Continuing with Level 4 of Tomb, we invoke seven years of bad luck, sniff out a new ally, and one hero confronts his son’s killer.

When last we left or heroes, after defeating the beholder Belchzorj for no good reason, they headed down to the fourth level of the Tomb of the Nine Gods, or as it is more properly known: The Tomb of Horrors, part 5. First, we refused to pay a simple toll of 37 in gold and were forced to fight several iconic, yet largely forgotten monsters, The Four-Armed Gargoyles. Then we were forced to pay yet another toll, this time in blood, to satiate a gang of ghouls into opening a door. We refused to sacrifice our own blood and moved on, defeated by a door. Later, after barely dodging an Indiana Jones “inspired” trap involving a rolling boulder and a vat of acid, we fought a herd of undead minotaurs in an maze-inspired tomb dedicated to a giant snail. Oh, and Martic plucked out his own eyeball to shove a gem of true sight in it, so that he can see invisible things now. When you read it aloud like this, I can’t tell if D&D is brilliant or ridiculous or both.

After a short rest, we are ready to take on the last of the tricks, traps, trials, and tribulations that this tomb tries to throw at our time-tested tribe of tired troubadours. Before they leave this area, they decided to search for any secret doors and found one in the back of a random alcove. This led to a completely random room that had an even more random item as the sole occupant of the room for which this room is named: Area 56 Grandfather Clock

This room has no relevant clue from this floor’s Warnings plaque, but it does offer some Spirit Advice. Sadly, none of the advice is helpful, since they all essentially try to trick the heroes into staying in the room and do nothing for a while. This is terrible advice because anytime the DM tries to advise that the players should wait and no nothing, they will do the exact opposite. I do have Grum, newly possessed by indecisive Unkh, be mesmerized by the swaying of the clock’s pendulum and sits down on the floor to watch it. Bag of Nails has a very different reaction to this pendulum.

This pendulum is actually a spectacular jewel called The Navel of the Moon. This is one of the four fabled treasures that the book provides to entice players to enter this tomb. Too bad the book fails to mention these treasures until the players are already in the tomb. This particular treasure is being sought by a very particular NPC. As our luck would have it, that NPC has become a full-fledged member of our party played by Andrew, Bag of Nails. As an NPC, Bag of Nails wanted to find the gem because it is rumored to have the ability to “reunite the holder with lost loved ones” and Bag of Nails wants to find his lost son. Andrew has adopted this backstory as his own so Bag of Nails goes completely feral and attempts to claw his way through the magic clock that holds the gem.

The other heroes pull Bag of Nails away and demand an explanation. Bag can now give his hastily conceived back story that years ago he and his son were attacked by a Zombie T-Rex. They fled but the son tripped and was devoured. Bag of Nails went mad trying to track that undead dinosaur and kill it. Our heroes asked Bag of Nails what his son’s name was. Duh, it’s Sack of Screws. (my 2^nd best NPC name).

Our heroes vow to help Bag of Nail find his son. Unfortunately, the pendulum is held in an impenetrable case with an invisible lock. Fortunately, last session Martic and his new magic eye found an invisible key. His true sight ability has worn off, but he can still feel around for the lock. Using the invisible key, the cabinet is unlocked and Bag of Nails takes hold of his life’s quest. And just in time too.

The conceit of this trap is that when the clock strikes at the top of the hour, then everyone in the room will be magically aged by ten years. This is a real throw back to old school D&D that would screw with a PC’s age, gender, alignment, and surprisingly often, remove all their clothing. When they entered the room, I randomly rolled the time remaining before the clock struck again. Rolling 10d6, they had 27 minutes in real time before the trap fired. Bag of Nails grabbed the Navel of the Moon with just 3 minutes to spare. I never told my group what would have happened had they lingered in the room, and they are probably finding out about it right now as they are reading this.

Holding the gem, Bag of Nails prays to find his son. Immediately, the gem tries to “pull” Bag of Nails toward the southwest and out of the room. This thing works fast. That exit is still blocked by that open pit of acid from last session. They had used their surprisingly useful folding boat to get into the room, but sadly that boat was knocked into the acid pit and destroyed. Our heroes asked how tall the grandfather clock is. I quickly surmise their plan and it’s a good one; one that should be rewarded. I tell them that it is just over ten feet tall. They knock that clock over, haul it out over the acidic abyss, and use it as the bridge to get past this pain-in-the-ass pit.

