SageSTL's page

Its a lord of the rings toy action figure Cool!

Saw that, but was wondering which ring wraith figure it was specifically so I could track one down. :)

I've crafted my own Kyuss Mini from a ring wraith figure. I thought I'd share it with everyone.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/rwaluchow/Kyuss1.jpg

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/rwaluchow/Kyuss2.jpg

Cheers,

Black Baron

Wow, that's fantastic! Where did you get that particular figure?

Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:

However - while I loved the Age of Worms AP, I question the mileage racked up. Most of the time there was no real reason why the players had to be constantly changing locations - certianly nothing in the overarcing plot demanded it. My feeling is that the whole thing could have been written with the Free City serving as a constant home base. In fact if that had been done I suspect that one would have less problems with the players taking the role of hero. Saving the world seems a lot more important if your actually invested in the people and places in the world.

In fact the original outline for Age of Worms involved the player characters spending about three more adventures in the Free City, rooting out corruption in the Directing Oligarchy tied to Balabar Smenk and Loris Raknian, but this was rejected by Wizards of the Coast because it put too much emphasis on Greyhawk and because someone over there thought there weren't enough dungeons in the campaign (!).

--Erik

Is there any more information out there on this? Who do we need to pester? :)

I'd love to hear more details, as well- I'm planning on doing this with all of my campaigns. As asked previously- how are you handling the XP-dependent mechanics (item creation, death/raising, level drain, etc.)?

First off- as everyone else has said, I love your maps. They're one of the things I look for first in each issue. I really enjoy the "connected map" format you're using right now- I think it opens up a lot of opportunities to come up with ideas. I don't think using the connected format detracts from their use by themselves- as long as you're doing individual, "unique" (i.e. not connected) maps every once in a while, I think everyone will be happy.

My foreshadowing is a little different... Rain Barrel Man.

This is GREAT- consider it snagged! Please let us know how the characters react!

I'd love to do so, and agree it's a better "fit"- but it will be years before the city would see such use. We're at the beginning of the AoW path, and it will probably be several years before we're finished. The other issue is, if I add another city that was taken over by a fallen paladin, who refers to himself as a "Prince," who is building a tower for mysterious reasons- it will seem a bit odd to my players... :)

Even before the Freeport books were released, I had an island city of pirates off the mainland in my campaign world. None of my PCs have ever been there, but they know that it used to be part of their kingdom until an upstart former paladin- now a self-styled "prince"- took it over about twenty years ago. After I got the Freeport books, I decided to use those to flesh out the city.

Since there are so many similarities between my Freeport and the published Freeport, and the number of similarities both share with Alhaster, I'd like to use this city to replace Alhaster in my AoW campaign. It seems to work pretty well- except for the pirates, and the tone. I can't imaging the Blessed Angels (or Zeech, for that matter) would allow the sort of lawlessness associated with the (published) Freeport, nor does it have the sort of desparate, fascist feel that Alhaster has. I can make major changes, but I'd like folks' thoughts; getting rid of the swashbuckling pirate flavor of the city really defeats the purpose of using the Freeport material in the first place.

Deimodius, I'm planning on doing the same thing in my AoW campaign- how's it working for you? Specifically, how do the players like it?

The image of their beloved bag of holding suddenly becoming a worm geyser certainly has its charm :)

Now, that's just not playing fair... :)

...they reproduce much too quickly to be anything but a danger, thereby ruining the reputations of "respectable" undead.

I think this is a critical factor- moral/ethical issues aside, I could see using these worm-spewing undead in combat as being very risky. Is he going to drag the spawn through the Free City? He's controlling the spawn, but is he controlling the worms? Is he going to infect innocents?

Level drain ought to be enough to scare anybody, particularly the lightly-armored spellcasters. They may only be +3 to hit (on average) but flanking and sneak attacks (they have great Hide and Move Silently numbers) can make up for that.

I agree- they may be relatively weak, but they're much more of a threat when there are hundreds- or thousands- of them. If you use the flanking and AoO rules to the best effect it wouldn't take long to take out the entire party. I know that's not your goal- but one such encounter with even a relatively large group of wights would be enough to motivate the players.

I REALLY like the Allustan idea, but I agree that it would be difficult to have him be evil without having to explain his connection to the other NPCs. I'm modifying the end of my campaign anyway- in mine, there's actually another goddess behind everything, and it would be great to have Allustan be her lackey. Any thoughts as to how to make this work (again, without making Manzorian, Eligos, the PCs, and everyone else with whom he's interacted look stupid/naive)?

