Tomb of AnnihilationThe City and the Crocodile
A 2017 module, the 2024 rules, six teenagers and a screen lying flat on the dining table. Part one: a funeral, a ball, a trial, and the dungeon that changed their religion.
When I was a child, I had no one to play Dungeons & Dragons with. Now, as a father in my forties, I play with my own children.
Yes, I built my own players!
Meet the piplins, who are now 13 and 15
The module: Tomb of Annihilation, Wizards of the Coast, 2017
I ran the whole campaign on the 2024 rules (5.5e), with a module written for the 2014 ones. Any advice or comment about that is in a box like this one, and there is a full conversion guide for DMs at the end of part two.
They Buried Kevin Before They Rolled Initiative
Session zero, January 2025. Six players, one funeral.
Before anybody fought anything, the players invented a man together, as their characters first met. Then the Death Curse killed him.
His name was Kevin. The players chose that.
They buried him in Baldur's Gate, and each of them gave a eulogy over the grave. At the funeral, Syndra Silvane recruited them to find out what was causing it.
Johnathan, who is obsessed with eating everything, said in his eulogy that he thought he had eaten him.
Twenty-two months later, the same six characters lifted the curse that killed him.
Session zero ran on Cellar of Death by James Introcaso, a fifteen-page prelude for first-level characters. The party raids the Cloakwood cellar of the lich Zaldara, Duchess of Rot. The point of the mission is to find out where the curse comes from, and they come out knowing: something called the Soulmonger, somewhere in Chult.
Introcaso has the players build a beloved NPC together, and then the Death Curse kills them. It gives the players a personal reason to go to Chult before they ever get there. It costs $2.99 on the DMs Guild.
Who sent them
In the book, Syndra Silvane has the Death Curse herself, and she hires the party to end it. In my game she isn't dying at all. She is an avatar of the gods.
Tyr, Ilmater, Mystra, Helm, Eilistraee and Lathander are worried about losing their godly power to the atropal. So they recruit the team through Syndra, ask Cesca to go with them as their angel, and offer each of them a boon. That is also why the gods are waiting at the end. On the last night, Syndra is there with them, handing out the finale boons.
Syndra Silvane
The avatar of the gods| God | For | The boon |
|---|---|---|
| Tyr, God of Justice | Zagorath | Divine Favor. Once per short rest, when you hit with a weapon attack, add 1d4 to the damage. |
| Ilmater, God of Endurance | Akira | The Blessed Healer. Once per long rest, add your Wisdom modifier to the hit points a healing spell or ability restores. |
| Mystra, Goddess of Magic | Cesca | Divine Insight. Once per long rest, advantage on one Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma saving throw. |
| Helm, God of Protection | Fate | The Faithful Shield. A shield of divine light: +1 to AC when you aren't wearing armour, once per short rest. |
| Eilistraee, Goddess of Dance and Song | Phoenix | The Divine Step. Once per short rest, a bonus action to move up to your speed without provoking opportunity attacks. |
| Lathander, God of the Dawn | Johnathan | The Sacred Flame. Cast sacred flame once per long rest, without spending a spell slot. |
Between session zero and session one, I always let players change their backgrounds. It gives them a chance to deepen their character hook between the warm-up and the game proper.
I ran this for six players, every few weeks, from January 2025 to October 2026. Twenty-eight sessions in all, some of them across more than one evening.
Bosses have phases, traps have puzzles, and if a scene is not going anywhere, I move it on. D&D is competing with Marvel movies for their attention.
What I Added
The main changes from the written version.
Six Characters, Six Gods, One Conversion
They arrived worshipping Tyr, Ilmater, Mystra, Helm, Eilistraee and Lathander. They left worshipping Ubtao.
A farmer, obsessed with eating everything. Carries the Fang of Ubtao, which Dragonbait gave up for him at the Heart, and has a pet dinosaur that hatched at Halloween.
Trollish, and did not respect Ubtao's teachings for about a year and a half. Picked up a young grung companion at the Blackscale Bazaar.
Feeds souls to his axe: three hundred and eleven of them by the end. Took the Archaeologist background and never stopped asking about tombs.
Celestial light and the four elements, in one monk.
Escaped a vampire's household and hunts them now. Also the only person in Chult with a laser rifle.
Child of a Devil Lord, in half plate at AC 18, throwing Fireball (more on that below). Tried on a dress for the ball, liked it, and wore it for the rest of the campaign. A pool in the Tomb changed his gender, so she finished the campaign a woman.
The art on each card is that character's boon from the finale, which they earned in the realm of the gods on the last night.
Akira is a Light Domain cleric, so Fireball is always prepared for him. Add half plate and a shield and you get AC 18. It is a funny moment in any game for a DM, when a cleric with 18 AC throws a fireball.
He was able to play his cleric almost without using classic cleric tactics and spells. He barely used Flame Strike, because he could just Fireball.
The 2024 rules actually made Flame Strike better: 5d6 fire plus 5d6 radiant, 10d6 in all, up from 8d6. But it needs a fifth-level slot and fills a 10-foot radius. Fireball does 8d6 across a 20-foot radius from a third-level slot, or the same 10d6 if you cast it at fifth.
What is genuinely new is that the 2024 cleric picks a Divine Order at level 1. Akira took Protector, which adds heavy armour and martial weapons, so a cleric can start the game as a front-liner.
A 32-Inch Map and a 15-Inch Imagination
Two screens and one table.
I have a 32-inch screen lying flat on the table as a digital map. It's actually an old electronic sign that we've repurposed as a table, and it works perfectly for us.
I use Dynamic Dungeons on it for animated battle maps, or I show the official map with fog of war as the team explore.
In front of my DM screen there is a second screen, fifteen inches, showing the players a PowerPoint of slides (and the odd animation). Each deck is built by pushing the scene description into Nano Banana to produce an image of what the room, area or event looks like. Some sessions ran to a hundred and fifty slides.
The table screen is an Elo 3202L, a 32-inch commercial display made for shop signage. It's only two inches thick, so it lies flat, and the usable map area is about 27 by 15 inches. At an inch to five feet, that's roughly a 27 by 15 square grid.
