Tomb of Annihilation: Episode 18
The Tomb of the Nine Gods is filled with puzzles and encounters that reward clever play, and doesn’t punish players nearly as harshly as the Tomb of Horrors. Your players are free to experiment and try various techniques that lead to fun experiences even if they aren’t the “right” move. Add on to that the multiple pathways to choose from, and that means any playthrough of the Tomb will be different from any other.
The Party:
(Jon) Zorel — Aasimar Paladin
(Terry) Harden — Dwarf Barbarian
(Matt) Grender — Human Wizard
(Stacy) Torven — Lizardfolk Monk/Druid
The Path:
Tomb of the Nine Gods — Rotten Halls
“Seeing is not believing — it is only seeing.”
George MacDonald — The Princess and the Goblin
The party had entered the Tomb of the Nine Gods — a grand tomb which Acererak forced the Omuans to build after he slew their nine trickster gods. The cause of the death curse afflicting the world was somewhere inside, and the party was determined to find it.
They stood at the entrance, which led to a small hallway with another stone door beyond this first one. An iron lever was set into the door’s surface, with a graven stone skull leering down from above. This would be the party’s first real foray into one of Acererak’s devious traps.
The group bravely stepped forward, with everyone checking for danger. Harden led the way, but once he stepped past the halfway point the skull’s jaws creaked open. A skeletal hand holding a crystal hourglass-style timer emerged from within. With a click, the timer rotated and sand started to trickle into its lower globe.
As instructed by the book, I began to ominously count down slowly, “10… 9… 8.” The players frantically looked to each other, questioning what to do. Zorel chose not to wait any longer. He pulled the lever, and the floor between the two doors split open. Musharib, Torven, Grender, and Harden tumbled down into a 20-foot-deep pit lined with poisonous spikes. Zorel managed to hang on to the lever, as he sheepishly apologized for setting off the trap. The timer counted down to zero and retracted into the floor, as the group made their way beyond it. They weren’t even mad at Zorel. Instead, they were determined not to fall victim to Acererak’s traps again.
They now stood at a moss-covered corridor, with tree roots hanging from the sagging ceiling. The air reeked of rot and damp. Ahead, a bas-relief carving of a bearded devil’s face adorned the wall at a T-shaped intersection.
Zorel and Harden teamed up as they slowly stepped forward through the corridor, using their wits and their Wisdom (Perception) checks to stay safe. Zorel’s magical shield was adept at blocking ranged attacks, so when they set off the poison darts, they managed to not get hit. Soon, they’d carved out a safe path, and the rest of the team followed.
They now stood directly in front of the green devil face. To the left, a dark chamber was blocked by a crystal window. To the right, a balcony leading down to a large staircase. Below them was a rusted iron grate set into the corridor floor. Every member began inspecting the different parts of the tomb that interested them. Harden peered into the crystal window, Torven tested the grate, Grender observed the devil face, and Zorel walked towards the balcony. Zorel’s discovery was the most beneficial to the party.
He could see a grand chamber open ahead, with a staircase descending into the lower levels. It looked to be around four levels down, with big statues seated at the bottom. The other levels had some strange features. While this one was overgrown with moss and branches, two levels below had a strange purple growth splayed out all around it. Zorel looked to the balcony directly below him, and spotted a hunched figure glaring up. It wore a green devil face mask, and hopped out of sight.
Zorel wordlessly crept back to the group, startled and shaken. He described the staircase, and the strange figure. Harden and Grender hadn’t made much progress, but Torven had an idea. He pointed out that below the grate he could make out muddy water flowing slowly past. Most of Torven’s life was spent in sewers that looked just like this — he’d be at an advantage against anything that came his way. As a DM, I couldn’t help but agree. I gave advantage to all of his Wisdom (Perception) checks while in the sluggish underground river, as the group lifted the bars and descended with a splash.
The river extended north and south. Lizardfolk did not have darkvision, but there were other ways to perceive dangers. Torven crept southward, and with his superior perception was able to sniff out a rotten odour to the south which was unnatural. He got a bad feeling, and chose to go north instead — a good idea, as Grender’s lit torch would have ignited a pocket of gas and incinerated the party.
They made their way north, single-file, as Torven determinedly led the way. He was used to being protected in the middle of the party, but was in his element in the river. They travelled for some time, until he raised his hand to stop, as his ears perked up. He could hear some clicking echo off the walls. He motioned to Grender to extinguish his torch, as Zorel and Harden tried to sneak ahead and scout with their darkvision. This was not ideal for the lumbering pair, and they made too much noise. They rounded a corner and saw a strange-looking skeleton with a triangle shape on its skull who also noticed the pair. It quickly tried to dash away, but Zorel flung his javelin and punctured the skeleton. Harden burst forth and finally got to blast a flame with his Volcano Hammer. The skeleton crumbled to the ground. Zorel approached, and could see that the triangle shape remained intact and looked to function as a key. The party decided to keep it for now, as they continued on.
