A reboot of the classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition adventure module Tomb of Horrors, Tomb of Annihilation is an adventure module for the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, released on September 19, 2017. It was written by Christopher Perkins, Will Doyle, and Steve Winter.
The story sees the adventurers journeying to the tropical peninsula of Chult in order to search for a way to end the "death curse", a mysterious affliction that is slowly causing all creatures who have been brought back to life to waste away and die. There they must find their way through thick jungles infested with both dinosaurs and undead monstrosities (as well as undead dinosaur monstrosities) and past the forces of the mysterious warlord Ras Nsi to reach the ruined city of Omu, where it's rumored that somewhere within lies the cursed Tomb of the Nine Gods, an ancient death trap that none have escaped.
Tropes:
- Alternate-History Dinosaur Survival: The jungles of Chult are home to various sorts of dinosaurs, up to and including Zombie T. Rexes. Port Nyanzaru is home to people with Domesticated Dinosaurs and there's even dinosaur racing as an event.
- 11th-Hour Superpower: Any character that has one of the Nine Gods while fighting Acererak gains a huge number of temporary hit points every turn, and deals extra damage on each attack. If the entire party is possessed by one of the Nine Gods, the battle with Acererak arguably becomes a victory lap, as there is very little he can do to mitigate the temporary hit points they'll be gaining.
- Apocalyptic Log: When the party first enters the empty city where the tomb is, they'll find a journal entry from an adventuring party which came through before them which gives some insight on how to enter the tomb and describes some of the enemies in the city. Later on inside the tomb, the party can find the corpses of this same party, one of whom has a diary which finally reveals to the player characters who the tomb was constructed by.
- Artifact of Doom: We get two big ones, though the players may never know about the second.
- The Soulmonger most obviously, a massive artifact that collects the souls of everyone who has ever died and been resurrected across Faerûn, maybe even entire Toril, and feeds them to a god-to-be.
- The Ring of Winter is a sentient ring used by the npc Artus Cimber. It protects its wearer from both age and cold, can cause cold, create ice constructs and cast a number of spells. If the ice giants are to be believed, it can also coat the world in everlasting winter.
- On a lesser note, Acererak's staff, the Staff of the forgotten one, which contains the soul of an archmage that has gone insane over the centuries. If someone other than Acererak picks it up, the archmage will attempt to possess them, and use their body to destroy the staff. Which will cause a massive explosion, likely more than enough to kill players that just got done fighting Acererak.
- Best Served Cold: If the party slays Acererak in the climatic battle, he goes back to his personal demiplane to regenerate. He won't come back for revenge, since he'll outlive the characters anyway, and decides to let time do the job for him.
- Boss-Arena Idiocy: Downplayed and justified. Acererak is certainly a dangerous enemy, and while he'd be a lot more dangerous if he weren't fought on a very narrow platform right next to a pit of lava,the players themselves will have a hard time dealing with it due to the Sphere of Annihilation he's controlling. Acererak never planned to fight anybody in that particular room, and he only teleports in furiously after the players thwart his plans. The only danger he faces is losing his staff, which is a only a minor inconvenience for him.
- Boss Rush: The final level of the Tomb contains a coven of night hags, the Soulmonger, the Atropal AND Acererak, all fought in quick succession (though you can probably get a break after the hags). If the players are careless, or the DM cruel, they might have to fight an arcanaloth as well. And just in case they're feeling overconfident, Acererak's staff has a small chance of dealing between 12 and 240 damage to anyone who picked it up and those around them.
- Breath Weapon:
- Within a jungle ruin, players can fight an intelligent Tyrannosaurus Rex that can exhale swarms of wasps.
- Out in the jungle, and in the tomb itself, there are zombie t-rexes that spew out normal zombies.
- The Cassandra: In Nyanzaru, the players might encounter a beggar who screams that "The Ancient Onenote beneath the Forbidden City gives birth to a terrible new god! The snake men know, they know!". Passersby advise the players to ignore him, since his predictions are always wrong.
- Disc-One Final Boss: The Yuan Ti warlord Ras Nsi acts as the main antagonist of the adventure prior to actually entering the tomb. He also acts as The Dragon to Acererak, but will give you the key needed to get inside the tomb should you reveal that the death curse afflicting him is being caused by whatever is inside the tomb.
- Enemy Mine
- Valindra Shadowmantle, an elf lich and agent of Szass Tam can be encountered. She'd prefer to capture the Soulmonger, but she's more than willing to collaborate with the players, and will even point them in the right direction.
- Can also apply to Ras Nsi. He's afflicted by the death curse, and if the characters can convince him of this and that whatever is causing it is in the Tomb of the Nine Gods, Ras Nsi will cooperate with them.
