How to Fix Tomb of Annihilation: A Definitive DM Guide to Improving the Campaign
Spoiler warning: This guide contains major spoilers for Tomb of Annihilation.
Tomb of Annihilation has one of the best adventure premises in Dungeons & Dragons. A mysterious Death Curse is spreading across the world. Resurrection magic has failed. People who were once raised from the dead are slowly wasting away. The source of the curse lies somewhere in the jungles of Chult, a land of dinosaurs, undead, ancient ruins, lost cities, merchant princes, dangerous guides, and forgotten gods.
That is a fantastic setup. It gives the campaign a clear goal, a ticking clock, a dangerous wilderness, and one of the most infamous dungeon crawls in D&D history. The party is not just looking for treasure or responding to local trouble. They are trying to stop a curse that is breaking one of the most important assumptions in fantasy adventure: that death can sometimes be reversed.
At its best, Tomb of Annihilation feels like a desperate expedition into a beautiful and deadly land. The characters begin in the colorful streets of Port Nyanzaru, push deeper into the unknown jungle, uncover the ruins of Omu, clash with yuan-ti and rival factions, and finally descend into the Tomb of the Nine Gods to face the Soulmonger and the horror behind it.
The problem is that many Dungeon Masters struggle with the middle of the campaign. The Death Curse creates urgency, but the hexcrawl asks the party to wander. Chult is full of amazing locations, but the characters may miss most of them. The jungle should feel dangerous, but travel can become repetitive. Acererak is the ultimate villain, but he can feel distant until the very end. The Tomb of the Nine Gods is iconic, but it is also a sharp shift into a brutal trap-filled dungeon that can shock players who thought they were playing a wilderness adventure.
The good news is that Tomb of Annihilation does not need to be rebuilt from scratch. It needs better pacing and clearer structure.
The best version of this campaign is not “the party randomly wanders the jungle until they find Omu.” The best version is this: the characters prepare in Port Nyanzaru, follow meaningful leads into the jungle, discover that the Death Curse is tied to an ancient evil beneath Omu, and choose how much they are willing to risk when the adventure turns from exploration into annihilation.
If you make the campaign feel like a dangerous expedition with a tightening mystery, everything works better.
Key Takeaways
- Tomb of Annihilation works best when the party has personal reasons to care about the Death Curse and Chult.
- Port Nyanzaru should be more than a starting city. It should be the campaign’s launchpad, rumor hub, and cultural anchor.
- The Death Curse should create pressure, but it should not make the players feel like exploration is a mistake.
- The jungle hexcrawl should be curated, accelerated, or converted into a pointcrawl if your group does not enjoy day-by-day travel.
- Chult’s major locations should be connected by rumors, guides, factions, maps, and visible consequences.
- Acererak, the Soulmonger, and the Sewn Sisters should be foreshadowed before the party reaches the final dungeon.
- Omu should feel like an active ruined city with factions, dangers, and choices, not just a puzzle-cube checklist.
- The Tomb of the Nine Gods requires a clear session zero conversation because its lethality is part of the design.
- The ending should resolve the Death Curse and show what the party’s expedition changed in Chult and beyond.
What DMs Most Often Want to Fix
Tomb of Annihilation is not a bad campaign. In many ways, it is one of the strongest official 5e adventures. It has a bold premise, a memorable setting, a classic villain, strong exploration material, and a final dungeon that players will remember for years.
The issue is that the campaign asks the DM to manage several different play styles at once. The opening is urban exploration. The middle is a jungle hexcrawl. Omu is a faction-based ruined city. The Tomb of the Nine Gods is a deadly puzzle dungeon. Each part can be excellent, but the transitions need care.
The most common problems come from pacing. If the Death Curse feels too urgent, the players may think they are supposed to ignore Chult’s best locations and rush toward the end. If the hexcrawl is too slow, the Death Curse starts to feel either unfair or meaningless. If the jungle is too random, players may become frustrated. If the Tomb is too deadly without warning, the final act may feel like a betrayal of expectations.
