Special Treat: Tomb Of OBLUEteration Session 1

Yesterday I ran the first ever session of my blueberry inflation themed take on D&D: Tomb Of Annihilation. It was a particularly wild time, as this is the first time I've run a (hopefully) longform campaign for my friends Tina, Beth, and Liv.

So, here are the adventures of Oguina the yuan-ti druid, Snex the kobold wizard, and Greta Mountainhead the goliath fighter!

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The Adventure Begins

In the wake of the Blue Curse, hundreds of adventurers have flocked to the southern peninsula of Chult, rumored to the be source of the mysterious ailment that neither medicine nor magic can cure.

Anyone in the world who has been magically resurrected now finds themselves turning blue and steadily inflating, filling up with juice until they inevitably explode; their soul forever lost to some dark ritual.

The people congregate in Port Nyanzaru, where they spend hundreds of gold pieces on equipment, canoes, and guides to lead them through the hazardous jungles of Chult, filled with carnivorous plants, dinosaurs, hordes of ravenous undead, and terrible tribes of goblins. Very few who enter the jungles...ever return alive.

And if they do...more often than not, they're a whole lot bluer.

Our trio of heroes meet in the Sleepy Triceratops inn and tavern, quickly seeing skill in each other and deciding they'd work well together. Oguina, a Chultan native, offers to guide them all through the jungle, saving them a whole lot of coin on purchasing a guide (upwards of 150 gp). Oguina only knows about the area of Chult she grew up in, but these strange foreigners don't need to know that.

Greta discovers a lead from drinking with Volothamp Geddarn (Yes, that Volo), that a clue to the source of the Blue Plague lays in a ghost village perched atop a plateau overlooking the Aldani Basin. All the people there disappeared (or perhaps...popped?). No one knows why.

Oguina figures they can reach the Aldani Basin by canoeing down the River Soshenstar, so they purchase a canoe and a month's worth of supplies and provisions, and head out on their way!

Canoeing Downriver

From start to finish, it's an estimated 32 day journey, moving a hex every two days of travel.

As our trio canoes down the river, they travel a number of days, encountering things every so often.

On Day 3, they find a wooden crate washed up along the riverbank. Opening it revealed 14 iron daggers and a note, indicating they're meant to be delivered to someplace called Fort Belurian.

"Woo!" Snex shouted, "Free daggers!"

On Day 4, they come across a camp of Emerald Enclave soldiers. They make quick friends with the collection of druids, learning that they're in Chult trying to cleanse it of undead alongside two other factions from Baldur's Gate and Waterdeep.

Their priestess of Meilikki tends to one of them, who is rapidly inflating up into a blueberry.

The cursed soldier, a brown haired woman, is growing bigger and bigger! She moans and wails, saying she can feel the juice filling her up, and how it's blissful. Her companions think she's not long for this world.

I have everyone roll a d20 to see if this sight awakens anything in them.

Snex gets an 18. She's officially a blueberry inflation fetishist. Everyone else thinks its weird and scary.

On Day 7, the group is attacked in the night by a giant crocodile and a constrictor snake. Suddenly alerted, they fight the predators off, killing the snake and chasing off the crocodile. Greta says if nothing else, she can cook the snake for breakfast in the morning.

On Day 8, the group discovers an abandoned military camp on the riverbank, standing at the foot of a giant stone statue of a man with a crocodile riding on his back.

Exploring Camp Righteous

The camp is seemingly abandoned, once home to faction of soldiers and paladins called the Order of the Gauntlet. They're not sure who or what chased the paladins off, but it happened pretty recently.

The trio finds a bunch of treasure and valuables (a silvered holy symbol, 50 gp worth of gemstones, and a warhammer). Greta frees and saves a baby axebeak that was caught in a collapsed tent, while Snex and Oguina check out the entrance to the giant stone statue.

Oguina relays a common Chultan fable about 'The Man and the Crocodile', which plays out similar to our fable of the scorpion and the frog, except this one ends with the Man having to carry the Crocodile on his back and show him all of human civilization. It's a weird one that's meant to explain why crocodiles and humans have beef with each other.

As the three of them explore the dungeon within the giant statue, they evade several dangerous traps.

Greta's enormous height allows her to see a hidden pattern to a floor tile puzzle that the others missed. With Snex on her shoulders, the two figure out the solution and proceed without incident.

In the final room, an Alchemy Jug rests atop a high plinth surrounded by a narrow brick spiral staircase. Figuring that the staircase itself is trapped, Greta tosses Snex to the top of the plinth, avoiding the steps all together.

But the moment she picks up the Alchemy Jug, the whole statue starts to collapse in on itself!

Greta grabs both Snex and Oguina and races them out of the dungeon...just in time.

Except...once they're back in the abandoned camp, they find that they're surrounded by seven goblins in wooden masks, wielding blowguns!

Ever their protector, Greta tanks all seven of the goblins' blowgun attacks, taking 24 points of poison damage!

She manages to shrug off an attack that would've killed either of her companions! They are in awe of her!

Or so Greta thinks. They're certainly staring at her a long time.

She discovers its not the poison darts sticking out of her arms and chest that worry them...it's the spreading blue across her skin!

Greta makes several constitution rolls, but fails two of them.

She now has the Blue Curse...and is slowly turning into a blueberry!

That's as far as my players got this session. Next week, they'll have to contend with the realities of the Blue Curse, and will perhaps begin to seek out a temporary cure.

Or maybe Greta Mountainhead will just grow and swell into a massive, helpless blueberry goliath for the others' amusement.

Who knows?