- Escort Mission: Played with, played straight, and subverted. You are heavily encouraged to hire a guide to take you through the jungle. Some of them, despite their knowledge, will be a liability in combat, while others will be able to single handedly carry the party through combat, especially while the party is low level. Most of the guides have their own unique knowledge and agendas.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: The Tomb is bad enough. Now the entire landmass around it, Chult, is filled with so many dinosaurs, monstrosities, undead, hostile natives, pirates, and native Chultan beasts that all look like chimeric lab experiments that just getting around to learn about the Tomb might end up killing you.
- Evil Versus Oblivion: The Red Wizards of Thay are also in Chult searching for the Soulmonger (the artifact causing the death curse), but them getting a hold of it wouldn't be as devastating as Acererak's plans. The Flaming Fist is another example, being a mercenary company from Baldur's Gate that wants to plunder/conquer Chult but having no knowledge of what is really going on.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Tomb of the Nine Gods is exactly what it sounds like.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: The entire third floor of the dungeon is covered in purple fungi filled with eyes that a beholder can use to spy on the party. Attempting to remove any of the fungi will result in the beholder firing an eye ray at the one foolish enough to try it.
- Killer Gorilla: Chult is populated by, among others, Girallons, large, white gorillas with four arms. Acererak has also conjured up some undead ones, for added fun.
- Kill the God: What Acererak did to the local pantheon. And what players will have to do to the nascent god at the bottom of the Tomb.
- Lost Orphaned Royalty: Mwaxanaré and Nu, descendants of the royal family of Omu, are being raised in secret by the aarakocra of the Kir Sabal monastery.
- Mi'raj: Here called "almiraj", many of these live in the jungles of Chult after being introduced to the peninsula by merchants from Zakhara.
- Mundane Solution: The Tomb of the Nine Gods won't allow anyone to teleport out, and even attempting will redirect you to a separate room where you have a chance of instantly killing yourself. That said, the first level of the dungeon has a few cracks in the ceiling that tiny creatures, such as a Wild Shaped druid or a polymorphed character, can use to escape without the usual risks.
- My Rules Are Not Your Rules: To keep things balanced, 5th edition D&D usually assigns each spell caster enemy a class (even if their magic come from other sources), and follow the rules of that class when assigning them spells and spellslotsExample . Acererak is described as a 20th level wizard, but the amount of spells he has, including two lv. 9 spellslots and unlimited lv. 1-through-3, would seemingly put him somewhere closer to level 30, an Epic character. Which do not exist in 5e.
- Only Mostly Dead: Acererak has discovered how to siphon the Life Energy of anyone ever brought back by a resurrection spell, causing them to weaken and die.
- Power Of Hate: When Acererak appears on the final level, any players possessed by the nine trickster gods will gain a massive power boost, solely because the spirits hate the lich that much. Any character without this boost is unlikely to survive long.
- Powers via Possession: The official name of the tomb in universe is the Tomb of the Nine Gods, which is exactly what it sounds like, and players can be "inhabited" by one of these spirits to gain a useful power and a new character flaw. They still retain their free will, however.
- Punny Name: There's a gorge whose name supposedly means "Gorge Of Laughter" in Chultan. The name: "Ataaz Muhahah."
- Religion of Evil: At one point, the party will have to get the final key to the front entrance of the tomb from a temple to an Elder Evil called Dendar the Night Serpent, a being created from the first time anyone had a nightmare, whose goal is to devour the sun... Again.
- Reverse Escort Mission: One of the guides is a Couatl, a celestial serpent who is immune to nonmagical weapons, has Truesight which is incredibly useful in the Tomb and in detecting Acererak's coven of hags, and can cast a number of useful spells, including creating food and water, healing, and Greater Restoration, which removes some of the nastier effects in the game.
- Royal Brat: Mwaxanaré. She's not stupid, but the aarakocra raised her to believe herself the rightful ruler of Chult. The rest of the world just doesn't know it.
- Sheltered Aristocrat: Again, Mwaxanaré. Her upbringing has made her so sure of her right to rule that she believes she just has to reveal herself, and the merchant princes of Nyanzaru will simply hand over their power. She also believes states like Waterdeep (a city state of over 2 000 000 citizens) and Amn (nearly 3 million in 1372, 120 years ago) to be small principalities and holdings, negligible compared to (the mostly uninhabited) Chult.
- Sidequest
- The entire campaign up to finding the tomb is full of them, as the party is not given solid details on where to go, merely hints on where they might find leads.
- It can be argued that a large part of the Tomb itself is this. You only need the Skeleton Keys. You can pretty much skip everything before the Gears of Hate if you remember to pick up those.
- Split Personality: The aboleth in the depths of the tomb is... Not quite there, flipping between a child like innocence, and a demonic being awaiting the end of the world, seemingly with each personality unaware of the other.
- Spoiler Cover: Acererak being the main villain isn't a particularly shocking twist, but it's not made clear to the characters until the Fane of the Night Serpent, at least. Despite this, he's pretty obviously depicted on the cover.
DISCLAIMER: This adventure will make your players hate you — the kind of simmering hatred that eats away at their souls until all that remains are dark little spheres of annihilation where their hearts used to be. P.S. Don’t forget to tear up their character sheets.