The fix is to decide what kind of campaign you want to run and then adjust the structure around that choice. You can run Tomb of Annihilation as a harsh old-school death march, a pulp jungle expedition, a mystery-driven search for Omu, or a heroic race against the Death Curse. All of those can work. What does not work as well is switching between them without preparing your players.
1. The Death Curse Can Fight Against Exploration
The Death Curse is the campaign’s main hook, and it is a strong one. Resurrection magic fails. Previously resurrected people are dying. Souls are being trapped. Something terrible is happening, and someone needs to stop it.
The problem is that the Death Curse creates urgency before the players understand Chult.
If the party is told that people are dying every day, many groups will assume they should move as fast as possible toward the source of the curse. That makes sense. But the campaign also wants them to explore jungles, talk to guides, visit ruins, follow rumors, meet factions, get lost, and experience the weirdness of Chult.
Those two pressures can work against each other. The players may feel guilty for exploring. They may skip Port Nyanzaru. They may ignore side locations. They may treat every jungle detour as wasting time. Worse, if they do spend weeks exploring, the Death Curse may start to feel like a fake timer unless the DM makes its effects visible.
The fix is not to remove the Death Curse. The fix is to control when and how the clock becomes urgent.
2. Port Nyanzaru Is Too Easy to Rush Through
Port Nyanzaru is one of the best starting cities in 5e. It has merchant princes, dinosaur races, foreign factions, guides, rumors, politics, temples, markets, criminals, and a strong sense of place. It gives the campaign color before the jungle tries to kill everyone.
But many groups rush through it.
This often happens because the adventure begins with a world-ending problem. If the characters are teleported to Chult, handed the mission, and told that the curse is killing people every day, why would they spend time learning the city, racing dinosaurs, meeting guides, or building relationships?
That is a shame because Port Nyanzaru can do a lot of work for the campaign. It can introduce Chult as a living place instead of just a dangerous jungle. It can give the party allies, rivals, rumors, supplies, faction contacts, and reasons to care about what happens beyond the Death Curse.
If Port Nyanzaru is treated as a shopping screen before the real adventure begins, the campaign loses one of its best anchors.
3. The Hexcrawl Can Become Repetitive
The Chult hexcrawl is iconic, but it is also the part of the campaign most likely to wear down a table.
Some groups love hex-by-hex wilderness exploration. They enjoy navigation, rations, weather, disease, random encounters, mapping, and the feeling of slowly pushing into the unknown. For those groups, Chult can be fantastic.
Other groups do not enjoy that level of travel procedure. They may like the idea of jungle danger, but not the repetition of daily navigation rolls, foraging checks, random weather, and isolated encounters that do not always connect to the main story.
The key is to know your table. The hexcrawl should make Chult feel dangerous, vast, and mysterious. It should not make the campaign feel stuck.
If the party spends three sessions traveling and nothing meaningful changes, the jungle stops feeling alive and starts feeling like a barrier between the players and the story.
4. Chult Has Great Locations the Party May Never Find
Chult is packed with interesting locations: ancient ruins, undead-infested places, strange shrines, wrecks, settlements, faction outposts, dinosaur encounters, and hidden threats. The problem is that a pure hexcrawl can make it easy for the party to miss the best material.
That is not always a problem. In a true sandbox, missed content is part of the experience. But if the players wander past the most memorable locations without ever knowing they existed, the campaign can feel emptier than it should.
The issue is not that the party must see everything. They should not. The issue is that the campaign works better when players are making informed choices about which leads to follow, which risks to take, and which locations to investigate.
If they miss a location because they chose another lead, that is fine. If they miss it because the dice never put it in front of them, that may be less satisfying.
5. Acererak and the Soulmonger Can Feel Too Distant
Acererak is one of D&D’s most famous villains, and the Soulmonger is the central engine of the Death Curse. But for much of the campaign, both can feel distant.
That distance can be useful. The party should not fully understand the final threat at level 1. The mystery should unfold slowly. But if the villain and the curse’s true source remain too abstract, the final dungeon may feel disconnected from the jungle expedition that came before it.
The players should hear whispers of something beneath Omu. They should encounter unnatural soul magic, undead that behave strangely, nightmares, soul-draining imagery, and signs that the Death Curse is not just a disease but a machine or ritual with purpose.