At the next intersection the gem leads them due west and directly back to the Ghoul Door. They still could not get past the door with the vampiric ghouls, so they headed back to the gargoyle room and choose to head south, then west, looking for a way around the door. Instead, they found:

Room 50 Mirror of Life Trapping. This room is a dead end that opens into a 15-foot square room that is way too small for what will likely occur in it. At the opposite end of the room is a mirror of life trapping, and when this trap is sprung, there is not enough space for all of the potential prisoners to even fit inside the room and would end up in a line going all the way down the hall, like the queue at Disneyland, except this ride involves nearly a dozen monsters looking to murder your heroes. I also made a significant change to one of the prisoners, but we’ll get to that.

As for the room itself, I made it much bigger, 40 feet square, and the hallway ends at a set of stairs that drops down into what will soon become a gladiatorial pit. The far end of the room ends with another set a stair that goes up to a small platform upon which sits the aforementioned mirror. This means that when players first enter the room, this platform and mirror are outside the range of their torches. They will have to travel across the room and walk directly up to the trap in order to investigate it. Which is exactly what Gwen did.

Acererak’s clue for this room says that the mirror holds 12. Well, there are two slots open and Gwen gets sucked into one of those, much to the shock and concern of the others, as Gwen simply vanished from sight. They guessed instantly what had happened but they did not know how to get her back and they were afraid to look at the mirror for any clues. The passwords to operate the mirror are found in Wither’s Office Room 28. My group found this password but there was no context about how to use it.

If you are feeling generous you could write an inscription on the mirror, similar to the verse written on the Mirror of Erised (Desire) in the Harry Potter movies. Of course, it is written backwards and oddly spaced to make it challenging. Here’s is a possible phrasing. “Ne po sil lech cih wera web tu berifc kalb drow eh tret tuno sir plan retero uy tub thguano uy wohsl liws luos for orri meht no pukoo lot.” Read properly, it says: “To look upon the mirror of souls will show you naught but your eternal prison. Utter the word blackfire but beware which cell is open.”

I did not provide any such hints, my players used identify and figured out the password and how to use it. They needed Gwen out of that mirror pronto. Was there air inside there? Eternal torment? Madness? Who knows? They said the correct password but did not know which cell number to open. They randomly picked cell 6 and a ravenous, insane troll burst out of the mirror and immediately attacked. Suddenly the party was afraid that Gwen was not alone in the mirror, fighting whatever else was trapped inside. Bag of Nails wanted to smash the mirror, but didn’t know if this would trap Gwen forever inside.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, Martic stepped up and solved the problem with his unpredictable wand of wonder, while everyone else screamed at him to stop. In truth, Martic expected to get something silly, like butterflies, but of course the wand launched a fireball targeted on the mirror which also engulfing nearly everyone in the room, troll and player alike. Good news, the mirror was shattered and it did release Gwen from her prison, but bad news, it also freed every other thing trapped with her. This is exactly why I made the room so much bigger.

In addition to Gwen and the troll, seven other prisoners appeared out of thin air into random spots around the room. There were actually eight, but one of them was invisible. Worse, most of them were not at all grateful to their saviors and attacked everything in sight, including our heroes and even each other. For the bad guys, we got the troll, an invisible stalker, a minotaur (non-skeletal this time), another four-armed gargoyle, a drow mage, and a single lowly stirge (how did he get down here?) Seemingly on the side of the good guys, we got a lost and terrified native Omuan villager, a slightly more adept tribal warrior champion in ancient ceremonial dress, and a strangely familiar lizardman that smells of brimstone and bread. It’s Dragonbait!

Dragonbait is the companion of Artus Cimber, whom our players met in Mezro back in Session 30 during the Battle of Ten Armies. Artus (and Dragonbait) are integral to the whole Ring of Winter subplot and our heroes have been following in their footstep ever since Mezro. They had hoped to meet in Omu before taking on Acererak’s Tomb. But when we got to the Tomb there was no sign of this dynamic duo and they couldn’t wait for them to arrive. Well, now we know the fate of one of them.

