Jungles of Chult: Wakanga's Journal

Given to the players by the merchant prince Wakanga, after last session--their successful return from down the River Tiryki seeking the Tomb of the Serpent Kings.

The journal is worn and waterlogged ... except the physical copy I gave to the players is not, because I wasn't sure what would happen to the 24-page pocket-journal if I threw it into a puddle.

A sketch of some of the crew at the outset of the expedition, ready and optimistic ...

------

p2.
[a MAP of the route]

p.3
EXPEDITION from NYANZARU
-- Myself & VORN
-- TXALA & SIGHING WIND -- guides
-- NBOMA OXFIST  --
-- ZEBU the WILD    -- fighting-men
-- MLALA TURKA -- fighting woman
-- SIFISO, FUDU, CWATHA, porters

3 CANOES
350 days rations
insect repellant
dozen canteens, pots for boiling water
3 tents

OUR GOAL: the lost city of OROLUNGA & its ORACLE!

p4.
Day 1 -- Sailed from Nyanzaru to Ngana to collect final supplies. Clear skies, no sign of AREMAG. Arrived in good spirits. Shared a feast and a toast to our continued success at the inn. Now to bed--set out early in the morning.

Day 2 -- Word of plesiosaurs off beach--we hired mules to port our canoes & set off due south. Passed through the Palm Orchards of Ishau, bought palm wine to add

p5.
to our supplies for morale. At jungle's edge, sent mules and teamsters back. Claw-runners shadowed camp, but NBOMA & MLALA scattered them with well-shot bows. Into jungle to morrow [sic].

Day 3 -- Weird mists in the morning. Passed 3 women by a broken canoe on the shore as we paddled by. I wanted to help, but ZEBU & TXALA shook their heads--"They are evil spirits." They called out to us most pitifully, but we went on.

p6.
I thought I heard cackling through the mists when we lost sight of them. Am left discomfitted & restless.

Day 5 -- Spotted a behemoth in the morning, eating from the treetops with its long neck. Almost lost a canoe when its tail swept beneath. Then, once camp was made, a mist rolled out of the jungle--blue & thick. TXALA & WIND got everyone

p7.
up the trees to let it pass. Poor FUDU got a lungful, though, & now won't stop telling us that he feels something watching him.

Day 6 -- An easy day. We're making progress upriver

Day 7 -- FUDU is still raving about being watched. Almost started a fight by accusing NBOMA of stealing. MLALA got NBOMA cooled down & ZEBU pulled FUDU aside for some kind of tea concoction. He's calm now

p8.
Day 8 -- Met a group of folks coming downriver--led by HEW HACKINSTONE the dwarf. Warned us about the forest upriver--"place of a thousand demons"--we sent FUDU downriver with them.
Further upriver found a dead man on the bank--one of their expedition? Was badly eaten.
Took right fork in river, but by night it seemed wrong choice--became narrow, difficult to traverse. Forest filled with evil eyes & sounds.

p9.
Day 9 -- LOST. River became a maze. A talking ape with black eyes followed us, offering directions, but only seemed to get us more lost.
The forest is filled with mutterings, and we have lost a full pack of rations--taken by thieving monkeys?

Day 10 -- back on track. Found dead explorer on bank--much decayed already. Took left fork of river--seems good so far.

p10.
Day 11 -- Canoe capsized in the morning by snake-like beast. ZEBU was badly bitten, but spears, &c. were able to drive it off.
ZEBU patched himself up, & we made good time after that. Lost a week of rations.

Day 12  Passed a herd of duck-bills feeding at the riverside around noon. They watched us, but did not flee. Seemed a free herd--very beautiful. Otherwise, made good time.

p11.
Day 13 -- Caught side [sic] of a fortress on a high outcropping of rock--TXALA called it TAMBA ROCK. WIND added that the master is old & eccentric & some kind of magic-user. Considered going to ask for supplies, but decided against. Continued on.

Day 14 -- A good day of travel. Had some trouble getting to the bank to make camp b/c a swarm of piranhas decided to hang around beneath our boats all afternoon.

p12.
Day 15 -- An aarakocra patrol passed over us in the morning, but did not hail us. We continued upriver without further incident.

Day 16 -- No trouble today

Day 17 -- No trouble. Counted rations--175 days remaining. We'll need to resupply somehow, as we must push on.

Day 18 -- Good day. Clear air, river beautiful. Sometimes I enjoy the jungle & its majesty!

p13.
Day 19 -- Lost ZEBU & SIGHING WIND. Were ambushed by lizardmen shortly after midday. Their javelins killed WIND, & then while we got into the boats, ZEBU went back to try to grab WIND'S body. They pulled him down ...
The blood in the water attracted piranhas & we just camped in the boats, run aground as well as we could.

Day 20 -- Damn piranhas stayed with us all night. Damn this place. Damn it all.

p14.
Day 21 -- Killed a giant snake tonight & cooked & ate it. Good thing too. Supplies are getting low--we lost some after the lizardmen attacked

Day 22  We hailed some passing aarakocra in the morning & sought to trade with them for rations. They gave us a week of their fare for a share of spears from us. Uneventful otherwise

Day 23 -- A great Stone tree rises out of the jungle to

p15.
the northwest. It is not OROLUNGA, but we will investigate it nonetheless. Killed another snake in the morning--they are not bad eating at all!

Day 24  Left the canoes ag [sic] tied & hidden at the bank--we now strike inward, into the jungle. May the gods help us.
--Later--made camp--no trouble through the day. STone [sic] tree not far, we'll get there tomorrow I think

p16.
Day 25 -- Got to the tree at midday. The place is filled with giant wasps. CWATHA was stung--I do not think he will make it. The tree is hollow--inside, it seems it was once furnished. There are pieces that make me think another practitioner of the arcane arts once dwelt w/in, but the place is long abandoned.

--Later--CWATHA did not make it. We buried him under a cairn in the jungle.

p17.
Day 26 -- We go SW, seeking a NW tributary to the SOSHENSTAR. I hope to find OROLUNGA at its head.
CLAW-runners attacked us as we made camp, but VORN drove them off. He has always been a stalwart companion--if only he could know how much I appreciate his presence.

Day 27 -- Still SW. It is difficult going through the jungle. Always hacking with the machete, climbing roots, fighting mosquitoes. I can't wait for a bath in Nyanzaru.

p18.
Day 28 -- Found the tributary! A flock of leatherwings descended on us as we came on it, but our arrows and my spells brought some down. We tried to eat them, but there is surprisingly little meat on the creatures. The rest of the day was spent following the tributary NW. No other trouble.

Day 29 -- Disaster. We were attacked by a mouth-dragon as we rested at midday. It came out

p19.
of the jungle & before we could do anything it had snapped jaws around NBOMA & tossed him into the air. It was horrible ...
We fled, & it seemed content to eat him & let us go.
That was not the end of our trouble, though--that evening as we made camp, horrible things like small mangy bears came up out of the jungle. They attacked with their claws, & I saw MLALA'S & TXALA'S

p.20
armor literally deteriorate before my eyes as they struck. But I managed to put them all to sleep with a dwimmer, & we slew the things then. TXALA called them "Zorbos"--foul creatures!

Day 30  Continuing NW along the tributary. I hope we are close to OROLUNGA.

Day 31  Attacked by stirges at midday--I slept them, & we slaughtered

p21.
them. In the afternoon, mists began to roll down from upriver to the NW--not the evil blue mists, but a natural fog ...

Day 32 -- The tributary has led us into an area of hot springs, mists, & volcanic activity. There are geysers & deep pools of hot acidic water of brilliant blue color; & there are fissures of hot rock & mud that open up into the

p22.
We were attacked. Lizardmen came from the mists.
Killed everyone--TXALA, MLALA, SIFISO
VORN is with me. I am injured. Without VORN I would be dead.

They came out of the mists--bright red skin, some were mounted on bird-things.
They hurled javelins, & one was a sorcerer--summoned fire in his hands & cast it forth.

p23.
Poor MLALA burned to death. TXALA was overcome. SIFISO ran, & died w/a javelin in his back. At least, I think he was dead.
VORN saved me. We fled into the jungle--I am lost. Must try to find the river. find my way back.
My leg is wounded--the blood dried--it hurts, but I should not die of blood loss.
I fear I will not make it out.

p24.
LOST
HUNGRY
FOUND FRUIT
CANNOT FIND WATER
ATTACKED BY SNAIL
LEG SWOLLEN--INFECTED
I AM DYING
VORN CANNOT HELP ME
CURSE THIS PLACE
CURSE THIS JUNGLE
CURSED BE THE THOUGHT EVER TO SET FOOT IN THIS HELL

Travelling in the Wilderness: Becoming Lost

(new rule idea in the middle of this post)


"If a party is lost, the DM may choose the direction the party moves in, or use a random die roll. The DM must keep track of the party's actual position, as well as the direction the party believes it is moving. For example, the DM determines that a party ... has become lost. ... the party wishes to travel north; however, the DM has secretly determined that the party will head northeast. If after travelling in this direction for 6 miles, should the group decided to turn northwest, they will actually turn north." ("Travelling in the Wilderness", Dungeons and Dragons Expert Rules, p.X56)

A diagram using hexes follows.

