head
COMICS   •   MOVIES   •   MUSIC   •   TELEVISION   •   GAMES   •   BOOKS
Book Review: Dungeons & Dragons: Tomb Of Annihilation
  |  @   |  

Dungeons & Dragons: Tomb of Annihilation
Hardcover
D&D Accessory
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Release Date: September 19, 2017

Man, I love Wizards of the Coast. This past weekend I came back from a conference in Orlando to find a package waiting on my desk. I dropped everything and tore the box open to find not just the hardcover Dungeons & Dragons: Tomb of Annihilation but also the companion dice set and a load of stickers and literature for this amazing new adventure! I am including a photo below but hang on for the review as this is one wild ride of a story line!

The land of Chult is seemingly cursed. And though few are sure why, they have gleaned how. An evil artifact simply known as the Soulmonger is slowly killing anyone who has been raised from the dead, draining their strength and causing them to wither and waste away. Not only that but all the spells that had previously enabled people to be raised have begun to fail, allowing no one to be resurrected. And that, folks, is where the adventure begins. Players will embark upon a journey fraught with danger.

It stands to reason that if the magical malady is one that affects the formerly dead then of course the resulting enemies will be similarly empowered. And while Tomb of Annihilation is set for character levels 1-11, the fiends found within are amongst the most evil of all. A once pure paladin now turned necromancer is a mere drop in the bucket for there are undead creatures never before seen by most players. The nearby jungles are teeming with men and monsters animated beyond the grave. Will they make it though to the end or will the zombie apocalypse overwhelm them?

Made for use with the Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons rule books, this tome is over 250 pages and includes a full map of the region affected. Contained within those pages are not just the nearly 200 pages of adventure but also dozens of creatures unique to the module and a few not included in any previous Fifth Edition manuals. Between the covers are also magical items, artifacts, and even flora and fauna that players will encounter or use. My favorite inclusions are the trickster gods that are an integral part of the story, there is one for each alignment.

I can still remember the glee that I felt whenever I used to discover new modules back when I started playing decades ago and my memories of setting up a gaming room complete with maps of Faerun and Greyhawk are crystal clear. But most of all I remember the long wait between chapters of the modules we were paying at the time. Luckily, these adventures are no longer broken up into three or four parts; instead we are able to get the complete story in one hardbound book. The added bonus here is the special edition dice set, complete with a wickedly cool embossed metal collector’s box. I urge any dedicated players or dungeon masters to pick Dungeons & Dragons: Tomb Of Annihilation up for your group, you will have a blast!

The talk of the streets and taverns has all been about the so-called death curse: a wasting disease afflicting everyone who’s ever been raised from the dead. Victims grow thinner and weaker each day, slowly but steadily sliding toward the death they once denied.

When they finally succumb, they can’t be raised””and neither can anyone else, regardless of whether they’ve ever received that miracle in the past. Temples and scholars of divine magic are at a loss to explain a curse that has affected the entire region, and possibly the entire world.

The cause is a necromantic artifact called the Soulmonger, which is located somewhere in Chult, a mysterious peninsula far to the south, ringed with mountains and choked with rainforests.

Adventure design by Christopher Perkins, Will Doyle, and Steve Winter, with additional design by Adam Lee. Story consulting by the award-winning creator of Adventure Time, Pendleton Ward.

Images

Cover

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

Previous Article
Next Article
«
»
You may have noticed that we're now AD FREE! Please support Geeks of Doom by using the Amazon Affiliate link above. All of our proceeds from the program go toward maintaining this site.
2023  ·   2022  ·   2021  ·   2020  ·   2019  ·   2018  ·   2017  ·   2016  ·   2015  ·   2014  ·  
2013  ·   2012  ·   2011  ·   2010  ·   2009  ·   2008  ·   2007  ·   2006  ·   2005
Geeks of Doom is proudly powered by WordPress.

Students of the Unusual™ comic cover used with permission of 3BoysProductions
The Mercuri Bros.™ comic cover used with permission of Prodigal Son Press

Geeks of Doom is designed and maintained by our geeky webmaster
All original content copyright ©2005-2023 Geeks of Doom
All external content copyright of its respective owner, except where noted

This website is licensed under
a Creative Commons License.
About | Privacy Policy | Contact