I thought I'd start a blog to track the Tomb of Annihilation campaign I'm running. Today was our fifth session.
Backstory
The first three sessions essentially took us through the Adventurer's League introductory adventure "City on the Edge" exploring Port Nyanzaru and foiling a plot by Yuan-Ti servants of Dendar the Night Serpent who were attempting to infiltrate the city and do something nefarious with a magical amulet. Before arriving in the city they ran into Amerag the Dragon Turtle while sailing through the Bay of Chult and contributed a donation to expanding its treasure horde. After defeating the Yuan-Ti the PC's were approached by Wakanga O'Tamu, a merchant prince of the city, and his friend the Archmage Syndra Sylvane of Baldur's Gate, dying of a death curse whose source she had tracked to the wilds of Chult. She sought to outfit the PC's to undertake an expedition to find and retrieve or eliminate this device or entity that is currently preventing resurrection magic from taking effect and slowly draining the life from those who were previously recipients of such magic.
I should also note that the PC's had an unusual factional split amongst themselves, with 2 Harpers and 4 Zhentarim finding enough trust in each other to work together in this foreign land. They also found themselves closely aligned with both Soggy Wren, the local Harper spymaster, and Poc-Marked Po, the Zhent agent.
After accepting and organizing their expedition, some of the PC's undertook a trip back across the Bay of Chult to Fort Beluarian to obtain an exploration charter from the Flaming Fist as well as to drop off the evil Yuan-Ti magic device somewhere in the Bay, ideally within the hoard of the dragon turtle. Sailing off with some traders from the far off land of Zakhara the PC's had another run in with the dragon turtle, and managed to unload the Yuan-Ti item on Amerag who appreciated adding another magic item to its pile. At the Fort the PC's gained a charter along with a commission to be paid for any ghoul heads they managed to retrieve while exploring Chult. The party took the name the "Band of the Green Dragonborn" after the member of their party who had achieved the greatest degree of notoriety during their time in Chult. They then found some fishermen willing to sail them back across the Bay to Port Nyanzaru.
Soon after they returned to the Port, the party set off up the River Soshenstar. Running into an actual band of green dragonborns serving as Zhent mercenaries heading off to guard a diamond mine at their first stop outside the city, the party lost the green dragonborn who had provided the name to their band (there may have been a lady dragonborn in that group, but in any case he left, as his player moved to another city). Paddling up river, the party was ambushed by goblins. Fighting them off, the party tracked them to the Batiri Goblin village of Yellyark. Fighting their way through the goblins, the party was shocked when the goblins reacted by using their tension device to launch their village a great distance away into the jungle as they made a fighting retreat. After obtaining a very small amount of treasure that included the control amulet for a Shield Guardian Wakanga O'Tamu had tasked them with finding. The party then returned to the river and their guides, the cat people River Mist and Flask of Wine along with the acolyte Inete of the Temple of Savras, who joined them to help uncover the dark forces in and south of the Aldani Basin, near the headwaters of the river they were traveling up. Soon after the party found a ruined and overrun encampment of the Order of the Gauntlet at the base of a native shrine carved in the form of a man carrying a crocodile on his back. By emulating Man and Crocodile, the human Sembian Sam and Shaun the Kobold were able to avoid most of the traps and the party retrieved and alchemy jug, quite a useful magic item for jungle exploration. Which ended the last session prior to today's...
