Tomb of Annihilation: An adventure unnamed

Today I decided to take a break from sharing my dungeon doodles, because they were precisely that. Instead of completing a dungeon, I did some research and practiced some detailing.

Instead I wanted to talk about what I've been reading over the last few days in preparation for our upcoming D&D session. Before I do, let me give a brief overview of our crew and our time so far.

Our party (all 3rd level):

• Baelitae Naïlo
  • Wood Elf Druid - Circle of the Moon
  • Terrible charisma, but great with animals (isn't that usually the case with these wonderful druids?)
  • Hasn't yet used Wild Shape (I'm excited to see what her first animal will be)

• Cossie Peen-UttButta
  • High Elf Wizard - School of Evocation
  • Somehow transformed to take the appearance of a humanoid pug (haven't yet figured out how to tie this into the story)
  • Is probably more power powerful than he realizes

• Gurdis Battlehammer
  • Hill Dwarf Barbarian - Path of the Totem Warrior
  • Shunned by her father, left her dwarven home to chase the love of a woman
  • Hits hard af (when she manages to lands a hit)

• Rezena Mystan
  • Golden Ancestry Dragonborn Rogue - Swashbuckler
  • Probably my favorite silly race/class combo
  • Is sneaky for being so big

Anyways, our crew met Syndra to begin the Tomb of Annihilation when they needed to pay off their bar tab. The crew had been gone and wasn't aware of the deathcurse until they woke up with a terrible hangover. With the promise of gold, magic items, and no more of this "deathcurse", they were all in.

They didn't mess around much in Port Nyanzaru, but made sure to secure a dino (at a steep discount after helping one of the wranglers regain control of one in town) and a guide. With Musharib at their side, they began their trek toward Hrakhamar deep in the Chultan jungles.

At this point they've managed to make it a few days into the jungle, and have come across a cyclops and a plant that wanted to kill them in their sleep. Otherwise they've had a relatively easy time of things.

Now that we're getting a little further into things, I've started exploring other odd/uncommon mechanics the party may try and trick the DM with.

If you're not familiar, when you roll up a new character you get to choose some sort of pack that helps with a job of some type. Alchemist tools, herbalism kit, thieves tools, etc. While things like thieves tools make sense in moment to moment combat, I had a hard time answering Baelitae when she asked what the hell these alchemist tools were for. Here's where the internet comes in handy.

First of all I'd like to call out this excellent and detailed resource that someone made on reddit:

5e herbalism and alchemy v1.2

In it is a pdf with resources on various items that you can find in different regions, what they do, and how to combine them to get different effects. While I love this, I think it may be a bit much to implement in my own game. I think ultimately I'll stick with something similar to what's listed in the DMG. Basically hat there would be a certain CR that would need to be met to collect some supplies based on the difficulty to craft. For example, healing potions would probable be relatively easy to whip up for a Druid (or a healing paste or something similar).

DnD Beyond DMG

Despite the more simplified rules, I may use something like the crafting list at the bottom of the pdf in this reddit post as inspiration for what sorts of things my PCs can make, and what sort of things they may need.

Now since my alchemist is a wild woman, I love the idea that there may be some mistakes made when crafting these things. I found this wonderfully goofy table for alchemical mishaps:

Alchemical Item Mishaps
roll d20 Effect
1 potion is undrinkably bitter. no effect.
2 potion is sweet, attracts 10d100 angry killer bees.
3 tastes great, less filling. Has no effect.
4 piss fire for 1d6 weeks. (okay, I know what you’re thinking. 1d3 damage short range missile attack thrice per day for male characters. cone attack for females)
5 potion works, but rots all your teeth out instantly, no save. (had dreams of this one? me too.)
6 potion works, but you are drunk (-8 dex, -3 saves) for 1d6 hours.
7 fails. aphrodisiac combined with not-choosey-at-all effect.
8 works. crossed eyes for 1d6 days.
9 doesn’t work, but 1d6 pixies fall in love with you and will follow you around for a week.
10 potion is perfect acid. eats though container, floor, goes to center of the planet when brewed.
11 works. flowers grow from every orifice for 1-3 weeks.
12 no noticable effect. become addicted to next potion you drink.
13 break out with acne everywhere until cure disease. -2 penalty to charisma.
14 potion works, but you now think you are some historical or legendary figure (a silly one)
15 the potion was harboring an earworm! minus two to anything involving intelligence for the next 1d8 hours.
16 a small head grows on the back of our neck and speaks very personal prophecy to anyone who talks to it.
17 everything between 15 and 100 feet from you is hit by a level 8 fireball spell
18 no one will believe you swallowed a liquid demon, but you are indeed possessed.
19 grow four extra arms below your regular ones.
20 you have reverse esp for 4 hours. anyone who looks at you knows your every thought. save or reveal any secrets or >hidden notivations to any pc or npc that looks at you.

Alchemical mishaps table

Lastly, and just for fun, I LOVE silly/useless/unexpected magic items. The rules are great for generally useful items, but these two provide some wonderful options:

Goblin Punch d100 minor magic items
intro to the Odd

At this point I'm hoping that they do decide to prod around at some of the non-normal D&D stuff that they can do, but I think at the very least I'll throw some odd minor magic items their way this weekend (that is if they don't find the jar of alchemy in Camp Righteous!).

I hope you all enjoy, and I look forward to updating what my crew is up to after this week's session!