JRosco
2018-01-26, 11:15 PM
Hello all!
In a few weeks I am going to start running my group through Tomb of Annihilation. I absolutely love the setting so far. It's thematic, exotic, and has a definite prehistoric/mythic feel that I haven't encountered in a lot of the more traditional fantasy material. In fact, I'm tempted to run the adventure in a sort of mythic or bronze age setting, removing a lot of the more medieval and colonial elements. Any thoughts on how one might set the timeline back a couple thousand years? Adjustments I would want to make? Anything stand out as problematic mechanically or storywise?
I also don't really like the idea of rushing my players through to the Tomb itself. I want them to spend much more time exploring Chult, and I feel like Port Nyanzaru especially has huge potential that is kind of wasted by treating it as a one or two session starting point. So I'm looking at ways to slow down the players' exit from Port Nyanzaru. I don't want to force them to stay in the city if they absolutely don't want to, but I want to give them incentives to stay. I've thought of a few off-hand:
1) Reliable guides may only be hired by those who hold a Charter of Exploration, from one of the Merchant Princes or from the Flaming Fist, but neither are keen to give charters to newcomers and outsiders. The players can try to go it alone, or hire a guide from the local bar, but they are taking a big risk. So in order to be safe(ish) they have to meet with one of the Merchant Princes, get a charter, and hire a guide that way. However, no one just gets a meeting with the Merchant Princes. In order to meet with them, they have to either do a service, or get noticed some other way (dino-racing, gladiatorial combat, etc).
2) Their contact in the city, the one their patron sent them to find, is murdered just before they arrive (I'm having them arrive by boat, and slowing down the Death Curse, or maybe even delaying its beginning). In order to find out the information their contact had promised, they need to find his...something. His journal? A map? Or maybe he had the locations of pieces of an artifact that, when assembled and used in a certain ruin in Chult, show the way to Omu (hehehe, I did not steal this from Indiana Jones. Not at all).
3) The city is under almost daily attack from the Undead. Hardly any ships are sailing out due to pirate activity. No guides are willing to leave while these two conditions are still ongoing. In order to hire a guide, the players have to find a way to deal with the Pirate problem (leading of course to intrigue in the city, as the players have to find out who is in league with the pirates) or deal with the Undead (maybe there is something calling them to Nyanzaru, a yuan-ti cult or other servants of Acererak conducting a ritual, etc).
What do you guys thinks about these? Any advice is appreciated!
Also, I've never really run an urban campaign before, and I'm coming up with lists of random city encounters/short plot hooks. The list from the book is helpful, but anything you guys can come up with would be great too!
Thanks!
In a few weeks I am going to start running my group through Tomb of Annihilation. I absolutely love the setting so far. It's thematic, exotic, and has a definite prehistoric/mythic feel that I haven't encountered in a lot of the more traditional fantasy material. In fact, I'm tempted to run the adventure in a sort of mythic or bronze age setting, removing a lot of the more medieval and colonial elements. Any thoughts on how one might set the timeline back a couple thousand years? Adjustments I would want to make? Anything stand out as problematic mechanically or storywise?
I also don't really like the idea of rushing my players through to the Tomb itself. I want them to spend much more time exploring Chult, and I feel like Port Nyanzaru especially has huge potential that is kind of wasted by treating it as a one or two session starting point. So I'm looking at ways to slow down the players' exit from Port Nyanzaru. I don't want to force them to stay in the city if they absolutely don't want to, but I want to give them incentives to stay. I've thought of a few off-hand:
1) Reliable guides may only be hired by those who hold a Charter of Exploration, from one of the Merchant Princes or from the Flaming Fist, but neither are keen to give charters to newcomers and outsiders. The players can try to go it alone, or hire a guide from the local bar, but they are taking a big risk. So in order to be safe(ish) they have to meet with one of the Merchant Princes, get a charter, and hire a guide that way. However, no one just gets a meeting with the Merchant Princes. In order to meet with them, they have to either do a service, or get noticed some other way (dino-racing, gladiatorial combat, etc).
2) Their contact in the city, the one their patron sent them to find, is murdered just before they arrive (I'm having them arrive by boat, and slowing down the Death Curse, or maybe even delaying its beginning). In order to find out the information their contact had promised, they need to find his...something. His journal? A map? Or maybe he had the locations of pieces of an artifact that, when assembled and used in a certain ruin in Chult, show the way to Omu (hehehe, I did not steal this from Indiana Jones. Not at all).
3) The city is under almost daily attack from the Undead. Hardly any ships are sailing out due to pirate activity. No guides are willing to leave while these two conditions are still ongoing. In order to hire a guide, the players have to find a way to deal with the Pirate problem (leading of course to intrigue in the city, as the players have to find out who is in league with the pirates) or deal with the Undead (maybe there is something calling them to Nyanzaru, a yuan-ti cult or other servants of Acererak conducting a ritual, etc).
What do you guys thinks about these? Any advice is appreciated!
Also, I've never really run an urban campaign before, and I'm coming up with lists of random city encounters/short plot hooks. The list from the book is helpful, but anything you guys can come up with would be great too!
Thanks!