Tomb of Annihilation Session 28 – Dwellers of the Forbidden City

Here’s the write up from our latest Tomb of Annihilation session, in which the characters began to explore the ruined city of Omu and I got to use my froghemoth mini for the first time 🙂

Begin here with Session 0 – Caves of the Cockatrice

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28th Nightal, 1495 DR (contd.)

The adventurers walk south around the clifftops overlooking Omu to the stone steps at the far side, opposite the waterfall. Every so often, they go to the edge and look down on the city, spotting thousands of bats swirling above a ruined complex surrounded by a circular wall.

After descending the steps, Nanna and Rhamash sneak ahead and enter the ruined guardhouse. The others follow and read the copious and helpful (?) graffiti covering the walls. 

From here, the party use a rope to climb down a ledge to reach the level of the city below. Vorn is too heavy for the rope and falls; Nanna also takes a tumble. The characters divide into two teams and search the first two ruined buildings they come to. Eysleigh catches a brief glimpse of a vegepygmy in the western building, but it disappears into a pile of rubble. 

 Searching the second pair of buildings is more eventful. Vorn falls through the floor, landing in a rubble-filled chamber 20 feet below. Meanwhile, the other building contains a thin, odourless blue mist, exposing everyone to mad monkey fever. Eysleigh fails his save, and casts lesser restoration on himself to get rid of the disease before its effects kick in. The two groups meet up, and Rhamash, Nanna, and Certes jump through the hole and onto Vorn. They uncover an idol depicting a weird snail with tentacles for a head. Nanna dubs it a “flail snail.” Vorn clears the rubble from a blocked stairway, allowing everyone to get back to the ground floor.

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Heading north, the adventurers approach a walled compound where they can see smoke. Nanna peers inside – the courtyard is littered with charred human corpses. Three of the bodies look like red-robed wizards; one is being torn apart by a pack of wild dogs.  Tharhul casts beast sense and commands Buzzter to fly over the compound and beyond like a drone. Once he’s happy it’s safe, Nanna and Certes go inside and start searching the bodies.

Certes and Vorn rescue the Red Wizards’ translator, a man named Orvex Ocrammas, from beneath a pile of rubble. Orvex tells the party that the four surviving mages are searching Omu for nine puzzle cubes that they need to enter the Tomb of the Nine Gods. After he’s been healed and given water, he recounts the Legend of the Nine Gods. Orvex asks to accompany the party, bringing their total number to unlucky thirteen – nine humanoids, two beasts, and two spirits.

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The group investigates Kubazan’s shrine to the west. As Nanna skirts around the edge of the pool, the lurking froghemoth bursts out of the water and attacks, pulling Tharhul towards it with its tongue and grabbing Eysleigh and Rhamash with its tentacles. Loro Pagg frees Eysleigh who summons a water elemental, while Tharhul blasts it with his gun and Certes restrains it with Evard’s black tentacles. The froghemoth swallows Rhamash, taking him down to 1 hp, but the elemental kills the monster in the nick of time, and the monk is rescued.

Nanna recovers the stone key from the frog statue’s mouth and uses it to unlock the door to the shrine. Certes translates the inscription over the entrance: “Kubuzan urges us to tread without fear and to give back as much as we take.” The puzzle cube rests on a pedestal on the far side of the shrine, across a pit filled with sharpened stakes. Wooden beams radiate from the walls, with carved frog heads above them. No one fancies “treading without fear” by jumping along the beams, so Certes uses mage hand to lift the cube off the pedestal. The doors slam shut, trapping him inside as the frog heads spew poison gas. Certes takes damage from the fumes, but Nanna quickly unlocks the door to free him. The party have their first puzzle cube!

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Night is falling so the group decide to have a long rest outside the shrine. During Certes and Tharhul’s watch, the camp is attacked by six yuan-ti malisons. The serpentfolk use suggestion to encourage the characters to go back to sleep or stop concentrating on their spells. Tharhul goes unconscious, Buzzter is killed, and Rhamash is crushed to 2 hp by a yuan-ti’s constricting tail, but the characters are able to slay five of their foes; one escapes into the jungle. Tharhul revives Buzzter, and the party finish their rest.

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29th Nightal

The characters continue north to the abandoned campsite spotted by Buzzter the day before. Inside a mouldy tent, they find a letter signed by someone called Lord Brixton.

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