I have never used this rule.

I did invoke a "becoming lost" rule once, in my Jungles of Chult game, which in 5e is of course a skill check (a Survival [Wisdom] check, DC 10 for waterways or DC 15 for jungles). Failure indicates that when the party moves into the "next" hex, roll a d6 to randomly determine which neighboring hex they actually enter. "... While the party is lost, players can't pinpoint the group's location on their map of Chult. The next time a navigator succeeds on a Wisdom (Survival) check made to navigate, reveal the party's actual location to the players." ("Chapter 2: The Land of Chult", Tomb of Annihilation, p.38)

Actually, I didn't use that rule by-the-text either, because I allowed a player character to make a second roll to get on track after the navigators (River Mist and Flask of Wine) got themselves turned around with a failed roll.

Where I have used rules like it is when playing Outdoor Survival (the hex map of which, as I understand it, was the basis for much D&D exploration back in the genesis-days). In that game it makes sense. As a board game, each player has perfect information about the board and the state of his "character" and position on the board, and even everyone else's character and position. The only way to simulate "lostness" in such a case is to force a player to move in a random direction as indicated by a die roll. (Every turn you roll a die to determine how lost you are; a good roll allows you to choose a direction, a bad roll forces you to move in a die-rolled direction)

image from Boardgamegeek

But D&D is emphatically not a game of perfect information. A player has the information on his character sheet and on whatever map he may have drawn, and beyond that relies on the referee's description of his character's location and surroundings. D&D is a game of discovery, of epistemology one might say ... a game in which players map a space according to the referee's descriptions which may or may not conform to the referee's map of the "actual" space, and where such accuracy or deviation can have serious consequences for the state of the characters and the game.

So D&D doesn't need to simulate "lostness" in the way that Outdoor Survival does. The players already don't know the map, and don't know where they're going. And I don't much like the idea of running "getting lost" at the table by travelling in a random direction--to go back to the B/X quote at the top, to keep track of where the characters are on my map and also where they think they are on my map, and to adjust their movements accordingly seems like a hassle. I won't lie, I already have trouble keeping track of where the party is on a hex map just for myself when I'm supposed to be notating it in pencil ... sometimes I forget to mark a day's travel, or when they're not moving at the speed of one hex per day I forget how far through the hex they've moved this turn ... (maybe I'll post about hex maps in the future).

------

Long story short, I have a thought for another way to simulate becoming lost that would mitigate the hassle of the map and confusion on the referee's (my) part:

Becoming Lost
When moving from hex to hex (or from area to area, maybe), treat navigation as an "open door" type check. The party rolls a die (be it a straight 1-2 on a d6 or rolling a d20 plus Survival [Wisdom] against some DC, or whatever) and if they succeed, they may proceed into the next area. If they fail the roll, their day's travel is suspended as they try to find a passable way into the next area but their way is blocked by impassable brambles, a raging river, a sheer cliff, or their own incompetence at wilderness travel. They do not advance or move anywhere else.

On the next day, they may either try again with another roll, or must try to circumvent the barrier through magic or by traveling another direction (depending on whether you, the referee, treat the roll as final or as re-rollable).

In most situations, the party is able to backtrack the way they've come without having to roll anything, especially in the cast that they've mapped their way there. But in especially thick wilderness (a jungle, say), the party might have to make a roll to make their way into another hex or area even if that is the same hex or area from whence they've just come. I'd probably still allow a bonus to backtrack, especially with a map ...

------

This method of getting lost would cut out an element of the game that I feel is intellectually interesting, but which often bogs down at the table: the mode of play in which it is up to the players to ensure that their map is correct, to interrogate the fictive space that the referee is describing to be certain that they have grasped the "truth" of their representation of it.

Theoretically, the rules for getting lost in B/X D&D actually appeal to me, in the way that the sliding corridors, one-way doors, and secret teleporters that Gygax seems so fond of in dungeons are theoretically appealing. What fun it would be, I think to myself reading such rules, to be in a dungeon where I was suddenly deposited somewhere from which I don't know how to get to the exit. I would have to map myself back to a familiar space on my map!

The problem with this type of play is that most of the time I'm stuck with two or three hours for the game at most, and I've got to resolve things by the end (for my pick-up games ... same-people campaigns are a bit different, and you can put things on hold until next session). Jeff Rients' Triple Secret Random Dungeon Fate Chart of Very Probable Doom (scroll to the bottom) can help with resolving what happens when characters are stuck or lost in the dungeon (or wilderness--need a new table!) at the end of a session; but what happens when characters are split up in the middle of play? Do you split time between them? Cut one side out and have them roll to get out while you stay with the other group?

I know there must be good ways for referees to deal with these things effectively and without bogging play down, but I am not at the moment privy to them. Perhaps someone out there has procedures that make this part of the game as easy as the rest is--and I would be glad to learn from them!--but as of now, I haven't played in anyone else's hexcrawl, and only one other referee's "squarecrawl", so I'm just muddling things out for myself.

Jungles of Chult Session 3

our intrepid adventurers:
Nugiri (lizardman monk)
Takashi (human magic-user)
Nebin (halfling barbarian)
Qinsela (human druid)
Iedos (tiefling paladin)
Nsi Losi (human fighting-man)
Thrice-Orphaned (goliath fighter)
with River Mist and Flask of Wine (cat-man fighter and thief) as guides
and hired slingers Olol and Benge
and hired porters Adoun and Biango


The last session ended with half the party that had originally set out dead, and the other half plus newcomer Qinsela, safely returned to Port Nyanzaru a little bit richer. Nebin and Takashi immediately blew their gains on booze and possibly hookers, and ended up in debt to merchant princes Jessamine (Nebin, for 100 gold) and Jobal (Takashi, for 400 gold). Takashi was also beaten and robbed while drunk, and had to begin this session without clothes and with a few hit points fewer.

Bumming around town for a couple days, the adventurers were able to gather a few rumors:

Firstly, while carousing, Nebin and Takashi learned of the new tavern-brothel the House of Flowers and Fruit, wherein beautiful men and women with brightly colored skin and floral petals rather than hair work as courtesans. These creatures, who call themselves the Flowers of Puljra, only appeared out of the jungle recently. Nobody has ever seen anything quite like them--they seem dryad-like, and there is a weird tree now growing in the courtyard of the House with weird fruits that almost look like fetal-position-men ...

Secondly, within the last few weeks, giant saltwater crocodiles have begun to attack the supply-ships that shuttle supplies to and from Fort Beluarian to the north east. The commander of the Fort, one Liara Portyr, has publicly offered a bounty of 100 gold for the head of each such crocodile brought to her, and a lesser bounty of 10 gold for any regularly-sized crocodile. Given their encounters with crocodiles last session, the players quickly turned their noses up at this offer--"Needs to be a lot higher bounty for us to do that!"

Thirdly, they heard of a priestess of Torm seeking passage down the Soshenstar River to Camp Vengeance, forward outpost of the Order of the Gauntlet (a militant clerical order bent on eradicating the undead menace in the jungles ... and not doing a very good job of it). When the party approached this Undril Silvertusks, half-orc priestess, they learned that she had a packet of letters and orders for Commander Niles of Camp Vengeance, but that she didn't have any money to pay for an escort--she was looking to add her skills to any expedition headed down the Soshenstar. Hearing this lack of coin, the party quickly and politely said, "Maybe next time, good luck!" and elected to seek money elsewhere.

Lastly, the adventurers were approached by a messenger from merchant-prince Wakanga (cue Black Panther jokes at the table), the only magic-user from among that illustrious number. The messenger indicated that his master would like an audience with the adventurers who traveled up the Tiryki River and returned, as he had a business offer regarding a site further up that river. Seeking him out, the party learned from him that he had heard from another expedition of a tomb dug out in the hills southeast of the swamp with the Sailback Shrine--a tomb of the Yuan-Ti, the serpent men that once filled the jungles of Chult, but which now linger only in deep places and old stories. This tomb, presumably of the Serpent-Kings, Wakanga believes to contain magical artefacts from of old, and he would dearly love to get his hands on such--if the adventurers were willing to delve into its depths and return especially with books of spells or magical manuals, Wakanga would be more than grateful and shower them with thousands of gold.

So the party elected to outfit themselves for a second expedition up the River Tiryki. I reminded them that they could hire NPC mercenaries and porters, just like our regular B/X games, and they hired two slingers and two porters, as well as retaining the services of River Mist and Flask of Wine, Tabaxi jungle-guides. They also bought a second river boat, these hirings and purchasings leaving them broke again ... and set out southeast along the river's length.

And on the first day out from Nyanzaru, rowing south for the Tiryki's estuary, someone spotted dark shapes moving under the water toward their boats. Fearing crocodiles, they began rowing furiously for shore--the boat with Thrice-Orphaned the goliath made the beach, but the second boat was still on the water when snake-like heads emerged from the water, grinning with glinting teeth. Takashi was in the second boat; he cast a sleep spell at the monsters ... and because sleep affects lowest hit point creatures first, he only managed to lay the rest of his boat under an enchanted slumber. The snake-necked water monsters took advantage of their suddenly sleeping prey and grabbed (rolling randomly) Biango the porter and Iedos the paladin into the water and away to be eaten elsewhere at their leisure.

