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This is going to be an ongoing series, detailing the adventures and happenings of my GMing the classic Tomb of Horrors, from the 1st edition of Dungeon and Dragons, converted to 5th edition.



We last left our adventurers in the dark, as a spectre gave them a warning about “The Harrower” who will come after two moon rises, effectively setting a time limit on the dungeon (or a limit on the number of rests they can take, at least) and then exploded into magical darkness.

The party is spread around the room and no one has darkvision. But Otto is quick: he casts dispel magic on the darkness and it recedes. Tiniya casts light on herself, and Geth pulls out his bullseye lantern. They see nothing. The hallway is empty.

Chad springs into action next, readying himself for the reappearance of the spectre by preparing Fairie Fire. Quick note on this spell, because it will get used again… Fairie Fire is one of the more talked about spells in DnD 5, as it is extremely powerful for its level. It is a level 1 spell useable by most classes, which (if the creature fails a dex save) either dispels invisibility or, if the creature wasn’t invisible, gives EVERY attack roll against that creature advantage. It can be a massive battle changer, and it also outlines your DMs bad-ass barbarian orc big boss in cute sparklies.

Seeing Chad is preparing to deal with a possibly invisible thread, Geth takes another approach: he pulls out his alchemy jug and uses it to create a gallon of holy water, then whips the jug forward, laying down a whip-like line of holy water spray. Water splashes down the hallway. Good move, but the spectre doesn’t seem to be there any more. A few turns go by without it attacking, and the party settles out of combat mode.

“Ghost!” Tiniya screeches out. “Show yourself and tell us more of your past life and experiences!”

The only response to that is everyone groaning about Tiniya’s voice some more.

There is a lot for the party to consider now. There is the riddle on the floor, the warning of the ghost, and a few things in the room they haven’t looked at yet. These include the green devil face, a glowing mist-filled archway next to it, a life-like rendition of two jackals holding a treasure chest down the hall, and a frescoe of a jail cell behind which lurks a realistically painted demon. Pretty much the rest of the session is spent on these mysteries. Here’s how they break it down.

The Riddle

Once more, here is the riddle:

Go back to the tormentor or through the arch,

and the second great hall you’ll discover.

Shun green if you can, but night’s good color

is for those of great valor.

If shades of red stand for blood the wise

will not need sacrifice aught but a loop of

magical metal—you’re well along your march.

Two pits along the way will be found to lead

to a fortuitous fall, so check the wall.

These keys and those are most important of all,

and beware of trembling hands and what will maul.

If you find the false you find the true

and into the columned hall you’ll come,

and there the throne that’s key and keyed.

The iron men of visage grim do more than meets the viewer’s eye.

You’ve left and left and found my Tomb

and now your soul will die.

The group spends more time mulling this over, especially led by Geth, who studies every line. Pretty quickly they come to some conclusions. The tormentor and the arch they rightly assume refer to the strange painting of the door with the demon (maybe a secret door?) and the glowing archway, respectively. They determine that it probably means either way leads forward, and they decide they would prefer to take the archway then the ominous tormentor.

“Shun green” they take as a hint about the Green Devil Gate, but they don’t know what night’s good color might mean. Black? A twilight purple? Tiniya muses that it could be a pun on the word “knight” since the next sentence mentions “valor,” but that leads them nowhere. The other color, “red,” also means little, though Geth thinks that the loop of magical metal that needs sacrificing might be a magical ring.



Most of the rest of the riddle is too cryptic for them to unravel, not without seeing more of the dungeon, but Geth does hit on the “fortuitous fall” key—he realizes it has to refer to the spiked traps they’ve been encountering. He immediately runs back to the second trap (by his count) of the hallway and rigs up a complicated system to hold it open while he explores inside. He finds nothing, but almost cuts himself on one of the serated metal spikes, dripping with a thick, clear liquid. He decides that it might be too early yet in the dungeon for this particular clue, but he keeps his eye out for other pit traps.

Some other little explorations are done in the hall, none of them that important. Ikbaldi wanders off to stare intently at the Jacakls—he’s fairly convinced they are going to come alive and attack the group.