Everything I Bought Before Session Zero
Nine things from the DMs Guild, bought between Christmas 2024 and the first session. $35.40 in all.
I spent a lot on maps and expansions for this campaign. Please support the amazing third-party creators who make our games unique and special.
| Product | Price | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Cellar of Death James Introcaso | $2.99 | A prelude adventure for level 1. Our session zero. |
| Tomb of Annihilation Companion | $4.99 | A companion guide to the campaign. |
| A Guide to Tomb of Annihilation | free | A guide to the campaign. |
| Tomb of Annihilation DM's Resources | $7.95 | Maps, guides and cheat sheets. |
| Tessa Presents 115 Maps for Tomb of Annihilation Tessa Morecroft | $9.99 | 115 maps for the campaign, by Tessa Morecroft. The Port Nyanzaru maps in part one are hers. |
| Jungles of Chult Factbook | free | A setting guide to the jungles. |
| Encounters in the Jungles of Chult | $3.99 | Encounters for the jungle. |
| 35 Magical Items for Tomb of Annihilation | $1.50 | Magic items for the campaign. |
| Karniv's Treasures of Chult, 50 New Magical Items | $3.99 | Fifty magic items from Chult. |
I picked up a few more things as the campaign went on.
| Product | From | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| The Thundering Lizard Matt Town | DMs Guild | The Thundering Lizard inn in Port Nyanzaru. |
| DDAL07-03 A Day at the Races | DMs Guild | An Adventurers League adventure set at the Port Nyanzaru dinosaur races. |
| Escape from Malar's Throat Daniel Kahn, Eventyr Games | DMs Guild | Maps and extra content for Tomb of Annihilation. |
| Tomb of Annihilation Handouts | Wizards of the Coast, free | The official player handouts. |
| Tomb of Annihilation paper miniatures TheArcaneShop | Etsy | Art for the book's characters. I used it on my slides. |
Monsters Run, and They Die When It Is Time
Monsters run, big hits leave wounds, and nobody ever sees a hit point total.
My DM style is very influenced by the Acquisitions Incorporated games: high drama, humour, and memorable moments. The rules are there to serve the scene, not the other way round.
There's a nice coincidence here. Chris Perkins, who ran those games at PAX for years, is also one of the three credited designers of Tomb of Annihilation. So I was running his book in his style.
In practice, it comes down to five things.
- Monsters run
- Things that are losing, leave.
- Bloodied is announced
- When a monster drops to half its hit points, I tell the table it's bloodied.
- Big hits leave a wound
- Any single hit that does thirty per cent or more of a creature's hit point maximum causes a wound, made up on the spot. Can't use both arms. Half speed from a broken leg. A cracked helm. Throwing up blood and stunned. It works both ways: the players take them too.
- Sensible resistances
- Enemies have sensible, lore-friendly resistances and immunities. Firenewts are immune to fire, and so on.
- Monsters die when it's right
- When it's narratively right, or when the fight has gone on too long and is getting boring.
- Crits are fun again
- We use the Nord Games Critical Hit and Critical Fail decks. Roll a natural 20 or a 1, draw a card.
I never give out monster hit points. The players get three clues instead: whether it's bloodied, which I announce; how I describe it ("looks beaten", "on his last legs"); and whatever wounds it is carrying. That's enough for them to know how a fight is going without me ever saying a number.
The 2024 rules made Bloodied an official term: a creature with half its hit points or fewer. Several creatures in the 2024 Monster Manual change what they do once they are Bloodied, so announcing it costs nothing and lines up with the monster's own change of gear. It also gives the players a reason to cheer halfway through a long fight.
The wounds, if you'd rather roll
I always made wounds up on the spot. If you'd rather roll, here is a d12 built from the ones we used. The four marked ★ came straight from our table; I filled in the rest in the same spirit.
| d12 | Wound | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cracked helm ★ | The blow rings off their skull. Disadvantage on Perception checks. |
| 2 | Blood in the eyes | Disadvantage on attacks against anything more than 10 feet away. |
| 3 | Ears ringing | Deafened. |
| 4 | Arm hangs useless | One arm gone. No two-handed weapons, no shield. |
| 5 | Both arms dead ★ | No weapon attacks, and they hold nothing. An action spent working the feeling back reduces this to 4. |
| 6 | Grip gone | They drop what they are holding. It lands 5 feet away, in a direction you pick. |
| 7 | Broken leg ★ | Speed halved. They cannot Dash. |
| 8 | Both legs | Speed 0. They can crawl, and they can still fight from where they are. |
| 9 | Throwing up blood ★ | Stunned until the end of their next turn, then winded: no bonus actions. |
| 10 | Ribs gone | Each time they take damage, DC 10 Constitution save or lose their bonus action next turn. |
| 11 | Armour rent | AC drops by 2. On something unarmoured, the hide or scales tear open instead. |
| 12 | Kit ruined | Their shield splinters, or their weapon takes a −1 until repaired, whichever they were relying on. |
If you want a little structure around it, two suggestions. A wound lasts until the end of the fight, and magical healing clears it, or an ally can spend an action on a DC 13 Medicine check. And if one hit does half a creature's hit points, roll twice and use the worse.
Put together, this means a monster's hit points are a guide rather than a rule. The statblock tells me what it can do and how dangerous it is. I decide when the scene ends.
Head initiative
We don't track initiative for every creature. We use head initiative.
- Every player rolls
- The monsters don't roll at all.
- Highest goes first
- Then we carry on round the table, in the order people are sitting.
- Ties go together
- If two people roll the same initiative, they go together.
- When it reaches me, the baddies go
- If there are a lot of them, I split them: half go when it reaches me, and half when it reaches the opposite end of the table.
- I choose the direction
- Which way round the table we go is my call. If the boss has a low health pool and the player next to me wins initiative, the order goes that player, then me, then on round the table, so the boss gets its turn before the party can take it apart.
- Surprise rounds
- Before combat starts, everyone gets ten seconds to decide what they are doing.