Acererak should not need to appear in person early, but his shadow should fall across the campaign.
6. The Tomb Is a Sharp Genre Shift
The Tomb of the Nine Gods is a brilliant final dungeon if your group wants a deadly puzzle-and-trap dungeon. It is clever, cruel, strange, and memorable.
It is also a major shift.
For much of the campaign, the party explores cities, jungles, ruins, faction conflicts, and wilderness hazards. Then the campaign narrows into a trap-filled death dungeon where curiosity can kill you, caution is mandatory, and resurrection is not available.
That shift can be thrilling if the players are ready for it. It can feel unfair if they are not.
The Tomb is not just another dungeon. It is the campaign’s final exam, and the subject is survival under hostile design. Players should understand before the campaign begins that Tomb of Annihilation is more lethal than many 5e adventures.
7. The Ending Can Feel Abrupt
The final act can also create an emotional problem. The party defeats the Soulmonger, confronts Acererak or survives his wrath, and ends the Death Curse. That is a huge victory.
But if the campaign ends immediately inside the Tomb, it may feel abrupt. The players have spent months crossing Chult, meeting guides, bargaining with factions, surviving dinosaurs, exploring ruins, and learning about the Death Curse. The ending should show what that journey changed.
Who survives because the curse is broken? What happens in Port Nyanzaru? What do the guides say? How do the factions respond? What becomes of Omu? What scars remain from the party’s choices?
The campaign should not end only with the destruction of the Soulmonger. It should end with the world breathing again.
The Best Way to Fix the Campaign
If you only make one major change to Tomb of Annihilation, make this one:
Turn the Campaign Into a Three-Act Expedition
The campaign becomes much easier to run when you give it a clear three-act structure.
Act One is Port Nyanzaru and preparation. The characters learn about Chult, meet guides, gather rumors, establish personal stakes, and understand that the Death Curse is real.
Act Two is the jungle expedition. The characters follow leads, survive meaningful travel, discover lost places, uncover signs of Omu, and learn that the curse is tied to something ancient and terrible beneath the jungle.
Act Three is Omu and the Tomb. The characters enter the ruined city, navigate factions and shrines, descend into the Tomb of the Nine Gods, and confront the source of the Death Curse.
That structure gives the campaign shape without removing the adventure’s freedom. The players still choose routes, guides, allies, and risks. The difference is that each part of the campaign has a clear purpose.
Port Nyanzaru teaches them what Chult is. The jungle teaches them what Chult costs. Omu teaches them what the Death Curse really means. The Tomb asks whether they can end it.
Fix #1: Run a Session Zero About Lethality and Expectations
Tomb of Annihilation needs a session zero. Not because it is impossible to run without one, but because the campaign has expectations that are very different from many 5e adventures.
Tell the players what kind of story this is. It is an expedition into a deadly jungle. Navigation, disease, supplies, weather, and choices may matter. The Death Curse affects resurrection. The final dungeon is dangerous and may kill characters. The campaign rewards caution, preparation, retreat, creative problem solving, and curiosity tempered by fear.
This does not mean you need to spoil the Tomb or threaten the players. It means you should make sure everyone is excited for the same style of adventure.
If your players expect heroic fantasy where every encounter is balanced and every problem can be solved by charging forward, Tomb of Annihilation may surprise them in a bad way. If they expect danger, mystery, and a deadly expedition, the same moments become exciting.
Practical DM Tip
Ask each player three questions before session one:
- Why does your character care about the Death Curse?
- Why is your character willing to travel into Chult?
- What would make your character keep going when the expedition becomes deadly?
These answers give you better hooks than “a wealthy NPC hired you.”
Fix #2: Consider Delaying or Staging the Death Curse
One of the best ways to improve the campaign’s pacing is to delay the full urgency of the Death Curse.
You do not have to hide it completely, but you can introduce it in stages. At first, resurrection magic is failing in strange ways. Then previously resurrected people begin to weaken. Then the party learns the curse is getting worse. Then Syndra or another important NPC reveals that the source has been traced to Chult.