The river continued on to some stairs going up, and further along was a waterfall plunging into a dark, rocky chasm. Torven wanted to check out the waterfall, but Harden rumbled up the stairs, declaring they’d done enough sneaking. At the top of the stairs, Grender pointed out a secret door, and they slowly entered a small chamber.
“The good shall have my hand and heart, but the bad neither foot nor fellowship.”
Miguel de Cervantes — Don Quixote de la Mancha
Skulls crusted with dried mud glowered from niches cut into the walls of the tomb. A stone sarcophagus stood in the centre, its lid adorned with a coiled serpent carved in relief. Behind the sarcophagus, resting atop a marble pedestal, was an ornate crystal box with a small humanoid skull floating inside it.
The party began to investigate the room, as Zorel heard the voice of a young girl echo in his mind. “What’s happening? Why can’t I see?” He turned to his party members, as the rest of them started hearing similar cries. “Where am I?” “Are you friends of my father?” “Is he looking for me?”
Harden put a finger up to his lips and shook his head. He pointed out Acererak’s warning that said “speak no truth to the doomed child.” He told the party to ignore her, and just carry on as if they couldn’t hear her.
Everyone else continued looking around, as the girl began to panic more and ask desperately for a response. This voice was the consciousness of Nepartak, the 10-year-old granddaughter of the last queen of Omu. To safely explore the area, the characters would have had to calm her without lying to her. But by ignoring her, they only made her grow more anxious as she flew into a murderous rage. The skull’s eye sockets flared with green flame as the crystal box exploded. She began attacking the party as swarms of undead spiders crawled out from within the tomb’s walls.
Harden began to blast his Volcano Hammer once more, as the rest of the party defended themselves from the Fire Rays that Nepartak shot at them. The battle didn’t last long, as the group was a formidable entity at this point, and soon the tomb was quiet once more.
Harden was very intrigued by this stone sarcophagus. The party gathered around it as he pushed the lid off. Inside, a bundle of faded cloth held the serpentine bones of a jaculi. A magic-looking staff rested nearby. Though Harden had no need for a staff, he grabbed the curious item. Green smoke billowed from the staff, coiling around Harden like a serpent. A sibilant voice whispered in his ear, “Let me help you! I promise to be good.”
And just like that, the trickster god, Moa, had inhabited Harden. Harden was still in control of his body, but suddenly he had a passenger along for the ride. Moa was truthful and kind, and changed Harden for the moment in two ways: he was now guided by the principle, “I must always speak the truth,” and he had the ability to use an action to turn invisible. Moa assured him that they would make a great team, and that he wanted to help him get his revenge on Acererak.
The players and characters could see that something had happened to Harden, but I kept the exact details secret from them. Regardless, the party debated where to go next, and Harden began to speak to the party in a much friendlier tone than usual. When Grender mentioned that he would have more use out of the magical staff, Harden couldn’t help but agree, and complimented him on his magical prowess. Zorel discovered a way out of this chamber, and Harden applauded him for his good senses.
The rest of the members were confused about why Harden was acting so strangely, but since it was actually a nice change of pace from his usual gruff exterior, they decided to roll with it.
They were back at the grand staircase that led downwards, but decided to stay on this level and explore some more. To the north was a passage that led to a long corridor in which carved birds soared across the walls of it. Blocking the passage near its northern end was a large adamantine propeller with five sharp blades. The party inquisitively stepped into the corridor, and saw that the propeller began to spin as they moved into the hall, gaining full speed after only a few seconds. Retreating caused the blades to slow down and stop.
Zorel and Harden walked closer, seeing if they could jam something into the blades, like one of Zorel’s javelins. Zorel also could cast Misty Step to bypass the blades, but there was no guarantee what lay beyond the blades was any safer. Moa encouraged Harden to continue being nice to his friends, as their help would be integral in defeating Acererak. Harden didn’t disagree.
Grender, however, was sick of the lovefest. He grabbed Torven and bade him to follow, as he cast Dimension Door, aiming to have them both safely arrive on the other side of the blades. Unfortunately, Acererak placed a number of magical restrictions in his tomb that caused spells like this to fail. As Grender and Torven walked through the Dimension Door, they did not arrive in the chamber just past the propeller blades.
Instead, they arrived in a much different room, far away from their intended target. This room was half-filled with rotting corpses. Protruding from one wall was a large green devil’s face, its flared nostrils set just above the putrescent mass. A sconce above the face held a flickering torch.
Torven and Grender looked around in terror. There were six feet of dead bodies filling this disgusting room. They tried to calm each other down as they tried to figure out what the hell was going on. They wondered if this was some sick punishment of Acererak that they would be trapped in forever. They sloppily slogged through the remains toward the devil face as they heard a monstrous sound come from below a pile of bodies in the corner. A vine-like stalk with grotesque eyes snaked out and peered around the room.
Whatever was happening in this room, Torven and Grender wanted no part of it. They lumbered towards the green devil face and tried to figure out what the hell to do.
Meanwhile, Zorel and Harden were still on the top floor of the Tomb, unable to make any progress. They assumed the worst and figured their brethren were dead. The next steps their allies took would determine if they were right.
Previous: Episode 17
Next: Episode 19
