Age of Worms in Faerun? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Age of Worms in Faerun? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
kaeso
11-20-05, 12:52 PM I plan on running the Age of Worms adventure path from Dungeon magazine, but to convert it to the Realms takes a bit of work, and a few changes that I'm not really willing to make. According to the conversion given on Paizo.com, I should
1) change all the people's names to Realms names (they give you the names, so no biggy),
2) change the name of the town to Daggerford, and make it a walled town on a ford, not a lake. Those aren't too annoying, because it says you can either use the map they give you and just add a wall around it, or use the map of Daggerford given in The North, which is downloadable from Wizards.
3) have a slightly different history of the town (given in the billion page download), which means that the mine managers don't have nearly as much power as they would as described in the magazine, and there are other organizations with a lot of power (also given in the billion page download). I do NOT like this, because then you start changing the personalities, opinions, and histories of all the people, which changes the flavor a lot.

So, has anyone tried to adapt AoW to the Realms? I'm tempted to just completely ignore changing the flavor of the town that they recommend, and instead just have it that the mayor WAS elected a few years ago like they said, but I want him to be incredibly corrupt (so corrupt that everything went into the crapper just as badly as they describe in the magazine). Thoughts?
Gray Richardson
11-20-05, 01:22 PM You are in luck! No less a sage than designer par excellence Eric Boyd has done the work of adapting the adventure path for you to the Realms.

Go to the paizo.com website at this link here: http://paizo.com/dungeon/news#v5748eaic9jzc

And download the Age of Worms Overload (http://paizo.com/dungeon/news/v5748eaic9jzc) for everything you need to run the Age of Worms in your Forgotten Realms Campaign! :)
kaeso
11-20-05, 04:09 PM that Age of Worms Overload is great, but most of it was stuff that was already in the first link, which I had. I guess my question is whether or not anyone has tried running the campaign in the Realms without using all the changes they recommend for the Realms (and whether or not it worked), because there are a lot of them.
ericlboyd
11-20-05, 06:02 PM Actually Gray, I think he has those conversions and doesn't like them.

General comment: Paizo asked me to write the conversions. My philosophy was a DM could do anything from "basically zero" to "a whole lot" in the conversion space.

"Basically zero" is stick Diamond Lake in the an out-of-the-way corner of the Realms and go from there.

"A whole lot" is what I wrote up (IMO).

That's not to say I recommend necessarily doing everything I suggest. However, it's a lot easier for the DM if I do "a whole lot", allowing the DM to "dial it back", than vica versa.

--Eric
kaeso
11-20-05, 08:36 PM I do like the detail of everything you put in it, what you did was incredible, but I'm gonna run it this Wednesday so I can't go on throwing in new details (my weeknights are entirely eaten up by homework), and I think that if I did change it I'd be like "ok this guy has problems with the miners, it says that in the magazine... but the changes say that he might not have problems with them... he might have problems with some other organization from The North... *bangs head on table*" I think I'll put it in Daggerford, change the names of people, places, and organizations, but not add anything from The North. Thanks for your help!
ClobberinTime
11-21-05, 10:06 AM I would stick the AoW in Chondath, there is a history of Plague there, making the people fearfull and there are lots of out of the way places to put diamond lake, and the alignment of the major cities is much more neutral/evil and they have a history of gladiatorial games.

Or Chessenta.

Probably Eric put it in the Waterdeep region at the request of WotC to tie it in with the waterdeep sourcebook.
Halidan
11-21-05, 01:51 PM I'm also in the process of adapting the Age of Worms to the Ralms, and while I liked the fact that Eric and Pazio went to the trouble of creating the Overload, I just didn't feel it fit "my Realms" - especially in the changes to Daggerford (which is an area that my players have adventured around fever since the N4 module days).

What I decided to do was follow Eric's other advice and stick the module elsewhere in the Realms. I chose the Moonsea - it has the hard-edge, down-on-your-luck, everyone's out for themselves attitude needed for running Diamond Lake just as it's described in the Dungeon magazine adventurers.