An auspicious start for the expedition! After that, we settled into the routine of overland travel, mostly rolling no encounters for the day. Because River Mist and Flask of Wine are familiar with the Tiryki, I allowed that they don't have to make navigation rolls along its length.

Day 4 -- evening -- A party of four humans approaches the camp and asks to share shelter. They are led by Abiol. He claims that he and his comrades were out hunting, but found no quarry. When he hears the party are making for the tombs of the serpent-men, he tells them that the tombs are cursed. Come morning, Abiol and his company continue northwest for Nyanzaru while the party continues south.

Day 6 -- morning -- The party is ambushed by a large number of lizardmen. But Nugiri parlays; he learns that these are the Hsaathi Tribe, distantly related to the Hsa Hsi lizardmen near Nyanzaru (and with a random roll, Nugiri is of the Hsa Hsi himself). The leader of this group is Isaath, and he says to Nugiri, "Give us your tail, and we will give you ours. What tribute do you offer to pass through our territory?"
"I will cook for you," Nugiri offers, and the lizardmen find it acceptable when Nugiri cooks up two weeks of rations for them as a feast. Then Isaath gives Nugiri a javelin as a token of friendship, and he and his company allow the party to continue unmolested.

Day 7 -- night -- During the watch of Takashi and Nugiri, the pair notice a party of about a dozen humans attempting to sneak up on their camp. They quietly begin to awaken their comrades, starting with Nebin and Thrice-Orphaned (I think?). In the midst of shuffling around, they alert their would-be ambushers that they're awake and a battle ensues as the humans rush into the camp whooping and hollering and brandishing javelins.
It's a stiff fight, but only because the jungle-dwellers roll a couple critical hits. Otherwise they're not well enough armed to carry the battle, and so the last three left standing after a couple rounds surrender. Nebin and Qinsela interrogate the survivors, who are clearly cannibals; one is named Angim, and all of the jungle-men have teeth filed to points, and an inverted blue triangle tattooed on their foreheads. This is the mark of Ras Nsi, whom they serve, Angim explains. "Will you let us go now? You mighty warriors have defeated us, and we will trouble you no more."

But the party wasn't buying it, and they put their attackers to death. Among the bodies they find a scrollcase with a scroll of grease inside, and also a xalam, a kind of lute.

Day 8 -- mid-day -- Sprained ankle rolled on my non-monster encounter chart. Cured with a cure light spell, no trouble after that.

Day 9 -- morning -- River Mist, who is guiding the party through the jungle, reports back that she has spied an ambush of grungs ahead. "They are good to eat if well-cooked," she adds at the end, and Nugiri and Takashi both get a hungry gleam in their eyes.
The party wishes to counter-ambush the frog-men, and so they send Thrice-Orphaned and Nebin ahead as bait while the rest sneak around to flank the grungs. This plan works out perfectly, and six of the seven grung are quickly killed while the last is subdued and tied up. The party never learn his name; what they do get out of him is that he knows where "treasure" is, and he will lead them there, and says, "Then you will release me, because we will be friends, because I have shown you treasure."
"Lead on," the party responds, and so he leads them down the river a ways to the submerged altar and the idol of the hermaphroditic god/dess Olokuna that the party found in the river last expedition.
The grung indicates the altar; the party searches it and finds only a collection of arrow- and spear-heads. Much disappointed, they kill their prisoner; Nugiri hangs the corpse on the erect stone phallus of the idol, much to the disgust of Nsi Losi, who is of Good alignment.

The party then chooses to cross the river at this point--on the other bank they will head due south through the jungle and ultimately end up to the southeast of the Sailback Shrine and swamp, which is where they want to be.
Alas! in crossing the river, they manage to disturb a giant snapping turtle that was resting like a giant rock in the shallows. Fortunately, only the last two of the party disturbed it; unfortunately, that included Nsi Losi, the second character of the player who had already lost Iedos.
Rolling randomly, the turtle attacked Nugiri first, but its snapping jaws closed on air as the lizardman monk nimbly dodged away and fled to the river bank. Next, the turtle won initiative, and as Nsi Losi was the only character nearby, it snapped at him, and Nsi Losi collapsed in the water in a bleeding heap that began to dead-man's float downriver ...

The party shot missile weapons at the turtle, only serving to enrage it so that it continued out of the river toward them on the bank ... until Qinsela remembered that he can cast charm animal. So he cast it, and calmed the turtle and told it to just go back to resting, while the party fled up the bank and continued into the jungle (and while a new character was being rolled up ...)

Day 10 -- evening -- The half-Elf Vilnus arrives in camp, following a group of shiny beetles. (She?) joins the party, as the jungle is not a safe place, and perhaps they can help her in her quest to collect the myriad beetles of the jungle ...

Day 11 -- mid-day -- A roll of "no progress" on my non-monster encounter chart. At this point, I also required the party to roll for navigation to avoid getting lost, as they're moving through actual jungle rather than following the path of the river. They get back on track the following day.

Day 13 -- morning -- Just after the party breaks camp, the jungle is suddenly shaken with sound like of thunder, with the crashing of trees, and with the ground itself tremoring. The party quickly scatters--"It sounds like something's coming that you don't want to be in the way of!" Sure enough, a huge beast with an incredibly long snake-neck, elephantine legs and body, and a long whip-like tail crashes past, heading toward the river. The party wonders at its passing, and then continue on their way.

Day 14 -- mid-day -- River Mist admits that she's lost; fortunately, Nugiri has been paying attention to where they are, and thinks that they're in the general vicinity of the ridgeline with the tomb, their goal. After a fair amount of time exploring, the party is able to discover a worked entrance cut into the northwest face of the ridgeline. A stone slap used to cover the entrance, but a tree growing by the door ultimately cracked the stone and sent it tumbling away sometime in the past, allowing the cave inside to issue foetid airs.

Leaving their two slingers, their porter, and their two boats concealed in a copse of trees, the party entered the Tomb of the Serpent-Kings. (I've scattered a number of dungeons throughout the wilderness of Chult, including Skerples' tutorial dungeon from the Coins and Scrolls blog. I've been curious about it for a long time; Chult with its Yuan-Ti seemed like a perfect place to drop it in. For those of you playing--don't cheat! But even if you do, I'll probably have changed things anyway ...)

Entering the musty tunnel, the party found themselves in a corridor with four branches and one large door at the end. Each of the branches ended in a small chamber with a clay sarcophagus in the shape of a serpent-man in repose. Breaking open the first of these, the goliath Thrice-Orphaned took some damage from breathing in a gas that escaped from within. Otherwise, the party discovered a skeleton of mixed human- and serpent-bones, as well as a gold amulet formed like a serpent twisting back on itself.

Each of the other three chambers held similar sarcophagi; they dealt with the others by standing well back when they broke the seals, allowing the gas to escape without anyone being close enough to breathe it in. All in all, they found six golden amulets within the sarcophagi, as well as a silver snake-ring inside one of them.

Turning their attention to the door, the party found a huge door barred on their side with a heavy bar of stone on iron hooks set into the door. They quickly identified it as a trap, that when the stone was lifted, the hooks would rise, and a hammer would fall from the ceiling to strike anyone at the door in the back ("We need to lure the big monster inside here and set off the trap," one of them immediately quipped). To prevent the hooks rising, they tied them off with ropes set into the floor with iron spikes, and then as a further safety measure they lifted the bar up from either side, rather than from in front of the door. The ropes held and the hammer didn't fall; and opening the doors, the party found a larger room with three more sarcophagi and another chamber offset and containing the horrid statue of some grotesque serpent-man god.

These sarcophagi they approached the same way as before--but lo! they contained restless skeletons rather than poison gas! Skeletons that were quickly quashed by the party's attacks. At this point it was getting late, and one of our members had already fallen asleep briefly at the table, so we decided to wrap it up for the night with their discovery of a once-secret tunnel that was now revealed beneath the grotesque idol by the slow action of water over the ages.

What secrets does the tomb hold within its depths? Find out in approximately three weeks, the next time I'll be able to run Tomb of Annihilation ...

------

Remembrance for the Dead
Nsi Losi (human fighting-man 1), Biango (NPC porter), Iedos (tiefling paladin 1), Tehran Atzi (human cleric of Ubtao 1), Sound of Distant Rain (cat-man rogue 1), Chiratidzo (human druid 1)

Jungles of Chult: Locales around Nyanzaru

Since the last session of the Chult game I've been busy populating the hex map with rules from the Welsh Piper's Hex-based Campaign Design posts. After the first session I'd already placed a few settlements around the north coast near the main port city of Nyanzaru, and several small encounter areas along the Tiryki River (since I knew that was my players' intended path), but I wanted more--so I redrew the map onto larger hex paper, added larger "atlas hexes" thirty miles across by drawing around the ten-mile hexes of the Chult map, and rolled some dice.

