Adventures in Chult - Sessions 0, 1, and 2

Greetings and welcome to what I hope is the first of many updates on a game I am running for some friends. These are friends I met online a year ago in a Curse of Strahd game another friend ran for us, plus another new friend that came from another game with the majority of the players. While COVID clearly sucks, it did introduce me to some great people from across Canada and the US. 

If you know much about the official adventures published to support the 5e roleplaying system, you will likely recognize the word Chult in the title and assume that "Adventures In Chult" is a campaign based on Tomb of Annihilation. 

While that assumption is mostly true, Adventures in Chult is not completely true to the hardcover adventure. The basis of the story and main characters from Tomb are absolutely in Adventures in Chult, but the Chult I created extends and expands on the hardcover. To do this, I heavily utilized the wonderful online community that exists to help gamemasters enhance and customize Tomb to a campaign that works for the GM and the players. I hope to add to the community with these updates by providing my customizations and ideas in the hope that someone can take some nugget of wisdom or inspiration and apply it to their own games. 

If you are any of the players in my group, that should be the last spoiler you get from these updates. My intent with these updates is to highlight what happened in the last session and give some insight into the game design process. There will be no "boy, my players will sure be surprised when they find out next session that Darth and Luke are related" moments. 

That said, if you are not one of the players in my game and you want to play Tomb later, YOU NEED TO STOP READING NOW. While every Tomb game, and any role-playing game for that matter, should be unique, the major characters, faction, locations, and plot elements of the story will be revealed on these pages.

Session 0:
Our Session 0 started online in a Discord server I created for our game. That gave us the ability to discuss which characters everyone wanted to play and with the Avrae Discord bot, we even rolled them in Discord. It also gave us a chance to discuss any optional rules that might be of interest to the group. I created a channel for house rules, general chat, session notes, player-only chat, and of course a video chat channel for our actual game sessions. We were quite prepared going into the in-person Session 0 as a result. I highly recommend setting up a Discord server for your group. 
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Since we knew each other already, it was pretty easy to come together but there were still a few questions to review. After some quick introductions since two people had not previously met, we covered topics like party composition, out-of-character player roles, character death, and "nope card" or "X card" areas. I wanted to ensure we were clear on areas that we do not want to have in our game. Nothing came up in this area until one player mentioned he was opposed to sexual violence, and then everyone chimed in with complete agreement and one player mentioned that seemed obvious but was glad it specifically mentioned. As our roleplaying hobby matures and becomes more inclusive, discussing RPG Safety Tools in a Session 0 can really help make the table a safer place for everyone.  

The last step in our Session 0 was for me to hand out the Player Config Incentive Coins. These are a coin that I homebrewed in D&D Beyond to provide the players with Inspiration for completing some tasks to make sure they were ready for Session 1. The tasks included creating their character, filling out a backstory, logging into Foundry, and selecting their token color in Foundry. I found this to be a helpful way to get everyone to get a base level of familiarity with Foundry since we had only ever used Roll20 before.

Session 1:
The players all had wonderful ideas for their characters, with backstories and motivations that made them unique and interesting. There was Anemin, the insular and bookish scholar Elf Cleric from the library in Candlekeep; Burgell, the gnome tinker and artificer with a mother with a background in archaeology; Del, the half-elf cartography prodigy with no knowledge of his father; Isa, the dhampir barbarian noble with the exaggerated sense of self-importance; and Arco, the wood elf who has fended for himself since his village was destroyed. These are all great characters, but there is no obvious reason for them to be together. What is going to pull Anemin out of the library, and why would Isa stoop so low to trek through a tropical jungle?

In the three-and-a-half years I have been playing 5e, one thing I have learned is the importance of teamwork. That team is the collection of the players and the GM, and the teamwork is focused on collectively creating a memorable story. An essential element in building the team is an effective Session 0. Mike Shea lists critical success factors in a Session 0 on his Sly Flourish site. One of his points that I wanted to focus on the campaign was having what Shea calls Character Integration. Why is this party a party? What pulled them together? What makes them want to work together on a common goal?

"Cellar of Death", available on DM's Guild

For help with that, I turned to the great Tomb supplement available on DM's Guild, the "Cellar of Death" adventure by James Introcaso.

