With half the party possessed by Trickster spirits, we explore more Tomb and meet the architect of all our pain.

When last we left our heroes, we spent most of the day down on Level 3, clearing out tomb and rooms. Along the way, we collected more Trickster God treasures, got possessed by said Trickster Gods, and we collected more mysterious colored-crystal eyes for some unknown purpose. We also killed another skeleton key, but then we lost said key when it fell over a waterfall into the darkness below.

The most important news is that Gwen is missing, but no else is aware of this fact. Gwen was waylaid by a doppelgänger named Pox, who had previously been part of the Yellow Banner adventuring company posing as a fighter named Biff Longsteel. But that group is dead, killed off inside this dungeon. Now Pox has assumed the identity of Gwen and has infiltrated our heroes until he can escape this dungeon. New Gwen has made a lot of mistakes that the group is getting suspicious.

But it is impossible to pinpoint the problem, because everyone is acting “weird” due to several heroes being infected with the spirits of multiple Trickster Gods, many with wildly opposed personalities and morality. The reliable Neutral Good Martic is possessed by the Chaotic Neutral and unpredictable I’jin. Brash and brazen Bag of Nails has been possessed by the cowardly and cautious Obo’laka. The righteous and good Gwen has already been acting strange since she is really the amorally neutral doppelgänger, and now she/he/it has just been possessed by the evil and overbearing Papazotl. Even Savash, the probably evil Yuan-ti NPC is now possessed by the always honest and honorable Lawful Good Moa. Needless to say, our heroes our having a bit of an identity crisis. Thus far, only Thames has refused to take part in any of these shenanigans. He has spent the last few sessions trying to convince himself that he’s not the crazy one; it’s everyone else.

After three levels of deathtraps, our heroes are pretty beat up and depleted. This is not helped by the fact that the “cleric” can no longer cast healing spells (or any spells for that matter) and has been hiding the fact by burning through all the charges of a stolen staff of healing. Our heroes have barricaded themselves in a dead-end room, using up the Leomund’s Tiny Hut scroll, I had given them long before they entered this dungeon. But before we took our much needed long rest, we had to work out a few issues.

Thames uses a homunculus named Seppi as part of his character build. Seppi was killed in Session 42 when it was disintegrated in a trap in Wongo’s Tomb.  Thames has been unable to recreate Seppi because he lacked the gems required. Last session, Martic broke his set of thieves’ tools and Thames gave him a spare set. Martic repaided the favor by giving Thames the gems needed to rebuild Seppi. Seppi IV has joined the roster and Thames is very happy.

Next issue. Back in Session 41, Bag of Nails was the first one possessed by one of the Trickster God spirits. Sadly, he was possessed by the cowardly Obo’laka, the exact opposite of Bag’s brash bad-ass tabaxi assassin. Bag of Nails desperately wants to switch his possessing spirit. During the rest, I allowed Bag of Nails to rifle through Thames’ knapsack and steal Wongo’s mace of terror, provided he did not murder-hobo the entire campaign. He promised to behave (mostly) and Bag of Nails is happy. I am apprehensive. Lastly, the staff of healing that Pox uses to pretend to be a cleric was not destroyed and it has regained some charges allowing Pox to keep the ruse going. Pox is happy. Everyone is happy. Let’s see if we can’t ruin that.

We still have the Western and South West sections of the Third Level to deal with. Possessed by the bossy Papazotl, “Gwen” is done being subtle, and has fully embraced her Pox/Papazotl persona. By being an over-bearing bitch. During the debate of which way to go, she demands that we go west. When someone objects, “Gwen” yells, “This isn’t a democracy! We go west.” The others are convinced this is some aspect of her Trickster God possession, but they’re ready to kill Gwen just to release her, especially the now murderous Wongo-possessed Bag of Nails. Gwen also insists on calling our dragonborn “Seph” after the dragonborn in Pox’s original adventuring company, The Yellow Banner. The I’jin-possessed Martic thinks this is hilarious and has begun calling Thames “Steph”. All these shenanigans are driving Thames crazy.