So here's a rough gazetteer of the human settlements along the north coast of Chult, around the main city of Nyanzaru, for the edification of my players, but also for anyone interested in seeing a different take on the Tomb of Annihilation: (the myriad monster lairs, ruins, and dungeons will have to be ferreted out through rumors or exploration, of course ...)

------

Dya
While Nyanzaru is the main port and destination for foreign traders coming to make it big in Chult, Dya serves as the port and warehouse center for local trade between the towns along the north coast of Chult. Goods from Binin and Moata to the west come across the mountain pass just south of Dya, are sold to merchants and warehoused there, and thence are sold to Ngana, Nyanzaru, Fort Beluarian (and through Beluarian to inland Wtunga); and the goods from the other settlements needed in Binin, Moata or beyond naturally pass through Dya going the other way.

The population of Dya is predominantly Ido; Chultan albino dwarves own and work the tin mines in the mountains above the town. Oloya Oliha is the local Oloya/chief, and he is a good friend of the merchant prince Ekene-Afa in Nyanzaru. The mines, meanwhile, are owned and administered separately from the town, and are run by Kwaroth, chief of the albino dwarves, who is jealous of the rights of his people.

Dya lies sixty miles northwest of Nyanzaru on the eastern coast of the mountainous peninsula that forms the western boundary of the Bay of Chult.



Kilik-Ik
High in the mountains ten miles north of Dya, an ancient and abandoned monastery clings to the cliffsides. Men, dwarves, and aarakocra all shun it--the tales tell of the place being haunted by some demonic presence, and that all those who seek the riches forgotten behind its walls are killed--or worse, damned!--by the evil things that dwell within.



Kaaraa Eyrie
Further north from Kilik-Ik, high in the central mountains of the peninsula where the views stretch east over the Bay of Chult and west over the Shining Sea, a large tribe of aarakocra of the Kaaraa tribes make their eyries. They are guided by Old Kruaak, an aarakocra so old that he can no longer fly, and by the shamaness Pree'eet, who knows the ancient secrets of speaking with and summoning the winds.

The player-characters met Skir, daughter of Old Kruaak, during their brief stint as guards on a supply run to Fort Beluarian during the first session of the game, and received tokens of friendship from her for their efforts to cure her hurts, got from a skirmish with the lizardmen of Hssa Hsi.



Fana Sirroc
Due south of Dya, high over the east-west pass between Binin and Dya, the aarakocra are said to maintain a secret shrine to the fire winds of a god unknown to man's ken. Men--and even aarakocra who have not ritually purified themselves--are forbidden even to look upon the secret fane.



Iduna-So
On the west coast of the peninsula some twenty miles southwest of Dya stands the fortress Iduna-So, tower of the sorceress Ekundaya and her consort-apprentice Ziba. Iduna-So protects the coast road leading from Dya and the mountain pass under Fana Sirroc to the north down to Ngana to the south by the Soshenstar River delta.

Ekundaya is an hereditary Oloya, responsible for seeing to the defense and maintenance of the coast; but though her castle is well-manned with over a hundred men-at-arms, she is herself preoccupied with her growing age and in seeking out magical means of increasing her own longevity. She was a rival of the Nyanzaran merchant prince Wakanga when the twain were younger, and will gladly recount tales of their magical spats (though she will conveniently forget that she was more often the loser ...). Moreover, Ekundaya owns a sizable hadrosaur ranch on the banks of the Soshenstar and so has a vested interest in the dinosaur races that take place on the streets of Nyanzaru and many other Chultan settlements--and the gambling that takes place around the races.

As for Ziba, it is generally thought that he is using his handsome youth to take advantage of Ekundaya, to study from her magical libraries for the price of flattering her and her self-image.



Binin
On the western coast of the peninsula, on the shore of an inlet at its base, stands the fishing-town of Binin. Or rather, a collection of fishing towns and villages that have sprawled together over the years, all overlooked by the Golden Hall of Binin ruled by the Oloya Igo.

Alas for Igo and for the people of Binin, some evil has come over the land ... once proud with fine searovers and fighting-men, the land has been emptied of promising young men so that it seems the whole of Binin is filled only with children, women, and old men and crones. Only Igo remains in his palace, and his jalis sing him of the ancient deeds before the land was cursed.

And the nature of the curse is that an evil spirit seems to have come to dwell in Binin; it is widely said that the warriors who once dwelt with Igo in his halls perished in a series of bloody nights, killed in their sleep; and all their attempts to catch or to fight against the spirit were in vain, only leading to more death--and so all the warriors of Binin have fled elsewhere, leaving Igo to his empty memories ...



Moata
Twenty miles north of Binin, still on the western coast of the peninsula, the fortress of Moata rises above the waves of the Shining Sea on a high headland. Emeka is the Oloya there--or he claims to be an Oloya, despite lacking any official pedigree. He is an old seadog and sometime pirate, and he has taken in a number of Igo's former warriors who fled the evil in Binin. It is said that some wish to return to Binin, overthrow Igo, and with their young strength to cast off the evil that has befallen the land.

High along the seacliffs northwest of Moata live a tribe of aarakocra led by Kri'isa, who is friendly with Emeka. She and her fellows often fly over the ocean scouting out fish or ships for the galleys of Moata to chase. These aarakocra are related to the tribes of the Kaaraa Eyrie, but do not always see eye-to-eye with their kin.



Ngana
Back on the eastern side of the peninsula, at its base and some twenty-five or so miles west of Nyanzaru, the town of Ngana stands on the north bank of the Soshenstar River's delta. Ngana is another Ido town like Binin and Dya, and a rich one at that--the hills are dug through with copper mines worked by slaves, mines owned not by dwarves but by the Oloya of Ngana and the merchant-princes of Nyanzaru. Combined with the tin from Dya, the copper is worked into the beautiful bronze sculptures and art that have made Ngana rich.

The Oloya of Ngana is Ogano, a wealthy Ido man who is popular with the local young men because of his liberality with palm wine and because of his jalis that sing the deed-songs of the Ido. Ogano looks back to the days before the coming of the Omuans with nostalgia, and he and his cohorts long for a return to independence from the Omuan suffetes and merchant-princes of Nyanzaru.

Ngana is the center of the Cult of Gu the Iron God (or the Bronze God as he is also known in Ngana), chief of smiths, hunters, magic-users, dogs, and rum.



Palm Orchards of Enogie Ishau
But Gu is not alone in Ngana--a religious order dedicated to the brewing of palm wine and the oracle of Enogie Ishau's head has its headquarters in the orchards just south of town along the north bank of the Soshenstar. Ikenna is the chief priestess of the Priests of the Palm and Gourd, which oversees production and distribution of palm-wine.

The tale is that Ishau, an Enogie of the spirit world, was walking the world in a destructive rage, burning towns and forests and slaughtering peoples, and his wrath was only ended when he stopped to drink of palm-wine from a gourd and became so drunk that he fell asleep. And while he slept, the warrior gods Gorm and Madarua came and cut up his body and scattered the pieces all around the world--but the head they kept beside the palm tree and the gourd, and fed it wine when it called out, and asked of its wisdom when they needed advice.

So the Order of the Palm and Gourd maintain the palms, and also enjoy the prestige of possessing the oracle of the demon Ishau's head which they can feed with wine and ask things of.



Iya Afa
About thirty-five miles west of Ngana and the Palm Orchards, following a road that runs through the thin jungle along the mountains' foothills, lies the town of Iya-Afa, yet another Ido mining-town. But the mines of Iya Afa provide rich silver, a royal metal, and so the lord of Iya-Afa, one Ijayo, is allowed to retain the ancient title of Enogie.

Ijayo is friends with many men in high places, especially outdoorsmen and hunters; he often invites Ogano of Ngana, or the merchant-princes Jobal and Ifan-Talro'a out to his estates near the jungle to hunt boar, leopard, shield-heads, or even the terrible mouth-dragons.

Iya-Afa is the center of the cult of Merikka, goddess of yams, grains, and growing things, but a curse seems to have fallen over the temple--the chief priestess fell ill, spoke of fevered dreams of rotting things, and has since disappeared; and now there are rumors spreading even unto Nyanzaru that strange new forms of worship are become common in Iya-Afa with the failing of the cult of Merikka.



Hssa Hsi
North of Nyanzaru are three fingers of land that jut into the Bay of Chult; somewhere in the mangroves and estuaries and saltwater marshes of these tidelands is rumored to be Hssa Hsi, the village of the lizardmen. Several tribes of lizardmen are known to haunt the mangroves and swamps; they are allowed to remain because they offer semi-regular tribute to the suffetes and merchant-princes of Nyanzaru (and because actually hunting them down through the swamps would be a fool's errand), but rogue lizardmen and brigandage are fairly common in the swamps of the Three Fingers.

When the lizardmen get too uppity, the merchant-princes are wont to offer a small bounty for every lizardman tail brought in, until the creatures remember to send adequate tribute of pearls and woven feather cloaks ...