- Ambushes
- Creatures that spring an ambush can often start the fight and go first.
- The initiative 20 rule
- Objects that act on their own, like a construct or the sphere of annihilation, go after whichever player rolled closest to 20.
Everybody can see who is next and how long they will wait, so the next player is already getting ready. It also makes initiative swapping easy for anyone with the feat for it. (In the 2024 rules that's Alert, which lets you swap initiative with a willing ally.)
I'll come back to what the 2024 rules did to the monsters themselves at the end of part two.
The City of a Hundred Princes
March 2025. Arrival, the guides, the markets, and a reputation to earn.
In the book, Port Nyanzaru is mostly where you hire a guide and stock up before the jungle. I gave it more: a reputation to earn, a dinosaur race, a ball, a trial, and a villain.
Five objectives
Syndra Silvane sent them in with five objectives.
- Learn
- What Chult is, and what the Death Curse actually does.
- Earn three positive reputation gains
- The city will not help strangers. Do three things people notice.
- Find a guide
- There are plenty to choose from.
- Get a Charter of Exploration and get it stamped
- The charter comes from the Flaming Fist. The stamp has to come from a merchant prince.
- Buy supplies
- Everything they need to survive a jungle expedition.
The reputation target gives the city a shape: the team need three ways to be useful in public, so every side quest in the chapter has a reason to exist.
The charter has a legitimate path and a criminal one, and both are priced. Earn it from the Flaming Fist and get a prince to stamp it, or go to the black market at Malar's Throat and buy a Forged Charter of Exploration for 100 gold and a counterfeit Merchant Prince Seal Stamp for 150.
The dinosaur race
Dinosaur racing starts with an accident in the street: a triceratops goes through six carts of silk and fruit, so the team learn that racing is a thing here. Then, in an alley, they meet a bookie in gaudy silks with rings on every finger.
"You look like you've got some skill, and maybe an appetite for excitement. The races are tomorrow, and I've got a ticket to ride. Free of charge. All I need is for you to level the playing field for me."
There is a racer called Thunderclap, a hadrosaurus, ridden by a young Chultan woman named Imira, and she has been winning too much for his liking. He wants her nobbled, and the team have three options.
Take the job. Poison the feed at DC 13 Sleight of Hand. Spook the animal at DC 15 Animal Handling. Tamper with the saddle at DC 14 Dexterity. Or lean on Imira directly at DC 16. Succeed and the bookie pays fifty gold and hands over the ticket, and rumours about foul play start following the party around.
Refuse. DC 15 Intimidation and he backs off, and warns them not to interfere again.
Or go and look. DC 14 Investigation at the stable after dark finds two cloaked figures already lurking, because a second bookie has had the same idea. Stop them and Imira wins her race honestly.
Go and look, stop the saboteurs, and the team meets the merchant prince Kwayothé, because Kwayothé is Imira's sponsor. The reward for protecting her racer is a race ticket and a prince who owes them a favour.
A nobbler
And anotherThey turned the bookie down, then ambushed the nobblers at the stable. The whole team rode in the race, and they won it, and the prince's favour with it.
Looking for a guide
Guides drink in the city's inns. The Thundering Lizard is the rowdy one: roasted meat and spiced ale, a bard in the corner, dice on every table, and a huge dinosaur skull grinning down from above the bar. The book's guides can be found there, along with quest-givers and Volothamp Geddarm.
They went looking for a guide in the pub first. They got one in the end as a reward, after Camp Vigilance.
Executioner's Run
Port Nyanzaru executes its criminals in a pit: a deep trench, its sides slick with mud, with velociraptors pacing in pens along it and a crowd leaning over the edge to bet and jeer.
They saved a man from execution in the pit.
A velociraptor
A gladiatorThe rest of the city
Zindar the half-dragon harbourmaster, who wants three pirate crews dealt with and will pay two thousand gold a ship, which is the hook that pays off in Act II aboard the Golden Drake. A yuan-ti spy on the docks, watchable at DC 12, suspicious at DC 15, and visibly not human at DC 18, who runs if confronted and turns into a street chase. And the Flaming Fist, shaking down new arrivals for fifty gold a head for an exploration licence that does not exist.
Each round of a chase through Port Nyanzaru, roll d6 for what gets in the way. The quarry rolls too, but with advantage, because they live here.
| d6 | What happens | Check |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A cart tips, fruit everywhere | DC 13 Acrobatics to vault the debris |
| 2 | A dray dinosaur blocks the street | DC 14 Athletics over, or DC 12 Stealth under |
| 3 | Mossy incline, no footing | DC 15 Acrobatics or fall prone and lose a round |
| 4 | An alley full of fire-jugglers | DC 14 Perception to keep sight of them |
| 5 | A crowd around a loud bard | DC 13 Athletics to shove through, or DC 12 Intimidation |
| 6 | A crate of live chickens goes over | DC 13 Acrobatics or take 1d4 and keep running |
Three consecutive failures, or falling sixty feet behind, and the quarry is gone. They still leave something: a dropped vial of poison, a coded map, a pendant of Dendar under the cloak.
Mushroom Zombies at Camp Vigilance
Spring 2025. The first trip out of the city, a camp with a secret, and the source of an outbreak.
The team's first trip out of Port Nyanzaru was a mission. They were sent to Camp Vigilance to find out what was behind the "mushroom zombies".
At the camp they investigated and sneaked around, and learned that the commander was a traitor.
Then they tracked the zombie outbreak to its source, deep in the jungle.
They came home to Port Nyanzaru, won the prince's favour, and got a guide as their reward.
The rewards
The mushroom zombie mission paid out in jungle gear. Most of it had a second power waiting at level 6, which only woke up once the item had been repaired with something from the jungle.