This gives the players time to experience Port Nyanzaru and early Chult without feeling like every dinosaur race, guide interview, and rumor conversation is wasting precious lives.
Another option is to start with personal quests in Chult before the full Death Curse is revealed. The characters arrive for other reasons: exploration, faction business, archaeology, a missing person, a merchant contract, a guide job, or a rumor of treasure. Then the curse becomes the larger problem that pulls those threads together.
That approach makes the campaign feel less like a mission briefing and more like a discovery.
Practical DM Tip
Use a Death Curse pressure clock instead of a strict invisible countdown.
Early stages create rumors and failed resurrection. Middle stages show visible wasting and panic among the wealthy and powerful. Late stages make it clear that souls are being consumed and time is running out.
This creates urgency without making exploration feel irresponsible from the first session.
Fix #3: Make Port Nyanzaru Matter
Do not treat Port Nyanzaru as a place where the party buys bug repellent and leaves.
Use it as the campaign’s launchpad.
Port Nyanzaru should introduce the players to Chult’s culture, politics, wealth, danger, and contradictions. It is colorful and alive, but it is also shaped by outside factions, merchant power, colonial pressure, ancient history, and the ever-present danger of the jungle.
Give the party reasons to care about the city. Let them meet guides before choosing one. Let them see dinosaur racing. Let them hear rumors from sailors, priests, merchants, hunters, and faction agents. Let them learn that Chult is not an empty wilderness waiting to be explored by outsiders. It is a living place with its own people, politics, memory, and pain.
The better Port Nyanzaru feels, the better the jungle feels when the party leaves it behind.
Practical DM Tip
Before the party leaves Port Nyanzaru, make sure they have:
- one guide they trust or distrust
- one local ally
- one faction contact
- one rumor about Omu or the Death Curse
- one reason to return
- one personal goal in the jungle
That is enough to make the city matter without trapping the campaign there.
Fix #4: Give Every Character a Personal Expedition Goal
The Death Curse is a strong global hook, but personal hooks make the campaign much better.
A character might be searching for a missing mentor who disappeared in Chult. Another might be hunting a family member who joined the Flaming Fist or the Red Wizards. Another might be trying to cure someone affected by the Death Curse. Another might seek a lost ruin, stolen relic, dinosaur trophy, ancestral secret, or old map. Another might be from Chult and want to reclaim a piece of history.
These goals do not need to replace the main quest. They should run alongside it.
Personal goals make travel more meaningful. Instead of choosing a route only because it might eventually lead to Omu, the party may choose a route because it passes near a lost camp, a ruined shrine, an old battlefield, or a guide’s unfinished business.
That turns the jungle from empty space into a place full of reasons to care.
Practical DM Tip
Give each character one personal clue that points into Chult.
It could be a damaged map, a name in a journal, a rumor from a guide, a symbol carved into ruins, a dream, a family story, or a faction assignment. As the party explores, let those personal clues intersect with the larger Death Curse mystery.
Fix #5: Turn the Hexcrawl Into a Pointcrawl If Needed
The easiest way to fix the jungle is to stop running it as a pure hexcrawl unless your group truly enjoys that style.
A pointcrawl keeps the feeling of exploration while giving the DM more control over pacing. Instead of tracking every hex, you create important locations and routes between them. Each route has travel time, risks, discoveries, and choices.
The players might know about several possible leads: a ruined camp, a guide’s home village, a ziggurat in the jungle, a river route, a dwarven mine, a lost shrine, or rumors of a city swallowed by vines. Each lead points somewhere. Each route has a cost.
Now the party is not just moving across blank hexes. They are choosing between dangers.
One route may be faster but full of undead. Another may be safer but requires dealing with the Flaming Fist. Another may pass through dinosaur territory. Another may risk disease but lead toward better clues. Another may follow a river but expose the party to pirates, crocodiles, or ambushes.
That is the kind of choice that makes exploration fun.
Practical DM Tip
For each major route, prepare four things:
- one environmental challenge
- one encounter that reveals something about Chult
- one clue pointing toward Omu, the Soulmonger, or a major faction
- one cost for delay, failure, or poor preparation
That gives every journey purpose.