Fort Beluarian
A Flaming Fist outpost some sixty or so miles northeast of Nyanzaru, Beluarian was built to protect the Flaming Fists' rights to the Wtunga Mine. These rights were purchased for a large sum from the merchant-princes, and the charter is allowed to remain in the hands of the Flaming Fist Company only as long as the merchant-princes deem the relationship profitable. Supplies are run to the Fort from Nyanzaru by boat around the Three Fingers, and ingots from the mines are shipped back to Nyanzaru the same way.

Giant saltwater crocodiles have recently begun disrupting these supply-runs, and Liara Portyr, commander of Beluarian, has spread word that she is willing to offer substantial bounties for proof of these crocodiles' demise.



Wtunga Mine
Just twenty miles southeast of Fort Beluarian, the Wtunga Mines are worked by slaves purchased by the Flaming Fist. The mine had lain abandoned for a time, thought to be tapped out, when the Flaming Fist purchased rights to explore and mine it. Now it's a thriving iron mine, after Thrain Throrson a dwarf from the north explored it.

The mine head is protected by another small fort, ruled by Lady Ibasha, an Ido woman with a keen sense of tactics whom Liara Portyr sponsored to be their head-woman at the mine itself.

Not all is well at Wtunga--encounters with boars and leopards have increased in recent weeks, and rumors have begun to spread the the forest and mountain spirits are angry with the reopening of the mine--and that maybe the closing of the mine to begin with was because of a curse laid down by the forest itself.



Iya Ifa
On the coast northeast of Beluarian and Wtunga Mine lie a collection of fishing towns and villages collectively known as Iya-Ifa, ruled over by the Oloya Eweka from his coastal towers.

The fishermen of Iya-Ifa are known to be especially good sailors and well-attuned to the fickle moods of the sea--and many are the tales of them taking sea-brides, or of the women of the village seeking out octopus-husbands beneath the waves. What is certain is that the people of Iya-Ifa, though they eat scaled and finned fish in every variety and in many excellent dishes, they consider shellfish, octopus, and squid all taboo and will not eat of them, or even touch a dead specimen.

Iya-Ifa is also a main cult center for Olokuna, the hermaphroditic water god/dess sometimes counted as a consort of Ubtao, or as the spouse of warrior goddess Madarua.



Wadi Suchos
Southeast of Nyanzaru some thirty to forty miles, in the thick of the jungle, lies the settlement of Wadi Suchos. Not quite a town in the traditional sense, Wadi Suchos is a permanent waypoint for the bands of Turkana herdsman that move through the jungles and along the northern coasts of Chult, trading in all the major towns and then moving on in their nomadic way.

There is a permanent bazaar, including many Omuans and Ido who dwell there to turn a profit from the continual flow of people through the streets of the Wadi. And moreover, there are a number of saurians that live there as well, intelligent enough to live at peace among men--shield-heads, hadrasaurs, club-tails, all living in semi-partnership.

Wadi Suchos, as one might guess from the name, is also the center of the old cult of Suchos, a saurian god variously depicted with a crocodile head, a sail-back head, or even a mouth-dragon head. The temple of Suchos sits in the center of the bazaar, and the bazaar itself is surrounded by stone colossi shaped like mouth-dragons with gems for eyes. Any attack against the town or temple (be it from undead, Batiri, pterrafolk, etc.) causes the eyes to flash and a deep roar to sound over the jungle, and within minutes, a tribe of mouth-dragons arrives from their lair in the jungle nearby to wreck whatever attackers they find ...

Jungles of Chult: River Mist and Flask of Wine

Using the "Into the Unknown" ruleset from +Anders H, which is a Basic hack of 5e D&D, for running WotC's Tomb of Annihilation.

Of course, I screwed up the above "boxed text" because the published book of ToA contradicts itself. Jobal is described on the one hand as giving out information including the whereabouts of River Mist and Flask of Wine; while their descriptions (later on) contradict that information flatly. Alas, because Jobal was the first of these characters that the players interacted with (and I was several beers in and blithely trusted the book), I had Jobal citing River Mist and Flask of Wine as employees of his. Fortunately, this "situation" resolved itself somewhat when the players did something else before returning to Jobal for a guide, so by then Jobal and the Tabaxi could have had a "break" and terminated their relationship. And my players elected to hire the twain specifically because Jobal said they were untrustworthy ...

Anyway, I'm writing these NPCs up because the "stock" 5e NPCs are bags of enormous hps but worthless skills (9 hit dice, but +2 to hit, i.e. the same as a 1 hit die first level character? why don't bonuses scale with hit dice??). I'd rather they have a fair chance of dying, but also of being useful--and I'm going to give them to the players as "characters" for them to run for the duration of the expedition, to lessen my load (and if their player characters die, maybe they take over as the guides).

------

River Mist
STR 11
INT 7
WIS 12
DEX 16
CON 14
CHA 12

Fighter (Deadeye) 4
hp 26
AC 15 (2 studded leather, 3 dex)
proficiency +2
equipment: studded leather, longbow, handaxe, shortsword, backpack

referee fiat abilities: herbalist -- has a nose for useful/valuable flora in the jungle (subject to further fiat for what precisely that means); track -- double proficiency bonus for tracking creatures through a wilderness

River Mist is a tabaxi female who wears an eyepatch over her right eye. She is evasive about the cause of her missing eye, sometimes alluding to a long-ago accident. River and her brother, Flask of Wine, have been acting as jungle guides for those leaving Port Nyanzaru and its environs for an expedition into the jungle for several years. Mostly, they act as guides for those wishing to hunt or capture large jungle beasts like shield-heads or dagger-backs, but they have also led several expeditions up the River Tiryki all the way to its source in Ataaz Ahiya, the Weeping Gorge.

River (as you might call her for short) is the face of the twain, the one actually willing to converse with strangers and to put herself out there. Nevertheless, she is at home in the wilderness, and is happy to be out among the trees, seeing and smelling new things, and hunting strange new creatures.

------

Flask of Wine
STR 10
INT 13
WIS 12
DEX 16
CON 9
CHA 8

Rogue (Thief) 3
hp 8
AC 15 (2 studded leather, 3 dex)
proficiency +2
equipment: studded leather, shortbow, handaxe, machete, backpack, deck of cards

referee fiat abilities: gambling -- double prof for games of chance; trackless step -- double prof for being stealthy in forest

Flask of Wine is a tabaxi male, brother of River Mist. The twain have acted as guides in the jungles of Chult for several years, and feel they have a general grasp of the dangers in the jungles.

Flask (as he is known for short) is a laconic creature who rarely utters more than a sentence at a time, if he speaks. He isn't shy, per se, and is more than glad to join in a bout of drinking and carousing, going mug-for-mug of palm wine with any others--though palm wine doesn't make him any more lugubrious, and perhaps rather quieter--he just doesn't offer much verbally. Perhaps he heard the old Viking advice that those who say nothing, though they know nothing, may seem to be wise; while those who say much, though they know much, will certainly seem foolish.

Flask of Wine had taken a liking to Sound of Distant Rain to play card games with him, gambling small amounts as they traveled. Alas, their games were cut short by the death of Sound in the Sailback Shrine, killed by a mysterious psychic emanation from the creepy monkeys they battled in the catacombs. On return to Nyzanzaru, he took much of the wages paid him by the players and paid with them for a small sacrifice to the Cat Lord for the spirit of dead Sound ...

Jungles of Chult Session 2

Beware the crocodiles of the Tiryki River ...

The crocodiles will eat you

our intrepid heroes:

Sound of Distant Rain (cat-man rogue)

Terahn Atzi (human priest)

Nugiri (lizardman monk)

Takashi Kaga (human magic-user)

Nebin (halfling barbarian)

Chiratidzo (human druid)

with River Mist and Flask of Wine (cat-man guides)

The last session ended just into the expedition up the River Tiryki, after five days of travel following the river, the characters led by River Mist and Flask of Wine and porting a rowboat with them through the jungle (despite the river being right there ...)

Picking up where we left off, on the morning of the sixth day, Chira noticed a strange little creature at the edge of camp as everyone else was breaking things down. The thing looked like a root knotted into a six-inch high humanoid form, with pebbles for eyes and mouth, eagerly watching the party. It was sitting on a mess kit. Chira informed the party as to its presence, and Takashi, miffed as he realized that the thing had taken his mess kit, mage handed the kit up and as it rose through the air, the little creature jumped off and ran away.

Takashi discovered an empty wasp nest left in his bag in the mess kit's place; and Chira informed everyone that the thing was a Chwinga, a kind of nature spirit that is generally harmless though sometimes mischievous.

Continuing on, through the evening, the characters noticed eyes watching them from the river--insectile eyes from rocky carapaces. Asking their guides after these sightings, River Mist informs the party that these must be Aldani, the lobster-men the haunt the waters of Chult. "Don't take what's theirs, and they won't bother you," she says, and then continues the hike.

Day 8 -- morning -- Chiratidzo heads down to the river as camp is breaking to wash his face. As he crouches there, he gives a shout--"There's something in the water!"--as what looks like a waterlogged tree drifts toward him and the rest of the party comes nearer. Then the log surges out of the water with a huge splash, and a giant crocodile's jaws close around Chira, snap his back, and the crocodile beings to drag his body back into the river. The rest of the party threw missile weapons at the crocodile, but to no avail, and the reptile and its prey both disappear under the waters of the lake ...

