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Tomb of Annihilation is aDungeons & Dragonsadventure for player characters from levels one to 11. The adventuring party is hired by a retired adventurer and current merchant who is currently suffering adverse effects from the adventure’s plot hook.
The hook is the mysterious appearance of something called the death curse. This worldwide curse has confounded priests and magicians. The power of resurrection magic can no longer be called upon by anyone, and attempts to resurrect those who have crossed beyond automatically fail. As the plot thickens, the player characters set off into the jungle to unravel this mystery.
What Is The Land Of Chult?
The campaign takes place inan ancient land where beasts, insects,andmurderous plant life reign supreme.This uncolonized land is known asChult, and the dangers this jungle presents have long resisted any attempts of civilization. Forgotten gods, prehistoric beasts, unique flora, and strange humanoids are just the tip of the iceberg of what this setting has to offer.
The adventure kicks off at the very southern end of the jungle where the only successful attempt at civilization has been cradled:Port Nyanzaru.After the players visit some of the port’s denizens, they quickly set off into the jungle to contend with the threats present there and, hopefully, pick up some kind of clues regarding the puzzling death curse.
Port Nyanzaru is an awesome city home to rivalmerchant princes, dinosaur races, faction representatives, merchants,andmore. If you want to explore this setting in its entirety, have the players return to Port Nyanzaru at least a handful of times during the campaign.
Death Is A Constant
As its name suggests, the death curse is no joke. While player characters in most campaigns can rely on resurrection magic to bring back their fallen, this option is entirely unavailable in Tomb of Annihilation. Consequently,player character death is almost as good as inevitable.
Dungeon Mastersshould be veryupfrontwith their players aboutthe challenge of character death that this adventure offers.While there certainly are homebrew fixes that can get around character death as well as even one method of “resurrection” that exists in the module, allowing players to be resurrected defeats the purpose of the adventure.
If your players aren’t interested in the possibility ofcharacter death, you’re better off playing a different adventure entirely.
The evocative art present across this book’s many pages does great justice tothe super representation of Dinosaurs, Undead, and Plantsin this book. The book’s appendix features many distinctive and thematic statistic blocks for monsters that you won’t find anywhere else. You shoulduse these stat blocks over the ones found in the Monster Manualat every opportunity you get.
Character classes that interact well with these creature types will get some extra mileage in this adventure. Notable classes include Druids and Rangers thanks to the high number of Beasts and Plants as well as Clerics and Paladins due to the jungle’s extensive Undead.
While there’s a great variety of Undead and Plant creatures in this book, Dinosaurs do find themselves drawing the short straw as far as impressive stat blocks. Many Dinosaurs are fairlysimple Beaststhat only have access to a multiattack.
As a result,it’s well worth doing some researchandhomebrewingsome newDinosaur stat blocksforiconic Dinosaurslike the Dilophosaurus, Pachycephalosaurus, Triceratops, Spinosaurus, and more. If your players are big Dinosaur buffs, this homebrewing will do some very heavy lifting regarding player enjoyment.
A Hex Crawl Adventure
A large part of the mystique this adventure offers is the fact that the jungles of Chult are largely uncharted. While the player characters might be able to be pointed towards notable landmarks in the jungle now and then,a large part of the campaign revolves around simply exploring the jungleand seeing what rears its head.
The campaign manages this aspect mechanically through something calleda hex crawl. Player characters choose a method of travel such as canoe, by foot, or by mount and settle on a traveling speed. Then,an appointed navigator makes a Survival checkto see what kind of progress the party makes for the day.
Naturally, this can lead to a lot of random encounters as well as the party turning up somewhere entirely different than they meant to go. However, that’s just part and parcel of the jungle-flavored fun this campaign offers.
Encounter Balance Is Minimal
Locations in the jungle are balanced for certain levels, however, the adventure makes no assumptions regarding what level the player characters will arrive at these locations. Consequently,encounters in this bookareoften pretty unbalanced.This gives the adventure a good sense ofverisimilitudeandrealism, but it sometimes comes at the cost of a player character’s life.
