulders walking away from the scene. Our heroes realized that since they showed mercy to the kamadans earlier, those kamadans repaid the favor by killing these Yuan-ti from even earlier who had now tracked our heroes down. Thanks, guys. See, good things can happen as a reward. And I’m not always a dick.

Our heroes are exhausted, and night is fast approaching, but we have to find safe shelter before we can quit for the night and give our party a long rest. The city is so wide open and unprotected that there are no good options to hole up in. My party decided to get to  the little pinnacle of rock perched over the lava sea that our players saw when they almost went over the waterfall. But they have to cross over the same log bridge where that crazy cat took pot shots at them. The tabaxi was no longer on the log but just as our heroes were halfway across, they began taking fire from the nearby rooftops. This catsassin was a bloody torment.

Our heroes made a run for it, trying to get to the other side before the tabaxi could knock them off and back into the swift river of death again. I was careful to spread my shots amongst the group since I wasn’t trying to get anyone killed here. They made it to the other side and began trading shots with the pesky pussycat, who kept popping up on different rooftops. Our heroes were mostly unsuccessful except for one brilliant shot that caught the tabaxi in mid jump between two building. Finally, one of our heroes called out to the nubile nuisance that we are not an enemy and they don’t want to fight. I was intrigued with the idea that this badass but bonkers menace might become an ally. Our heroes refused to fight back so I allowed a persuasion attempt. They passed, and the tabaxi called back, “What, you don’t want to fight? Where’s the thrill in that? You’re no fun at all. Fine! Come on up.”

This led to another fun conversation with the clearly delusion tabaxi who introduced himself as Bag of Nails and offered everyone soup. I purposefully undid my own plans when handing out the soup, stating, “Here, have some root and grub soup. It’s nice and hot and there’s no poison in it, I promise.” No one drank the soup except Roland who apparently also has a death wish. He passed his save and did not die. My Bag of Nails has a split personality and is a lot like Gollum, cordial and chatty one moment, followed by bursts of murderous rage. “Sorry about before. It’s common that when tabaxi near the end of their life cycle. they leave the tribe to embrace death in one last glorious combat. I’ve lived here for five months now and have yet to find… What are you talking to these chumps for? Kill them now and be done with it! You didn’t come here to make new friends.” Bag of Nails is great.

Bag told them mostly the whole story about how he came looking for a item called the Navel of the Moon and that he had heard that this item would somehow have the power to reunite him with his lost son. He had heard that the item was here but has seen no sign of it and he has given up hope on that quest and now just wants to die in a blaze of glory. This is the first mention of another legendary object found in the Tomb and it’s fine. I just wish that the book had told us about these items in the beginning and not buried here on page 102. I would have found a way to incorporate them into the lore of the game earlier and then when Bag of Nail tells his tale, the players would be reminded of what had come before and the whole world would seem that much more alive.

Despite Bag’s alter ego, our heroes did make a new friend and they promised to give Bag of Nails a glorious death if they would help in the coming fights with the Red Wizards and the Yuan-ti. Bag likes this plan and agrees. Now it is really getting late. Our heroes skip the shrine right near here and head toward that isolated spot where they intend to rest. But as they are walking down this broken boulevard, they have one more encounter that they are completely not prepared for.

Suddenly, out of the growing gloom, heading the opposite way on the same path, our heroes come across another group of adventurers. I love the idea of competing companies all racing to beat the other groups to the treasure. But this group is even more special because it is a roving gang of evil mages from the Red Wizards of Thay. My group hates these guys from some memorable encounters with Lord Atticus Sheffield Smythe the Third, back in Session 28 and Session 30. In full honesty, I am not prepared to run these guys if it comes to combat and I am praying that my players will not provoke a fight. I my head, these Red Wizards are just as resource depleted as our heroes, so I drop a few hints for my group. And it is a good thing our heroes changed out of their red wizard disguise, or this conversation would have gone very differently.

“Standing before you is another group of explorers. You spot three wizards in red robes and shaved heads that you recognize as necromancers from the Red Wizard of Thay. They are accompanied by a half dozen hardened warriors and a pack of undead. They all look a little worse for wear. One of the wizards has a gash on his forehead and one of the fighters is cradling his left arm. Two odd things about the group stand out. First, the lead wizard appears to be an 18-year-old girl, but half her face looks like an 80-year-old grandmother. Second, they are leading a zebra tied with a rope around its neck that the wizards all take turns ridiculing it; throwing rocks at it and calling it Dyrax the Donkey. Obviously, there is more to this zebra than meets the eye.”

The teenaged wizard stops her group and calls out to our heroes. “Hold there, travelers. What brings you to such an inhospitable, remote location?” My players played nice and did not respond with hostility. They even used the excuse given them back in Session 1. “We are just explorers, hired to collect specimens for our benefactor. We simply stumbled upon this spot.” After a little more back and forth, where the wizard kept asking prying questions and then refusing to answer any from our heroes. “We are on official business and are not at liberty to discuss it with the likes of you.” Since we were at an impasse and I had accomplished my goal of introducing these guys into the campaign, the juvenile necromancer ended the conversation. “Very well, we are not predisposed to deal with you properly at this time. So be on your way, but my advice to you is to be gone from the area by morning.”

The two groups passed by each other in that awkward way when neither side is willing to turn their backs on the other. Finally, the red wizards were gone. Hopefully, Bag of Nails will kill them all and save our heroes the effort. At last, they reached the column of rock that rises out of the lava pool. At its closest point, this spit of rock is sixty feet from the mainland. This turned out to be a simple challenge. Martic’s bug swarm ability allows his to hover and slowly fly over the chasm. He reaches the other side, ties off a connecting rope, allowing the others to shimmy across. (Gwen is tied to the rope and pulled across; nobody trusts her on her own.) Then Martic fly back, unties the line on the mainland, and fly back again, providing a perfect place to camp, protected from the land-based monsters of Omu. Which was good, because throughout the night they heard the sounds of Yuan-ti patrols looking for them, various beasts hunting for a meal, and even the sound of some enormous beast stomping about in the dark.

The party insisted on clearing out this shrine before going to bed. There are four jaculi (Moa’s animal avatar) in this area, but since they are good aligned creatures, I did not have them attack and just used them as local flare. My party left them in peace. This shrine also proved to be no challenge to my players. The clues were pretty obvious and they did not fall for the obvious trap of the cube lying right there in the open. Although they did test this by moving the cube using Mage Hand, setting off the archer statues and wasting an hour waiting around for them to reset. Eventually, they found the secret doors, guessed correctly which cube was real and exited the shrine.

So after one harrowing day, our heroes managed to collect three purpose-unknown puzzle cubes, made allies with a chorus of frogs and one crazy cat, and put two hostile groups on notice that heroes are mucking about, likely to cause problems. Sounds about right for my guys. Finally, they hunkered down for a well-earned long rest. Enjoy it while you can, it may be your last.

Next week, Our heroes collect more cubes, make more allies, and royally enrage the second biggest thing in Omu, a zombie T-Rex.

As always, never be afraid to run combat unprepared or worse, a conversation unplanned 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. All the templates and instructions for my Trickster Cubes are found here as well.

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.

Forget stuffy spellbooks and poisonous tomes, you want to read about fictional gods and made up histories.