Devils and Arches

From here, the group has to decide how to move forward. They decide to avoid the Devil’s Face, because of the warning in the riddle (if you don’t know why this is a good idea, read last session’s journal entry). The archway is, in some ways, more confounding. The riddle marks it clearly as a way to move to the second hall of the tomb, but it gives no hint as to what the roiling mists inside it might signify, or what effects passing through them might have on the party. Otto gets closer, mumbling that he’s “never heard tell of anything like this before, in all his studies of the tombs.” As he approaches, something changes. Stones along the base of the archway begin to glow yellow and orange, and the top of the archway begins to glow blue.

The group has no idea what this might mean. Tiniya starts to suggest that they ignore this and take a closer look at the tormentor, but she is cut off by the group telling me to close the windows in the apartment so her piercing screech doesn’t disturb my neighbors.

Then Geth has an idea. “Take this,” he says to Chad, handing the bard the fate dial. Chad lifts one of his perfectly trimmed eyebrows, surprised Geth would give up the most powerful artifact the party has. “I’m going to go through the Devil’s Maw,” Geth explains. “Wait six seconds after I pass through, then reverse time. I’ll be able to tell us what lies beyond it.”

And then follows my favorite moment in the session. Geth takes a deep breath and then charges down the hallway, ending with a running olympian leap into the darkness of the Devil’s mouth. He disappears. Before Chad can do anything, Otto suddenly darts forward into the glowing archway. He disappears. Picking up on the point, Ikbaldi turns and slams his great axe into the Jackal painting. Nothing happens, except he blunts the tip of his axe. Then Chad speaks the magic words, concentrates, and time reverses itself by six seconds.

This all happened with very little discussion and was spur of the moment thinking. It was a brilliant way for the group to get more actions out of the fate dial, effectively splitting one use of its power three ways, to investigate the effects of three different things in the hallway. It’s exactly the kind of survival horror thinking (how do you get the most out of what you have) that I was hoping the tombs would encourage.

Geth comes back in time just about to make his leap into the Devil’s Maw. He skids to a frenzied halt and falls to his knees on the hard stone floor. “Darkness,” he says. “Just… nothingness.” And then he buries his head in his hands and says no more for a time. Otto’s report is a little more promising: “I found myself in a small room. I saw flames on the floor and clouds in the sky, and some levers, but that was all I could see before I was brought back.”

This is enough to convince the group that at least the archway doesn’t kill them straight out. They decide that Otto will go through again. He agrees, and steps back through the archway.

Aftermath

Geth gets his composure back and goes to explore the one remaining item of interest in the room: the treasure chest that is part of the Jackal painting. It’s an odd device—he quickly ascertains that a button on top of the chest is trapped with a poison dart. He harmlessly triggers this, only to then discover that the button opens the bottom of the chest. Nothing falls out and Geth is too wary to stick his hand to feel around for anything. Brown Recluse spiders come to mind.

Chad approaches him at this point and hands him the Fate Dial again. “It’s been a while,” he says. “I’m going in after Otto.” Then Chad walks through the archway. Ten more minutes go by and Geth decides he is tired of waiting as well. Realizing this would put him alone with Tiniya, Ikbaldi exclaims that he’ll go along, too, “In case you need my axe.”

Tiniya refuses to go, not until she is absolutely sure it is safe. So the group leaves her alone in the hallway, where she stands uncomfortably, near to the tormentor’s door, counting the chalk marks Geth left on the walls to mark the location of the traps and hoping that he found them all.

A Room without Hinges, Key, or Lid

Ikbaldi materializes in a new room and his arrival is quickly noted with a groan by the other three people already here, as his massive bulk fills the already cramped space.

This room is small, barely ten feet by ten feet. The room is painted all around, so that the floor and bottom half of the walls depict a fiery lair filled with golden treasure, and the upper half open air with cherubs flying about. On second glance, you realize the cherubs’ smiles are actually grimaces of pain. Each is wounded in subtle ways, and the tiny hands over their bosoms are not gripping hearts in moral righteousness but rather staunching the flow of thick pink blood.