Fix #6: If You Keep the Hexcrawl, Run It Faster
If your group likes the hexcrawl, keep it. Just be careful with pacing.
You do not need to roleplay every day in full detail. You can resolve travel in larger chunks and zoom in when something interesting happens. Instead of spending twenty minutes on every navigation roll, weather check, foraging check, and random encounter, summarize routine hardship and focus on meaningful events.
A good jungle travel sequence might include one navigation decision, one survival challenge, one location discovery, one sign of the Death Curse, and one encounter or complication. That is often enough to make the jungle feel dangerous without exhausting the table.
The jungle should pressure the party, not smother the campaign.
Practical DM Tip
Use “expedition turns.”
Each expedition turn represents several days of travel. During each turn, resolve direction, supplies, weather, danger, and discovery. Then play out only the most interesting scene that results.
This keeps the hexcrawl feeling alive while reducing repetitive procedure.
Fix #7: Curate the Jungle Locations
Chult has more material than most parties will ever see. That is a feature, not a bug, but it means you should choose what matters in your version of the campaign.
Pick a handful of jungle locations you definitely want to use. Choose locations that support the campaign’s themes: mortality, ancient ruins, undead, lost gods, dangerous beauty, faction conflict, and the search for Omu.
Then make sure the players can find those locations through rumors, guides, maps, or consequences.
You do not need to force the party to visit them. Just make the leads visible enough that the players understand their options.
Practical DM Tip
Choose five “must-use” jungle locations before the campaign starts.
For each one, create three clues that point toward it. One clue can come from Port Nyanzaru, one from a guide or faction, and one from something discovered in the jungle.
If the players ignore the clues, that is their choice. But at least the choice was real.
Fix #8: Make the Guides More Than Navigation Tools
The guides are one of the best parts of the campaign because they let the party choose what kind of Chult they are going to experience. Each guide can shape the tone of the expedition.
A cautious guide makes the jungle feel methodical and dangerous. A reckless guide makes the campaign feel pulpy and chaotic. A guide with secrets can create tension. A guide with strong local ties can make Chult feel more grounded. A guide with unfinished business can pull the party toward specific locations.
Do not treat the guide as a walking survival bonus. Treat them as a campaign lens.
The guide should have opinions. They should know rumors. They should disagree with the party. They should recognize dangers the players do not. They should have relationships in Port Nyanzaru and the jungle. They should sometimes be wrong.
The right guide can turn the hexcrawl into a story.
Practical DM Tip
Give the chosen guide three things:
- a place they want to avoid
- a place they want to visit
- a secret they do not share immediately
This makes the guide feel like a person instead of a travel mechanic.
Fix #9: Make the Death Curse Visible During Travel
The Death Curse should not be something the party hears about once and then forgets.
Show it during the campaign.
The party might find a corpse that cannot be revived. A priest in Port Nyanzaru may be terrified because funeral rites no longer feel complete. A wealthy merchant may hide the fact that they were once resurrected and are now weakening. A jungle spirit may speak of souls being pulled away. Undead may behave strangely because something is interfering with the natural order of death.
The more the party sees the curse’s effects, the more the expedition matters.
This also helps with pacing. Even when the party is not moving directly toward Omu, they are still being reminded that the larger problem is getting worse.
Practical DM Tip
After every major jungle milestone, show one new effect of the Death Curse.
Keep it brief but memorable. The curse should feel like a shadow lengthening over the campaign.
Fix #10: Foreshadow the Soulmonger and Acererak
Acererak does not need to appear early, but the party should feel that the Death Curse has a mind behind it.
Use imagery of trapped souls, devoured spirits, black cradles, screaming masks, empty afterlives, and machinery beneath the earth. Let the party find old carvings of a lich-like figure. Let hags whisper about a great work. Let undead speak fragments of prophecy. Let dreams show a black engine beneath a ruined city.
The Soulmonger should feel like something the campaign is circling long before the party sees it.
The same is true of Acererak. If he appears only at the very end, he may feel like a surprise guest villain. If his influence is foreshadowed through symbols, old legends, destroyed tombs, and the terror of powerful undead, his arrival feels earned.
