Here’s the write up from our fourth proper Tomb of Annihilation session. After finishing the AL module A City on the Edge last session, I ran the first part of The Jungle Has Fangs trilogy, A Day at the Races, which was a lot of fun.
There are a lot of moving parts in the adventure, so I spent quite a bit of time reading the dozens of reviews on DMs Guild to make sure it ran smoothly. Special thanks to Keith Ammann for sharing his dinosaur racing odds table which made much more sense than the one included in the adventure!
Begin here with Session 0 – Caves of the Cockatrice
25th – 29th Eleasias, 1495 DR
The adventurers enjoy some downtime. Tharhul looks after his newly hatched pet velociraptor which doesn’t have a name just yet, Eysleigh tries (and fails) to milk the venom from the giant snake’s head he acquired at the Northside Market Textile House, Certes copies protection from evil and good into his spellbook, and Nanna attempts to flog her potion of poison but has no luck finding a buyer.
30th Eleasias
The characters visit Zhanthi, one of Port Nyanzaru’s Merchant Princes, at Goldenthrone. Zhanthi is rumoured to have a connection to the Ytepka Society, so the adventurers make the secret triceratops sign when they meet her, but she doesn’t react. She asks them to investigate possible race fixing in the dinosaur races and has registered the group to take part in a new event called Na N’buso’s Haka tomorrow as cover. They decide to call their team the Blue Squirrels.
Afterwards, they go to visit Alastar Bol of the Order of the Gauntlet at his mansion and agree to place a bet for him on his favourite dinosaur, the aging dimetrodon Mountain Thunder.
That evening, the characters head to Tiryki Anchorage and gather information from the dinosaur trainers and jockeys.
1st Eleint
Bright and early, the characters arrive at the Tiryki Gate to meet their contact, the colourfully dressed bookie Mowbula Utakulu. They have some time before the first race is due to begin so Eysleigh and Certes visit the dinosaur pens where the druid uses speak with animals to quiz the dinosaurs and the wizard chats to Ufuoma, the daughter of one of the dinosaur handlers.
Meanwhile, the others chat to Pock-Marked Po and Klevan Van’Sheran on the observation deck about unusual bets and longshot wins. They learn that interfering with the dinosaur races could undermine the city’s economy and stability.
The characters bet on the first race and win a few gold coins when Scarback finishes first and Ubtao’s Favourite comes in second. They don’t get long to enjoy their winnings before they are summoned to the jockey’s lounge for the Haka.
The first leg is in hadrosaur-drawn chariots and the Blue Squirrels take pole position, beating their rivals the Green Vipers and the Orange Flail Snails to the Grand Coliseum, despite bags of snakes being lobbed into their chariots by the sneaky Vipers.
The second leg involves flying on pteranodons high above the city and grabbing blue ribbons from a series of iron rings. This time it’s the characters who are sneaky – Nanna sabotages one of the Green Vipers’ saddles and Tharhul uses his sword to cast gust of wind and blow a rival off course!
The third leg is underwater. The characters dive down to the bottom of the bay on board their plesiosaur and retrieve bricks marked with their squirrel emblem from the seabed. They bring their bricks back to dry land where a burly smith breaks them open to reveal metal plates, each marked with a different letter. Putting the letters into the right order to spell UBTAO allows the characters to unlock the combination lock chaining their triceratops for the final leg.
Tharhul acts as driver while the others take it in turns to attack the other two teams with whips and sleep spells, or to defend their triceratops with oval shields. It’s an exciting final stage, but the Blue Squirrels cross the finish line in first place!
The characters are presented with their gold cup and purse atop a platform in Tiryki Anchorage, but the ceremony is interrupted by a scream from the dinosaur pens! As the crowd panics, the platform starts to collapse, allowing Nanna to grab the abandoned silver cup and purse before she plummets to the ground.
Rushing to the pens, the adventurers see their friend Ufuoma under attack from an undead ankylosaurus and a pair of velociraptor zombies. As Eysleigh summons the Green, Tharhul charges in, killing one of the velociraptors, but is struck by the ankylosaurus’s mighty tail and knocked unconscious. Rhamash, Eysleigh, and Nanna hurry to his side, while Certes attacks from range. Nanna stabs the ankylosaurus with her rapier, killing it. A grateful Ufuoma gives the characters her staff, a +1 quarterstaff. Under the collapsed fence, the characters find a dead yuan-ti pureblood, a crumpled spell scroll, and a satchel with a strange emblem.
Soon afterwards, Soggy Wren arrives with several guards. He examines the satchel and finds two vials and a mortar and pestle inside a secret compartment. One vial contains poison; the other contains a paste called Wanderlost, used in tribal rites. It seems as if the yuan-ti had mixed the two substances to drug the dinosaurs. Wren suggests the characters visit Malar’s Throat where there is a shop selling similar satchels.
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Richard Green | Game Designer 