Tomb of Annihilation: Episode 14
Finally, I was beginning to embrace the free-flowing nature of Tomb of Annihilation. There were many moving parts in Omu, and I couldn’t force all of them on my players. You can have a fun encounter even if it just consists of your players running away. With all these threats (King of Feathers, Red Wizards, Bag of Nails, etc.) ready to strike at your players, it was more important to make them feel in danger than actually put them in danger. Otherwise finding the puzzle cubes would become far too much of a chore.
The Party:
(Jon) Zorel — Aasimar Paladin
(Terry) Harden — Dwarf Barbarian
(Matt) Grender — Human Wizard
(Stacy) Torven — Lizardfolk Monk/Druid
The Path:
Omu, Wongo’s Shrine
”Subtle and insubstantial, the expert leaves no trace; divinely mysterious, he is inaudible.”
Sun Tzu — The Art of War
The party had found one of the puzzle cubes, but they still had much of Omu left to explore. Now that they’d visited a shrine, Grender thought it would be a good idea for his raven familiar to scout the city, and search for other nearby places that looked like they could be shrines as well. His raven picked out a couple likely locations, and an ominous cave-side entrance that Grender realized must be the entrance to the Tomb itself.
They moved north and came upon an abandoned campsite with torn backpacks and rotted gear. They searched the area, and Torven found a moldy parchment written by a “Lord Brixton.” It detailed the exploits of the Company of the Yellow Banner. He read the note to the party then slipped it into his pocket, hoping the information might be useful later on.
After cautiously exploring in the general vicinity, they wandered into a shop called Finde’s Magical Oils and Elixirs. Whereas Omu was otherwise abandoned, it appeared that Finde, a jovial minotaur, was affected by some powerful magic that tied her to this location. If she left the shop, she’d wake up the next morning right back there.
This was the first NPC in a while that the party clicked with. They were fascinated by this “curse” and the bits of lore she knew about Omu. After talking about her magical forging skills, Harden proposed that she use them on his maul. She said if he left the maul with her, they could come back the next day after she tried some experiments on it. They’d have to trust her. Harden decided to go for it since he had a good feeling about her. She even let them take a rest in her shop.
During the rest however, Zorel’s angelic aasimar guide Valandras, sent him a vision. He saw the deranged tabaxi Bag of Nails tending to some arrows and carving something on them. He put the arrow down, and Zorel could see that his full name — Zorel Duzaz — was etched into the arrow. Bag of Nails smirked to himself, and the dream ended. Zorel awoke in a sweat and anxiously told the party that Bag of Nails was hunting him and wanted to kill him. The rest of the party was a little spooked by this, but more perplexed as to why. Zorel paced around a lot and started looking around his shoulder a lot more.
Afterwards, they continued north and found a ruined amphitheater. Vines clung to its steps and the animal statues around it. It became eerily silent. Zorel was the first to hear it — the feathered tyrannosaurus rex, the King of Feathers, came beating down the path, roaring loudly and baring his teeth for all to see. Zorel turned to fight, but Torven and Grender were already running into the amphitheater to save their skins. Harden soon followed. Zorel contemplated taking on the fearsome beast by himself. But he worked best in a group, so ran back into a room in the amphitheater that the King could not fit into it. They waited until he grew bored and left. Grender searched the amphitheater in the meantime, and uncovered a magical helm of telepathy that allowed its wearer to detect the thoughts of those around them. Harden smiled, and procured it from his teammate, assuring him he could get more use out of it. Musharib laughed and heartily agreed.
“Infinite are the arguments of mages.”
Ursula K. Le Guin — A Wizard of Earthsea
They crossed over one of the raised walkways to get deep into the city. They next walked up to what surely must have been the entrance to the Tomb that the puzzle cubes could unlock. There was a lone obelisk and an ominous atmosphere there, so the group didn’t linger for long.
They journeyed south, and came upon another shrine. Carvings of monkeys hanging by their tails decorated the two cracked obelisks that stood in the courtyard. The party held their weapons tightly, and walked forward. They heard shrieking monkeys laughing and screaming, but couldn’t see an actual creature making the noise. They continued onward. Five dark archways led into the shrine. Musharib told the group that above the middle archway read “Better to be Wongo’s friend than his enemy.” Torven lit a torch and moved in.
The group soon discovered a ten-foot-tall statue of an evil-looking monkey balancing on its tail, with its limbs splayed out. Musharib explained how the sculpted relief behind it told the story of the monkey god Wongo fighting the serpent god Moa. Grender noticed four painted animal masks protruding from the walls. There was a lion, and zebra, a vulture, and a boar.
The party worked out that if they went into the other four archways they could discover which of these animals was Wongo’s friend. They gathered the following clues:
The lion ate one of the boar’s friends.
The vulture is lucky to be alive.
The zebra’s only friend starved to death.
One of the non-vultures has no friends.
The group got into a heated discussion. Zorel, Torven and Harden seemed convinced that the lion was Wongo’s friend. Musharib backed up Harden, but Grender wasn’t following the group’s logic. He made them spell it out a few times, and soon they realized together that the vulture was actually the correct answer. Looking through the vulture’s mask showed a ray of blue light falling onto the left hand of the monkey statue, so Zorel poured some water into that hand. A puzzle cube appeared on the statue’s head.
But then Zorel heard a disembodied voice say “Take the prize and curse your friends, or fight my children to claim it. What is your choice?”
Zorel stammered. The others looked at him quizzically. Harden asked what was wrong. Zorel was confused and scared. He was comfortable with relying on his friends or protecting them. But no one else could hear the voice. He needed to make a decision. He shouted to everyone to take out their weapons. He would rather fight than curse his friends. Suddenly, four su-monsters teleported into the room and began attacking the party.
The party fought them off, trying to conserve heavier spells in case they ran into the King of Feathers again, and grabbed the puzzle cube. They victoriously strode out of the shrine with two of the nine puzzle cubes in their possession.
They were picking up some momentum now. They’d acquired two puzzle cubes, avoided the King of Feathers, and made some local contacts. As long as they stuck to their plan and stealthily moved about Omu, they’d be fine. Unfortunately, there were too many others who were aware of their presence.
Previous: Episode 13
Next: Episode 15