Longsword of Vine Entanglement
Chainmail of Fungal Growth
Ma'chat
Cloak of Elvenkind
Boots of Striding and Springing
+1 Shield
Javelin of Lightning
Bracers of the Jungle Vine| Item | What it does | At level 6 |
|---|---|---|
| Longsword of Vine Entanglement | A +1 longsword. On a critical hit, vines burst from the wound: DC 14 Strength save, or restrained until the end of its next turn. | No upgrade |
| Chainmail of Fungal Growth | Medium armour, AC 16 + Dex (max 2), covered in living fungus. Resistance to poison, and vulnerability to fire. | No upgrade |
| Ma'chat | A +1 shortsword shaped like a machete. Deals 5 extra damage to plant creatures, and slows them by 10 feet. | Bathe the blade in the sap of a rare jungle tree |
| Cloak of Elvenkind | Blends with the jungle. Advantage on Stealth, and Perception checks to spot you are at disadvantage. | Weave in fibres from a jungle plant that hides itself |
| Boots of Striding and Springing | Woven from jungle vines. +10 feet of speed, and you jump three times as far. | Reinforce the soles with bark from an ancient jungle tree |
| +1 Shield | Carved from the shell of a giant jungle tortoise, and etched with protective runes. | Inlay it with sacred wood from a jungle shrine |
| Javelin of Lightning | A javelin of metallic jungle vine. Once a day it turns into a lightning bolt when thrown, for 2d6 lightning damage. | Leave it out in a jungle thunderstorm |
| Bracers of the Jungle Vine | +1 AC. Once per short rest, the vines stretch for 5 feet of extra reach. Advantage on Athletics to climb trees or swing on vines. | Soak them in rare tree sap for a day, and a reaction cuts falling damage by five times your monk level |
Six of these items have a better version locked away until level 6. Each item card says what the repair needs, but not where to find it: "What tree might do the job?"
The yellowed map
One more thing came out of the mission: a fragment of an old map of Chult, with a faint X over a ruin. On its own it gives advantage on Investigation checks to spot hidden ruins. Two more pieces were scattered across the jungle, and only all three together show where the ruins are.
The map went to Phoenix, and she studiously collected the fragments everywhere they went. She found the last one at the Heart of Ubtao.
The map leads to Omu. I put it in because I wanted the team to have another route there, in case they failed to find any of the other threads I had laid.
Carry Your Partner
April 2025. A trap dungeon built on a fable, a god who speaks, and a burnt-out camp that becomes home.
As written, Camp Righteous is a ruined Order of the Gauntlet camp with a shrine underneath it. I expanded the shrine into a full trap dungeon, and I tied every trap in it to one Chultan story: the fable of the Man and the Crocodile.
The fable is about a promise, and about carrying someone across a river. So the rule underneath the whole dungeon is simple. Carry your partner, and the trap doesn't fire.
Up top, the camp itself is haunted. Ghostly templars still walk it, repeating "the promise must be kept", there is a fledgling axe beak in the pen, and Yokka's goblins are waiting outside with nets and horns to call the undead in while the team is busy underground. Yokka, it turns out, is four Batiri goblins standing on each other's shoulders behind a painted mask.
The camp
Ghosts among the tents
The ghostly templars
The ruins
A fledgling axe beak
Yokka's goblins
Every trap could be beaten the hard way with checks and saves. Every trap could also be skipped entirely by doing what the fable says.
- The Pit of Burdens
- A trapdoor hidden under mud and leaves, with glowing carvings that read "only those who bear their burdens together will find safe passage." Anyone crossing alone has a fifty-fifty chance of dropping twenty feet into a pit of poisonous snakes. Once it is open, there is a narrow ledge round the edge: DC 10 Acrobatics, at disadvantage if you are carrying someone. But if one character carries another across, the plate doesn't trigger at all.
- The Corridor of the Crocodile's Trust
- A dart corridor with pressure plates hidden in the floor. The carvings along the walls show a man carrying a crocodile on his back, which is the answer.
- The Flaming Puzzle Floor of Ubtao
- A four-by-four grid of tiles up on a terrace. The carved pattern on the door at the far end is the key, but it gets harder to see the further across you get, and some of the safe-looking tiles are illusions.
- The Rolling Boulder of Ubtao
- Indiana Jones, obviously. A carved boulder and a run for it.
- The Puzzle Door of Ubtao
- Up on a seven-foot ledge, with no handle, just four glowing squares. It takes two people working together to open it.
- The Treasury Chamber
- A thirty-foot pillar with a staircase winding round it, the fable carved all the way up, and the alchemy jug sitting on top. Get greedy and there is a spectral crocodile to deal with.
Carrying someone makes the balance check harder, so the safe way looks like the difficult way. The team has to trust the carvings rather than the dice.
Ubtao's labyrinth carvings run along every wall. When the team works together, the carvings glow faintly. When somebody goes off alone, or gets greedy, they dim and crack. A scoreboard they can see without being told there is one.
The Pit of Burdens
The Corridor of the Crocodile's Trust
The Flaming Puzzle Floor
The Rolling Boulder
The Puzzle Door
The Treasury Chamber
The Flaming Puzzle Floor of Ubtao
This is a trap that is hard to picture from the words alone, so I drew it out on a two-page A4 sheet: my picture of the hallway, a side view of the ledges showing why the door's clue disappears as you cross, a plan of the floor and the door, and the rules.
Download the trap sheet PDF · 2 pages · 1.6 MBUbtao speaks
When they lifted the alchemy jug off the top of the pillar, the air went heavy, the carvings blazed, and the god spoke to them directly.
"You have proven yourselves worthy by honouring trust and cooperation. The trials of my shrine were not mere tests but lessons, lessons in unity, vigilance, and perseverance. You carry now a relic of my favour, but I offer you more than treasure. I offer you purpose."
Then he gave them a choice. Accept his blessing, which meant changing their background to one tied to Chult and facing one more trial. Or decline, and leave with the jug.
Accept, and Ubtao drops them at one end of an eighty-foot rope bridge over a sixty-foot gorge. Frayed ropes, missing planks, moss on everything, and a river full of crocodiles at the bottom.
- Crossing alone
- DC 12 Acrobatics each round, or your speed is halved.