I added Dragonbait into the mirror to replace Pox the doppelgänger. Pox was supposed to be the one trapped here in this mirror. He was going to pretend to be a fighter named Biff Longsteel and was part of the failed Yellow Banner expedition. But we already used Pox when it impersonated Gwen in its effort to escape the Tomb. That plan ended in abject failure when the real Gwen reappeared and the Pox was killed in Session 47. As it is, Dragonbait is a much better substitute to be trapped in this mirror. But how did it get here?

We got no time for such trivial questions; there are monsters trying to kill us! This was yet another in a long string of crazy, chaotic, and glorious combats. But with so many diverse monsters it is vital that you have all the relevant stat blocks on one sheet on paper to track everything. Conveniently, I have just such a paper down below. You’re welcome. Also, here is a PDF of that Monster Stat sheet. ToA Mirror Battle

Right off the rip, the villager was torn apart by the troll. I considered trying to keep him alive, and see if the party would accept yet another useless companion that they had to protect. But we already have Yakka the floating jester and I completely ignore him. I don’t need another NPC to take up space in my crowded DM brain, so the poor sucker is dead. The minotaur is actually on the same side as the tribal warrior and follows her lead, but the players don’t know that so they spend a few rounds fighting it. The drow only wants to escape the area, so he spends a few rounds lobbing AOE spells at everyone, then battles his way past the four-armed gargoyle to hopefully fight our heroes another day in a different scenario.

The invisible stalker spends a few rounds beating up Bag of Nails, which is always fun. But when the beast realized that Martic and his brand-new eye can see through his invisible defense and gets knocked down to single digits hit point, it retreats. He’ll definitely be back. With the party beating up her minotaur, the tribal warrior switches sides and also attacks the party. Until Yakka recognizes her and calls her out. “Lukanu! Is that you? We figured you died protecting Queen Napaka. Stop fighting. These are my friends.” See, I knew it would be good to keep this guy around.

This left just the four armed-gargoyle and the troll to battle it out against our heroes and their new friends. Soon the troll and the gargoyle are dead and I have to decide what to do with all these newcomers. I fully intended for Dragonbait to join the group as another NPC controlled by a player, like Grum and Savash. Dragonbait is essentially a paladin without the turn undead ability and since we just lost our Paladin in Session 40, this mute saurial has the perfect skill set and class to round out the party. And since he is a few levels below the group, they can’t use him as a crutch to solve their problems.

But I don’t know what to do with the other two. I don’t mind having them around for a bit, but not too long. They are too powerful to allow into the group. Lukanu can fill in some neat backstory about the time when Acererak built this tomb. But beyond that, I don’t want her around. Fortunately, Bag of Nails, presents me the perfect solution. The second the battle is over, Bag ran over to the dead villager and began to feast upon his corpse, regaining health like a ghoul. This was Bag’s “reward” for picking the red key back in Unkh’s Tomb last session. In hindsight, Gift of the Ghoul is perhaps not the best boon to give to a murder hobo.

But no one else knows about this gift and the group is horrified. Martic commented, “Great, now there’s two cannibals.” To which, Gwen asked, “Who’s the other one?” And everyone else yelled, “It’s you, Gwen!” Sheepishly, she had forgotten about her skull collection. Thames tried to ignore this whole scene and introduced himself to the tribal warrior. “Greetings, I am Thames Dasow. To whom do I have the pleasure?” But to the Omuans, cannibalism is a capital affront to civilized society. Full of disdain, Lukanu says, “Clearly, I have misjudged your group. You are not worthy to help in our quest. Zaal kill them.” The minotaur moves in to follow his mistress’s orders.

In short order, Lukanu and her minotaur lay dead as well. Bag attempted to eat Lukanu also, but the group tackled the crazed Tabaxi to the ground. Martic slapped on a pair of manacles that no one knew he’d been carrying around for the past two years. With Bag immobilized, the group demanded an explanation. To his credit, Bag played it off perfectly. “What’s the big deal? It’s common to feed upon the bodies of a fallen foe. Do you not eat the meat of the deer you’ve hunted? Has no one drunk the blood of their first kill, to become one with their spirit? Besides, you guys are fine. I’m not going to eat you…Probably.”

