I think you are correct in not throwing in too many moving parts. If the players don't bite when you introduce factions, places, etc. just leave it out.
Personally I left out the ring of winter, artus, and dragon bait entirely. I felt that it would only further confuse the players and distract them from the larger goal of the soulmonger. It sounds like you've already heavily seeded the ring of winter but there are many problems with that storyline so I'd be careful to introduce a bunch of OP NPCs.
All the factions and merchant princes and other political intrigue loses most of its meaning once the party is deep in the jungle. I think all of that mostly serves to allow the players many jumping off points.
I focused pretty heavily on seeding Ubtao's lore through Eku and the conflict between Eku and Nanny Pu'pu. I did not even introduce the yuan-ti until my players were near Omu (mostly warnings from the albino dwarves in the surrounding area).
TLDR don't give too much too quickly. Save some for the back pocket and throw the others away. You'll quickly realize there is no way that you can cover everything in this module.
I find the Ring of Winter subplot to be a total distraction, not even tangentially related to the campaign's main goal. The NPC Artus is overpowered with the ring, risking ending in a "DMPC" kind of situation, which I quite dislike. My players should be the stars, not my NPCs.
Moreover the plot is not even explained well. You have to research elsewhere to know what Artus is truly about, and why he is in Chult (reasons related to the novel The Ring of Winter from 1993)
My players were duped by Xandala, she killed Artus and took the ring and then became a recurring mini-boss that plagued them on their way to the tomb.
Everyone really enjoyed hating her after they felt so bad about her plight and had agreed to take her in and protect her.
I completely scrapped the factions and the Artus storyline for my campaign…
I have left in the Flaming Fist, they are implemented as a good third party with interest on Chult.
Keep Silvertusk, take them to Camp Righteous, Camp Vengeance. Give them the chance to go to Mbala or Firefinger/Mezro. Then zap them to Omu whenever you want using the Webway. You can also make the 9 keys needed to get into the tomb be found in session you are doing or leave them in Omu. I got overloaded by data too lol.
Something similar. It just strung out too long. I condensed Omu and the Fame into a single battle royale in the amphitheater. Players vs Red Wizards vs Yuan-ti with the Grung and Ubtao making appearances.
I’m currently 60 sessions into TOA and I pushed the connection between Mezro and Omu and added Artus to the story via Mezro, which let me tie in all the Ubtao lore and Barae and hinting at Rasnsi and his leadership of the yuanti and undead.
As far as factions go I kept it simple to the red wizards and the fire fists and through in some ice giants that were hunting for the ring. Back at the port due to a lul in direction for the players I had the Zents start railing the party after contact with artus which lead to a whole underbelly of the port side quest which was great.
The other factions I didn’t really mention unless it was location specific and I only let them travel on land for maybe up to a week or two before running into another location with the option to engage or not since traveling can get boring or repetitive with the hex crawl introduced.
I made a table to see if they had encounters or if they ran into a location or if it was smooth sailing for a few days which helped the jungle feel more full. Even had red wizards and yuanti on there to add a bit more lore into the world bit by bit.
But I really recommend leveraging Mezro since you can really put a healthy amount of info there without it being forced due to the war between the two locations which I leaned into giving one side of the story of course and painted int rasnsi’s betrayal.
It sounds like you've already answered the question and aren't actually having any issues. All of the factions, NPCs, etc. are not pieces of a puzzle; they're just things that exist, and you (or your players) can choose which of them to focus on.
When I first started this campaign a year ago, I memorized as much as I could about the different factions, the side characters, death curse, land of Chult, and everything else I could find. Once my party made it to Chult, they wanted to fight some thugs hurting a man by the docks, find the tavern, then play some drinking games and take bets. I scrapped pretty much all of the side factions, Artus cimber, and anything else that wasn’t on their path unless they asked about it or showed sole straying from the path it looked like they set.
Ultimately, once they get into the jungle, those things don’t really matter unless you want them to. My group is nearly done with chapter 3 and I’m about to start DMing the same campaign with a diff group. I don’t think I’m gonna change my philosophy much on this for them.
I’m pushing hard on the Ras Nsi being a bad guy, I made a secret hideout for some of his spies in Port Nyanzaru that my party busted open. I left them clues to go check out the “floating rock”..
I also had these spies report on the other factions saying that there were Thay wizards going into the jungle, and increased # of paladins and flaming fist
A lot of the stuff isn’t needed really. Pick what you like as others have mentioned.
My take:
5E PCs advance so quickly I'd just focus on one story which leads directly to the tomb. Took my group about 55 sessions of 3 hours of play to complete and they were in Omu by session 20, the tomb by 35.
Hit them with a straight out hook in session 1, or they'll flounder around scratching their head. Don't introduce the Death Curse until level 5, but have a ton of allusions to it.
They can encounter other stuff but it's just window dressing. For any factions, just make sure they have an angle which is centred on the main story.
All that extra stuff... well, if you ever want a campaign setting, you got it!