It’s good to sit down with your players and tell them about this adventure aspectbefore beginning play. Sometimes, the best move in Tomb of Annihilation is toturn tail and run.The player characters may be heroes, but they’re just as likely to become prey for this dastardly jungle’s hungry denizens.
Deciding Guiding
Before the party sets off into the jungle, they are encouraged by multiple NPCs tohire a guide that can help them through the jungle.There are a lot of different guides on offer for hire and meeting with these guides as well as discussing what they have to offer the party should take up a solid chunk of the first couple of sessions.
Once the players have decided on a guide,you as a DM have to decide on how the guide will be run.Will the players be in charge of handling the guide during combat? Or will the guide be run by the DM like just another monster? Do the players need to worry about maintaining some kind of loyalty score with the guide to keep them on hire? Will the guide level up alongside the players?
All of these questions and more need to be answered before your party sets off with their chosen guide. Thankfully,Chapter Four of the Dungeon Master’s Guideoffers some great solutions to this conundrum.
Managing Artus Cimber
Speaking of NPCs,Artus Cimber is one very powerful NPCthat the player characters are likely to run across throughout their adventures.Cimberis supposed to ultimately offeraid to the party, however, he has quite a few issues of his own he’s currently working through.
Due to Cimber’s character flaw, it’s unlikely he will want much to do with the party upon initially meeting them.This is a good thing,andyou should lean into his flaw.Cimber is a strong enough character that he can easily overshadow the rest of the party if he ever joins up with them.
It’s best to leave Cimber on thesidelines as a sort of plot pointand let the characters do the adventuring. If the player characters are adamant about Cimber joining up with them, let him join them for a time. However, eventually, he shouldmove onandfocus on his own motivationsso that the player characters remain the protagonists of the adventure.
Side Quest Central
Lots of random encounters tend to lead toa fair amount of side quests. Beyond that, there are also a ton of mysteries beyond the death curse that have long been forgotten in the jungles of Chult. Don’t be surprised when the players want to solve most of them. In fact,it’s better to lean into their interestsand try and herd them back towards the main quest in time.
Side quests are a great opportunity to explore character backstories. If done right, you can also tie the side quest and the character in question’s background back into the main quest at the side quest’s resolution. Now that’s storytelling.
Get Ready To Dungeon Crawl
The final chapter of this adventure isa mega-dungeon crawlthat takes place in a death-trap dungeon called the Tomb of the Nine Gods. The lore of this dungeon is rich, and the player characters should greatly enjoy uncovering the dungeon’s history piece by piece. All of that being said, dungeon crawls aren’t for everyone.
Tomb of the Nine Gods was inspired by a classic dungeon crawl known as the Tomb of Horrors. The Tomb of Horrors was so deadly that you could easily die before even getting through the entrance. Tomb of the Nine Gods is no different, and the likelihood of character death should be reiterated before the player characters enter this death trap.
Check in with your playerson theirfeelingsregardinglengthy dungeon crawlsbefore choosing to run this campaign. Otherwise, you may just be in for an unwelcome surprise when your players reach the adventure’s climactic mega-dungeon ending.
The BBEG of Tomb of Annihilation doesn’t care much about the player characters. In actuality, he considers himself very much above them. So much so thatthe lich is confident his mega dungeonfilled with deadly traps will makeshort work of the player characterswell before they can interrupt any of his larger plans.
You can have the BBEG (a lich named Acererak) interact with the player characters more. However, this kind of thing undercuts how little Acererak thinks of them.Talk to your playersabouthow personal of a relationshipthey would like to have with thestory’s main villain.If they don’t want to be ignored by the BBEG, Tomb of Annihilation might not be the best campaign for them.
If the players prefer a moreinteractiveandengagedvillain,Curse of Strahdis probably abetter choiceof campaign.