The group cannot figure out where this new and unimproved version of the homicidal Bag of Nails is coming from. Gwen uses her Eyes of the Grave ability and determines that Bag is not suddenly an undead creature. Thames just wants to murder Bag and be done with it. Martic suggests that this must have something to do with the red key Bag grabbed last session. He is correct, but no one listens to him and Gwen is convinced that Bag’s possession by the psychotically evil Trickster God Wongo is to blame. She takes things into her own hands and grabs the Bracers of Archery that belong to the less evil God Kubazan. She resisted that possession and slapped the bracers onto Bag, who failed. This in no way cured Bag’s craving for flesh. Gwen merely succeeded in letting this suicidal cat be possessed by the strongest and most reckless of all the gods. But Gwen was quite pleased with herself and proclaimed, “Now that we stopped the crazy cannibal, I can start collecting skulls.”

To which Bag cried out, “Oh, c’mon, this crazy cleric been chopping off heads for two years, but I eat one body and I’m the bad guy? That’s BS!” Touché.

Gwen asks if there is any way to save Bag’s murder victims, specifically Lukanu, the useful one. In the past, I’ve allowed that humanoid NPCs can use the same Death Save mechanic as players. This must be done sparingly, but she was just killed, so I allowed it again. Lukanu survived her Death Saves and Gwen casts cure wounds to revive her properly. Gwen apologized for their feral companion’s less than ideal diplomacy.

The newcomer warily accepts this apology and introduces herself as Lukanu just like Yakka said. She says she was once the bodyguard of the ancient Omuan Queen, Napaka, back when Omu was still a thriving city. Three days ago, the undead warlock Acererak kidnapped Queen Napaka and took her into his tomb. This event happened over 100 years ago, but to Lukanu it has only been three days. Lukanu and several others, including her minotaur Zaal, entered the tomb to get her back. Many fell to various traps and she and Zaal were both trapped by this mirror until released just now. With Zaal now dead (thanks, Bag), Lukanu agrees to accompany the party until she discovers what became of her queen. I do not assign this NPC to anyone. She won’t be around long enough.

But what about Dragonbait? Dragonbait doesn’t speak but instead talks by the use of various scents and smells. I love his addition to this campaign. I’ve truly enjoyed trying to come up with conversations for this mute paladin. Our heroes ask how he got here and what happened to his friend, Artus Cimber. Dragonbait smells to them the scent of flowers they recognize as growing near Orolunga, followed by a damp, musty swamp, then the sulfuric scent of lava, the mix of blood and incense from the Yuan-ti temple, the ever present stench of decay present in this tomb and finally an air of fallen snow and a whiff of honeysuckle that my group recalls means concern and worry.

From this the players deduce that the duo found the oracle at Orolunga, traveled through the swamp to the lava pit of Omu, ran into the Yuan-ti, entered the tomb, but them he and Artus got separated and that he is somewhere lost in this tomb. Our heroes ask if Dragonbait wants to join the group and find Artus, to which they can smell lemon and tar, which means joy and victory in this awesome olfactory language. Good thing the group still had the index card of scent translations I gave them ages ago. Martic agrees to run Dragonbait in combat, but all conversations will be through me.

More importantly, they now have fresh meat to feed to the Ghoul Door that is blocking Bag from finding his son. They drag the troll corpse back to the door, chop off each arm and feed it to the bronze snake statues. The fangs clamp down and slurp noisily, followed by retching sounds coming from behind the walls (troll blood tastes terrible). But the door opens and Bag of Nails runs down the hall heedlessly into…

Area 52 Throne Room. Another dead end. There is no T-Rex, No Sack of Screws. There’s just a big empty throne room with a couple of blind zombies that ignore the group as they paint an endlessly evolving mural around the room. Right now, they are painting a human cleric, a ranger covered in flies, a silver Dragonborn, and a Tabaxi fighting a group of monsters in a giant pit with a broken mirror in it. In fact, our heroes’ entire saga throughout the tomb currently adorns these walls.