- Crossing as Man and Crocodile
- One carries the other. Both roll a DC 10 Acrobatics together, the carrier gets advantage on spotting weak planks, and the rider can add +2 to the carrier's roll. If a weak plank breaks, only the carrier saves.
- Round 1
- Two pteranodons dive at the bridge to knock people off.
- Round 3
- A deinonychus pack arrives at the near end, and an allosaurus at the far end.
- Round 4 onwards
- The bridge starts collapsing behind them. DC 15 Dexterity, or into the gorge with the crocodiles.
On the far side, Ubtao offers each of them a new background: Jungle Guide, Dinosaur Wrangler, Spirit Speaker, Treasure Hunter or Archaeologist. Each comes with a quest to unlock it later. The Dinosaur Wrangler's, for example, is to tame a rampaging tyrannosaurus called Thunderfang.
Jungle Guide
Dinosaur Wrangler
Spirit Speaker
Treasure Hunter
Archaeologist
A home
Then he sent them back to the camp in a flash of light, and gave it to them.
"This place was built upon my teachings but abandoned by those who lacked vigilance. Now it shall serve as your bastion, a sanctuary for those who honour trust and cooperation. Use this camp wisely. Build upon its ruins; let it grow as you grow."
I used the 2024 Bastion rules, but Ubtao grants the camp rather than the team buying one. It has five facilities, and all five upgrade at level 9:
- Dinosaur Forge
- Turns dinosaur bones, scales and claws into weapons and armour. More on this in part two.
- Meditation Chamber
- Once per long rest, meditate for temporary hit points and advantage on Survival for a day. Break a promise and you lose access until you atone. At level 9 it also grants resistance to necrotic damage.
- Dinosaur Stables
- Tame dinosaurs as mounts or allies over several days of Animal Handling checks. They need looking after, or they wander off.
- Jungle Alchemy Lab
- Brew healing potions, antidotes for jungle diseases, and poisons from Chult's plants.
- Labyrinthine Defenses
- Attackers make a DC 15 Intelligence save or get lost in the maze for a round. Kwayothé came straight through it later on.
Divine Favour. As long as the team honours Ubtao's teachings of trust and cooperation, they have advantage on Survival checks within ten miles of the camp. If they act selfishly, or harm Chult's natural order for no reason, his favour fades.
Ubtao's Bastion
Dinosaur Forge
Meditation Chamber
Dinosaur Stables
Jungle Alchemy Lab
Labyrinthine DefensesIn the 2014 rules a background was two skills, a tool and a bit of flavour. In the 2024 rules it is also where your ability score increases and your origin feat come from, so "change your background" can mean rebuilding part of a character.
My Chult backgrounds were written the older way: two skills, a tool, and a feature. If you offer a god's blessing like this on the 2024 rules, decide before the table asks what happens to the feat and the ability scores.
They worked out the carry rule quickly, and Fate carried Akira. They cleared the shrine, and came out with the alchemy jug and the Obsidian Amulet of Ubtao. Ubtao gave them the camp.
And at some point over the rest of the campaign, all six of them, who had arrived following Tyr, Ilmater, Mystra, Helm, Eilistraee and Lathander, became worshippers of Ubtao.
They all accepted Ubtao's blessing and took a Chult background. Fate leaned on his Archaeologist background constantly, always asking about tombs, and Johnathan went for Dinosaur Wrangler, which fitted nicely with the pet dinosaur he got later.
The teamwork riddles from this dungeon ("I am heavy when held alone…") came back six months later at our Halloween session, and the Man and Crocodile idea kept coming back right up to the finale.
Camp Righteous & Shrine of the Crocodile
My full companion for this chapter, written for the 2024 rules: the camp above ground, Yokka and his goblins, all six traps in the House of the Crocodile, the rope bridge trial, the camp as a bastion with its five facilities, the five Chult backgrounds and their quests, and the spectral crocodile's riddles.
Download the companion PDF · 34 pages · 2.8 MBOutfits, Assassins and a Letter
April 2025. Two offers at the inn, a shop full of terrible outfits, a ball with eight things to do, and a letter that turned the campaign.
There is no ball in the module. I added one: an evening at Zhanthi's villa with every merchant prince in the room, and a few guests who were not what they seemed. It was one of the biggest changes I made to the book, and all of it is my own design.
It runs in four parts: two offers at the Thundering Lizard, a trip to the tailor, the ball itself, and the rooms upstairs that nobody is supposed to go into.
Two offers at the Thundering Lizard
It starts with the team at a table in the Thundering Lizard, over drinks. A brightly coloured jungle parrot flies in through an open window, circles the room twice, and lands on their table.
"Message from Qawasha. Danger at Zhanthi's ball. Yuan-ti assassins. Three nights from now. Meet me at merchant villa. Save Zhanthi. Become your guide." The parrot shifts from foot to foot. "Trust no one. Yuan-ti spies everywhere. Even princes not safe."
Then it grabs a bread crust and flies out of the window. And before they have finished talking about it, the room goes quiet, and the merchant prince Kwayothé walks in with two guards, pulls up a chair without asking, and makes them a better offer.
"I know Qawasha has contacted you about Zhanthi's upcoming ball. How quaint that he thinks himself clever enough to detect assassins. I have a more lucrative proposition. There's a letter in Zhanthi's villa, in either her private study or her bedroom. A rather personal document. Retrieve it during the commotion of this supposed assassination attempt, and I'll ensure that dinosaur forge you desire for your jungle bastion is built within a fortnight."
"Refuse, and I'll ensure your expedition supplies become mysteriously unavailable."
She slides them their invitation to the ball, with the address of her tailor inside, and leaves. A fortnight, instead of the usual forty-five days for the forge.
The team now have two requests pulling in opposite directions, and four ways to go.
- Help Qawasha
- Stop the assassination, and gain a guide who knows the jungle.
- Help Kwayothé
- Steal the letter, and get the forge built in a fortnight.
- Try both
- And risk being caught between two powerful factions.
- Dig deeper
- Work out what both of them actually want first.
