Page 109 - Tomb of Annihilation

windows, yet all is not well. Black smoke coils from fires
across the city, corpses litter the streets, and wraiths
circle the rooftops like vultures. A sphere of utter dark·
ness grows out from the heart of the city, blotting out the
light as it expands toward you. You turn away, and when
you look back, the darkness is gone. The city is a half.
flooded, overgrown ruin.

While in Omu, the character who saw the vision has the
same dark dream whenever he or she takes a long rest.
In the dream, the character is standing in the city during
its fall and sees a skeletal figure walking alone through
the dead streets. He wears tattered robes and holds a
skull-tipped staff, and his sunken eyes contain points of
dead light. With each dream, the figure (Acererak) gets
a little closer.

18. NANGNANG's SHRINE

Monoliths adorned with prancing, frog-like figures rise
from the swamp. Beyond, a ruined edifice shaped like an
arrowhead squats in the muddy water. Bushes and trees
The pedestal rotates, and an ornate stone cube emerges l grow from its roof. At the pointed front of the building,
l The shrine to the trickster god Nangnang (represented
steps ascend to a stone door caked in slime.
from a hatch on its surface.
by a grung) contains one of nine puzzle cubes needed to
The characters can now safely take the puzzle cube. enter the Tomb of the Nine Gods. The water around the
shrine is 2 feet deep.
16D. HIDDEN ROOM
I 18A. SHRINE ENTRANCE
The shrine is home to a gold-skinned grung elite
A strange grid is etched into the far wall of this stone cell. I warrior named Chief Yorb. Four orange-skinned
grung elite warriors wallow in the flooded courtyard
with Yorb and his trained hadrosaurus mount. One
When a character eaters this chamber, give the players
red-skinned grung wildling and seven green-skinned
a copy of handout 16 in appendix E. This grid is a puzzle
grungs lurk on the shrine's 20-foot-high rooftop. See
key. If the letters from the riddle in area 16C are entered
appendix D for these creatures' statistics.
into the grid (minus spaces), the letters in the darkened
The grungs on the roof unleash arrows to ward off in-
squares spell out "cover eyes." This phrase provides a
truders. If the intruders fight back, more green-skinned
clue to obtaining the puzzle cube in area 16C.
grungs close in from nearby buildings, with ld4 appear-
ing at the end of each round until twenty have arrived.
17. WATERFALL
The grungs are jumpy and distrustful of strangers. At
A river courses through a rocky ravine before plunging first, Yorb is more interested in scaring away intruders
50 feet into a 30-foot-deep pool. A creature that goes than he is talking with them. If the characters rescue his
over the waterfall must make a DC 10 Dexterity saving favored son in area 5 and have the means to communi-
throw, taking 12 (5d4) bludgeoning damage on a failed cate with the chief, Yorb opens up to them. He currently
save, or no damage on a successful one. There is no safe has no idea his son is missing.
path from the top of the waterfall to the city below. The grungs worship the dead trickster god Nangnang.
If the characters enter into negotiations with Yorb, he
VISION OF ACERERAK
can recount the full legend of Omu's nine trickster gods
The first character to look out across the city from the
(see "Legend of the Nine Gods," page 92).
clifftops near the waterfall sees a vision of Omu's fall:
Shrine Doors. The doors to the shrine stand ajar. If
the tide of battle turns against Chief Yorb, he retreats
into the shrine with his elite guards and bars the doors.
A city of magnificent, whitewashed buildings stretches
A character can force open the barred doors with a suc-
1 cessful DC 25 Strength check.
out before you. Sunlight sparkles off of glass domes and
CHAPTER 3 I 0\\ l::LLI:.RS OF TRY. FORBIDDE:-< CITY
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