 

Have fun describing your heroes’ journey in the tomb thus far, putting extra emphasis on all the times your group has screwed up along the way. Acererak and Withers will take every opportunity to mock your heroes. Also, be sure to mention that just prior to the party’s arrival, the paintings depict the fates of the Yellow Banner company, who according to the book was the last group in the tomb. There’s a Satyr being killed by dwarves, a cleric being consumed by locust, a different dragonborn suffocating in a tunnel, a ranger being stuffed inside a tomb guardian, and a Paladin being poisoned in a small room (a hint toward the fate of the Yellow Banner leader). For my campaign, I also added a doppelgänger knocking out Gwen (this would have been a great way to reveal this event), Dragonbait being trapped in the mirror, and Artus Cimber being stuffed into a sack by unknown hands. At least we know he is still alive.

After perusing the art gallery for a while, our heroes focus on the room itself, trying to figure out what the trap is, ‘cause every room has to have some sort of trap in it. The trap is on the throne and it doesn’t take long before it is sprung. I know I cannot rely upon Thames to touch anything and Gwen even put this rule it the party list of Don’ts, but Bag and Martic don’t care about rules, so they touch everything. Love you guys!

Anywho, Bag is primed to touch the minotaur skull and set off the trap but before I get to that, as an aside, I love how minotaurs have such a big role in Omuan society, especially since they worship the god Ubtao, whose whole theme is the maze of life. Mazes, labyrinths, minotaurs, you get the idea. I only wish that this concept was introduced earlier and even more fully fleshed out. I totally would have included a proper minotaur maze during our jungle adventures if I had known about this detail before they entered the final tomb.

Back to the throne room. Bag of Nails changes his mind, does not touch the skull and focuses on one of the zombie painters. I tell him that this painter is currently painting Bag of Nails touching the throne, but it is a terrible likeness, painted with a dopey, derpy face. Bag of Nails says that he immediately attacks the painter without provocation. Everybody’s an art critic. But no matter, because this also triggers the trap in the room.

Suddenly the floor of the throne room bursts open from below as an enormous Zombie Tyrannosaur Rex climbs into the room. Its first action is to open its mouth and spew out a half dozen zombies that attack everyone. Of course, the first expectorated zombie is a juvenile Tabaxi with an uncanny likeness to Bag of Nails. No one needs to be told that this is the undead Sack of Screws and we have reunited father and son, just as the Navel of the Moon promised though not in the manner anyone would have wanted. As preposterous as this whole encounter is, it is directly out of the book. I just added the details about the kitty zombie to tie it with Bag’s backstory. Too bad we aren’t playing Call of Cthulhu or he’d definitely be rolling on the insanity table.

Bag loses his mind anyway and recklessly charges at the undead dinosaur. Maybe he should have touched the minotaur skull. He could have used the extra hit points. In his go to move, he climbs up onto the T-Rex’s back and goes to town on the dino’s head. Each round, Bag must pass a DC15 Athletics check while the dinosaur tries to buck this annoying cat of its back, like a Jurassic mechanical bull. Meanwhile the rest of the group had their hands full, dodging gnashing teeth, flailing tails, and raining zombies. I very nearly swallowed Gwen whole when a massive bite attack was just shy of killing her outright. Eventually, Bag of Nails got tossed off the bucking dino and I could focus on trying to eat Bag of Nail as the main entrée to his son’s appetizer. Sadly, this dino never go a chance to finish his meal.

This is now the party’s third encounter with a zombie T-Rex. The first time they avoided it. The second was a harrowing fight that nearly killed them. But now, what was once a terrifying and lethal encounter, is no match for our heroes and the zombie T-Rex was dead far too quickly. The regurgitated zombies lay dead. Lukanu lay dead, again, having failed her death saves this time. All the undead Picassos were killed in the combat too, and at one point, this level’s skeleton key inadvertently entered the room during the fight and it too was quickly killed.

