Tomb of Annihilation: Episode 6
Forecasting where the players will go in this adventure is hard. There is a lot of choice, and so many interesting places to go. As the DM, you can nudge players here and there, but if they truly want to see something you won’t be able to stop them. I did my best to provide some hooks to inspire them explore wherever they wanted.
The Party:
(Jon) Alathar — Half-elf Bard
(Terry) Harden — Dwarf Barbarian
(Matt) Illiyum — Gnome Illusionist
(Stacy) Torven — Lizardfolk Monk/Druid
The Path:
Yellyark, Camp Righteous, Camp Vengeance
Come, my friends. ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson — Ulysses
Time was ticking away as the death curse raged on. The group wasn’t having any success tracking down the Shield Guardian, Vorn, that had been lost in the woods. After settling in Yellyark and flinging goblins off into the jungle, they were getting anxious. They decided to head to Camp Vengeance to see if they had any information on Vorn, and to get some supplies.
The book says Qawasha has a knack for camping in sites where Chwingas dwell, so one night a group of Chwingas slowly invaded the team’s camp site. I described how Qawasha laughed and the tiny Chwingas played with him and Kupalué. They were very curious about the group.
Each player described how they interacted with the magical creatures. Illiyum seemed as curious as the Chwingas. Torven tried to carve them some art. Alathar played them some music from his lute. Harden sat stone-faced as Chwingas flitted around his head and beard. The little elemental spirits were fascinated with the party. They snatched up Torven’s carvings, and imparted a magical charm to Alathar before disappearing back into the jungle. This was a neat diversion that broke up the various battles they encountered in their travels.
Further on, they met an albino dwarf named Talib. He struck up a conversation with Harden as they went over their different dwarven cultures. Harden had been asking everyone he ran into in Chult about whether they’d seen any sign of his brother-in-arms, Sturm. Talib finally gave him a satisfying answer. He said his clan was trying to reclaim the mountain forge of Hrakhamar, and they saw a dwarven prisoner who sounded like he could be Sturm. It wasn’t much, but it was something to go on.
The group continued canoeing down the River Soshentar. Eventually, they came across a walled compound encircled by a ditch bristling with sharpened stakes. This was Camp Vengeance, an outpost of the Order of the Gauntlet. This fort looked far more capable of withstanding the dangers of the jungle than Camp Righteous.
They entered, and were glad to get the chance to take a breath. Each player had their character break off to do what they’ be interested in. There was gambling, meeting with priests, and checking in with the leadership. They soon found out they were being called to meet the commander of the camp, Niles Breakbone, in the command tent.
Once they’d gathered together, the engaged for their audience with Breakbone. It did not go well. It was clear the old coot was in over his head. I pictured him like an old British colonialist talking down to others about “savages” and being mystified and confused about the land he was trying to take over. He pored over inaccurate maps and was getting frustrated at the Order of the Gauntlet’s lack of supplies.
With this capable party mentioning how they’d been surviving the horrors of the jungle, he saw an opportunity. As they spoke in their tent and asked about Vorn, Breakbone brushed their concerns aside. He said he had sick men who needed transport back to Port Nyanzaru post-haste, and the characters would have to use their own canoe and keep the men safe.
The characters looked at each other, bewildered. They weren’t under his command. Harden offered to help the men however they could right here, while Illiyum stressed that they did not have enough time to go back to Port Nyanzaru. Breakbone becoming increasingly petulant and unnerved at not getting his way. Even Torven could tell this was not a normal human interaction, as Alathar tried to make a deal to get some help finding Vorn first, then helping the sick men.
Commander Breakbone got a wild look in his eyes as he threatened to arrest each member of the party and try them for insubordination. Illiyum smartly interpreted this as a legitimate threat, and said there would be no need for that. They then agreed to transport the sick men of the Order of the Gauntlet.
They left the tent and met up with Qawasha and Kupalué, who asked why they looked so concerned. The party talked over what happened, and agreed to get the hell out of there right away. Alathar yelled behind him to the Order that they were getting their canoe ready for transport. Then everyone bolted and began paddling away as fast as they could before the Order could realize they were gone.
“For the answer you seek, look up.”
Megan Frazer Blakemore — The Friendship Riddle
The crew would not get a chance to have a nice rest at Camp Vengeance. They regrouped, and decided to make their way back to the nearby Camp Righteous. At least they would be allowed to rest, get back their spells and health, and figure out where to go from there.
Here, I decided to plant some seeds for Torven’s character. I really wanted to open up the whole map of Chult as a possibility, so I bought Return of the Lizard King by Shawn Merwin in anticipation. It focused on a lizardfolk tribal war set in the Valley of Dread far from most of the adventure’s activity. Also, on the last level up, Torven’s player had taken a level in Druid, and was having his character bond with Qawasha over nature.
Because of that, I had the party come upon a contingent of Emerald Enclave scouts burying one of their fallen members. Qawasha recgonized one, and huddled Torven over. They struck up a bit of a conversation, and I exposition-vomited about how one of them had travelled to the Valley of Dread to prevent an unnatural ritual from displacing a peaceful tribe of lizardfolk. What I thought was another solid lead for the players turned out to be just too much information to hold in their heads. They did not connect with this at all, and bid the scouts adieu.
Finally, they made it back to Camp Righteous. They saw the 80-foot-tall stone statue of a man with a crocodile on his back, and the ominous tunnel that lay between the statues feet. They surveyed the area, checked that it was safe, and decided to explore the inside.
Qawasha told them the story of the Man and Crocodile that the statue signified. Essentially a crocodile helped a man across a river by riding on its back. In return, the crocodile said the man must carry it on his back across all the realms of man. The man swore to never trust crocodiles ever again.
The players rightfully figured that this was a clue for getting deeper into the tunnel. They decided to have the lizardfolk Torven, who resembled a crocodile, go on the back of Qawasha who was the only human in the group.
This was almost correct. In truth, they just needed any one character to carry another on their back, and that twosome would never trigger a trap. If they guessed this, they could have chose Illiyum, the lightest character, on Harden, the strongest character’s back. Instead, Qawasha, who was not very strong, had to shuffle along with Torven weighing him down, making it difficult to traverse they various traps that lay before them. Also, the other members of the party were following along, so they would still trigger any traps that Torven/Qawasha went over first.
The group carefully inched forward, dodging pit traps, swinging blades, and shooting flames as they made there way further into the House of Man and Crocodile. There were some stumbles on Qawasha’s rickety legs, but Torven kept him upbeat with his weird lizardfok sayings. The whole group got to a puzzle floor and talked out how to solve it. They figured out that some tiles made flames shoot out of the walls, then discovered a puzzle door above them as well. They tried to touch parts of the door that corresponded with safe tiles on the floor — which was the right thing to do.
Unfortunately, it had to be done by someone on the back of someone else. So when Illiyum tried it on his own, he was blasted down by a Thunderwave spell and came crashing down onto Torven and Qawasha who all splayed out onto the puzzle floor, which in turn triggered the shooting flames trap. It nearly killed them all.
Eventually, they solved the puzzle and opened the door properly. They grabbed their prize — an Alchemy Jug, which was a little underwhelming, so I added a scattering of platinum pieces as well. Alathar swiped some of the platinum and it triggered a collapse inside the tunnel, which they had to rush to escape.
When they made it out, they saw that they’d have no time for healing. A pack of batiri goblins had set up an ambush. Not only were they ready to fight, but they had set fire to the group’s canoe. They’d have to fight for their lives, and figure out a way to continue their exploration of the jungles of Chult.