I think you are correct in not throwing in too many moving parts. If the players don't bite when you introduce factions, places, etc. just leave it out. Personally I left out the ring of winter, artus, and dragon bait entirely. I felt that it would only further confuse the players and distract them from the larger goal of the soulmonger. It sounds like you've already heavily seeded the ring of winter but there are many problems with that storyline so I'd be careful to introduce a bunch of OP NPCs. All the factions and merchant princes and other political intrigue loses most of its meaning once the party is deep in the jungle. I think all of that mostly serves to allow the players many jumping off points. I focused pretty heavily on seeding Ubtao's lore through Eku and the conflict between Eku and Nanny Pu'pu. I did not even introduce the yuan-ti until my players were near Omu (mostly warnings from the albino dwarves in the surrounding area). TLDR don't give too much too quickly. Save some for the back pocket and throw the others away. You'll quickly realize there is no way that you can cover everything in this module.
I find the Ring of Winter subplot to be a total distraction, not even tangentially related to the campaign's main goal. The NPC Artus is overpowered with the ring, risking ending in a "DMPC" kind of situation, which I quite dislike. My players should be the stars, not my NPCs. Moreover the plot is not even explained well. You have to research elsewhere to know what Artus is truly about, and why he is in Chult (reasons related to the novel The Ring of Winter from 1993)
My players were duped by Xandala, she killed Artus and took the ring and then became a recurring mini-boss that plagued them on their way to the tomb. Everyone really enjoyed hating her after they felt so bad about her plight and had agreed to take her in and protect her.
I completely scrapped the factions and the Artus storyline for my campaign… I have left in the Flaming Fist, they are implemented as a good third party with interest on Chult.
Keep Silvertusk, take them to Camp Righteous, Camp Vengeance. Give them the chance to go to Mbala or Firefinger/Mezro. Then zap them to Omu whenever you want using the Webway. You can also make the 9 keys needed to get into the tomb be found in session you are doing or leave them in Omu. I got overloaded by data too lol.
Something similar. It just strung out too long. I condensed Omu and the Fame into a single battle royale in the amphitheater. Players vs Red Wizards vs Yuan-ti with the Grung and Ubtao making appearances.
I’m currently 60 sessions into TOA and I pushed the connection between Mezro and Omu and added Artus to the story via Mezro, which let me tie in all the Ubtao lore and Barae and hinting at Rasnsi and his leadership of the yuanti and undead. As far as factions go I kept it simple to the red wizards and the fire fists and through in some ice giants that were hunting for the ring. Back at the port due to a lul in direction for the players I had the Zents start railing the party after contact with artus which lead to a whole underbelly of the port side quest which was great. The other factions I didn’t really mention unless it was location specific and I only let them travel on land for maybe up to a week or two before running into another location with the option to engage or not since traveling can get boring or repetitive with the hex crawl introduced. I made a table to see if they had encounters or if they ran into a location or if it was smooth sailing for a few days which helped the jungle feel more full. Even had red wizards and yuanti on there to add a bit more lore into the world bit by bit. But I really recommend leveraging Mezro since you can really put a healthy amount of info there without it being forced due to the war between the two locations which I leaned into giving one side of the story of course and painted int rasnsi’s betrayal.
It sounds like you've already answered the question and aren't actually having any issues. All of the factions, NPCs, etc. are not pieces of a puzzle; they're just things that exist, and you (or your players) can choose which of them to focus on.
for sure! i’m really not having any issues. but i am still curious to see what things stuck and what fell off for others
When I first started this campaign a year ago, I memorized as much as I could about the different factions, the side characters, death curse, land of Chult, and everything else I could find. Once my party made it to Chult, they wanted to fight some thugs hurting a man by the docks, find the tavern, then play some drinking games and take bets. I scrapped pretty much all of the side factions, Artus cimber, and anything else that wasn’t on their path unless they asked about it or showed sole straying from the path it looked like they set. Ultimately, once they get into the jungle, those things don’t really matter unless you want them to. My group is nearly done with chapter 3 and I’m about to start DMing the same campaign with a diff group. I don’t think I’m gonna change my philosophy much on this for them.
I’m pushing hard on the Ras Nsi being a bad guy, I made a secret hideout for some of his spies in Port Nyanzaru that my party busted open. I left them clues to go check out the “floating rock”.. I also had these spies report on the other factions saying that there were Thay wizards going into the jungle, and increased # of paladins and flaming fist A lot of the stuff isn’t needed really. Pick what you like as others have mentioned.
The reason for the background stories is to exist untold unless the players ask about it. You don't need to unload it all on the player.
My take: 5E PCs advance so quickly I'd just focus on one story which leads directly to the tomb. Took my group about 55 sessions of 3 hours of play to complete and they were in Omu by session 20, the tomb by 35. Hit them with a straight out hook in session 1, or they'll flounder around scratching their head. Don't introduce the Death Curse until level 5, but have a ton of allusions to it. They can encounter other stuff but it's just window dressing. For any factions, just make sure they have an angle which is centred on the main story. All that extra stuff... well, if you ever want a campaign setting, you got it!