I placed Diamond Lake northeast from Phlan, about ten mile northeast of the far eastern edge of the Dragonspine Mountains. Neither the town, lake or the river draining from the lake appear on any FR maps, which is fine for me, since the place is just a really small backwater anyway.

The tombs are located SE ot Diamond, in what is actually the western edge of the Thar. The various tombs were built by a number of earlier civilizations, including the Eldar Ogers of Thar, the dwarves of several kingdoms, the ancient Giants and even some of the early humans of ancient Phlan. Ovbviously, the Vaati tombs predate them all, but since many of the lesser races copied the architecure of the Vaati, the tomb from the first module doesn't stand out until the players get into the adventure.

Rather than use the Vaati as part of the Calisham founders (as Eric suggests) , I've decided to say that they were foloowers of Akadi and that they have struggled against the evil forces of Auril for centuries in the windswept plains of the Tortured Lands. I won't use the AoW hooks for either the Rod of Seven Parts, and instead, I'll make the staff fragment a Legacy Weapon for Akadi's faithful.

The Blackwall Keep is a castle on the northern border of the Glumpen Swamp (which is already lizardman infested) northeast of Phlan. It's manned by soldiers from Phlan, and basicaly serves as a rest stop for caravans of ore heading to market to the south.

The "Free City" will be Phlan. All I had to do is adjust my map of Phlan to include an arena, which I'm actually thinking about putting in the ward occupied by Castle Velajio. That will also allow me to tie in Moander and the Pools of Radiance to the plot, which I intended to do anyway.

I've also changed the three Gods that Eric recommended to use in the Overlaod - mostly because I wanted to use the Moander tie-in. I'm using Gargos (as Hexor) Bhaal (as Erythnul) and Moander (as Nerull). This allows me to explore some of the lesser known faiths of FR history, and surprise my players as well.

That's about as far as I've gotten with the conversion, but I thought I'd sahre these ideas and see what people thought of them.

Axe High, I go.
kaeso
11-21-05, 07:16 PM I'm feeling more and more lazy as I read these haha. I think I'll throw it in a corner of the Realms, run everything as written in the magazine (a few changes, like the gods of course) and change whatever I feel like. I don't have the money (ok, yes I do, I don't want to spend it, I have enough D&D books already!) to buy Waterdeep, which I know I will if my players go there (I lack self control :( ). It is best for my wallet to just throw it in a corner of the Realms.
Gallameed
11-22-05, 10:01 AM I'm feeling more and more lazy as I read these haha. I think I'll throw it in a corner of the Realms, run everything as written in the magazine (a few changes, like the gods of course) and change whatever I feel like. I don't have the money (ok, yes I do, I don't want to spend it, I have enough D&D books already!) to buy Waterdeep, which I know I will if my players go there (I lack self control :( ). It is best for my wallet to just throw it in a corner of the Realms.

This is the best way to do it (in my humble oppy) :D

Dont go F'ing-up Daggerford and Waterdeep when they're great as they are, instead stick Diamond Lake somewhere else and use "as is" with a few god's getting a name-swap.

My parnter DM's the AOW in FR for us. Didn't change much, simply adding to it instead, making it into a mentalist-horror adventure full of sicko-freak fantasies and death-love. It's been hard going (three character deaths as of last weeks game) and we're only onto the third adventure! One event our gloriously gross DM described made my friend do a little bit of sick in the back of his throat! :D Top one!
kaeso
11-22-05, 04:46 PM One event our gloriously gross DM described made my friend do a little bit of sick in the back of his throat! :D Top one!

NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICE! I'm even more glad I bought Heroes of Horror now, I can't wait to use it! (though not in AoW, I have girls in that campaign and they both said they don't want too much horror in it) So, good places to run AoW... so far we've got Chondathan, Chessenta, and the Moonsea. Any others?
Dargoth
11-22-05, 04:57 PM I did a conversion for Champions Belt as free standing module over at Candlekeep

http://www.candlekeep.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5501

The Thread also contains a Conversion for the Generic Shut in Module found the same issue as champions Belt
kaeso
11-22-05, 08:21 PM I decided on the Moonsea, I too like the brutality of it. Fits well.
Silverpanther
11-23-05, 01:26 PM what is age of worms?
Rny2
11-23-05, 02:18 PM what is age of worms?

Ask Kyuss/ the Overgod, he seems to know a lot about it.
Halidan
11-23-05, 10:19 PM what is age of worms?

It's a series of 12 adventures being published by Pazio in Dungeon magazine. The adventure path is designed to take players from 1st to 20th level over the course of the 12 adventures.

The plot involves cults from three different gods joining forces to summon the ancient power Kyuss to usher in a new age of darkness - the "Age of Worms." It's basically a fantasy horror story, with lots of aberrations and undead.

As written, the adventures are set in Greyhawk - but Pazio has commissioned Eric Boyd to do conversion notes for the Forgotten Realms. They're published on the Pazio website.
kaeso
11-23-05, 11:40 PM its AWESOME, that's what it is. If you plan on running the Age of Worms, I suggest reading through the Age of Worms Overload (link is in a previous poster's post), which gives a summary of the entire campaign. I just read it about an hour ago, and my initial reaction was " :OMG! :shocked: :clap: :dancin:" Needless to say, I can't wait to get started!
Seraphim of Night
11-26-05, 11:00 PM I have the Dungeon Magazine where Age of Worms begins, and I was wondering if any of you playing it actually feels it is worth investing in? If its not that great I might skip buying them. Maybe The Dungeon would be a better investment. We had a blast in the Chamber of Antiquities in said magazine if any of you tried it. The Juggernaught was pure evil. :D
kaeso
11-26-05, 11:04 PM I read over "The Whispering Cairn" where the campaign begins, and I think it will be awesome. I read over the campaign overview, and I wished that I could run it all at once because it sounded so incredibly awesome! so yes, I recommend it.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
kaeso 11-20-05, 12:52 PM	I plan on running the Age of Worms adventure path from Dungeon magazine, but to convert it to the Realms takes a bit of work, and a few changes that I'm not really willing to make. According to the conversion given on Paizo.com, I should 1) change all the people's names to Realms names (they give you the names, so no biggy), 2) change the name of the town to Daggerford, and make it a walled town on a ford, not a lake. Those aren't too annoying, because it says you can either use the map they give you and just add a wall around it, or use the map of Daggerford given in The North, which is downloadable from Wizards. 3) have a slightly different history of the town (given in the billion page download), which means that the mine managers don't have nearly as much power as they would as described in the magazine, and there are other organizations with a lot of power (also given in the billion page download). I do NOT like this, because then you start changing the personalities, opinions, and histories of all the people, which changes the flavor a lot. So, has anyone tried to adapt AoW to the Realms? I'm tempted to just completely ignore changing the flavor of the town that they recommend, and instead just have it that the mayor WAS elected a few years ago like they said, but I want him to be incredibly corrupt (so corrupt that everything went into the crapper just as badly as they describe in the magazine). Thoughts?
Gray Richardson 11-20-05, 01:22 PM	You are in luck! No less a sage than designer par excellence Eric Boyd has done the work of adapting the adventure path for you to the Realms. Go to the paizo.com website at this link here: http://paizo.com/dungeon/news#v5748eaic9jzc And download the Age of Worms Overload (http://paizo.com/dungeon/news/v5748eaic9jzc) for everything you need to run the Age of Worms in your Forgotten Realms Campaign! :)