The Player Characters
Sembian Sam (absent - he disappeared suddenly as the party prepared to exit the shrine) Rogue 2, Ranger 1, archaeologist, Harper
Shaun the Kobold Cleric (light of Kossuth) 3, Criminal from streets of Port Nyanzaru, Zhent
Adran, Wood Elf Bard (Valor) 3, Entertainer and Bagpiper from the cold northern forests, Zhent
Angry Agatha, Half-Orc Barbarian 2, Fighter 1, Harper, bodyguard and long time associate of Sembian Sam
Varis, High Elf Wizard 3 (evoker), acolyte of Oghma
Rainy Day, Cat Person Monk 3, Chultan native
Today's Events
Upon exiting the shrine between the feet of the man carrying the crocodile, the party found themselves facing a native Chultan woman surrounded by a dozen goblins. Rainy Day at that moment had just crossed the river from the party's camp on the other side of the river and was separated from the rest of the party by the ruined encampment. He was discovered by another goblin watching to make sure nobody came from across the river. The party's negotiations with the Chultan woman who disparaged them for coming from abroad and looting the heritage of her people (particularly without the blessings of the Merchant Prince Jobal concerned with expeditions to the interior) were not going well, and after the warning sign from the watcher goblin she told the goblins to kill the party and a combat ensued. But before the goblins could launch their arrows Adnan unleashed a sleep spell and Angry Agatha roared raging directly up to the Chultan woman, giving a wicked slash with her great sword. The Chultan responded with a blast of poison spray in Agatha's face before running, prompting Agatha to give her another slash. She retreated past Rainy Day who dashed across the encampment to discover what was happening, but he was quickly in combat with a couple of goblins blocking his advance. The wizard Varis, Agatha, and Adran all took damage from goblin arrows and scimitars but rays of frost from the wizard and two thunderwaves from the bard took care of a number of goblins while the barbarian faced off against the goblin's leader. Shaun the Kobold kept the party going with healing magic to the wizard and the barbarian and the handful of remaining goblins did not stick around after their leader died.
The party discussed chasing after the goblins and the mysterious Chultan but decided instead to next seek out the X on their map marking the location of Vorn now that they had the control amulet. After a run in with some crocodiles and a pause to wait out some mad monkey mist the party found a camp site by the river closest to the spot marked on their map. Leaving the NPC's guarding the camp once more, the party set off into the jungle. They quickly realized they greatly missed the presence of Sembian Sam, as Agatha was the only remaining party member with navigation skills, and those turned out to be somewhat underdeveloped. Fortunately, they were in a relatively well traveled area and a friendly weretiger on its way to visit his Aaracokra friends in the Mistcliff Mountains showed up and offered to escort them as far as the shrine of Vorn. While on the way they were ambushed by another group of goblins from a different tribe than the two they had encountered so far. The party expressed some frustration at the behavior of these goblins but the weretiger was philosophical about the nature of goblins. During their last couple hours of the weretiger's time with party the wood elf decided it was a good time to practice his bagpipes so the weretiger decided it was time to move on by himself, but he did leave the part at the Vorn shrine, which did indeed turn out to be a shield guardian which Varis quickly figured out how to operate, and this was surmised to be quite a helpful addition to the party, and his utility was quickly demonstrated on the way back as the party was stampeded and soon in a life and death struggle with a flock of Axe Beaks. Finding a 5 foot wide slime path, they party decided to avoid investigating what they thought might be a flail snail thanks to the copy of Volo's Guide they had bought in the Port but instead sought to rejoin their guides by the river. Again Agatha's guidance fell somewhat short, as the found the river but not the camp. Deciding, in any event, to head south upstream the party soon enough found their camp anyway and it was on to Camp Vengeance, the next location along the river.
Ruins of Matolo
Despite the party still being 3rd level, I like the introduction to Camp Vengeance in "Ruins of Matolo" so I decided to use that. A CR 8 monster would be tough, but it was by itself and the scenario included some assistance from the garrison; the biggest threat was the bite attack being enough to drop pretty much any party member with one hit.
Upon rounding a bend in the river, the party found the Camp under attack by a Zombie Tyrannosaurus. They leapt into action, the monk charging first into combat and hitting the beast three times and knocking it on its rear. Unfazed, the dinosaur spat out a zombie that moved to attack and then bit the monk - one hit being enough to drop the cat. Angry Agatha and the Adnan the bard both quickly also moved into combat while Shaun the Kobold and the wizard held off, using ranged magical attacks. The barbarian, raging, actually stayed standing after one bite from the dinosaur but there was now another zombie spat out and attacking. The kobold then attempted to turn undead, and the two humanoid zombies were driven off - but not the t-rex! Another bite nearly dropped the barbarian, but she held on only to drop following a hit from the third disgorged zombie. The shield guardian next waded in to attack, the second hit doing the trick, dropping the dinosaur. Inete and the catfolk were now inside the Camp and assisting the camp's archers, and between them and the party short work was made of the remaining zombies. We faded out, as Shaun rushed to throw a healing spell on the Cat-Monk, and the garrison of the camp cheering the heroics of the party...
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