Practical DM Tip
Use three layers of foreshadowing:
- early: vague images of stolen souls and failed resurrection
- middle: clues that something beneath Omu is feeding on the dead
- late: direct signs that an ancient lich built the machine
This lets the mystery build naturally.
Fix #11: Use the Sewn Sisters Before the Tomb
The Sewn Sisters are creepy, memorable, and useful, but they can arrive too late if the DM does not foreshadow them.
Use them earlier through dreams, nightmares, strange dolls, stolen hair, whispered names, or eerie visions. The party might wake with mud on their boots, find a button sewn into a bedroll, hear children laughing in the jungle, or dream of three old women stitching shadows into a black cradle.
These signs should be unsettling but not fully explained.
By the time the party meets the Sewn Sisters directly, they should feel like a nightmare that has been following them for weeks.
Practical DM Tip
Choose one character to be the Sisters’ favorite target.
Do not punish that character constantly. Instead, use small personal horror moments that build dread: missing memories, prophetic dreams, strange marks, or whispered bargains.
Fix #12: Make Ras Nsi and the Yuan-ti Matter
Ras Nsi is one of the most interesting figures in the campaign, but he can be overshadowed if the party sees him only as the yuan-ti boss near Omu. He works better when he is tied to the larger themes of death, decay, history, and failed power.
Foreshadow him before the party reaches Omu. Let guides speak his name with fear. Let ruins show his past. Let undead activity hint at old crimes. Let the party hear conflicting stories about whether he is a monster, a fallen protector, a warlord, or a cursed relic of Chult’s past.
The yuan-ti should also be more than dungeon enemies. They are a faction with goals. They control parts of Omu. They understand some of the city’s secrets. They may oppose the Red Wizards, manipulate the grungs, exploit prisoners, or try to use the Death Curse for their own purposes.
Omu becomes much stronger when the yuan-ti are active players in the ruined city.
Practical DM Tip
Before the party reaches Omu, give them three rumors about Ras Nsi.
One should make him sound monstrous. One should make him sound tragic. One should be wrong.
Fix #13: Make Omu an Active Faction Sandbox
Omu is more interesting when it feels alive with competing factions.
The party should not simply arrive, find shrines, collect puzzle cubes, and move on. They should enter a ruined city where multiple groups are searching, hiding, bargaining, spying, and killing.
The Red Wizards want access to the Tomb. The yuan-ti want control. The grungs have their own territory and politics. The King of Feathers makes movement dangerous. The shrines hold puzzle cubes, but they also create conflict because everyone wants them. The party can ally, deceive, steal, negotiate, or fight.
This makes Omu feel like the campaign tightening around the final mystery.
Practical DM Tip
Give each faction in Omu a goal and a clock.
The Red Wizards are gathering cubes. The yuan-ti are taking prisoners. The grungs are defending territory. The King of Feathers is turning safe routes into death traps. The party’s actions should change these clocks.
Fix #14: Make the Puzzle Cube Hunt Less Repetitive
The puzzle cube hunt can become repetitive if every shrine follows the same pattern: find shrine, solve puzzle, fight or avoid danger, get cube, repeat.
You can improve this by varying how the cubes are obtained. Some shrines can remain puzzle challenges. Others can be faction prizes, negotiation tools, stolen objects, monster lair rewards, or traps set by rivals.
For example, the Red Wizards might already have one cube. The yuan-ti might hold another. A shrine might be collapsed and require exploration. A guide might know a shortcut to one. One cube might be bait. One might be in the path of the King of Feathers. One might require choosing between speed and safety.
The point is not to remove the puzzle shrines. The point is to keep the hunt from feeling like a checklist.
Practical DM Tip
Before running Omu, decide how many cubes you want the party to personally recover from shrines.
Let the remaining cubes move through faction play, theft, negotiation, ambushes, or consequences.
Fix #15: Prepare the Players for the Tomb
The Tomb of the Nine Gods is not a normal 5e dungeon. It is intentionally cruel, puzzle-heavy, trap-heavy, and lethal. That can be fun if the players understand the tone.