kaeso 11-20-05, 04:09 PM	that Age of Worms Overload is great, but most of it was stuff that was already in the first link, which I had. I guess my question is whether or not anyone has tried running the campaign in the Realms without using all the changes they recommend for the Realms (and whether or not it worked), because there are a lot of them.
ericlboyd 11-20-05, 06:02 PM	Actually Gray, I think he has those conversions and doesn't like them. General comment: Paizo asked me to write the conversions. My philosophy was a DM could do anything from "basically zero" to "a whole lot" in the conversion space. "Basically zero" is stick Diamond Lake in the an out-of-the-way corner of the Realms and go from there. "A whole lot" is what I wrote up (IMO). That's not to say I recommend necessarily doing everything I suggest. However, it's a lot easier for the DM if I do "a whole lot", allowing the DM to "dial it back", than vica versa. --Eric
kaeso 11-20-05, 08:36 PM	I do like the detail of everything you put in it, what you did was incredible, but I'm gonna run it this Wednesday so I can't go on throwing in new details (my weeknights are entirely eaten up by homework), and I think that if I did change it I'd be like "ok this guy has problems with the miners, it says that in the magazine... but the changes say that he might not have problems with them... he might have problems with some other organization from The North... bangs head on table" I think I'll put it in Daggerford, change the names of people, places, and organizations, but not add anything from The North. Thanks for your help!
ClobberinTime 11-21-05, 10:06 AM	I would stick the AoW in Chondath, there is a history of Plague there, making the people fearfull and there are lots of out of the way places to put diamond lake, and the alignment of the major cities is much more neutral/evil and they have a history of gladiatorial games. Or Chessenta. Probably Eric put it in the Waterdeep region at the request of WotC to tie it in with the waterdeep sourcebook.
Halidan 11-21-05, 01:51 PM	I'm also in the process of adapting the Age of Worms to the Ralms, and while I liked the fact that Eric and Pazio went to the trouble of creating the Overload, I just didn't feel it fit "my Realms" - especially in the changes to Daggerford (which is an area that my players have adventured around fever since the N4 module days). What I decided to do was follow Eric's other advice and stick the module elsewhere in the Realms. I chose the Moonsea - it has the hard-edge, down-on-your-luck, everyone's out for themselves attitude needed for running Diamond Lake just as it's described in the Dungeon magazine adventurers. I placed Diamond Lake northeast from Phlan, about ten mile northeast of the far eastern edge of the Dragonspine Mountains. Neither the town, lake or the river draining from the lake appear on any FR maps, which is fine for me, since the place is just a really small backwater anyway. The tombs are located SE ot Diamond, in what is actually the western edge of the Thar. The various tombs were built by a number of earlier civilizations, including the Eldar Ogers of Thar, the dwarves of several kingdoms, the ancient Giants and even some of the early humans of ancient Phlan. Ovbviously, the Vaati tombs predate them all, but since many of the lesser races copied the architecure of the Vaati, the tomb from the first module doesn't stand out until the players get into the adventure. Rather than use the Vaati as part of the Calisham founders (as Eric suggests) , I've decided to say that they were foloowers of Akadi and that they have struggled against the evil forces of Auril for centuries in the windswept plains of the Tortured Lands. I won't use the AoW hooks for either the Rod of Seven Parts, and instead, I'll make the staff fragment a Legacy Weapon for Akadi's faithful. The Blackwall Keep is a castle on the northern border of the Glumpen Swamp (which is already lizardman infested) northeast of Phlan. It's manned by soldiers from Phlan, and basicaly serves as a rest stop for caravans of ore heading to market to the south. The "Free City" will be Phlan. All I had to do is adjust my map of Phlan to include an arena, which I'm actually thinking about putting in the ward occupied by Castle Velajio. That will also allow me to tie in Moander and the Pools of Radiance to the plot, which I intended to do anyway. I've also changed the three Gods that Eric recommended to use in the Overlaod - mostly because I wanted to use the Moander tie-in. I'm using Gargos (as Hexor) Bhaal (as Erythnul) and Moander (as Nerull). This allows me to explore some of the lesser known faiths of FR history, and surprise my players as well. That's about as far as I've gotten with the conversion, but I thought I'd sahre these ideas and see what people thought of them. Axe High, I go.