Going west, our heroes have a boring encounter with Area 41 Tomb Guardians. I made no changed here and while the chain that tethers these two brutes together is an interesting idea, there are no interesting ideas about how to face them, except to bash them in the head until they’re dead, which is exactly what we did. I loved these tomb guardians at the start, but now they are growing a little stale and we got two more scripted encounters with these guys still to come. Fortunately, our group will soon take some steps to remove this threat.

Up next, we move to Area 43 Veils of Fear, and what I consider to be the meanest room of the entire dungeon. I love it for its creepy vibe and the disturbing imagery of each successive curtain getting more depraved and disturbing, but the room is still mean. The whole intent of the room is to give every PC but one the frightened condition, and when that last PC looks upon the final tableau, they are charmed and possibly decapitated. I did not change the mechanics room, and this very nearly happened to our group.

The third curtain, the most depraved, cannibalistic, and hellish curtain, is the fear-inducing one. The DC is 14, not impossible but difficult to pass. Tragically, every hero, except one, failed this save and ran out of the room. This left Thames to continue on alone and if he got in trouble, there was no one who could save him. Foolishly, he continued past the third curtain. Thames was immediately charmed by the severed boar’s head (DC16) and he was compelled to place his head in the swine’s mouth and await decapitation.

But then we remembered a magic item I gave him way back in Session 12 to help him during his fight with the Yuan-ti. His necklace of mind resistance gives advantage against charm spells. His second roll was a success. Whew! Thames resisted this deadly magic and avoided a grisly fate. I find it incredible that this single magic item happened to go to the one person that it would benefit from it, and save his life, over two years later. But this is the magic of D&D. You never know where the story will go. After this miraculous save, it was a simple matter to destroy the beastly trap and collect its paltry, pathetic, and not worth the effort treasure. I added in one of the collectable crystals (the pink one) from Area 39 to justify the existence of this vindictive trap in this tomb. They also burned all the curtains in the room, which will only enrage a certain tomb builder even more.

Moving on to Area 42 Kubazan’s Tomb and what I feel is the most boring of the nine Trickster God Tombs. And yet, if I played this as written, this tomb would have been the TPK of the campaign. As such, the only change I made to the room involved the polymorph spell toward the end. The room itself is remarkably straightforward. Follow the four murals on the wall and recreate the offering ceremony while wearing a frog mask. The ritual can be completed with just one player wearing a mask and performing the tasks in any order. But since there are four masks in the room, four players, four tasks, and no advice from any relevant spirits, my group each adorned a mask and chose a task.

By this point, “Gwen” was really driving Thames crazy, constantly calling our dragonborn Seph, the name of other dragonborn the Yellow Banner company. “Seph, what can you make of these frescos? Seph, come here and light my candle.” On and on. Thames was getting exasperated, “Stop calling me Seph! What is wrong with you?” But nothing came of it and Gwen completed the candle lighting task. Thames cut his hand and spilt blood over the rat bones, while Martic shunned the provided cockroaches and ate one of the bugs from his personal swarm. This was his way of being unpredictable as his I’jin possession demands and yet not truly ruin the plan. This is a constant struggle for James as he tries to roleplay this new character flaw. And then there was Bag of Nails.

Although the party thinks that Bag of Nails is still possessed by fearful and predictable Obo’laka, Bag is actually newly possessed by the chaotic evil Wongo. Bag of Nails sees the provided five gold pieces and instead of offering them to the Froghemoth statue he pockets them, triggering a failure state for the either ceremony. Two things occur when this happens. Three wights magically appear and attack, and everyone wearing a frog mask is polymorphed into an actual frog. A tiny, helpless, useless frog; basically, the death of the afflicted PC. Well, all four heroes are wearing a mask. So, is this a TPK? The end of the entire campaign? In one fell swoop, everyone dies without the chance of a last second saving throw?