River Mist and Flask of Wine shrug. "The jungle is dangerous," River Mist says, and then she and Flask continue to lead everyone on.

Day 9 -- diseased bite -- Sound of Distant Rain saves

Day 10 -- morning -- the party comes across Quinsela, or "Quin", another druid, now out hunting alone. He agrees to accompany the party, knowing that the crocodiles along the River Tiryki are deadly things to contend with ...

Later, the party comes across a kind of idol rising out of a series of rocks in a kind of calm area of the river. The idol is an obelisk, vaguely carved, dedicated to Olokuna, other than a maze-like vulva and stone phallus rising from near the water line. An altar of flat stone lies just under the water, covered at the moment with worked stone offerings (stones with carvings of hands, crabs, phalluses, mazes, vulvas, etc.); Sound of Distant Rain deposits a flask of palm wine on the altar for deceased Chiratidzo, further offering a prayer to the Cat Lord for the man's dead soul ...

Day 11 -- physical barrier -- the party runs into a cliff blocking their path; they decide to backtrack for a day rather than attempt to climb or circumvent it

Day 13 -- morning -- Flask of Wine calls Sound of Distant Rain forward to look at something--it's a dead body, half-eaten by a mouth-dragon and now abandoned in the bole of mighty tree-roots.

Day 14 -- morning -- The party enters a small mango grove and Flask of Wine (from scouting ahead) comes back with broken fruit on his shoulders. "There are mad apes ahead," he says and brushes himself off; he is immediately backed up by the sound of screaming apes from behind and another thrown fruit. Nugiri steps out and catches some thrown fruit, and also grins broadly at the two apes he can see.

The apes interpret that as a threat and charge into combat. One runs all the way forward while the other throws rocks from behind; but Sound of Distant Rain hates monkeys, as do the rest of the party, and they quickly kill both apes (though one does knock Nugiri out with its fists before dying from other melee attacks)

River Mist then points out that the swamp containing the Sailback Hill/Shrine is within a day's travel, if anyone were interested in checking it out. Everyone agrees that it sounds interesting, and so the party moves to the east bank of the river (they've been hiking down the west bank), and they find a wide swamp with both stork-men and sail-backs lurking in its midst.

The stork-men with the evil-eyes

Almost immediately, the party spies a group of stork-men between them and the sail-back hill; Sound of Distant Rain and Flask of Wine sneak out to (bag?) them, but Sound decides to talk instead. Fortunately, one of the several stork-men speaks the Common tongue, though hissing like a swan; "These are our swamps! What do you offer to move through them? Give us shiny things!" The party gave a mirror and a disassembled mess-kit, and I rolled an 11 for reactions, so that was enough. "I am Sssra," the lead stork-man declared. "You may travel our swamp. And let me say, the best place to rest is beneath the banyan outside the mouth of the sailback shrine," it adds.

---

The party deposited the boat in the banyan "grove" matching Sssra's description; they felt a supernatural sense that it would be "good" to camp there, indeed; then they headed for the dungeon in the open mouth of the sailback hill.

The mouth opened onto a stairway down (the gullet); this led down to a three-way fork; the party went west and found themselves in a stairway that ended in water. Nugiri checked under the water and didn't seem to find anything. The party then glanced down the east way, but ultimately went down the south way into a large chamber with stone pillars rising up that look like they support the stone spines of the hill that make it resemble a sailback. There were pit traps around these pillars; then entering the main chamber, the party saw a ruby, pulsing slowly, in the jaws of a small stone sailback on top of an altar against the south wall; the other walls were carved to resemble up-curving ribs. The altar was dedicated to SUCHOS, a god like an animal-headed Egyption god, but with a dimetrodon head.

A small swarm of mosquito-bats attacked the party here, but were easily dispatched ...

Furthermore, there were four other exits from the room ... the party checked one and found a collapsed corridor; checked another and found a closed door; but looking down the south west corridor, they found a series of natural caverns, of which one held a crevice in its floor filled with glittering coin. The party went for the coin, but were surprised by a "nest" of creepy monkeys with blood-red hands hanging from the stalactites on the ceiling of the chamber. Sound of Distant Rain was foremost in the party seeking the coin in the crevice, and he suddenly keeled over dead, clutching his head; Takashi also fell over, blood pooling from his nose, but not quite dead.

The creepy-monkeys with blood-red hands

While Nugiri saved Takashi and Flask of Wine ran forward to save his friend's (Sound's) body, the party elected (after a first intuition to run), to fight--and because they killed one monkey and injured two others with a variety of spells and attacks, the creepy monkeys fled deeper into the cave after failing a morale check.

"Let's loot this thing and get the hell out of here!" Nebin cried, and then the party quickly grabbed what they could of the coin (including 2 scrolls) and then fled back to the large room with the pulsing ruby-heart. They pitoned the little sailback statue's mouth open and took the ruby, but heard the grinding of stone nevertheless--the mouth of the cave had closed! Placing the ruby back re-opened the closed jaws. The cat-men thought they might be able to run fast enough to grab the gem and then make it out ahead of the jaws, but the party balked in the end and elected to return later.

So deciding, they checked one more room and found a tomb filled with sarcophagi for sailbacks. Opening the most ornate one, Teran forced open the sarcophagus and breathed in a poisonous cloud, but lived ... inside they found a sailback skeleton plated with gold, which they took ...

With a couple thousand coin (from the monkeys) and a gold-plated skeleton in their possession, the party went straight for the river with their rowboat and began to row their way back down the River Tiryki toward Nyanzaru. On the river, flowing downstream, their movement doubled to 10 miles per day (one hex per day).

---

Day 16 -- evening -- rare plants, zabou, 4 "doses" of zabou mushrooms which the party collects (Quin as an herbalist can pick them without trouble)

Day 20 -- evening -- croaking of giant frogs ahead--the party decides to accept another roll on the encounter die in the future to avoid the frogs now ...

Day 21 -- morning -- as Teran hauls the boat down into the water of the river, a giant crocodile surges out of the water with a high initiative and snaps Teran up in its huge jaws. Teran is instantly killed and dragged away into the water, leaving the party bereft of a third member ...

Except the hindquarters are Tehran's, not a zebra ....

Day 22 -- back in town! (now everyone can get XPs)

In Nyanzaru, the party went to Jobal, whom they know collects hunting trophies, to sell the gold-plated skeleton to him. Jobal is sad to hear of Chira's death, but is glad to buy the skeleton off of them for 250 gold. During this conversation, Nebin brings up the mosquito-bats they killed (and the bodies they saved) trying to sell them to him too, but Jobal shows his colors, racist against "lesser" folk by "belittling" Nebin. "What, did you step on that? How cute!"

The party then also sold their 4 "doses" of zabou to Jessamine, who has been interested in rare plants.

And in the end, Nebin and Takashi caroused. Nebin ended up in debt to Jessamine 100 gold and in love with Talara, halfling wife of a local halfling merchant, Haban Widewater; and Takashi ended in debt to Jobal for 400 gold, and furthermore beaten and robbed so that he starts the next adventure slightly injured ...


------


Remembrance for the Dead
Tehran Atzi (human cleric of Ubtao 1), Sound of Distant Rain (cat-man rogue 1), Chiratidzo (human druid 1)

Jungles of Chult -- Around the Head of the River Tiryki

In the first session of Tomb of Annihilation, the players decided that they would journey up the River Tiryki, which they can see entire on their copy of the hex map (much of central Chult are just blank hexes to be explored, but the Tiryki is "known territory"). They made this decision in large part because they hired two Tabaxi, River Mist and Flask of Wine, as their jungle guides, and the two mentioned that they knew directly of at least two sites near the head of the Tiryki--Firefinger and Dungrunglung. (the characters had otherwise been interested in seeking Camp Righteous and Camp Vengeance, up the River Soshenstar)

The Tiryki is the central of the three northern rivers

As a couple other reviews of ToA (at Dungeon of Signs and Against the Wicked City) make clear, the hex map of Chult is actually a kind of howling emptiness of hundreds of miles (dozens of days) of random encounters, interspersed with a sprinkling of interesting adventure locations. My intent is to create content for all those empty hexes--and because my players are headed up the Tiryki, I'll start with locations around its head.

The information is that which is known well enough locally in Nyzanzaru that rumors could be picked up just by mentioning the Tiryki, or is information directly from River Mist and Flask of Wine.

------

the Pilgrims' Guide
There is a statue on the bank of the river, a great idol like a stern king, River Wind says. That is when we know we are halfway up the River Tiryki. He is a stern king, but he points to the east directing pilgrims on their way to the City of Mists. Sometimes they leave offerings at his altar, but I do not touch them because he is a god.

There are other altars too, Flask of Wine adds. There are too many gods in these jungles.


