Tomb of Annihilation: traps and things

One good thing about all RPGs, they often agree on the scale for miniatures! According to Hero Forge, the place where we get our customized avatars of our PCs, they’re 30mm but I remember when the goal was 25 and I think I’ve heard 32 bandied about. At least they’re all pretty close unlike the early days when I started playing in 1981, Ral Partha sold 15mm stuff which quickly fell out of favor and those eight I got for Christmas all became Halflings, Gnomes or really short dwarves.

Below are the impressive “props” for 5e’s latest adventure Tomb of Annihilation, a crossover or reboot of the legendary Tomb of Horrors because the key villain is no one other than Acererak. Seems he traveled to D&D’s other campaign settings, like Forgotten Realms (the planet Toril) to set up another series of challenges to lure treasure hunters, do-gooders or whoever crazy enough to think they’d survive. At least with Pathfinder and 5e rules, the players/PCs have a fighting chance. Gygax’s Horrors was mainly a killing factory he wrote to run at conventions to assert his role as being the orthodox asshole he was in real life.

Some of my friends may notice a few are pretty familiar.

Above is that goofy head jutting out of a wall from Horrors. There’s often one player who curiously sticks their head or limbs in the mouth…only to get disintegrated in the original.

The portal here I cannot remember what happens in Horrors, probably nothing good or some cruel joke should the heroes walk through it. I can think of better, cooler things to do with this being a fan of Michael Moorcock’s plane-hopping stories.

Nice after and before tiles I think. The right shows a glyph which should be the first sign of trouble to the players. The left is a jet of fire the glyph results in or maybe fire just shoots up out of the ground for no logical reason.

Repeat of the glyph with either rubble on the left or a flat, heavy rock that falls on this square when PCs fail their Reflex Saving Throw. In the old days of AD&D, I think there was a specific Traps category the players rolled against.

You can’t have a collection of traps without spikes! I think the tile on the right is what the players spot if they’re successful with their Perception rolls. The tile on the left is what they fell onto when they failed. Again, in AD&D, it was usually guaranteed to end in getting impaled for all characters but Thieves (precursor to the Rogue class), maybe Monks and Assassins…oh wait, Wizards/Clerics who have an active find traps spell possibly.

This sarcophagus rocks! Tomb raiding is a frequent trope in D&D so I can utilize this sweet prop forever!

These pieces are the most practical and most prone to get lost. The gold piles and shield are of a decent size. The tiny potions, scrolls and magic sword…I have to keep in special containers and probably handle with tweezers due to my fat fingers!

I want to thank my store Rogues Gallery for putting one set aside for me. If you’re a DM/GM I would recommend scoring the $50 collection ASAP, especially if you’re going to run any incarnation of Horrors (the original AD&D, 2nd Edition had a sequel, it was revamped for both 4e via its own book and appears in Tales of the Yawning Portal for 5e) or Annihilation.

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