The book is quite clear on the punishment, but not so clear on the ramifications. “Any character wearing one of the frog masks is polymorphed into a frog as though it had failed a saving throw against the polymorph spell.” But is this a true polymorph spell or a permanent condition? Whenever the heroes do this to a bad guy, whether it be a bandit or a dragon, if the heroes polymorph the villain into a frog, it is treated like a permanent thing; the combat is over, and the heroes have won. Hooray! But as written, a polymorph spell ends in one hour or when the spellcaster breaks concentration or if the new form drops to 0 hit points. If any of these things happen, the polymorphed creature reverts back to its original form and presumably resumes its evil ways. But, in a previous encounter back in Wongo’s Shrine in the ruins of Omu (Session 38), if a PC is accidentally polymorphed by that trap, the spell specifically lasts for 24 hours, which is also terrible to do to one player while the rest of the group either waits around or worse, continues adventuring without them. So, what do we do in this scenario? I can think of three options.

My first thought was to let this play out. This would likely lead to the deaths of Grum, Savash, and the newly built Seppi IV (which I don’t want to do) as the wights either kill them or force them to flee. The faerie dragon Summerwise would hide behind the Froghemoth carving, up high and away from the wights. Next, Tomb Dwarves would enter to collect (and not harm) the “frogs”. They would be taken to Wither’s laboratory to be placed in cages, properly killed there, and turned into new Tomb Guardians, replacing the ones that the party already destroyed. Obviously, there would be a small window after the spell expires that our heroes could use to escape.

This is actually a great solution. There is just one problem; I don’t want to do it. We already ran a captured by the enemy after a TPK scenario back in Session 11. I don’t want to do another one and I’m gonna be honest, I was suffering from major tomb fatigue at this time. I found Level 3 to be very dull and I just wanted to get past this level. Except for I’jin’s Tomb, the rest of the traps are boring and I was sick of the group collecting crystals for no apparent reason. They’re working toward a goal, but know what it is which is so unsatisfying. Plus, Gwen was getting tired of playing not-Gwen, Thames was tired of Gwen-not-Gwen, and Martic and Bag were struggling to play their new possessing spirits. Thankfully, our enthusiasm will pick back up by the end of the Level, but a whole escape from captivity scenario would drag this out even longer. But it would have been cool.

I went with my second choice, the easiest one, which was to just ignore the whole polymorph thing. The wights appeared. They fought. The party lost some resources due to their carelessness. The heroes won. Nobody died. They yelled at Bag of Nails. They redid the ritual correctly and collected the treasure from Kubazan’s Tomb. Most importantly, they moved on. It was the least dramatic solution, but it was the one I needed to do at this point. By the way, no one wanted to try their luck with the possessed bracers of archery, so Thames used his magic to shove the item into his bottomless magical haversack. Again.

After the session, I thought of a third solution which would have been slightly more interesting, adhered to the spirit of the trap, and present a consequence for foolish actions. Instead of all the PCs getting turned into a frog, just the ones who purposely screwed up suffers this fate. For us, just the cat would have been transformed into a frog, which is funny and appropriate. The group would be down an asset for the fight, but not lethally so. I would allow an above average Wisdom saving throw versus the spell: DC12. On a success, the spell last for just an hour. On a failure, the spell is permanent; you’re now a frog. This could still be undone by a remove curse, greater restoration or similar cure, but for now, you’re playing a new character. In our case, Andrew could have played Savash until a suitable replacement could be found. Ah, the wisdom of hindsight. But I didn’t have this, so like I said, we moved on to:

Area 40 The Curse of the Golden Skull. What a weird, pointless, and laborious room. Not so much for the room itself, but for what the thing in the room does for the rest of the campaign. After finding the secret door. Our heroes descend to find a golden skull on a pedestal. Whoever touches the skull is cursed with a permanent companion, the obnoxious floating skull of a terrible jester named Yaka. Yaka will not shut up, telling one terrible joke after another in a miserable deadpan voice. Fun. He will focus all his energies on the one who touched him, distracting that player and forcing disadvantage on all ability checks forever. But not combat rolls, don’t ever mess with a PC and his combat rolls.