The only thing that wasn’t dead was Sack of Screws. Per Bag’s command, no one was allowed to harm his son, and no one felt the need to test his resolve. Once everyone else was dead, Bag managed to grapple his zombie child and tie him up. Bag intends to lead yet another NPC (this time an actual monster) through the dungeon until he can find a cure. Ugh. I just wanted this to be a nice shocking moment and not another distracting side quest. But fine, whatever, for now the muzzled and shackled Sack of Screws has joined the Society of Stalwart Adventurers just as Gwen ignored her own list of Do Not Do’s and touches the ancient minotaur’s skull. Yeah, I forgot about it too.

I described Gwen as having the glazed over eyes of Victor Krum from “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” as she immediately attacks the nearest hero which happens to be Bag of Nails. Everyone realized that Gwen was cursed and not of sound mind. Thames was upset that he wasn’t the one cursed because he’d been wanted to attack Bag for weeks now. Well, maybe if you touched something, then cool thing will happen to you too. Or, you’ll die an instant death, but no pain, no gain. This PvP fight could have been more entertaining if anyone other than Gwen had been cursed. But when the mad melee fighter has a strength of 6 and swings with a -2 penalty, I just can’t get that excited. As it is, Bag quickly dropped the crazed cleric down to zero hit points, curing her affliction while someone else shoved a healing potion down her throat to save her life.

As Gwen came around, Bag magnanimously proclaimed, “I, your fearless leader, have saved you once more Gwen by killing you a second time. Now excuse me while I feed of Lukanu corpse!” As he said this, he grabbed the twice dead body of the Omuan warrior and drank heartily of her blood, much to the horror of the rest of the group. I guess we didn’t cure him after all. Knowing when she’s beat and if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, Gwen proceeded to chop off Lukanu’s skull to add to her depleted collection. Nice stable group of heroes I got here.

Too bad Lukanu could not survive into the next room: Area 53 – Crypt of the Sun Queen. The resolution of her life’s quest lay just beyond this last door. Had she survived would have been good for the party too, as she could have shown more reverence and issued some warnings about defiling Napaka’s Tomb. Without them, the group proceeded to set off every single trap in the room and the only thing that saved them was some lucky dice rolls. They didn’t even recognize the name written in common on the coffin: Napaka, despite having heard it repeatedly throughout the session. Yakka, the floating dead jester skull had to remind them, “It’s the ancient queen of Omu. The one Lukanu who just died was searching for. By the gods, I am twice cursed. First as this floating head and second to be stuck with you lot!” Yakka flew out of the room in mock disgust, saving him from the coming carnage.

They ignored the floating orb in the room, focusing on cracking open that sarcophagus. They grabbed everything inside, including Napaka’s skull, setting off that floating orb that exploded in a burst of light. I changed the damage to radiant damage but it didn’t matter since everyone made their saving throw (DC14) and took half damage. Everyone except Sack of Screws, who was completely obliterated by this unholy light, much to the anger of Bag of Nails, who cried out to the gods, “You did this on purpose!” Nay, nay. It was your greed that got your son killed. Again.

They grabbed the treasure box, the crocodile key, the cursed necklace, Napaka’s funeral gown and her golden hornet mask, which I made to be another mask of the beast (uncursed) that controls all insects. They also grabbed the iron scepter held by Napaka but they did not replace it (ala Indiana Jones) with the twin scepter they got from the Throne room, triggering yet another trap involving poison gas. Incredibly, everyone made this saving throw as well (DC18) and once again took half damage. If they had just failed either saving throw, this room would have resulted in a Total Party Kill, killed in the most mundane way possible; touching shit they shouldn’t. Sigh. But I had succeeding in knocking everyone down to sign digit hit points and I refused to even give them a short rest, forcing them to expend even more resources in healing spells and potions.

Before we wrap up, let me add that out heroes did also find the other secret door in the throne room. This led to a spiral staircase that they correctly guessed led from Wither’s backstage offices on the second floor with the lower levels below. Our heroes tucked this detail away and journey on to:

Next week, Our heroes tackle the toughest trap in the game, suffer a nasty betrayal, get railroaded by Withers, and someone loses an arm!

As always, if your dungeon crawl gets a little wacky, lean all the way into the absurd and Game On!

She will rejoin her queen’s soul in the afterlife. – Gwen, eulogizing Lukanu as she chops off her head and Bag of Nails feeds on her corpse. Totally forgetting that all souls are now trapped to feed Acererak’s “machine”.

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.