The Peacock's Plume
Kwayothé's tailor is Madame Zula, who runs The Peacock's Plume in the market ward: a flamboyant boutique full of racks of outrageous outfits, mannequins in absurd costumes, and air that smells of spice and freshly dyed silk. Madame Zula has rainbow-dyed hair, an outfit made from scraps of every fabric imaginable, and a feathered headdress that towers over her. She has an eye for fashion, and she loves pushing her customers towards the most absurd choices.
"Darling! You simply cannot attend the Merchant Prince's ball looking like that! You need drama! You need flair! You need... my genius!"
| Outfit | What it is | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Jungle Vine Suit | Woven entirely from vines and leaves. Smells faintly of earth, and grows small flowers when watered. | 25 gp |
| Feathered Cape of Ubtao | Bright feathers that shed glitter as you move. You look like a tropical bird. | 40 gp |
| Banana Leaf Ball Gown | Oversized banana leaves, enchanted to stay fresh for a day. Comes with a matching fruit hat. | 30 gp |
| Jaculi Scarf | Patterned like a jaculi snake, and hisses softly when touched. | 15 gp |
| Eblis Mask | A golden eblis-bird face, with a beak you can hide snacks in. | 20 gp |
| Flail Snail Shoes | Glittering shoes that leave a trail of sparkling slime. | 35 gp |
| Kamadan Tuxedo | Faux kamadan heads on the shoulders, which growl softly when you bow. | 50 gp |
| Grung Stomper Boots | Bright green, shaped like grung feet, and they squeak on every step. | 10 gp |
| Golden Tyrannosaurus Crown | A roaring tyrannosaurus head. Perfect for making an entrance. | 60 gp |
| Froghemoth Gloves | Oversized tentacle gloves that wiggle slightly when worn. | 25 gp |
For anyone with taste, there is a second, sensible rail: a silken tuxedo, a crimson velvet gown with golden jungle flowers, a golden serpent mask, and silk gloves that give +1 to Dexterity checks while dancing. Madame Zula does her best to steer everyone away from it.
- Haggle
- Persuasion DC 15 for a discount.
- Model it
- She may make you model your outfit in front of the other customers. Performance DC 13.
- Impress her
- With your fashion sense or your jokes, and she brings out a secret item: the Peacock's Plume itself, a feathered hat that gives advantage on one Charisma check a day.
- Magic infusion
- For 10 gp more an item, she enchants it to glow faintly or play soft music while you wear it. Fittings are free.
At The Peacock's Plume, Akira, our tiefling cleric, tried on a dress. He liked it so much that he wore it for the rest of the campaign, to much hilarity. From then on, any NPC could make a roll to spot the discrepancy.
The ball
Stepping into the grand ballroom of Merchant Prince Zhanthi's villa, you are immediately struck by the opulence. Tabaxi minstrels are playing, and dozens of guests, nobles, merchants and adventurers like yourselves, are dressed in dazzling Chultan colours. Magical lights drift near the high ceiling, casting shimmering patterns across a marble floor inlaid with stars. At the far end, a wide staircase climbs to the platform where Zhanthi holds court.
Guards patrol discreetly along the edges of the room. Somewhere amid all this splendour, yuan-ti infiltrators are hiding, disguised and preparing to strike.
Somewhere in the ballroom, among the nobles, merchants and tabaxi minstrels, there are infiltrators. Zhanthi suspects poison or magic.
- Perception DC 13
- A servant who won't make eye contact and keeps adjusting their gloves.
- Insight DC 15
- A guest with a snake-shaped amulet who keeps drifting back to Zhanthi's table.
- Investigation DC 14
- One glass on a tray of drinks with a faint green tint.
- Arcana DC 16
- Glyphs etched into the floor by Zhanthi's seat, and traces of shapeshifting magic in the room.
Find enough, or confront the wrong servant, and the yuan-ti drop the act: three purebloods going for Zhanthi, a malison with a longbow at the back, and poison glyphs on the floor (DC 14 Dexterity or 2d8 poison).
Eight things to do at a ball
I also wanted the players to have fun things to do while they hunted. So each merchant prince hosts something, and each one has a prize. Yes, Kwayothé is running the bar.
| Host | The game | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| Wakanga O'tamu | Chultan dice. Roll 2d6 in secret and bet whether the table's total beats 15. Insight or Deception DC 15 to read him or bluff him. | Dice of Luck: reroll any d20, once a day |
| Kwayothé | A drinking contest with her jungle liquors. Constitution saves at DC 12, then 15, then 18. Fail two and you are drunk: disadvantage on ability checks for an hour. | A bottle of Jungle Fire: fire resistance for an hour |
| Ifan Talro'a | A dance-off. Acrobatics or Performance, DC 13. Fail and he teases you. | Feathered Anklets: advantage on Acrobatics to jump and climb |
| Zhanthi | Exotic food tasting, from fried almiraj tails to candied jaculi scales. Constitution DC 12 to keep it down; Insight DC 14 to work out what it was. | Her favour, and a pouch of Spices of Chult |
| Ekene-Afa | A storytelling contest round the fire pit. Performance DC 14. | Ekene's Warrior Token: +1 to attacks with one weapon |
| Jobal | A quiet word in a side room. Persuasion or Investigation DC 15. | Where the yuan-ti are hiding, and cheaper guides |
| The nobles | Betting on next week's dinosaur race. Investigation DC 12 to pick the right animal. | Gold, at the bookkeeper's odds |
| A playful noble | A treasure hunt round the gardens, balconies and fountains. Perception DC 13. | Spices, jewellery, the odd minor magic item |
Slipping away
The letter is upstairs, and the party is downstairs. So I wrote some rules for leaving a ball without anybody noticing, and for getting back in again.
| What is happening at the ball | DC | Time you get |
|---|---|---|
| Dancing | +2 | 1d4 + 1 minutes |
| Dinner service | −2 | 2d4 minutes |
| A speech or a toast | −3 | 1d6 + 2 minutes |
| A performance | −2 | 2d4 minutes |
- Leaving
- Deception or Stealth DC 15, adjusted by the window above. Fail, and somebody notices you go: roll on the witness table.