The lucky player this time was Martic. With Gwen’s obsession with skulls, I wish she had been the one to get him, but Martic is fine. Initially, I tried to play Yaka as written but he became so tedious so quick that even I was sick of him before the end of the session. I never imposed the disadvantage penalty. I ignored his annoying morose attitude, but I did keep the deadpan monotone of his voice, like the comedian Steven Wright. Basically, he became another sidekick for the party. Half the time, I would forget he was even there. When I did remember him, he just floated alongside the group spouting off endless bad jokes that I got from sites like parade.com and laughfactory.com. He was useful in giving infomation about some upcoming interactions with the remnants of the Omuan tribe that exist deeper in the tomb, but when it came to any hints about the tomb itself, he would be completely useless and flat out wrong. Welcome aboard Yaka!

Moving on. From here it was a simple matter to squirm through yet another crawlspace heading south. Yaka warned them about going this way, saying it would lead them to a ten-headed dragon that lived on the level. It doesn’t and there is no such creature. Instead, the tunnel leads to Area 38A Revolving Room Trap Control Room. I love how many rooms have a practical component in how they work. They are still powered by magic but someone has to pull a level to set off this trap. In this case, that someone is another Tomb Guardian. It stands perfectly still and does not react when the party enters the room. The golem does not move but appears to be focused only upon watching a window in the south wall overlooking a pit in an adjoining crawlway that cannot be accessed from this room. Upon closer inspection, that pit drops into a 15’ by 15’ room with a floor that curves upward toward the room’s ceiling, like a drum. The golem’s hand rests upon a lever in the wall that is in the upright position. It completely ignores the party, to the point where they question whether or not the thing is even alive. It is, poke it with a sword and find out.

They do not poke the golem, but Martic does pull the lever. I love that since Martic is possessed by the unpredictable and rash spirit of I’jin, that he will pull, poke, prod and touch everything he sees while the rest of the party screams at him, “No!” Too late. Fortunately, this action does nothing bad within this room but it does give them vital knowledge about the trap beyond that mirrored window. A stone block seals off the floor leading to the drum shaped room. Grinding gears can be heard directly beneath them, and a strange tumbling sound comes from the now sealed room. And I broke fantasy immersion by describing the sound like that of a tumbling clothes dryer. They also hear strange sounds like that of steam escaping from a kettle and the whoosh of air heard when casting a fireball spell. I don’t want there to be any ambiguity about this trap.

Frankly, I am so glad that my group discovered this trap this way. This trap is easily one of the deadliest in the tomb. (It’s in the Top 5. I’ll provide my list once we’ve encountered the others) Last session, they were a mere thirty feet from stumbling upon this trap blindly. If they had, I can’t think of a way that they could have defeated this trap before being killed. The trap really acts like a clothes dryer, inflicting bludgeoning damage every round while also blasting the group with steam, explosive gas, and stone spikes to boot, causing anywhere from 16 to 56(!) point of damage per round, while the party tumbles helplessly inside. The only way to open the escape hatch is via three (3!) uses of the knock spell, which my group doesn’t have, an impossible Strength check (DC26), or breaking down the door (at disadvantage because of the difficult terrain) that is also immune to almost all damage types. This trap is nasty.

Wanting nothing to do with this trap for now, Martic turns off the tumbling death trap and the group proceeds out the very boring, nondescript wooden door to the north. This leads to a boring, nondescript and purely functional spiral staircase that goes up and down. It feels like they are in a maintenance corridor, which is exactly what it is. Again, I love the practical functioning of this tomb, with its entire “backstage” area that is not meant to be found by the park’s “guests”, i.e. stupid heroes. It reminds me of the “utilidors”, the secret tunnel network underneath Disney’s Magic Kingdom. (BTW, if you love Disney, take the “Keys to the Kingdom” tour where you get to visit all these backstage bits. It’s amazing!) Anyway, our heroes are bristling with curiosity at having discovered this secret area and head up the stairs to see what they missed on Level 2.