The character integration hook in Cellar is that the team (but primarily the players) create a common NPC that they all have a connection to. And then you kill him. 

Well, in my game we did not kill the common friend off, but we did make him gravely ill. Laying on his death bed in Athkatla, the NPC we named Nelison greeted the party and with his next-to-last breaths, he gave the party gifts from his past adventures. 

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Here are the gifts each character received and the narrative text I used to describe some of the items. If there is no text, the item came from a rollable table:

• Anemin: A large stack of bound pages of a diary written in an ancient, forgotten language, and a glass figurine of a beast with three horns. For the diary: "I bought this from a trader in the Anauroch, The Great Sand Sea. He claimed it came from Candlekeep. Whether it does or not, I have always thought you would know what to do with it."
• Arco: A palm-sized stone etched with a maze, with an outer ring that can be turned to one of many positions, and the mummified hand of a monkey. For the stone: "You never get lost, but your path has never been clear. Maybe this maze will act as a symbol to help you travel to a place of safety."
• Burgell: A small pot containing yellow ink that is barely legible when used but gets darker over time, and a leather purse once reportedly owned by a young king named Omu. For the purse: "Once as a much younger person, I was travelling through the Reaching Woods. A foolish bandit ambushed me, but I quickly bested him. I spared his life on the condition he give me something that interested me. He told me this was once owned by a young king named Omu. I let him go."
• Del: A signed piece of parchment signed by Volo Geddarm that says, "Thanks, I owe you one!", and a reptilian eye preserved in varnish that still reacts to light. For the parchment: "If you are ever come across that traveling scamp, remind him he still owes me a favor! I'm sure you could use this and your considerable charm to extract something of value out of Volo."
• Isa: A bracelet made from a petrified snake, and a miniature stuffed animal covered in gray fur with sharp claws on both hands and feet. For the stuffed animal: "A court jester gave this to me. The name of the creature is lost to me, but it was said that it feasted on humanoid flesh. Holding this would sway any number of them under your control. But as you know, the tales of an old fool jester cannot always be trusted."

With that done, Nelison fell asleep, and the party left his room. They were greeted shortly after by Remallia Haventree, a major character in Faerun lore and the Cellar adventure. Remallia implored the party to come to her aid as her forces would be preoccupied by the frontal assault on a lich and needed a party to scour the lich's dungeon for her phylactery. Remallia had intelligence that this lich would provide valuable information on the source of the disease that was killing Nelison and many others across Faerun. With the imperative of helping their common friend to bind them, they struck out and headed for the dungeon. 

Cellar is a great supplement to help provide the party with a sense of Character Integration and a suspenseful and realistic dungeon for first level characters. Unfortunately, Cellar as sold on DM's Guild does not provide a map of the dungeon suitable for playing online. For that, I turned to the great community I mentioned in the opening paragraphs and found this link on Reddit. While I did not use most of the ideas the author suggested, I did find the map to be particularly nice. One issue is that some of the passages are quite narrow, making it was difficult for the players to navigate their characters through. That could be solved by more careful placement of the walls and adjusting the Grid Size for the Scene.

Session 2:
Here is a picture of the map in use in Foundry showing the walls, terrain walls, Journal Entries, party, and a couple of skeleton corpses. Session 1 finished near the start of the dungeon crawl, and this picture is of them leaving with the phylactery. 

As they proceeded through the dungeon, the party was extremely cautious, befitting their Level 1 status. At one point there are a couple doors along a hall that sounds of chewing could be heard through. Del had the idea to tie the doors shut together so that they could not be opened and whatever was making the chewing noises could not come out. This worked well because now the ghoul in the one room was out of commission for any future combat. 

At the next room, the party tried to sneak by two other ghouls but made too much noise. The ghouls were quickly dispatched, leaving the party to investigate some barrels along a wall. I had not paid them any attention, so of course the players would want to know what is in them. I said they were filled with wine and was pressed for details on how good the wine was. Based on the quality of the oak barrels, I said it was a fine wine. At this point, Anemin says that he wants to take a cask of the lich's wine. The things players come up with!

The player interaction with the wine barrels is important for two reasons. First, as a gamemaster it is important to be flexible so that they players know they can make decisions about how their characters interact with the world. Second, the wine barrel became a key story point for how the players got the phylactery. 

