Tomb of Annihilation: Weeks 29-30

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 29

The Tomb of the Nine Gods – Level 2!

Meanwhile, in the secret corridor, Mark’s Cleric opened the Genie bottle there and now has a Dao who will help him three times (or will she…). She doesn’t like Acererak, either. That Lich really knows how to make friends and influence people. 

In the next chamber, a shield that threw magic spears and six glass cauldrons full of bones that spouted skeletons, a chariot with treasure and a sarcophagus. Dan’s Halfling Warlock took to the cart to swipe some treasure and activated the trap! One big battle later, and Daniel’s Bard was taken over by the spirit of Papzotl after handling an amulet. What is that mysterious amulet? Only time (or a long rest attuning to it) will tell…

While the party was short resting, Daniel’s Bard wandered off to the mirror tomb and set off the trap in the wine tomb. Why not, I guess?

William’s Druid found a secret door in the corridor and a scrying pool, where he could see through the eyes of some wandering monster. Suddenly, a tomb guardian erupted from the pool and another battle ensued.

Week 30

The Tomb of the Nine Gods – Level 2!

The party decided to go around the circular dimensional corridor to the alternate tomb and check out the pentagram room again (the one they did earlier, but a different one). The invisible Grey Slaad fireballed their asses – twice! Then they creamed it. Nothing in the sarcophagus (gasp!), so they decided against revisiting the skeleton room and headed back to the actual tomb, over to the devil’s head floor hole and down to the next level through the magical darkness…

The Tomb of the Nine Gods – Level 3!

Down to I’Jinn’s tomb, where they couldn’t touch the floor. Daniel’s Bard (with the spirit of Papazotl in him, protecting him from falling damage), decided to dive head first into the darkness and hit a floor tile, activating the trap and being shredded by locusts! Clinton’s Fighter/Rogue also got eaten by locusts. Chloe’s Sorcerer ingeniously used lightning lure to save both Daniel’s Bard and Clinton’s Fighter/Rogue and they were healed by Mark’s Cleric.

After a lot of tile testing (and lots of locust swarms), William’s Druid changed into a tiny spider, crawled through a peep hole in the door, discovered a disc with symbols on it on the other side, found another peephole which allowed him to see the symbols in the right order and telepathically tell the dudes and dudettes in the other room which tiles to press in order, and so the sarcophagus was opened. Daniel’s Bard got the Almiraj horn before anyone else, and I’jinn displaced Papazotl. She also got a cool wand of wonder. 

Next room: a shadow thingie (a version of the character who entered) and a font of green soup! Chloe’s Sorcerer controlled the shadow to drink the soup and find an orange eyeball (strange…) – thank you Davor’s Ranger, for the drinking suggestion. William’s Druid and Morgan’s Rogue both got scared sh%@less by the shadow’s front end.

Daniel’s Bard and Dan’s warlock found an uneventful crawlspace. Or was it…

William’s Druid located a new room with wet floors and a water curtain…

Next week: Watery room! Other rooms! Some nice corridors. Furniture. Perhaps a kitchen suite or bedroom ensemble.

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