Tomb of Annihilation Suggestions

[hagerww]

So, with the new adventure path released for D&D 5E, I was curious what awesome sound sets would work best with various stages of this adventure. I’ll be running this fairly soon for my kids, and they love having a soundtrack to go along with their explorations.

SPOILERS FOR TOMB OF ANNIHILATION

Overall the theme of the AP is around exploration and crawling through hostile jungles and swamps to find lost ruins, uncover lore and treasures from a forgotten age, and find a way to end a curse that steals the souls of those who have passed. The types of monsters include undead, dinosaurs (and undead dinosaurs), and other jungle denizens. Yuan-ti (snake men and cultists), Grung (frog men), and cool stackable jungle goblins.

Chapter 1: Port Nyanzaru - Takes place in and around the walled city of Port Nyanzaru. One of the few bastions of civilization and the party’s “home base”. Ruled by merchant princes, so filled with bustling markets, exotic music, lots of activity. A little bit of intrigue between factions and merchant princes are also present.

Chapter 2: The Land of Chult - This is essentially a hex crawl of the Jungles of Chult. Lots of rain and storms, trudging through underbrush. Mysteries abound where the jungle has consumed lost civilizations. Monsters are as above… many undead and dinosaurs to kill.

Chapter 3: Dwellers of the Forbidden City - The centerpiece of this adventure, a ruined and forsaken city which was once one of the centers of Chultan society. A number of factions have arrived to make exploring this place dangerous (evil Red Wizards of Thay, Yuan-ti, Vegepygmies (plant creatures) and others. Some lingering motifs of the old forsaken gods of Chult.

Chapter 4: Fane of the Night Serpent - The Yuan-ti are a major power to help propel the plot. There’s some intrigue to be hand here as the players try to destabilize their power here and help them to their end goal. These snake men are evil crazy cultists. Creepy themes and sounds as they explore these ruins, laced with religious overtones.

Chapter 5: Tomb of the Nine Gods - A six level dungeon filled with traps and undead, as the players shut down a necromantic engine feeding souls to a unborn vestige of a god.

I’m still digesting everything in the new AP, but think Indiana Jones turning more towards Call of Cthulhu by the end. Thanks for any ideas for great soundsets for this adventure.

[HECook]

Howdy there! I should be able to give you a full-run down of suggestions later tonight, but for starters, snag yourself Swamp, Jungle, Undead Battle, Ghoul Battle, and Storm. If you have Sci-Fi player, also Kaiju Island and Gator Swamp. Be back late tonight with all the soundsets that’re fit to play!

[hagerww]

Thanks! I installed Swamp, Undead Battle, Ghoul Battle and Storm. I don’t have Sci-fi, but feel free to include suggestions from there in case others use this thread. I also installed Tiger Battle which has some jungle goodness, along with HM Down Comes Rain and KC Ziggurat of Night. SM The Cult Exposed also seemed to have some good city sounds for Port Nyanzaru, but haven’t fully explored it yet.

[HECook]

All right all right! So as I said, you have Swamp, Jungle, Ghoul Battle, Undead Battle, and Storm for several of your more common monsters (and Tiger Battle too) ;). While there are some dinosaur sounds in the Jungle set (and also the Kaiju set from the Sci-Fi player), there’s no specific dino-battles. Using dragon sounds from the Dragon Battle and Green Dragon, or sounds from the Grioth Battle can help round out your dino menagerie. Gator Swamp from Sci-Fi player is also a great one.

Yuan-ti can mostly be handled with common humanoid sounds (BC In The Cave - “Goroc’s Gang” is a good one) with hisses from Flying Fiend Battle for their snaky noises. Frog Men could be done with Grimple Battle, goblins with Goblin Battle (with some Swamp noises still going).

Chapter 1 - Cult Exposed (Or Magnimar, which is the breakout set from that one) does have a big city and some water elements. River Journey has a Dock set, if you players go anywhere by water (or High Seas, if they go on a longer journey). You may want Friendly Tavern, Seedy Tavern, and/or Tavern Brawl for the places your party goes (or even Debauched Gala, if things get wild). For some more exotic music, Desert Camp’s “Entertainment” mood has some different stuff.

Chapter 2 - I’m just going to point to the sets I mentioned at the beginning of the post. If you want your jungle storms really wild, you could even turn on Alien Storm from the Sci-Fi player.

Chapter 3 - I’m going to imagine that this city is of ruined stone, yes? Ok, your usual jungle sounds, turned down a little softer. Some of Dungeon Depths - for stone, echos, and weird sounds. Then the “tumbling pebbles” element from Mountain Pass, for the continual erosion of the walls/buildings, just to keep the PCs on their toes. Yuan-Ti as above, Red Wizards as Ezran - Male Wizard, or Board Game Player’s Spellcaster - Sorcerer. The vegepygmies, you could use Goblin Battle or Grimple Battle. For the lingering horror, you could bring in parts of Spooky or Elements - Horror.