- The clock
- Every 10 minutes away, roll a d20. 1 to 3, a servant comes into the room. 4 to 6, a guest wanders nearby. 7 to 10, someone at the ball asks where you are. Anything higher, you're fine.
- Coming back
- Deception DC 13 as you rejoin. Fail, and someone asks questions: roll on the suspicion table.
- Working as a team
- One player makes a distraction (Performance or Deception DC 15) to give another advantage on Stealth. A lookout gives +2 to the searcher's Perception. A cover story prepared in advance ("looking for the toilet") gives +2 on Deception if you're caught.
- It gets harder
- Every failed Stealth or Deception check adds 1 to every DC after it.
- Drinking
- Alcohol gives disadvantage on Stealth and Investigation for the rest of the ball. (See Kwayothé's bar.)
- Helping yourself
- Invisibility and disguise self give advantage. The Noble background gives advantage on explaining why you're upstairs. And anyone can trade their social standing (disadvantage on social checks for the rest of the night) for advantage on one crucial Stealth or Investigation check.
| d6 | Who saw you |
|---|---|
| 1 | A friendly noble. Can be bribed or persuaded. |
| 2 | A curious servant. Might follow you, or report you. |
| 3 | A palace guard. Needs an explanation or a distraction. |
| 4 | Another guest. Might spread gossip. |
| 5 | A merchant prince's advisor. Immediately suspicious. |
| 6 | One of the yuan-ti. Now knows what you're doing. |
| d6 | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1 | Mild curiosity, easily brushed off. |
| 2 | Gossip spreads: disadvantage on Deception for the rest of the ball. |
| 3 | The guards start watching you: disadvantage on Stealth. |
| 4 | More guards on the private rooms. |
| 5 | A merchant prince asks what you were doing, and you may be asked to leave. |
| 6 | A security alert. The guards search the private rooms. |
The rooms upstairs
Kwayothé said the letter was in Zhanthi's bedroom or her study, so I built both rooms as small puzzle boxes: traps, things that make noise, and a lot of very silly things to find. Searching takes time, and time is what the clock above is counting.
- Traps
- A jewellery box with a poisoned needle. A pressure plate under the rug that throws the window open and blows out the candles. A canopy that collapses on anyone who cuts its cords. A nightstand drawer full of sleeping gas. A chest with a false bottom and a shocking rune.
- Noise
- Crystal wind chimes by the window, a squeaky floorboard, a music box that starts if you jostle it, a chattering-teeth trinket that goes off when it senses body heat, and bell-covered slippers under the bed.
- Things to find
- A long sleeping cap embroidered "Sweet Dreams" in Elvish. Bad love poetry under the mattress, about a local tavern keeper. A stuffed toy mimic. Self-help scrolls, including Charisma for the Chronically Awkward and So You've Accidentally Summoned a Demon: Now What? A mirror that pays you ridiculous compliments ("Your eyebrows are MAGNIFICENT today!"). And a framed collection of fake moustaches.
- Traps
- A dart trap in the desk drawer, with a sleeping poison. A mounted skull whose jaw snaps shut on anyone who bumps its antlers. A map on the wall hiding a compartment full of sneezing dust. A pressure plate under the rug that locks the door. A red book with a needle in its spine.
- Noise
- A squeaky chair, rustling papers, a crystal paperweight that rings like a bell, a loose floorboard by the bookshelf, and a hunting horn hidden among the books.
- Things to find
- A Hunter's Guide to Making Friends with Your Prey. A journal of failed hunting trips ("mistook own reflection for prey"). A monocle that makes everything look unnecessarily dramatic. A cologne that repels deer and people equally. A trick inkwell full of blue ink.
- The letter
- On the bookshelf. Perception DC 13 notices one book slightly out of place, and pulling it opens a hidden compartment with 50 gold and the letter inside.
Searching runs on time: a quick look is a minute at DC 10, a thorough search ten minutes at DC 15, a meticulous one thirty minutes at DC 17. Every five minutes in the study, roll a d20, and on a 1 to 3 someone is coming. A spell like detect magic shows which book, the map and the window are magical.
The letter
Kwayothé told them it was a personal document that would embarrass Zhanthi. If the players read it, they find out the assassination is real, and who ordered it. It is sealed with Kwayothé's own sigil, a flame surrounded by jungle leaves.
To the Esteemed Servants of the Night Serpent,
The time has come to eliminate a thorn in both our sides. Zhanthi's continued interference in Port Nyanzaru's politics and her meddling in matters of trade have become intolerable…
Her upcoming ball presents the perfect opportunity. My sources inform me that she will be vulnerable, surrounded by sycophants too drunk on their own importance to notice an assassin in their midst…
In fire and shadow,
Kwayothé
Merchant Prince of Spices and Flames
That letter carries the rest of Act I. It is the evidence against her at the trial, and it names the yuan-ti's plan to free Dendar the Night Serpent.
She rewards them with gold and a jungle-themed magic item for each class.
- Rogue
- A ring of invisibility, ten minutes once a day.
- Paladins
- A Shield of Radiance: +1, and it sheds bright light in a 20-foot radius.
- Cleric
- An amulet of protection, +1 to AC and saving throws.
- Monk
- Bracers of Jungle Agility: +1 AC, and advantage on Acrobatics.
- Fighter
- A Sword of Venom, a +1 longsword that adds 1d6 poison.
If they fail, Zhanthi survives but is badly hurt, stops trusting them, and the yuan-ti escape into the city, leaving clues behind.
Also at the ball, undercover, was James Paws: a tabaxi rogue and a Harper agent, charming, fond of wordplay, and there to find out who was plotting what. He can cast suggestion, he disguises himself as a matter of routine, and if things turn into a fight he would much rather be somewhere else.
Qawasha
Kupalué
A yuan-ti
A tabaxi guestThey tried to do both: save Zhanthi and take the letter.
They tried every game, and all of them worked well. Akira got drunk at Kwayothé's drinking contest and roleplayed it well.