This description is one I added in myself and an example of one of the ways I changed the dungeon. I love the general atmosphere of Tomb of Horrors, but it has a lot of rooms which are just featureless stone. I think the idea was to make players think that a secret door could be literally anywhere and there were no clues to point out where that “anywhere” might be. I also think it was meant to highlight rooms of interest. Rooms that had fuller descriptions are important to the dungeon and progress. But I like texture, and I feel like Acerak is the kind of egotistical grandiose dungeon lord who wouldn’t miss an opportunity to decorate every square inch of his lair. This particular decoration is a slight clue, as well—down is bad. Up is good. But I didn’t think Acerak would be nice enough to spell that out, so he also painted treasure down, and made the cherubs not what they seem. It’s another one of his riddles and a hint for the rest of the dungeon: Greed and curiosity will lead you to doom. But beware of even the correct path forward, because nothing is what it seems.

The only other thing in the room is exactly as it is in the original: a set of three levers along one wall. Nothing else. No doors. No exits. No, Geth… not even secret doors.

Suddenly Ikbaldi grabs his head and cries out in incredible pain. The others tense… but it is just Tiniya, communicating with him telepathically. It’s like having a thousand screaming children inside your mind. The Sending spell she is using gives each of them twenty-five words to communicate.

Tiniya: Ikbaldi, it is I, Tiniya. Tell me what you see. Is everyone all right? What happened when you went through the archway? Ikbaldi: Holy crap, what is going on? There is a screaming girl voice in my head! How do I get it out! Why does it hurt?

End spell.

Chad and Geth decide to move the levers. They experiment in several ways before deciding to try all three levers down at once. The floor suddenly opens, and all four of the heroes fall 100 feet to solid stone below.

Chad had declared that he was ready for something like this and was preparing to cast Dimension Door. He argues that a fall distance of 100 feet should give him time to cast the spell and grab onto the falling party members and teleport them all safely to the floor below (as a level 13 caster, Chad can teleport up to 4 additional medium sized people with him when he teleports). I agree, so he shouts out, “TAKE MY HAND!”

Geth is the first to respond, immediately saying he grabs Chad’s hand. The others are slower to understand what’s happening and in the delay I begin to rethink the decision. It’s a little ridiculous, I say, to have four falling people react in time to grab Chad’s hand/body, especially when he didn’t tell any of them what he planned to do beforehand. I’m okay with him teleporting, because he had prepared that, but having said nothing to his party members, I rule they may all be exactly like they are acting: a little too slow on the uptake.

“Everyone roll a d20,” I say. “Add your dexterity modifier. Anyone who rolls above a 17 is able to grab Chad’s hand and gets to teleport with him.”



They all roll. Geth ironically critically fails, Otto is the only one who rolls high enough to grab Chad’s hand.

“That’s bullshit,” Geth says. “I was the one who responded first to Chad. How is it that I can fail, but Otto can succeed?”

I think about it. “You’re right,” I concede. “Okay, only Geth’s roll counts. He is the only one fast enough to react. He still fails, but so does everyone else.”

There is a moment of silence at the table. Then everyone bursts into laughter at the ruling. “That’s fine!” Geth says. “I just don’t want anyone else to succeed if I’m gonna fail.”



And this is why it’s nice playing with friends. People can get into character, get into the heat of the moment, even get annoyed with dice rolls, but no one takes the game seriously enough not to have fun.

End result: two humans slam like meat sacks into the stone floor. Otto barely manages to cast feather fall, saving himself some damage. Chad disappears mid air and reappears on the floor, safely. I rule everyone has one level of exhaustion, from a combination of the quick spell casting, the long time spent in the first hallway, and the long day of traveling without rest they did to get to the tomb. It’s all added up.

Geth immediately searches the walls, hoping this is the fortuitous fall from the riddle. A few rolls later, he has to admit it is not.

Come back next session for How Many Licks Does it Take to Get to the Center of a Tootsie Roll Pop?