Sure, if it's not a bother I'd love to read it. :)

Personally, even given the description of the world you described I would still stick with Ilthane. Keep in mind that she's not a "normal" black dragon; her interests (and those of the other dragons involved in the AoW) are solely with Kyuss, so she would have no problem going rogue and leaving the Plane of Dragons. This could lead to an interesting subplot, in fact- you could have other dragons, both good and bad, looking for Ilthane since she has gone AWOL. That could make things interesting for the PCs. You could alter it in other ways, too- say, for example, that "Manzorian" is actually a gold dragon that is helping the PCs after finding out about Kyuss when he and his fellows followed Ilthane back onto this plane. Replace Magepoint with a "good-aligned" city on your Plane of Dragons, and voila! You could make the conversion more extreme, and convert other key NPCs (such as Celeste) to dragons in humanoid form.

Ruined, would you be willing to share your maps (either in jpeg or dja format)? I was just getting ready to do the same thing for Whispering Cairn. :)

Part of the problem is that I set things up for Whispering Cairn on such a strong note of "this town sucks; your reason for adventuring is to get cash to get the heck out of here", that the PCs are generally inclined to do exactly that now that they have the means for travel.

Funny you should say that- I did the same thing. My characters are completely focused on 1) getting enough cash to buy themselves out of debt to Smenk, 2) getting revenge on Smenk (if possible), and 3) getting the heck out of town. They really haven't gotten a taste of the "big evil" yet, but I'm a bit concerned that they're going to have difficulty shifting focus- or, worse yet, will want to leave town, never to return.

Love the journal! Can you post the ending (either here or in the other forum)? Is this the only adventure you've completed? I'd love to read more...

I don't know the "actual" background on the plague, but I made it part of the background for my campaign. All of the PCs' parents were killed by the plague, and they were all raised by the same priest in the church in Diamond Lake. That's the basis for their relationship (despite disparate backgrounds, classes, races, etc.) at the beginning of the campaign. Only later will they find that it's part of the prophecy- and that there's a darker link, as well... >:)

perhaps this could be remedied in the hardcover

Or in the web enhancement? Pretty please? :)

I used a CR3 undead creature (a wight or a ghast- can't recall which at the moment)- the remains of one of the other adventurers that died in the Cairn. I'd made other changes to the room, as well (getting rid of the balls altogether, and replacing them with balls of air that knock you off the ledge; spikes on the floor; and water in the pit from a "leak"), so it made a bit more sense to do that in my campaign.

Peruhain of Brithondy wrote:

TPK Jay--how close are you to the printers in Illinois? I want my issue 135 and I want it now!

That does not seem to matter much. I am in St. Louis and anything from Illinois would normally take 2 days. The last issue took two weeks to get to me. Crazy mail people.

-Neomorte

Same here, Neomorte (St. Peters, MO)- mine are taking 3-6 weeks. :(

First off, I took Thematic Spellcasting from Magic of Faerun, so I can describe my spells differently from the norm...

I'd check with your DM on this; many DMs (myself included) don't require the feat to allow "thematic casting" (as long as there's no other effect); there have been several discussions about it over on the ENWorld boards. I wouldn't allow a player to replace a fireball with a 60-foot wide screaming skull, for example, but a change to fit a specific theme is fine.

I have to plug my friend Dan Dos Santos' work...

Absolutely spectacular work showcased on his site- thanks for plugging it. :)

Thanks. :) In my campaign, the god of undead is a former god of nature that betrayed his father and the "good" members of the pantheon in a war of the gods. Rather than destroy him outright, his father imprisoned him on the Negative Energy Plane. Not only did the plane warp him (physically, and in his powers), but he eventually found he could gain some power by channeling the energy onto the prime material- into undead. Through increasing the number of undead on the prime material he has increased in power, and is nearing the point that he will be able to break free of his prison. His cultists have set forth to both increase the number of undead (hence the zombies) and fulfill a number of prophecies that will supposedly allow for his release.

I had all of this as part of my campaign backstory before AoW came out, and it just seemed to fit (with obvious modifications).

I'm using my campaign's version of Orcus, a god of undeath that has been imprisoned for thousands of years. I've not had any problems converting the adventures and changing the references. You're right about the worms- they are obviously mentioned pretty often- but they usually don't play a critical role in the adventure. All I've done is changed to a contagious form of undeath (i.e. recent zombie movies), which has done the trick.

I've been playing Allustan as being NG (to make him more of a fit for a party patron), so alignment alone wouldn't cut it. When in doubt, you can always say that the fight was over a woman and leave it at that. :)

I've done what Sebastian describes, and it works really well. Before the D&D minis came out I used this method almost exclusively. It's also nice for creating PC and NPC "tokens," since you can essentially just create a close-up of the character's face and throw it on the map; makes managing large battles (such as the one in Kings of the Rift) much easier to manage (without having to have 30-40 specific miniatures).