kaeso 11-21-05, 07:16 PM	I'm feeling more and more lazy as I read these haha. I think I'll throw it in a corner of the Realms, run everything as written in the magazine (a few changes, like the gods of course) and change whatever I feel like. I don't have the money (ok, yes I do, I don't want to spend it, I have enough D&D books already!) to buy Waterdeep, which I know I will if my players go there (I lack self control :( ). It is best for my wallet to just throw it in a corner of the Realms.
Gallameed 11-22-05, 10:01 AM	I'm feeling more and more lazy as I read these haha. I think I'll throw it in a corner of the Realms, run everything as written in the magazine (a few changes, like the gods of course) and change whatever I feel like. I don't have the money (ok, yes I do, I don't want to spend it, I have enough D&D books already!) to buy Waterdeep, which I know I will if my players go there (I lack self control :( ). It is best for my wallet to just throw it in a corner of the Realms. This is the best way to do it (in my humble oppy) :D Dont go F'ing-up Daggerford and Waterdeep when they're great as they are, instead stick Diamond Lake somewhere else and use "as is" with a few god's getting a name-swap. My parnter DM's the AOW in FR for us. Didn't change much, simply adding to it instead, making it into a mentalist-horror adventure full of sicko-freak fantasies and death-love. It's been hard going (three character deaths as of last weeks game) and we're only onto the third adventure! One event our gloriously gross DM described made my friend do a little bit of sick in the back of his throat! :D Top one!
kaeso 11-22-05, 04:46 PM	One event our gloriously gross DM described made my friend do a little bit of sick in the back of his throat! :D Top one! NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICE! I'm even more glad I bought Heroes of Horror now, I can't wait to use it! (though not in AoW, I have girls in that campaign and they both said they don't want too much horror in it) So, good places to run AoW... so far we've got Chondathan, Chessenta, and the Moonsea. Any others?
Dargoth 11-22-05, 04:57 PM	I did a conversion for Champions Belt as free standing module over at Candlekeep http://www.candlekeep.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5501 The Thread also contains a Conversion for the Generic Shut in Module found the same issue as champions Belt
kaeso 11-22-05, 08:21 PM	I decided on the Moonsea, I too like the brutality of it. Fits well.
Silverpanther 11-23-05, 01:26 PM	what is age of worms?
Rny2 11-23-05, 02:18 PM	what is age of worms? Ask Kyuss/ the Overgod, he seems to know a lot about it.
Halidan 11-23-05, 10:19 PM	what is age of worms? It's a series of 12 adventures being published by Pazio in Dungeon magazine. The adventure path is designed to take players from 1st to 20th level over the course of the 12 adventures. The plot involves cults from three different gods joining forces to summon the ancient power Kyuss to usher in a new age of darkness - the "Age of Worms." It's basically a fantasy horror story, with lots of aberrations and undead. As written, the adventures are set in Greyhawk - but Pazio has commissioned Eric Boyd to do conversion notes for the Forgotten Realms. They're published on the Pazio website.
kaeso 11-23-05, 11:40 PM	its AWESOME, that's what it is. If you plan on running the Age of Worms, I suggest reading through the Age of Worms Overload (link is in a previous poster's post), which gives a summary of the entire campaign. I just read it about an hour ago, and my initial reaction was " :OMG! :shocked: :clap: :dancin:" Needless to say, I can't wait to get started!
Seraphim of Night 11-26-05, 11:00 PM	I have the Dungeon Magazine where Age of Worms begins, and I was wondering if any of you playing it actually feels it is worth investing in? If its not that great I might skip buying them. Maybe The Dungeon would be a better investment. We had a blast in the Chamber of Antiquities in said magazine if any of you tried it. The Juggernaught was pure evil. :D
kaeso 11-26-05, 11:04 PM	I read over "The Whispering Cairn" where the campaign begins, and I think it will be awesome. I read over the campaign overview, and I wished that I could run it all at once because it sounded so incredibly awesome! so yes, I recommend it.