Tomb of Annihilation: Week 14

Hi all,

I previously posted some warts-and-all email summaries of the ‘Curse of Strahd’ campaign I ran in 2017. It was the first campaign I sent summaries to players by email after each game (I was a bit lazy prior to that). Here’s the follow up campaign – 2018’s ‘Tomb of Annihilation’. We used experience points rather than milestones/level-based progression, which led to some ‘xp grinding’ along the way. Each session was 4 hours long. Some of the summaries may be amusing; don’t forget these are unedited emails, so please forgive their somewhat chaotic nature and poor sentence structure/grammar. If you’re a D&D fan you may enjoy them. And maybe even if you aren’t.

Game on!

Steve 🙂

Week 14

Into the Wyrmheart Mine, while Hew Hackandsleep rested up and watched the Giant Strider mounts. “I’ll have my day in the sun,” said Hew. “After I catch a little shuteye.”

Highlights included:

• How to split the party multiple times – that always works out well…
• The party was joined by Dylan, whose Firbolg Barbarian fell right into the hack and slash of things.
• Most of the party took a mine cart ride, only to stop around the corner and climb up a rise to meet some Kobolds. Mark’s Kenku Monk and Steve’s Human Rogue got up the 15-foot slope and commenced the dialogue. Gareth’s Druid and Morgan’s Dwarvish Barbarian couldn’t get up the first time, falling on their asses (how embarrassing). Davor’s Human Ranger tried twice before giving up.   
• Jake’s Aasimar Warlock decided that there was no point talking anymore, so he turned murder hobo and killed everything he saw. Negotiators, hostages, you name it (he was obviously still smarting from talking to that Medusa…). His warlock climbed to a bridge crossing the cavern where he started sniping the Kobolds while they were talking to the monk and rogue. They exploded into lots of entrails. The other kobolds took off down a side passage. “My work here is done,” the Warlock cackled. He then went on to vape some Kobold Inventors and then a bunch of kobolds in the egg chamber.
• Daniel’s Human Bard, obviously unhappy at being usurped as the serial killer of the party, decided to head down a cave by herself and ran into some Specters. DOH! Luckily Jake’s Warlock and Mark’s Monk turned up to help.
• Into the cart again, riding it down, hit by a giant boulder trap, derailed. The party fought some Urds (winged kobolds) and Morgan’s Barbarian took one hostage after slicing off its wings. (I guess the stoning at the medusa’s house REALLY traumatized these guys!)   
• Thirty Kobolds streamed down the tracks, confronting Dylan’s Barbarian and Steve’s Rogue head on, many of them getting burnt by Gareth’s Druid after stepping on his spell-heated rail (DOH!) and getting a mining cart hitting them from behind thanks to quick thinking from Daniel’s Bard.
• Jake’s warlock killed Morgan’s Barbarian’s hostage, so the barbarian got upset and attacked him. Jake responded by leaping off a 150-foot drop, intending to lightning lure the barbarian off the edge and then blink back to safety. Unfortunately, both failed, so he fell to the bottom of the mine, a bloody mess. After the warlock failed his first death save, Mark’s Monk leapt down and stabilized him. The moral to this story: if another party member is planning to torture a hostage, don’t take that away from them? Something like that. Or maybe: look before you leap?

Next Week: The Main Event – Tinder, The RED DRAGON!!

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