Dungeons and Dragons "Tomb of Annihilation" ep. 1/2

             Leading up to my first game of “Tomb of Annihilation” I did what I think many good DM’s should do, lay out ground rules, explain the premise of the campaign, and creating places where all of those things can be easily kept for reference.

            Let’s start with the most basic thing I just mentioned, creating a place to keep things.  My group is playing on Roll20, using the digital items that come default with the program.  Additionally I have numerous maps and other items gotten from Humble Bundles over the years (more on them later).  In addition to setting up the character sheets and some maps (not enough, my fault) I made use of something that has been my default for years, the Facebook group.

            I have real problems with Facebook as a company, but they are my default way of keeping in contact with people I know, far more than email or texting, and the group feature allows for the posting of documents for easy reference later.  If your group needs to keep track of a lot of information finding a social media platform you all share and creating a group within it may prove to be the best option for you, but Facebook is…. Sadly… the default.

 

The Art in this book is rather top notch.

Ground Rules, Guidelines, and FAQ’s

            So let me show you the other two items that might give you an idea of how to run a game in the future.  Let’s start with the Crunch, that is to say, relevant rule changes that will crop up in the campaign, both at the stage of creating characters and those that are more long term.  These are “The Guidelines” more accurately described as “Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s)”.

1)      I ask that you not look up spoilers for the "Tomb of Annihilation". Even tho I plan to change a few things, adding some monsters from the various supplements I own and throwing in NPC's from my own campaign setting I plan to use the puzzles and traps provided, so don't try to cheat.

2)      We will be starting at Level 3, this will allow every to start off as a somewhat established adventurer being recruited to go on a dangerous journey to a foreign land full of danger, rather than a bunch of Level 1’s who would make as much sense going into this situation as throwing a handful of corn at a charging dinosaur as a means of stunning it into submission.

3)      You all will be using the Elite Array for your stats, 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8.  You can then add a +1 to any of those numbers in addition to your racial statistics or any bonuses you might get from feats.

4)      You all are going to start off as an established group of adventurers on a short adventure at the beginning.  The success of this short adventure is what gets the attention of the NPC who is doing their best to coordinate teams and send them to Chult to combat the Curse of Fatal Death.

5)      You are going to have the sort of boring equipment a level 1 party would have; you will get more stuff over the course of the first introductory adventure.

6)      I plan to use my kind of healing items for this adventure.  Which means cheap healing potions that can be used as a quick bonus action… but that expire over time, and other healing items that work slower but keep for much longer.

7)      We’ll be using the various religions I have cooked up in the past, the 5, the 3 (I will post a long blog about it, just like the others, I have it written it will be on the way), the Preserver, Orc Maltheism, the High Arcana, and the local religion of Chult which worships several regional deities after their chief creator and protector god abandoned them in ages past.  If you would like to create an off the beaten path custom religion I am welcome to hear your input.

8)      Please write up a character background (Good to note this is roughly the same setup I use in my own neglected blog series about creating characters), try to include:

·         Name

·         Class

·         Race

·         Background

·         History

·         Goals

·         Methods

9)      More rules might be added to this as time goes on, I will try to keep things consistent, but as always, I lend toward “Rule of Cool” which means if you have a good idea I am inclined to let you go for it, rather than simply saying “No”.  I am also more of a roleplaying guy rather than contriving combat… but this is a much more savage environment, combat will be more typical. 

10)  Lastly, there is a story in this, and I plan to give you guys a chance to make some decisions during this, rather than just jumping thru the hoops, you guys can gather more resources and allies along the way until you have a lot of power for the final boss fight, I find that kind of adventuring rewarding.

 

The Premise

            I am going to go on the record as saying that the premise of “Tomb of Annihilation” that people who have died are not coming back to life… To just be an inherently silly idea.  Welcome to the REAL-WORLD JACKASS!  That is why I titled my campaign the joking name “The Curse of Fatal Death” which is a reference to a Doctor Who comedy sketch.  That being said, I attempted to write all of this diegetically.

            Something terrible has started to assault the peace and security of the world.  People who die, cannot be brought back from the dead.  While the common people of the world have hardly noticed the difference, the rich and powerful see this development as a major crisis, as they now might suffer the same mortality that the common folk have always experienced.

            At first this might not seem like a massive issue, but there is an additional problem, those who have been brought back from the dead before are now wasting away, slowly being consumed by whatever horrible force that has made death final.

            This too may not immediately seem like a massive difficulty, until you realize how many of the various super powerful and capable heroes in the world have been brought back to life, and all the various horrors that exist just outside of our plane are readying themselves to attack our world the as its defenses and champions begin to wither and die.

            Expeditions to oracles, divinationists and other seers have resulted in conflicting messages about what the cause of the curse is, only that its power is growing, and more death will begin to creep in around the edges of the world until everything is swallowed.

            Adventurers of all stripes not yet affected by the Curse have begun scrambling to locate the source of the problem and currently the best leads have taken many to the land of Chult, a savage land of dinosaurs, undead, and barbarism that has pushed their great people to the coasts.  Deep within this continent is the promise of combating the Curse of Fatal Death. 

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