Chapter 4 - Like chapter 3, but the Spooky/Elements - Horror amped up. Spellcaster - Sorcerer along with Kyra - Female Cleric will have a lot of the spell sounds you need. Dungeon Depths has a lot of great sounds too. Shimmering Veils or Disjunction Chamber has some good magical resonance effects too (for a holy/unholy area)

Chapter 5 - Dungeon Depths and Catacombs of Wrath would be your best bet here, again with Spooky and Elements - Horror. Ziggurat of Night, like you said, has just the right sounds for souls in grief feeding some unimaginable horror. Trap sounds can be found in Dungeon Depths, Kobold Lair, Thistletop, and Graul Farm.

Now, if you want to really punch up the Call of Cthulhu elements, Sci-Fi player is loaded with Cthulhu-themed soundsets. Nyarlathotep in particular would be fantastic for this chapter. Shub-Niggurath would also give lots of spectacularly creepy sounds.

I hope that helps!

[hagerww]

Some great ideas, things I wouldn’t have immediately thought of. Thanks for all the help!

[thornbound]

I miss really heavyweight Brontosaurus footstomps
Thx for all the tips

[HECook]

The Green Dragon set has a “distant rumble” one shot that sounds like big, heavy making-ripples-in-the-water-glass-set-on-the-dashboard kind of footsteps. Dragon Battle has a “footfalls” element, also of distant heavy footsteps. And the Ettin Battle has a “great big foot” one-shot that is much closer, and a “great big feet” element to the set as well.

[m_a_law87]

I really think we need to get something for Tomb of Annihilation put in here, I’m following the suggestions in here but there’s a massive divide between Fantasy and Sci-fi player… which means I have to mess about playing with two apps and I feel like this could have been implemented as one player by now?

The jungle planet in sci fi player is decent, but the pirate battles are in fantasy. I dont mind paying the full sub but using two applications? -_-

[HECook]

You can use a campaign to bring over the soundsets you want from sci-fi to fantasy. Go to your campaigns page on the Syrinscape site. Make a new campaign in the fantasy tab. Then go to the “all” tab and add in everything you want. Then every set you choose will show up in the fantasy player.

[couvs81]

well Ifeel like a complete idiot… I’m also looking for sound sets for ToA and while browsing through the store I found the Kaiju Island set saw that it had all the jungle sounds and dinosaur roars…did not realize it’s for the sci fi app before coming here after buying it…

Mondays amirite?

(i’m also a complete Syrinscape noob, it’s pretty overwhelming with all the different choices)

[canhewrite]

Also syrinscape noob, but I think I’ve got the hang of it. I’m actually creating my own custom soundsets for ToA using the information in this thread. I think that’s the best way to get exactly what you want, including importing sci-fi soundsets into the fantasy player.

[couvs81]

Well I finally broke down and subbed for a couple months at least to give this a good try. When putting together the stuff for something like ToA would you just create a campaign and pull together all the different soundsets needed or do you create custom soundsets in the creator, pulling specific sounds from those other sets? I’m a bit lost as to where to start with the soundset creator and from what I’ve been able to see in the player, switching from one soundset to another will stop the first one, unless I’ve been missing something

[HECook]

First off, yes, switching from one soundset to another turns off the first soundset, or switching from one mood to another turns off the first mood. You can’t play two moods simultaneously.

For example, if you’re just going down a jungle trail, turning on the Jungle set is just fine and dandy. Then let’s say you fight a tiger. Pop over to the Tiger set, turn on that mood (thusly turning off Jungle), defeat the tiger, then turn Jungle back on again. Only very minor breaks in the sound, so not a big deal.

However, you can play multiple individual elements from different soundsets simultaneously. You can even make a new mood with multiple soundset elements right in Syrinscape, even without using the creator.

But say you want to make a mood for Jungle Ruins. That might require some elements from Jungle, Dungeon Depths, and Mountain Pass. No worries. Turn on all of your required elements to get what you want (maybe deep wind, feet on gravel, and weird sounds from Dungeon Depths, tumbling pebbles from Mountain Pass, and cicada, creaking trees, and distant wildlife from Jungle). Now, say you know you’re going to use the Jungle set a lot, in general, so you click on the + sign at the bottom of the jungle moods. This creates a new mood. Name your mood “Jungle Ruins,” and now all of those elements together are available at the click of that mood you just made! Even though the mood name is in the Jungle set, it will play all of those elements you had running from multiple sets.

BUT! If you would like to use lots of different elements from many different sets in your moods, you would be better off using the Creator, as it would keep things more consolidated and neater, and you will have greater control. It’ll also be easier to switch between battle and ambiance, as you’ll only be either switching between a couple of sets, or just a mood within a set.

Using the Creator will allow you to build up a Tomb of Annihilation set so it looks like one of the Rise of the Runelords sets, with ambiance, fights, etc. all within a single soundset.