Sailback Hill
There is an outcropping in a swamp shaped like a sailback, according to River Wind. We only saw it from afar, because it stands in a swamp, and we did not wish to wade there. But I think I saw a face at the hill's base, a gaping jaw with big fangs. There were many storks in that swamp, and I did not like the way their eyes looked at us.

The mouth is a cave, Flask of Wine says, but says no more.

A sailback, i.e. dimetrodon

Firefinger
It is a pinnacle topped with fire! River Wind explains. It lies on the right bank of the Tiryki--a finger pointed at the sky, with a pyre burning brightly, day and night, at its top. The dead lie thick around it--all those taken up by the pterafolk, and then thrown down from the top. We have climbed, Flask and I, and found a cave inside the finger--but we have gone no higher. Just the two of us, what would we do against the many pterafolk that nest at its top?

Flask of Wine only nods agreement.


Ataaz Ahiya ("the Weeping Gorge")
The head of the River Tiryki is in a gorge (other gorges are also named with "Ataaz" in Chult, so I assume that's what it means), approximately 25 miles long north to south, and ten miles wide east to west. Smaller tributaries to the Tiryki pour in around the gorge, either as high waterfalls cascading down cliff faces, or as narrower streams that have cut their way down through the surrounding highland. Many tribes of pterafolk roost in the heights of the cliffs around the gorge, ruled by an ogiso or king.

The face of Olokuna is said to have been carved into the southern cliff-face, with waterfalls pouring from its eyes, and a mouth that opens into a deep cavern and shrine. Olokuna is an androgynous water god, possessed of both male and female features, and idols to it often include both an erect phallus and a maze-like vulva.

Yes, yes, River Wind says, we have seen the face of the goddess. She weeps because she is forgotten by all but the monkeys who dwell in her mouth. I too would weep if stinking apes were in my mouth. Her servants, the lobster-men, peer with cold eyes from the waters beneath her shrine.

He weeps because he has waterfall eyes, Flask of Wine adds. There is gold and gems in his mouth, but the baboons are too many.


Dungrunglung
Dungrunglung is the greatest shrine of the grungs--the frog men, you know, River Wind says. We have looked on it only from afar, because it lies in the midst of a wide swamp, and it is closely surrounded by a hedge of thorns. The head of the shrine towers over the hedge like an evil frog, grinning at the swamp, and all the while the croaking of the frogs and the frog-men is sounding around you. It is southwest of the Weeping Gorge perhaps twenty miles--who knows? It is difficult to judge distance in the jungle.

And it is filled with treasures, I am sure of it, Flask of Wine mutters, almost to himself. Riches to make a man wealthy.

I might end up calling them grippli or bullywugs,
we'll see ...

City of the Faceless Men
Somewhere in the jungles south of the Ataaz Ahiya lies an ancient and ruined city, its name forgotten and only its curse remembered in tales and old epics. It was a city of the Eshowe, perhaps, before their slaughter; or a city of Omuans, cursed by God for the pride of their ways. Regardless of the origin a curse lies over the city--all those who enter are damned to contract a horrifying disease that slowly eats the flesh of the face until only a gaping hole remains where once were mouth, nose, and eyes. The legends vary about what lies within its cursed grounds--treasures untold, or only old broken stones? But one thing that is certain is that a tribe of cursed men live among the ruins (or eke out an undead existence)--the Faceless Men, the Mask-Wearers ... in every tale, they are said to haunt the ruins, perhaps as cannibals, perhaps as undead horrors, but always wearing masks to cover the horror of their hollow faces.

It is there, River Wind says, and her ears lower, and her eyes narrow. It is an evil place. I have forgotten the way, but I have seen the obelisks that mark its boundaries. They tell its curse, because the men there have no mouths behind their masks. I will not go back. She shakes her head after saying this, going to bathe in the river, and will not talk about the City any more after that.

I remember the way, Flask of Wine murmurs. There must be something there.

Encounters in Chult -- Non-Monster Encounters

In Tomb of Annihilation, "While characters are exploring or camping in the wilderness, roll a d20 three times per day of game time, checking for encounters each morning, afternoon, and evening or night. An encounter occurs on a roll of 16 or higher." (Tomb of Annihilation, pg. 193)

On the result of an encounter (16-20), one is then directed to roll percentile dice on the "Wilderness Encounters" table on the next pages (194-5), which includes columns for different terrain types, including Beach, several types of Jungle, Mountains, Rivers, Ruins, Swamp, and Wasteland. These different terrains have different values for the various creatures that haunt Chult and its environs--but almost every entry is a creature of some kind, implying combat (6 out of 90 entries are with non-creatures, while at least half a dozen more are with neutral or friendly NPCs).

There follows a description of each encounter in pages 196-203, of the number of creatures or the nature of the non-creature thing found. These are generally good entries, though I find it irritating how many of them coyly resolve into non-encounters if the players don't provoke the creatures, e.g. of the dinosaurs, the Ankylosaurus, Brontosaurus, Hadrosaurus, Pteranodon, Stegosaurus, and Triceratops all ignore the characters unless attacked, touched, or bothered. And these aren't the only entries like that. Which is to say, if I roll an 18 on my d20 and then a triceratops encounter, inform the players, and then they walk away, nothing happens ... over the course of hundreds of hexes of travel this will become dozens of dice rolls to nothing, sapping my time and my players' interest.

All of which is a longwinded way of saying, these wilderness encounters need sprucing up!

First, because it seems to me that travel should involve a variety of mishaps/encounters not necessarily all of which involve creatures, I'd like to rewrite a table of non-monster wilderness occurrences that I use for wilderness travel in my homebrew game. (other blog-entries may include creating more specific wilderness terrains and resulting encounter tables, and/or nesting the results on the ToA tables with greater random variety)

"I hope we don't run into any mouth dragons out here ..."

So, per the rules, per day that the characters spend in the wilderness, roll three d20s. A result of a 16-20 indicates an encounter; the first and last such rolls indicate an encounter on the "Wilderness Encounters" table from the book, but the second/middle roll indicates a further roll on this table:

------

Non-Monster Wilderness Encounters

1-3 -- Bad weather -- half movement for the next 1-6 days

4-5 -- Lamed mule/Sprained ankle -- cannot move forward until the injury is healed, either by magic or by 1-3 days of rest

6-7 -- Spoiled rations -- 1-2 weeks of rations are spoiled by mold, maggots, etc.

8 -- Lost supplies -- the party loses ... 1) 50' rope, 2) 100-600 gp, 3) 1 week of rations,
4) tinderbox, 5) lantern and 1-4 flasks of oil OR 2-12 torches, 6) 50' rope and roll again ((or one useful item at random))

9-10 -- Heatstroke -- a character at random is incapacitated and cannot act until they take a full day of rest

11-12 -- Wrong turn -- not lost per se, but no movement for the day as all "progress" must be retraced back in the proper direction

13 -- Venomous bite -- a character at random must save against poison or using CON, or die; neutralize poison or other such spells would naturally be handy in such a situation

14 -- Diseased bite -- a character at random must save against poison or using CON, or become infected with a debilitating disease; the character loses 1 STR per day of travel, and a week of full rest is required to overcome the disease; during the "crisis" another save v. poison or with CON is required, and failure indicates that 1 point of CON is permanently lost

15-16 -- Good foraging/hunting -- no rations are needed for the day due to plentiful game/forage

17-18 -- Bad water -- 1-3 characters must save against poison or using CON, or contract a debilitating disease per (14)

19-20 -- Physical Barrier -- the party has hiked into a box canyon, cul de sac, bog, mire, etc. etc., and must backtrack; no movement unless a thief with ropes climbs a way through, or a druid demonstrates a path, or some other rule or narrative is invoked by the player characters to pass through

Jungles of Chult Session 1

I started a new in-person game of 5e D&D with my friends this last Saturday, 13 January, in which I will run WotC's Tomb of Annihilation (2017) approximately every other Saturday, while my friend continues running his dungeon on the "off" weekends. So why not title this post "Tomb of Annihilation"? Because I decided to de-emphasize the Tomb's centrality to the game, and focus rather on the jungle hexcrawl--because that part of the book hooked my interest, while not so much the eponymous tomb.

Because there are only three players, I allowed each to create two characters, and further requested that half the characters be rolled according to +Anders H's "Into the Unknown" a B/X hack of 5e so that we can help playtest the rules (and also because I'm probably just going to run the game like B/X anyway, so it's nice to have a ruleset that backs me up on it). I'd already informed everyone that I'd be changing the XP tables, so they were down with "Into the Unknown" characters too ...


so, our intrepid adventurers:
Sound of Distant Rain (cat-man rogue)
Terahn Atzi (human priest)
Nigiri (lizardman monk)
Takashi Akaga (human magic-user and gourmand)
Nebin (halfling barbarian)
Chiratidzo (human druid)


We started in Port Nyzanzaru somewhat "fresh off the boat" (Chira and Terahn are both Chultan natives, but not well-traveled), and I dropped an info dump on everyone to introduce the game: Chult is a land where death is permanent, regardless of magic--not even a wish spell can revive a slain character within the bounds of Chult. This has been the case for several generations now, and those who were rich enough and unwilling to live in a land where death was permanent left for other shores when the "death curse" first fell upon the land, but people have been living their lives normally since. No one knows whence this curse has come, but it has lain over the land for some time. (those who are familiar with the adventure will note that I significantly altered the facts here, to de-emphasize the curse as a worldwide "time bomb" and allow more emphasis on hexcrawling)

I also outlined the history of Chult and the war between the city of Mezro and the Eshowe, the rise of Ras Nsi as a lord of undead, and the fact that a dragon turtle called Aremag extorts treasure from ships passing in and out of the Bay of Chult.

