D&D 5E [Tomb of Annihilation] Less absolute Curse?

[CapnZapp]

Perhaps this adventure would work well with a local rule that you can't benefit from a long rest in jungle hexes, and (depending on how the map looks like) have one kind of hex as an "oasis" where you do get to take long rests. To make the exploration challenging as a game and not only as role-playing, I mean.

Without the map, it's hard to say what hex type would work well. Villages? Nah, most sweaty native villagers seems to be disease-ridden zombie-infested hell-holes anyway. Probably not too many tavernas with A/C...

Maybe highlands? Historically it was the higher grounds the Europeans retreated to when the heat, humidity and malaria got the best of them.

Is the hexes assigned randomly, or will every play-through end up with the same map layout?

 

[Sacrosanct]

I think exploration can be challenging, even with only 1 or 2 encounters a day, if the party is suffering from exhaustion. Don't know. Guess I'll find out.

 

[Saeviomagy]

So... the soulmonger is literally stealing souls from the gods, but the gods aren't just directly interfering? Why wouldn't Mystra just make it not work?

 

[Ath-kethin]

So... the soulmonger is literally stealing souls from the gods, but the gods aren't just directly interfering? Why wouldn't Mystra just make it not work?

SHHHHHHH! That's preposterous.

What do you think the gods are, all-powerful beings of great knowledge and resource?

. . . sorry.

 

[Charles Rampant]

So... the soulmonger is literally stealing souls from the gods, but the gods aren't just directly interfering? Why wouldn't Mystra just make it not work?

Follow that chain of logic, and you'd soon have no need for adventurers at all. Why does Helm allow evil doers to succeed in their crimes? Why does Selune allow evil lycantropes to exist when she could presumably just moonbeam them all? Well, because then there's no plot.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Follow that chain of logic, and you'd soon have no need for adventurers at all. Why does Helm allow evil doers to succeed in their crimes? Why does Selune allow evil lycantropes to exist when she could presumably just moonbeam them all? Well, because then there's no plot.

There's a difference between doing bad stuff and subverting the afterlife.

 

[Quartz]

I remember a high-level adventure in Dungeon with a device called a Deadgate. It channelled souls to the Abyss for Orcus to eat.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I remember a high-level adventure in Dungeon with a device called a Deadgate. It channelled souls to the Abyss for Orcus to eat.

... and it feels dissonant when things mess with the afterlife like that. Doubly so in a universe where the goddess of magic has expressly forbidden high level magics in order to protect her own position already...

It would seem to suggest that Karsus' folly could be duplicated by the simple trick of making a device instead of a spell.

 

[CapnZapp]

Thanks for all replies, but the "are the gods omnipotent?" is kind of a too big issue to solve in a thread titled "less absolute curse" Thanks

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Forgotten Realms deities are not all-powerful or all-knowing. They can be, and have been, killed. They can be tricked and misled. I blame celestial politics, and the good-aligned deities not knowing who on the evil side might be behind this, for why they do not do anything about it, even after weeks of soul-stealing has happened. That and it is not a world-wide problem til about the time the adventure starts. First it was only Chult, then it was the region around Chult, then it spread out to the Sword Coast and the rest of the world.