I recall one or more adventures that featured half-dragon NPCs; I can't seem to dig them up. Specifically, I'm looking for a half-dragon with a black dragon parent, but I'm flexible... Does anyone recall which recent adventures featured them?

As an aside- I intend to use a half-dragon NPC (a son/daughter of Ilthane, incidentally) as part of my Age of Worms campaign. I'm hoping to scavenge a stat block and/or portrait, if possible. :)

I'm always eager to hear about ways that DMs have customized adventures (in Dungeon or otherwise) to make them more engaging to players. Any other input about changes you've made that have been received well, either in this adventure or in others from the Age of Worms AP? I'm going to be starting mine this weekend (with Whispering Cairn), so I'm not quite at the point that I have anything to share about these adventures- yet. :)

Was just reading through the adventure again, and realized that the ring was gold, and not silver. Made a new (gold) version to be true to the description. :)

http://webpages.charter.net/sagestl/SeekerRing4.jpg

Well, I guess that definitively answers that. :)

Thanks for the information, Erik. Based on your input, I made another version of the ring (replicating the symbol from the Living Greyhawk logo).

http://webpages.charter.net/sagestl/SeekerRing3.jpg

I think I'm still going to beef up the ring a bit with a magical effect so that it's more appealing for a character to keep; I'll leave the backstory alone, though, in the hopes that we find out more in the future. :)

I'm considering making the ring magical, with a limited effect that fits with the Seekers' theme (such as detect magic 1/day). That would provide some incentive to the characters to keep/wear it- and get into some trouble whenever they run into other Seekers. >:)

It's not a "created" (i.e. drawn or rendered) image, actually- it's an image of an actual ring (a product for sale). :)

I took the liberty of creating one, as well- I modified the ring a bit, and added an eye to the center. Essentially, my take on it is that the symbol represents the fact that the Seekers will look anywhere and everywhere to find (and get) what they want. :)

http://webpages.charter.net/sagestl/Seeker%20Ring.jpg

Let me know what you think- I'll happily tinker with it or modify it based on your suggestions.

For those of you that want to use the chaos symbol for the ring- I found a great image of a signet ring with the symbol on the 'net. :)

http://www.rivithead.com/images/product_large/R99.jpg

Unless I can find something that I'd like better (the chaos symbol still doesn't seem to fit, in my opinion), this is what I'll be using...

Just starting with Whispering Cairn next week, although the group already has one "adventure" under their belts (outside of the Age of Worms AP).

I have seen others play them as balls of force (or energy) that cause damage when they hit- imaging getting hit by half a dozen baseballs thrown at high velocity. :)

Assuming all goes to plan, however (and not having read the last two adventures, obviously)- wouldn't Lashonna be concerned about Kyuss' reaction, or that she could be preventing his "rise" by getting rid of Dragotha? Maybe it will become more clear with the final adventure, but it seems to me that it's in her best interest to let him stay around until it's certain that Kyuss is going to show up... :)

Yeah, that was my initial thought- my only concern is that it may be -too- recognizable. At least two of my players will recognize it as a chaos symbol; I'm pretty sure that they'll leap to the conclusion that the Seekers are a part of a chaos cult or something. :P

<Potential spoiler alert!>

What is Lashonna's motivation to help the PC's find Dragotha's phylactery, exactly? I've read and re-read the relevant adventures, and, while it seems she's trying to "eliminate her competition," it seems like getting rid of Dragotha is counter-productive to her other goals. Her goals are relevant as I'm modifying her (and Dragotha) slightly to fit into my campaign, and I'd like to have a better understanding of her reasons for supporting the PCs, even indirectly.

Has the symbol for the Seekers (the eight-pointed star) been posted anywhere as an image? I know my players are going to ask about it when they come across it, and I'd love to be able to show them an image. I could probably make one, but if there's one out there already that would (obviously) be easier. :)

I'd be a huge supporter of doing this, as well; I'd pay more for a subscription to get access to a .pdf (or even be willing to buy them separately if they were reasonable). I'm starting a Fantasy Grounds campaign myself, so this would be a big help- but I've also been using electronic tools for years, and have literally 're-typed" some adventures so that I have them in electronic format. Obviously, this would be easier. :)

I'd love the PDF version of the magazine. I'd be willing to pay extra for it, in fact, even if it weren't a "bonus."

I'd like the e-mail notification, as well- been checking repeatedly (essentially each time it's been expected to be completed).

I've tried to "get" Downer, but gave up early on in the series. I have a vague understanding of what's supposed to be happening, but don't find the comic entertaining or interesting at all (as opposed to the other comics in Dungeon and Dragon).