The staircase ends at a here-to-fore unknown three-way intersection on the Second Level. The passages to the west and north end at a door, while the passage east ends at a wall. Our heroes choose west and enter into a very cluttered Area 28 – Withers’s Office. I read the box text but exclude any mention of Withers. He is not here at the moment. I do add that there is a lifeless severed hand on the desk. Gross.

Our heroes search the room and discover charts, diagram, papers on anatomy, a book the manual of golems, a spellbook, and a journal detailing the construction of this very tomb hundreds of years ago and including a recent passage that is Handout 22. They also find several more severed hands; on shelves, in drawers, on the floor, all scattered about. During the search, our heroes conducted some more significant roleplay with each other. “Gwen” demanded that we exit this tomb right away and stop fussing about in these pointless room. Thames chided Gwen that it was her idea to enter the tomb and our quest to “save the world” is at the bottom of this tomb. Gwen said that she has changed her mind. Someone made a comment that Gwen just wants to get back to Port Nyanzaru and Bucketboy. Without missing a beat Gwen said, “Who’s Bucketboy? What a stupid name.” Before the group could question this un-Gwen-like behavior further, Thames found a large grey gem that oozed with magical energy inside a desk drawer.

Suddenly, the gem flies out Thames’ hand and over to the shriveled hand of a walking corpse standing in the doorway. It wears a bronze mask over its face and a black skull amulet hangs around his neck. This is Withers. He speaks in a croaking cackle, “Don’t touch things that don’t belong to you! So, this is the rabble that has given me so much bother lately. What have you to say for yourselves? Do you have any idea about how much damage you’ve done, breaking all my traps? The master is going to be furious. Why can’t you just die, like all the other heroes?” And yes, I had Thames roll a contested Strength check to resist Wither’s telekinesis spell, but he rolled with disadvantage and failed due to the surprise.

This led to the players asking all sorts of questions, which is what you always hope for but don’t always get. “Who are you? Who is your master? What is that gem?”

I play Withers like an exasperated civil servant, proud of the work he’s done, but irritated that he never gets the credit that he deserves, “I am Withers, the builder of this tomb and the architect of all your pain. My master is Acererak, and if you don’t know that by now, then you are dumber than you look. Don’t you worry about this gem. You may think you’ve solved seven tombs, but you’re short one. You merely killed the spare.” By the way, Withers has put the gem inside a small leather pouch around his waist.

Naturally, the players throw back some insults of their own. “Oh, this is your tomb? Well, we’re soooo sorry that we broke all your precious death traps. And we say this tomb is lame, and your traps suck. We’ve beaten them all!”

Withers gets defensive and his voice rises up an octave, “My traps are not lame! They are brilliant. It was those stupid riddles, wasn’t it? Those damned poems giving you clues. I told the boss, we shouldn’t do them, or better yet have those plaques feed you lies, but no, no, no, Acererak insisted on being cute and watch you die despite his clues.”

At this point Yaka speaks up, “Wait a minute! I know you. You’re that weaselly scribe Gorra. Always pestering Queen Napaka about some giant crossbow, or exploding quill, or rolling doom. What did you call that one again?”

Withers was apoplectic. “Shut up! Do not speak his name. Gorra is dead! Napaka is dead! You should be dead! I am Withers, creator of the deadliest tomb of all time. No more tricks. No more games. You die here and now! Have you met my handymen?”

Suddenly, all the severed hands that have been laying around the room spring to life and attack. There are seven crawling claws in the room, including the one that sits upon Wither’s shoulder like a parrot. Bear in mind, Withers is just a wight. A spellcasting wight, but still just a wight. He and seven claws won’t last long in this fight. The claws are just a distraction. Each one clamps on to one of the heroes and gets in the way. Withers casts darkness and retreats to the Scrying Pool in Area 25 (He had previously entered by this way and the secret door is open.)

