This Chult's Got a Death Curse!

This session was devoted to Port Nyanzaru itself, with the party splitting attention between research, errands, and rumor-hunting. Pizza sought out lore at the Temple of Savras, while Philomena and others worked the markets and animal pens, trying to understand the city rather than simply pass through it. Along the way they learned of an otyugh in the refuse pit, and more importantly of a magical ring hidden within one of the creatures and somehow luring children to their deaths.

The group also met some of the city’s stranger figures, including Beggar Prince Po and the merchant Taye, and got into enough trouble that even routine interactions turned sharp-edged. They heard stories of King Toba in Snapping Turtle Bay and, through Father Teron, learned more of Omu: its association with mining, constructs, slavery, and its old war against Mezro. Those scraps of history deepened the sense that the death curse was tied to something much older than the party itself.

By the end of the session, Port Nyanzaru no longer felt like a simple staging ground. It had become a place of debts, petty scams, sacred history, and ugly undercurrents, from exploitative inn charges to deadly mysteries in the refuse pit. The party was still near the beginning of its journey, but the city had already shown them that every clue in Chult came wrapped in commerce, blood, or both.

Port Nyanzaru pushed back the moment the party started speaking too openly about Syndra Silvane, and the session quickly turned into a rough introduction to the city’s suspicious temperament. At the Thundering Lizard they met guides, started feeling out local personalities, and were drawn into the kind of public commotion that seems to follow every crowd in Chult. When a dinosaur threw Makao, the group was forced into immediate action in full view of the city.

The rescue effort became the center of the session. Some members rushed to help, ropes were used to secure the beasts, and the scene established that even a day in the city could turn dangerous without warning. The notes are sparse, but the shape of the day is clear: this was a session about first impressions, public spectacle, and the party learning how quickly chaos could erupt in Port Nyanzaru.

Afterward, the pace eased into gambling and social drift as evening closed in. The party had not yet uncovered one grand revelation, but they had started building a reputation through visible action, awkward encounters, and the ordinary noise of a living city. It was a smaller session, but one that grounded the campaign in Port Nyanzaru’s color before the stakes climbed higher.

Soon after arriving in Chult, the party’s first real test came at sea when they clashed with pirates. The fight was short and brutal: one foe was concussed, another was carved apart, and two more were hurled overboard. The victory did not come without a price, because the dragon turtle Aremag had to be paid tribute, and the party surrendered a heavy sum just to continue on without being sunk.

From there the group was drawn into the politics and rhythms of Port Nyanzaru. Their goods were confiscated through official channels, they learned the names and roles of all seven merchant princes, and they began to hear the city’s most important rumors rather than merely pass through as outsiders. Among those rumors were word of Artus Cimber, the pale wanderer with a saurial companion, and tales of the Star Goddess, both of which quietly pointed toward the larger mysteries waiting inland.

The session ended not with a clean triumph but with the sense that Chult itself was opening up before them. The party had survived pirates, paid off a dragon turtle, and taken their first steps into the city’s web of power, rumor, and danger. They were still small figures in a vast place, but they were no longer merely arriving.

The new campaign proper began with fresh level-one adventurers answering Syndra Silvane’s call and meeting each other in her mansion. After she explained the situation about the Death Curse and their fallen loved ones to them, they spent the night and then boarded a ship for Chult. Roles within the company quickly began to take shape as the party organized itself for the journey ahead, with each member settling into a place within the new expedition rather than remaining a loose collection of strangers.

The sea voyage gave them time to establish tone as much as direction. The crossing was rough, with a massive storm battering the ship, gear suffering damage, and tempers occasionally flaring, but the party survived the passage intact. Philomena’s tools were broken along the way, a small but telling sign that this trip would extract its price even before Chult was reached.

By the end of the session, the group had not yet plunged into the jungle, but the foundations were laid. They had weathered the first leg of travel, learned a little of how they handled danger and one another, and arrived at the edge of a much larger story with Syndra’s mission still hanging over everything. The campaign had shifted from the memory of a lost level-ten company to a new band of heroes who would now have to earn every step themselves.

The campaign opened in blood and ruin, not with novices but with the party’s level-ten predecessors already deep in the Tomb of the Nine Gods, standing before Acererak, the atropal, and the Soulmonger. In that desperate battle they learned hard truths: the atropal’s wail could break bodies and morale alike, its umbilical connection to the machine could be severed, and the blue orbs within the Soulmonger could slip away into the ceiling when the device was badly damaged. They also discovered that teleportation would not carry them cleanly out of the tomb, and that both Acererak and the atropal were vulnerable to radiant power.

As the fight worsened, more of Acererak’s terrible capabilities came into view. Time Stop, Wall of Force, Power Word Kill, and even a Sphere of Annihilation made it clear that this was no ordinary final encounter but an unwinnable lesson written in death. The atropal proved no less monstrous, able to shape one of the trapped souls into a wraith, while the Soulmonger itself loomed as the true engine of the curse. Even so, the doomed heroes managed one crucial victory amid the slaughter.

Most importantly, they freed two souls from the Soulmonger before they were wiped out. That small success became the seed of everything that followed, proof that the machine could be broken and that some souls might still be reclaimed before being consumed. The session ended with knowledge bought at an appalling cost: Acererak could be fought, the Soulmonger could be harmed, and the heroes who would come after might yet finish what these fallen champions had begun.