After the combat with the ghouls and getting the wine barrel, the treasure room with the phylactery was quickly found. The party quick assessed the room and recognized that the pillars and chest were trapped. So like any sane party, they emptied the wine barrel, put Burgell into it and positioned him in front of the chest. The idea of putting Burgell into the barrel is that he would be protected from the magic embedded in the pillars. While this might not have been completely consistent with the level of magic a lich would use to protect her phylactery, it was a great story element and we all had a lot of fun with it.

Once in position, Burgell then guided Anemin's Mage Hand in opening the chest. Once the chest was opened, Burgell again guided Anemin to get the phylactery and a bag of 20 platinum coins. Next up, run like hell out of the dungeon and signal for Remallia. 

On the beach, Remallia yells to the lich telling her to negotiate for the return of the phylactery. The lich is seriously injured but is still powerful. She wants her phylactery back and therefore does provide information about a Death Curse emanating from somewhere in Chult. She also tells the party that the only apparatus that could consume that many souls is a Soulmonger, but she had no idea what would require a Soulmonger. Clearly there is a great evil somewhere in Chult. 

The lich gets her phylactery, the party leaves the beach and regroups on a ship. Remallia asks the party to investigate Chult for clues to the location of the Soulmonger while she attends to related business on the Sword Coast. The party agrees, and Remallia lends them the ship for the trip to Port Nyanzaru. 

Deviations and Similarities to Tomb of Annihilation:
Up to this point, there has been little connection with the actual Tomb hardcover adventure. But now, the party is en route to Port Nyanzaru and the official material can start to be applied to our game. Remember that we are in Session 2 with about five hours of game time so far. The party knows nothing about the Soulmonger other than it is somewhere on Chult, but they have bonded in combat and have a common friend that needs to be saved. 

It should be noted that another deviation from the hardcover adventure is the mechanic used for the Death Curse. As written, characters inflicted with the Death Curse lose 1 HP per day, meaning that low level characters will die within days of being cursed. This time element adds immense urgency to the game, but then takes away from any story development or exploration opportunities. To remedy this, I picked up the great alternative Death Curse rules, "Chultan Death Curse: Revised!" by Teos Abadia.

"Chultan Death Curse: Revised!", available on DM's Guild

This is another supplement available on DM's Guild and it provides a solution to the ticking timebomb Death Curse as presented in the official hardcover adventure. By progressing the Death Curse to match the player progression, I can give the party a chance to explore and learn about Chult, with distinct timing points to ratchet up the urgency. They can have fun in Port Nyanzaru, figure out where they want to search, and which quests they want to take, without having to be concerned with everyone around them immediately dying.

The way I played the common NPC friend the party created was to put him at Stage 3 of the curse. He is very weak and cannot move without pain. The effects of healing are limited, and it is clear the individual will soon die if the curse cannot be lifted. This also gives the party some ability to save their common friend, rather than just having to avenge his pointless death.

​If you are looking to run a Tomb game that allows the players to interact and explore Chult in detail, I highly recommend picking up this supplement. 

With that deviation noted, the game started to focus on the similarities to the official hardcover adventure. Before parting ways, the party asked how they would contact her. This was another unexpected point from the party. I quickly came up with the idea that the Merchant Prince Wakanga had means of communicating with Remallia, which gave the party a reason to interact with Wakanga. I also provided a hook to the pirates in the adventure, but instead of having an interaction with them, the ship's crew noticed a pirate ship sailing away from them. Plot hook provided without a need for ship-to-ship combat.

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The trip to Port Nyanzaru would take a few days, so the party had time to heal, and it gave me time to encourage some roleplay between the characters.

• Anemin is a scholar who has spent most of his life in a library, and he likes to discuss things he read about. He launched into a discussion about the principle of buoyancy with the ship's crew. 
• Arco is quite and aloof, so he spent his days sleeping in hammock.
• Burgell is quite encumbered with his low strength and scale mail, so before heading to the lich's dungeon, we decided that he would have a mule which he now had to tend to on the ship.

I also created a gregarious NPC on the ship called Jeroni who was the focal point for all interactions with the crew. I used him to ask the party why they wanted adventure and life on land when they could spend their time on the sea like he did. I took this question from the great article on Roleplay Warmups, located at this link. 

