The Tomb Does Not Care About Your Domain

Tomb of Horrors is a clean argument against the rest of this series.

No town stomach. No syndicate waiting to learn your name. No seasonal payroll. A hole built to end you, then sit on the bodies. Acererak is not a lord. He is a full stop. You do not wreck this map. This map wrecks parties and keeps the receipt.

That is why it still belongs next to ACKS II.

A campaign game needs a place that will not negotiate. Not every site is a future stronghold. Not every haul is the seed of a realm. Some treasure is bait on a hook older than your dynasty. The mortal wounds table is going to work overtime. Henchmen will refuse. Charisma will not hire you out of a sphere of annihilation. Gold is still the plot, but the plot here is whether you get to keep a character who can spend it.

5E softened tombs into puzzle boxes with checkpoints. S1 is the old temperature. You bring a torch, a ten-foot pole, and the humility the Borderlands never quite demanded.

Run it when the table has gotten comfortable owning things.

Then remind them that the crate also contains rooms that do not want a successor. They want a collection. The campaign continues only if somebody walks out. That is not domain play. That is the tax on hubris, paid in advance.