The team saved Zhanthi. They recruited James Paws, who travelled with them until the jungle, where a dinosaur swallowed him whole. (They got him back.)
They found the letter and left with it, then had to fight every yuan-ti in the place on the way out, in one huge line-up. It was Kwayothé's own letter, proof that she was dealing with the yuan-ti. The letter she had asked them to steal was the evidence against her.
The Merchant Prince Problem
May 2025. The letter, a choice, and a trial.
They came out of the ball holding a letter that proved a merchant prince had been dealing with the yuan-ti. I gave them three choices, and prepped all three.
Expose her. Take it to the Ytepka Society and make it public. Conceal it. Keep quiet, let Kwayothé build the Dinosaur Forge she promised, and find out what she put in it. Or play the game. Blackmail her, or sell the letter to another prince and see what that buys.
They exposed her. For the paths they didn't take, I'd written a sabotaged forge and a yuan-ti shrine in the sewers.
How the trial works
To give the trial some structure, I split it into three phases.
First, the evidence hunt, as a skill challenge at DC 14 to 16, three successes before two failures. Informants in the Red Bazaar after dark. A dockside chase after smugglers. Breaking into Kwayothé's counting house. Every success is worth something at the trial.
| Evidence | How you get it | DC | Worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kwayothé's letter | Already in hand, from the ball | none | The case itself. Not enough on its own. |
| Yuan-ti prisoner | Taken alive during an assassination attempt | 16 | +2 votes |
| Her ledgers | Stolen from the villa vault | 18 | +1 vote, and names the bribed |
| Witness testimony | A bribed official persuaded to talk | 15 | +1 vote |
| Zone of Truth | Get it cast on her in the chamber | 15 | Win outright, if she then lies |
Zone of Truth is the shortcut: get it cast on her, and if she lies, the case is won.
A yuan-ti assassin taken alive is worth two votes, so it pays to take prisoners.
Second, lobbying. Five princes, five different prices, each one roleplayed. Ifan Talro'a is the easiest at DC 13, and all he wants is a promise about dinosaur racing. Wakanga wants arcane secrets (DC 14). Jessamine is the hardest at DC 18, and you have to threaten to expose her secrets, which is risky.
Third, the debate itself. Three rounds, and the party picks a tactic each round.
Three rounds. Each round the party declares one tactic, and rolls the pair of skills it calls for. The goal is swaying undecided princes, and the vote at the end is real arithmetic rather than a DM decision.
| Tactic | Skills | On a success | On a failure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public Oratory | Persuasion + Performance | Gain 1 to 2 votes | Kwayothé gets advantage on her rebuttal |
| Expose Corruption | Investigation + Deception | Nullify a bribe or a false witness | Censured, and out of the chamber for a round |
| Emotional Appeal | Insight + History or Persuasion | Convert one neutral prince | The crowd turns |
| Logical Argument | Investigation + Insight | Hole in Kwayothé's defence | Lose a vote you already had |
Four votes wins, and the princes vote anonymously with Triceratops coins.
Halfway through, the plan has yuan-ti assassins come through a window at a witness, or Kwayothé's supporters start a riot outside.
Kwayothé's defence
Kwayothé gets a passionate defence.
"You think me a monster? I kept this city fed while Zhanthi hoarded gems. Where were your precious Ytepka when children starved? I dealt with serpents to keep your businesses safe."
She can also bring forged ledgers and bought witnesses, DC 16 Insight to see through them.
If they lose
Below four votes, Kwayothé walks and turns it around: the party are foreign agitators who forged a letter to smear a merchant prince. The consequences were written down before the session started. A standing minus two to social checks anywhere in Port Nyanzaru. A warrant, so the city becomes somewhere to sneak through rather than shop in. Zhanthi and James Paws quietly stop returning messages. Kwayothé moves on the party's assets.
The Blackscale Bazaar
The same session had an optional trip to the Blackscale Bazaar, which is a village of rickety platforms on stilts out in the swamp, reached through mangrove tunnels in a leaking boat. Getting there is its own skill challenge at DC 14, three successes before two failures, with giant crocodiles waiting if they fail.
The stall that matters is the Coiled Vault, run by Salazaa, a yuan-ti pureblood in a human disguise with golden scales just showing. Everything on the shelf has a hidden catch.
| Item | Price | What it does not say |
|---|---|---|
| Scaleleaf Cloak | 450gp | +5 Stealth in jungle. The wearer dreams of Dendar: DC 13 Wisdom on waking or take a level of exhaustion. |
| Blackscale Map | 150gp | Reveals every yuan-ti shrine in Chult. Cursed. You lose 1 maximum hit point a day until it is removed. |
| Oathbreaker's Coin | 100gp | Reroll a Deception check once a day. On tails, a yuan-ti somewhere learns roughly where you are. |
| Eyes of the Pit | 400gp | Darkvision to 60 feet. Your eyes stay visibly reptilian for 1d4 days afterwards. |
| Egg of the Night Serpent | 500gp | Glows near undead. Crack it and it is a swarm of snakes, hostile, immediately. |
| Soulmonger Shard | 1,000gp | Glows near atropals. Carry it and you have disadvantage on death saves within a mile of the Soulmonger. |
The Soulmonger Shard costs a thousand gold, tells you when you are near the Soulmonger, and then makes it more likely to kill you.
The team went, and freed a young grung, who became Zagorath's companion for the rest of the campaign. After that, Zagorath tried to recruit almost everyone he met, including the Atropal.
The verdict
The trial went very cleanly, with the team spotting the holes in her account. She was stripped of her title and imprisoned. Then I handed out The Port Nyanzaru Chronicle, a real newspaper handout with the story on the front. The stop-press column at the bottom said she had escaped, with yuan-ti help suspected.
Her escape was always part of the plan; it was printed in the stop-press before the trial began. A few months later she came back and raided Camp Righteous with yuan-ti assassins.
In our trial, the vote was something the players could count. Every bit of evidence and every prince they won over was worth a vote they could see.
Tomb of Annihilation ran from January 2025 to October 2026, over twenty-eight sessions, for six players.