After a round of fumbling with the crawling claw in the dark, (there was a lot of face slapping, eye gouging, rabbit punches and noogies), the heroes stumble out of the dark and into the hallway. Withers yells, “Now!” just as Seppi IV, Martic, and Bag pepper him with cannon blasts and arrows. Not enough to kill him but real close. I wish that I had made Withers a custom bad guy with boosted stats and even some legendary actions and resistances. I need to get him out of combat immediately. But help is on the way. On Withers’ “Now!”, two Tomb Guardians burst out of the magic pool in a spray of water and advance toward the party blocking their escape down the stairs. At the same time, two Tomb Dwarves open the north door, ready to attack and yelling, “It’s not ready yet!” To which, Withers screams, “Well hurry it up, dammit!” Withers is beset by incompetent fools who never work fast enough for him.

I text Gwen that she (as the doppelgänger, Pox) recognizes that one of the golems is actually Seward the ranger from his old Yellow Banner company. Gwen cries out, “You shall be avenged Seward!” which makes no sense to anyone. I moved Seward here to have a different golem come out of the Tomb Guardian forge Area 27 in a few rounds. When the Tomb Drawves opened the door into the room, the party saw that there was a much larger area beyond, which would be much more conducive to combat even though sounds of unknown and likely dangerous machinery could be heard within the room.

In the next few rounds, Martic and Bag are getting murdered by the Tomb Guardians, which is only made worse when Withers casts Blight on one of them and then casts lightning bolt which does damage to everyone in the party and heals the Tomb Guardian (because they’re golems). Not wanting to get trapped in the office, Gwen orders that everyone “Fall back!” into the machine room. With impeccable timing, Martic says, “Good plan, Gwen. I got a better one!” as he uses another charge from I’jin’s wand of wonder. Inconceivably, the wand casts another lightning bolt that streaks toward Withers… by first going through the two Tomb Guardians and healing them even more! Even worse, Withers yells, “Nice try, losers! Better luck next time,” as he touches the black skull amulet around his neck and he disappears in a “poof” to parts unknown. “Hey! How come he gets to teleport?”

Our heroes push their way into the machine room, really Area 27 Forge of the Tomb Dwarves. Inside, they see three more Tomb Dwarves furiously working around some giant iron maiden, pushing buttons, pulling levers, all while a huge fire burns beneath the device, flames wicking up on all sides of the metal crucible. Two dwarves turn to defend the device while the last redoubles his efforts to finish the ritual. Now our heroes are fighting four dwarves (no wait, three dwarves, one just died) and two guardians, and who knows what will come out of the big metal box. Our heroes focus their attacks on one of the tomb guardians, while pleading with Gwen to turn undead and get these Dwarves (actually wights) away from them. Gwen just hits them with her mace and burns through the charges on her wand of healing.

Martic decides to use his oathbow properly once more, and decided that the dwarf manning the machine is his new mortal enemy. Even with the extra damage, it still takes Martic a few rounds to kill it. The dwarf dies just as the rest of the group takes down one of the tomb guardians. Another dwarf also died and the other guardian will soon follow. But with his last dying breath, Martic’s mortal enemy falls upon the last lever.

Steam bursts from the device as a crack appear down the middle and it swivels open in a cloud of fire and smoke. From the bowels, out steps a grotesque amalgamation of a golem. It looks like a distended and stretched satyr, muscles bulging beneath patchy molted fur. It only wears a plate mail chest piece because no armor would fit its goat legs. It also wears no helmet, and the party realizes that this is the mutated form of Devlin, the dead wizard of the Yellow Banner company whose body went missing amongst all their travels between the two mirror tombs (Session 43). Gwen cries out, “No! Not you too, Devlin!” For his part, Devlin looks directly at Thames, and for the first time ever, a tomb guardian speaks, “Give me my staff!” as he hurls a fireball at the artificer! Yes, I’m making up new shit as we go.