Before the party enters, make the shift clear through the fiction. Show the remains of previous adventurers. Let NPCs fear the Tomb. Let divination magic produce disturbing warnings. Let the entrance feel like a point of no return. Give the players a chance to prepare, gather supplies, settle business, and decide whether they are ready.
You can also remind the players out of character that the Tomb is dangerous and rewards careful play. This is not spoiling the adventure. It is setting expectations.
The Tomb should feel terrifying because the players understand the danger, not because they were tricked into a different campaign.
Practical DM Tip
Before the Tomb, give the party one final safe planning session.
Let them review clues, buy supplies, speak to allies, prepare spells, and choose backup plans. Once they enter, the tone can tighten dramatically.
Fix #16: Track Tomb Progress With Tension, Not Just Rooms
The Tomb can become overwhelming because it has many rooms, traps, spirits, puzzles, and dangers. To keep it focused, track progress in terms of tension and discoveries rather than only rooms explored.
The party should gradually learn how the Tomb works. They discover the trickster gods. They understand the level structure. They realize that curiosity is dangerous but necessary. They learn that the Tomb is not random cruelty; it is designed cruelty.
That distinction matters. If the Tomb feels random, players may disengage. If it feels like a hostile puzzle box with patterns they can learn, players stay invested.
Practical DM Tip
After each level of the Tomb, give the players one piece of understanding.
Maybe they learn how the trickster gods help and hinder them. Maybe they understand more about the Soulmonger. Maybe they discover Acererak’s purpose. Maybe they realize the Tomb is testing greed, impatience, pride, or fear.
This makes the dungeon feel like a story, not just a trap collection.
Fix #17: Make Character Death Playable
Character death is more likely in Tomb of Annihilation than in many other campaigns. That does not have to ruin the game, but you should plan for it.
Talk with your players about backup characters. In Chult, replacement characters can be explorers, guides, faction agents, shipwreck survivors, Red Wizards, Flaming Fist deserters, prisoners, or other adventurers chasing the curse. In Omu, they might be captives, rival expedition members, or survivors from failed groups. In the Tomb, replacement options are harder, so you may need to introduce them before entry or use prisoners, magical stasis, or other trapped adventurers.
You do not need to make death harmless. The campaign loses some of its identity if death never matters. But you do need a plan so a dead character does not mean a player sits out for hours.
Practical DM Tip
Ask every player to create a backup character concept before the party enters Omu.
They do not need a full sheet immediately, but they should have an idea ready.
Fix #18: Make the Ending About More Than the Soulmonger
Destroying the Soulmonger is the main victory, but the emotional ending should be broader.
Show what happens when the Death Curse ends. Show priests weeping as resurrection magic returns. Show Syndra or another cursed NPC finally able to rest or recover. Show Port Nyanzaru reacting to the news. Show guides, allies, rivals, and factions responding to what the party accomplished. Show what remains broken.
Chult should not become “fixed” because the Soulmonger is destroyed. The jungle is still dangerous. Omu is still a ruined city. The yuan-ti, Red Wizards, merchant princes, Flaming Fist, and local powers still have goals. But the unnatural theft of souls has ended, and that should matter.
If the party lost companions along the way, honor that. If they made promises, resolve them. If they left enemies alive, show what those enemies do next.
Practical DM Tip
Before the final session, write down five people, places, or factions the party changed.
Bring them back in the epilogue. The campaign should end with the consequences of the whole expedition, not just the final room.
The Fastest “Fixed” Version of Tomb of Annihilation
If you want the short version, these are the changes I would make every time.
1. Run a Session Zero
Make sure players know this is a deadly expedition campaign with failed resurrection, dangerous exploration, and a brutal final dungeon.
2. Stage the Death Curse
Let the curse build in urgency instead of starting at maximum pressure from the first scene.
3. Use Port Nyanzaru as a Real Starting Hub
Let the party meet guides, gather rumors, build relationships, and learn about Chult before rushing into the jungle.
4. Give Every Character a Personal Goal
Tie characters to Chult, the Death Curse, a missing person, a faction, a lost ruin, or a personal expedition objective.