And so what were our characters interested in doing? They looked over the hex map I gave them, wondering at all the empty hexes they could explore--but their chief priority was, as players of D&D, to secure some quick money before committing to anything major.

Using his "highborn" background, Terahn secured an audience with one of the local merchant-lords, one Jessamine, who was rumored to be interested in buying certain flora from the jungle. Jessamine appeared in the courtyard of her villa silently in the midst of the characters, and then proceeded to answer their questions about valuable flora by pointing out that senda berries and wildroot are both particularly valuable to her, and there are a few other rare plants that she would pay for.

The party was glad to know this ... hearing that another merchant-lord, one Jobal, was an outfitter maintaining a stable of jungle guides, they next sought him out and managed to secure an audience with him as well. His villa was filled with trophies of the animals he had hunted and killed, and he immediately hit it off with Chira, not only because Chira was guzzling the proffered palm wine, but also because Chira is a druid and a man of the wilderness. After a few stories about the animals killed (including a "mouth dragon"), Jobal turned to business and counted off a number of guides whose services he could recommend (including a tabaxi pair he is not supposed to recommend--typo number one!--I corrected it later)--but when the party revealed that they did not have the requisite funds for 5 gp/day, 30 day upfront payment (150 gp), the wine stopped flowing. "Come back when you have some coin!" Jobal told them as he sent them out (though not unkindly).

A mouth-dragon pursuing a shield-head

Now especially in need of funds, the party asked around for quick money and heard that the Flaming Fist regularly supplies Fort Beluarian, a Flaming Fist encampment on the peninsula northwest of Nyanzaru. Rowed galleys carry the supplies across the Bay of Chult to the Fort, and then carry ingots from the mines above the Fort back to Nyanzaru, and the galleys require both rowers and guards/porters out and back. Odo, quartermaster of the Flaming Fist in Nyanzaru, was approached by Sound of Distant Rain, and offered him and his associates 3 gp/day to act as guards and porters on the next galley.

The galley set out the next dawn; because it wasn't leaving/entering the Bay, it would not be subject to the extortions of Aremag. The first leg of the trip was a short jaunt to a camp on a peninsula halfway between Nyanzaru and the beachhead below Beluarian; on the second day the galley arrived at the beachhead and the supplies were offloaded from the ship; on the third day, the supplies were ported up a path to the Fort itself. The fourth day was slated as a day of rest, and then the last three days of the trip would mirror the first three.

The only encounter seen by the characters on the way out was a flock of scintillating snakes flying through the trees near the beach on the first day.

At Fort Beluarian, after all the porting was done, the characters could rest; Sound elected to gamble with the soldiers of the Flaming Fist (against regulations, but under the noses of their superiors) and won 20 gp after staking a mere 10 gp to start. Nigiri, meanwhile (the lizardman) went forth from the fort and hunted down some local iguanas, herbs, etc., and in-fort cooked up a mouthwatering meal that gathered a number of Flaming Fist soldiers to ask for a portion (they had to jockey with Takasha, the gourmand magic-user who follows Nigiri specifically for his lizardman-cooking).

Grilled iguanas ... yum!

The Flaming Fist soldiers then laid out chests of iron and copper ingots stamped with the seal of the Fist, all of which were ported back down to the beachhead and loaded onto the ship; and then the galley set out back for Nyanzaru the next dawn.

On the first day to the halfway peninsula, the ship was buzzed by a flock of pteranodons which ultimately left the galley alone; then later in the day, a band of aarakocra (bird-men) appeared over the galley. These aarakocra were invited down by the characters, and relayed to the party that an injured comrade of theirs was on a beach nearby, having been wounded in a scuffle with lizardmen. The characters arranged for the aarakocra to carry their companion to the ship, there to be healed by a use of cure light wounds; and when this aarakocra was healed by Terahn, she told the players that her name was Skir of the Kaaraa Eyrie, and she presented Terahn with her javelin and one of her pinion feathers as tokens of friendship.

Then, on the third day, early in the morning on the beach, the characters were awakened by one of the ship's rowers, one Osuware. "Quickly!" he whispered, pointing to the treeline and to a flock of iridescent snakes basking in the morning sun in the trees. "Let us take the serpents, and we can sell them back in Nyanzaru!" Most of the party followed; they watched Osuware stuff a serpent into a sack, and then Takasha cast sleep over the rest of the nine snakes; he then demanded that he receive two of the snakes for Nigiri to cook up for him, while the other eight can be sold, and the party reluctantly agreed.

So, back in town, Osuware guided the party to the villa of Ifan Tal'Roa, another merchant lord. This Ifan is a great seller of animals, beasts, etc. both as beasts of burden and as creatures bound for gladiatorial games, and he was glad to receive a party attempting to sell him flying snakes. He first offered 25 gp per snake, which Osuware was over-eager to take, and so Sound talked Ifan up to 30 gp per snake. Osuware was glad for it, and, being bad at math, agreed to take 40 gp while the party split the other 200. Ifan advised the party to look out for other beasts in the jungles that he would be glad to buy.

The party then returned to Jobal to get his take on jungle guides; and despite his excessive friendliness now that they were in some money, and despite his protestations not to seek out his former employees River Mist and Flask of Wine, a couple of tabaxi (cat-man) guides who had just broken with him, the party of course, sought out River and Flask. These two agreed to guide the party for a lesser sum of 4 gp/day, with no upfront payment (but they would be glad for a cut of treasure after the fact!). Moreover, they are familiar with the jungle around the River Tiryki, and with two landmarks, one Firefinger (a spire with a ptera-folk tribe) and the other Dungrunglung (a shrine-city of grung frog-men).

River Mist has the eyepatch; her brother is Flask of Wine

The party then needed to actually plan their first expedition into the jungles, and ultimately decided to abandon their first plan to seek Camp Righteous and Camp Vengeance on the River Soshenstar, and to follow their guides up the Tiryki River. They bought a rowboat (50 gp) and several weeks of rations, but were confident in their own ability to forage in the jungle for food (and they agreed beforehand to boil their water). Round trip, this expedition is expected to last something like 70 days, most of it the trip there and back, but with a week at the head of the river for in-depth exploration.

We got four days into this seventy day expedition before it was 1:20 am and we needed to break for the night. Each hex on the map is 10 miles across; the travel rules in Tomb of Annihilation indicate that a party can travel 10 miles in one day, but I find that completely ridiculous for jungle travel; being generous, I cut that in half to 5 miles per day (I would have cut it further, following accounts I've read of jungle travel, but I still want this to be a game ...). I was many beers in at this point, and so didn't roll for the party getting lost, but I did roll all of the encounters for each day--and as a further modification to the rules, I'm going to devise another table of my own for non-creature "encounters" to roll on once each day, following other tables I've written for other hexcrawls I've run.

Nothing happened on the first day ... on the second day, the party was ambushed by a party of Batiri (jungle-goblins) as they traveled along the banks of the Tiryki. The goblins charged from the bush, but were repulsed by a concerted effort, and when the "boss" was slain, the Batiri rolled poorly on morale, panicked, and ran back into the jungle. From the corpse of the "boss", the party took up a painted mask they think could be worth something back in town, and then they continued on their way south.

On the third day, the party came across a shield-head (or "ytepka" or "three-horns") grazing alone in a meadow not far from the banks of the river. River and Flask were enamored of it, trying to get the party to attack and subdue it so that they could lead it back to town to sell to Ifan Tal'Roa--then they could sell the beast to him for a tidy profit (and only a few days out!) and then restart their expedition with even higher funds. Alas, the party balked at attacking such a large creature, and merely walked around it. Later that day, they provoked a troop of baboons, which attacked them, but were easily driven off with another poor morale roll for the creatures ...

One ornate species of shield-head

And on the fourth day, the party encountered a pair of giant spiders, easily dispatched without even the need for a morale roll--and this is where we quit for the night, as it was nigh 2 am and we were semi-incoherent.

So like I said, these encounters need to be spiced up with some non-monster "wilderness encounters" that will vary things beyond mere roleplaying/combat encounters (also, need some roleplaying encounters anyway). The book recommends rolling three times per day; I was thinking of rolling twice on the book's encounter table, and once on my own table each day. Ultimately, this would alter the checks from 3 encounter checks per 10 miles to 4 monster encounter checks and 2 non-monster encounter checks per 10 miles, so I don't feel like it's too much.


The next Chult game will probably be in about two weeks; I'll be sprucing up the hexmap in the meantime and probably sharing ideas and additions here--I admit, I just can't run an adventure/module without tinkering with a fair amount.