Aremag the Dragon Turtle, © Wizards.

As the ship approached the Bay of Chult, the party encountered Aremag, a massive, cantankerous dragon turtle. Many sources helping gamemasters prepare for Tomb suggest that the party come in by ship to make this encounter possible, and I am glad for the advice. The party was unimpressed with the encounter until I showed them the above image directly in Foundry. The size and ferocity of Aremag definitely got their attention. 

I also used Foundry to advantage in this encounter. The Polyglot module for Foundry allows for chats to be made in specific languages and to be readable only if the character knows that language. I worked with the players to ensure they all had one language that only they knew to provide for opportunities that only their characters could participate on. In this case, Isa knows Draconic so when Aremag demanded tribute, only he knew what was being said. 

Aurix ui rigluin ekess dolruth. majak ve usv loreat. (Draconic)

You must pay a tribute to pass. If your tribute insults me, I will sink your ship. (Common)

I used an online Draconic Translator to great the words Aremag said. I tried to voice Aremag with a very rough and gruff bassy voice. Once Isa realized that only he could read the words in chat, he quickly relayed the information to the party. This was also a good learning moment for the party that they had languages that were unique to their characters, and how the Polyglot module worked. 

The party quickly responded to Aremag's demand for tribute and threw the 20 PP they pilfered from the lich's dungeon overboard. Burgell also wonder if a flesh sacrifice was required and threw his mule into the water. Aremag did not care, but the circling sharks were appreciative. I cannot help think of this scene and not laugh! Poor mule!

Arriving in Port Nyanzaru:
Quickly after the mule-death scene, the party approached Port Nyanzaru, and Session 2 ended. I read the following text to the party as the session ended, readying us for Session 3. The text is meant to describe what the players see as they travel east to west from Tirikyi Anchorage to the royal harbor. 

• The land mass of Chult that was a distant speck on the horizon yesterday begins to come into focus. The crew of the ship adjust course slightly as you near a pier and port district. The buildings in this area are crammed together and sport myriad colors - Blues and yellows and reds. Passing the dock, the land starts to rise sharply and between the buildings and the steep cliffs plunging into the ocean is a stone wall.
  
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  The stone wall continues west and as you clear the dock district you see a much larger and heavily fortified wall beyond the colorful buildings. This impressive stone wall is several feet high and its smooth stone face is painted with vibrant geometric patterns. Regularly-spaced look-out towers adorned with broad awnings can be seen along the length of the wall, each one with at least one guard.
  
  
• The bright sun gleams off a broad golden dome. The dome sits atop a magnificent structure, easily the tallest building in the city. The domed building is surrounded by another fortified stone wall.
  
  
• Past that you see an imposing stone structure built directly on the waterfront. From the austere lines, numerous guards, and two ballistas mounted on the roof, the structure is clearly a military installation.
  
  
• Immediately west from the fort across open water is a tall lighthouse. Topped with a roaring fire, the lighthouse stands on a small person-made island in the middle of a wide harbor. A walkway built atop a stone breakwater connects the lighthouse to the west shore of the harbor.
  
  
• As your ship drops sails and begins to coast, you are greeted by an enormous statue in the middle of the harbor. The statue depicts a human male in full royal regalia, resplendent in a loincloth of leopard skin and a headdress of feathers, shells, and enormous teeth. His shoulders are draped with fur and he wields an oval shield in one hand and a long pole mounted with an enormous blade in the other.
  
  
• A small dinghy in the middle of the harbor sports a small crew. They ring loud bells to get your attention and then motion for you to turn to starboard toward a series of wooden piers. The piers are flanked on the starboard side by the breakwater and walkway that connect to the lighthouse, and to the port side by another breakwater that angles to the shore and a boxy stone building with an immense fountain whose water jets shift continually to create amazing shapes.
  
  
• You pass a ship being towed to the docks, its mast broken and laying forlornly across the deck. A large hole gapes open barely above the waterline on the port side.
  
  
• The crew of "The Brazen Tide" skillfully maneuver the ship to the dock and lines are thrown overboard to waiting dockhands.
  
  
• Welcome to Port Nyanzaru.