5. Convert the Hexcrawl to a Pointcrawl If Needed
Use meaningful routes, known leads, and dangerous choices instead of relying entirely on hex-by-hex wandering.
6. Curate the Jungle
Choose the locations you most want to use, then seed them with rumors, maps, guides, and faction clues.
7. Make the Death Curse Visible
Show the curse’s effects throughout the campaign so the main threat stays present even during exploration.
8. Foreshadow Acererak, the Soulmonger, and the Sewn Sisters
Use dreams, undead behavior, carvings, nightmares, and soul imagery before the party reaches the Tomb.
9. Make Omu a Faction Sandbox
Use the Red Wizards, yuan-ti, grungs, King of Feathers, and puzzle cubes to create choices instead of a simple shrine checklist.
10. Prepare the Players for the Tomb
Make the final dungeon’s danger clear before the party enters. Let them prepare and understand that the campaign is changing tone.
11. Plan for Character Death
Have backup character options ready, especially before Omu and the Tomb.
12. End With the World Reacting
After the Soulmonger is destroyed, show what changes in Chult, Port Nyanzaru, and the lives of the people the party affected.
What I Would Cut or Compress
You do not need to cut the heart of Tomb of Annihilation. The Death Curse, Port Nyanzaru, Chult, Omu, the yuan-ti, the Soulmonger, Acererak, and the Tomb of the Nine Gods are the campaign’s strengths.
What you should cut is empty repetition.
If travel becomes the same sequence of navigation, weather, random encounter, and camp every session, compress it. If a jungle location does not reveal anything, create a meaningful choice, support a character goal, or point toward Omu, consider skipping it. If the puzzle cube hunt becomes repetitive, move some cubes into faction play. If the Tomb starts to feel like an endless series of disconnected traps, highlight patterns, discoveries, and the growing pressure of the Soulmonger.
The campaign should feel like an expedition getting closer to the heart of death. It should not feel like the party is waiting for the dice to find the next interesting thing.
The Core Campaign Spine
Here is the fixed campaign spine in one clean sequence:
- The characters learn that resurrection magic is failing and the Death Curse is spreading.
- They travel to Chult with personal goals tied to the expedition.
- Port Nyanzaru gives them guides, rumors, supplies, allies, rivals, and a sense of place.
- The party follows meaningful leads into the jungle.
- Travel through Chult reveals undead, ancient ruins, faction conflicts, and signs of stolen souls.
- The party learns that the source of the curse lies in or beneath the lost city of Omu.
- In Omu, factions compete for access to the Tomb of the Nine Gods.
- The party gathers puzzle cubes through exploration, negotiation, theft, and conflict.
- The Tomb shifts the campaign into a deadly final test of caution, courage, and sacrifice.
- The party confronts the Soulmonger and the evil behind it.
- The Death Curse ends, and the campaign shows what the expedition changed.
That is the campaign. Everything else should support that spine.
Final Thoughts
Tomb of Annihilation has almost everything you could want from a Dungeons & Dragons campaign: a terrifying curse, a vibrant city, a deadly jungle, dinosaurs, undead, ancient ruins, rival factions, a lost city, a legendary villain, and one of the most memorable dungeons in the game.
The problem is not the premise. The premise is excellent.
The problem is pacing.
If the Death Curse is too urgent, players may skip the best parts of Chult. If the hexcrawl is too slow, the campaign may bog down. If the jungle is too random, players may feel lost instead of excited. If Acererak and the Soulmonger are not foreshadowed, the ending may feel disconnected. If the Tomb’s lethality is not discussed, the final act may feel unfair.
The fix is to make the campaign feel like a focused expedition.
Give the characters personal stakes. Let Port Nyanzaru breathe. Make jungle travel meaningful. Curate the best locations. Foreshadow the real threat. Turn Omu into a living faction space. Prepare the table for the Tomb. Then end the campaign by showing what happens when the Death Curse finally breaks.
If you do that, Tomb of Annihilation becomes much stronger. It stops being a jungle wander followed by a death dungeon and becomes a campaign about mortality, exploration, sacrifice, and the terrible price of reaching the place where souls go to die.