The blast hits everyone. Taking down Grum and Savash, but also one of the dwarves and the other guardian. (See, I play fair). Near death, our heroes unloaded on this new Tomb Guardian before it could cast another spell. It couldn’t. I my head, Devlin was just about to cast the spell when he died and it was the only thing he could remember when he came back to life. Obviously, Devlin targeted Thames because he was carrying the staff in his magic sack and also it was a little payback for always using mage hand instead of just touching things like a normal person!

Ultimately, our heroes sent Devlin back to the afterlife along with the last of the tomb dwarves. Let’s see you fix anything now without your precious dwarf mechanics, Withers! The downed good guys were stabilized and Gwen used up the last of her charges on her healing wand once again, mostly on herself. “Seriously, why won’t you cast a spell, Gwen?”

Looting the room, they find all the equipment needed to make basically all the tool sets in the game (thieves’, artisan’s, alchemist’s, mason’s, and smith’s) most of which get stuffed into Thames’s bag, which has got to be running out of room by now. They also find the Ghost Lantern, the magic item pivotal to the Yellow Banner company. Before Thames can mage hand it into his bag and be forgotten like the rest, Martic grabs it.

A far away voice meekly calls out from the lamp, “Seward, is that you? Devlin? Who is this?”

Martic answered, “My name is Martic. I’m sorry, but Seward and Devlin and the rest are dead. Killed by the traps in this tomb. But who are you?”

“You may call me Starfallen, moon elf of the Seelie Court. I’ve been trapped in this cursed lamp for millennia. The Company of the Yellow Banner were trying to find a jewel called the Eye of Zaltec, rumored to possess the power to raise the dead or reunite lost souls. No one is really certain. Can you help me, kind warrior? Do you know nothing of the other members? Bravus Boulderborn? Sephirius? Lord Brixton? Or even that prat, Biff Longsteel?”

I texted Gwen that Biff was his previous alias. Gwen muttered, “Prat? That little bitch!” which no one heard properly and she quickly followed up by yelling at a lamp, “They’re all dead, lady! Leave this stupid light and let’s get out of here, before Withers comes back with more troops.”

Martic insisted on taking the lamp, but they should get out of here before reinforcements arrive. Before they do, Thames had a wicked idea. “Is there an anvil in this room?” Yeah, sure. “Great, I carry it into the Tomb Guardian Making Forge.” Fine. It will take a few of you to do it, but you can heave the anvil into the kiln. Everyone but Gwen agrees to help. “Cool. I close the door and cast enlarge on the anvil.” You have to leave the door open a little bit to see the anvil. But upon casting the spell the anvil explodes to double its size and eight times it’s mass. The kiln is too small to contain it, so the contraption bursts apart at the seams, jagged plates of metal hanging from the sides, and the weight collapses the whole thing into the fire pit, crushing the cauldron below. This thing will never make another Tomb Guardian. Withers is gonna be furious.

 

Leaving via a new set of stairs going up, our heroes, including Gwen, exit through a new secret door that leads back to Obo’laka’s Tomb (Area 10) on the first floor, through the still broken window (Area 6) to the entrance hallway and past the original Green Devil Face (Area 5B) for like the sixth (but not the last) time. They are debating whether or not to use the black void room behind the Devil Face to take a short rest when running down the hall, coming from the grand staircase, our heroes see … Gwen, wearing just her under garments, running toward the group. Instantly, Bag of Nails yells, “I STAB GWEN!”

Next week, Gwen dies, we hunt down that bastard Withers and more frogs, and we meet the ten-headed dragon at the end of Level 3.

As always, duping players is great, but know when to quit the ruse, and Game On!

Our job here is done. – A smug Thames, satisfied that he has managed to piss off Withers once more

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.