How to run Tomb of Annihilation: a DM's survival guide
Running Tomb of Annihilation? A DM guide to the Death Curse, the Chult hexcrawl, keeping the jungle deadly without killing the pace, and surviving the Tomb of the Nine Gods.
Tomb of Annihilation is one of the most searched 5e campaigns for a reason: it’s a proper adventure, deadly and strange, with a jungle hexcrawl and a killer dungeon that nothing else in the line quite matches. It’s also one of the easiest to run badly, because the same open structure that makes it sing can turn into aimless wandering if you don’t prepare it right.
The Death Curse: your ticking clock
Everything in the campaign hangs off the Death Curse. Anyone who has ever been raised from the dead begins to wither, losing maximum hit points that magic can’t restore, and resurrection simply stops working across the world. The cause is the Soulmonger, buried deep in the jungles of Chult.
Lean on this from the first session. The curse is what turns a sandbox into a story with urgency. Your patron, Syndra Silvane, is dying of it, which is why she’s funding the expedition. Remind the players of the stakes regularly, a courier with worse news, an NPC ally fading, so the clock keeps ticking even when they’re knee-deep in swamp water.
Running the Chult hexcrawl
The jungle is the heart of the adventure and the part most DMs find hardest. The trick is to stop thinking of it as a map to cross and start thinking of it as a pressure system.
Track the survival basics: food, water, rest and navigation. Roll weather and encounters. Make a good guide (Azaka, Salida, or the famous River Mwenye boat captains) genuinely valuable, because a party without one gets lost and hunted. Reveal the map through play, rumours in Port Nyanzaru, a scrap of an explorer’s chart, directions bought from a guide, rather than handing over the whole hex grid at once.
Above all, keep it moving. Chult should feel dangerous, but a single overland leg shouldn’t eat a whole session of dice rolls. Summarise safe travel, zoom in on the interesting hexes, and cut hard to the next point of pressure.
Port Nyanzaru is the campaign’s home base
Before the jungle swallows them, the party spends time in Port Nyanzaru, and it pays to make the city vivid. It’s colourful, dinosaur-racing, merchant-prince Chult, not a generic starting town. Give the seven merchant princes distinct personalities, let the players run a dinosaur race, and use the city to hook them into the plot through the guides and factions who want the Soulmonger found (or protected).
A strong Port Nyanzaru gives the players somewhere to care about and return to, which makes the dangers of the interior land harder.
Foreshadow the Tomb early
The Tomb of the Nine Gods is the climax, a lethal, trap-laden megadungeon built by the archlich Acererak, and it deserves a build-up. Seed it long before the party arrives: explorers who went in and never came out, rubbings of its glyphs, warnings from the trickster gods of Omu. By the time they descend, the Tomb should feel like a legend they’ve been dreading.
When they do go in, slow down. Telegraph traps, reward caution, and let the dungeon’s logic (the nine trickster gods, the false tombs, the atropal at the bottom) unfold as a series of puzzles rather than a meat grinder. It will still kill characters. That’s the point, and your players signed up for it the moment they chose this campaign.
Prep that keeps the table moving
The single biggest quality-of-life upgrade for running Tomb of Annihilation is having your physical materials ready. This is a handout-heavy, map-heavy adventure: player maps of Chult, the puzzle handouts in the Tomb, the many locations that deserve a battlemap. Printing or loading those in advance is the difference between a smooth session and one that stalls while you hunt for the right image.
The Tomb of Annihilation Handout Bundle (£50 £15) gathers 1000+ printable props, maps and tokens for the campaign in one place, and the 250,000+ RPG Battlemaps Mega Bundle (£30 £9) covers every jungle clearing, ruined shrine and dungeon corridor Chult can throw at your table, gridless and ready for Roll20, Foundry or print.
Frequently asked questions
- What level is Tomb of Annihilation for?
- Tomb of Annihilation runs from level 1 to roughly level 11. Characters start fragile in a lethal jungle and finish delving the Tomb of the Nine Gods, one of the deadliest dungeons published for 5e. Expect the difficulty curve to be steep from the very first session.
- What is the Death Curse in Tomb of Annihilation?
- The Death Curse is a wasting affliction: anyone who has ever been raised from the dead sickens and loses maximum hit points that can't be restored, and the dead can no longer be resurrected. It's caused by the Soulmonger, an artefact hidden deep in the jungles of Chult, and it gives the whole campaign a ticking clock.
- How do you run the Chult hexcrawl without it dragging?
- Treat the jungle as a pressure system, not a checklist. Track food, water and rest, roll for weather and encounters, and let the map reveal itself through guides and rumours rather than a full overview. Give the party a reason to keep moving (the Death Curse) so exploration always feels purposeful rather than aimless wandering.
- Is Tomb of Annihilation good for new DMs?
- It's rewarding but demanding. The hexcrawl structure and the lethality ask more of a DM than a linear adventure. A new DM can run it well with preparation, strong session notes, and printed handouts and maps ready in advance so the table never stalls mid-jungle.
- Where can I get Tomb of Annihilation handouts and maps?
- MakeMythic on Etsy sells a Tomb of Annihilation handout bundle with 1000+ printable props, maps and tokens covering the campaign, plus the 250,000+ battlemap mega bundle for every jungle, ruin and dungeon scene the adventure throws at you.
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