Alternate introduction to Whispering cairn


Age of Worms Adventure Path


I particularly did not like the starting point/motivation for the players to enter the Whispering Cairn as laid out in Dungeon. In my game, I has the players explore some nearby caves in search of goblins who had recently occupied them and whom were raiding the surounding areas. While exploring, an earthquake struck the area. After the party dealt with the goblins (i.e. killed the chieftain), they find the long lost Tomb, now uncovered by the eathquake, as they are exiting the caves. Then, I'll rely on the party's natural curiosity to explore the Tomb, as well as the normal greed factor. Sure, my version requires alterations: perhaps undead wolves or spiders at the entrance and changing the ghost of Alastor to be an explorer who died in the tomb rather than some little boy.

I'm curious if anyone else used an alternate starting point rather than the one proposed in the Adventure Path.


Lucendar wrote:
I'm curious if anyone else used an alternate starting point rather than the one proposed in the Adventure Path.

I had Allustan organize several escorts for his apprentice (the wizard PC) to investigate possible relics from the Battle of Pesh that may lie in the Cairn Hills.


I started with Mad God's Key, which didn't rely on anything to get going except for the PC's to intervene in a robbery. It was set in the Free City. Eventually, the cult that stole the evil book had notes about the Whispering Cairn (a red herring) and Diamond Lake (another of their hideouts, not that the PC's knew where it was at the time). I then planted some of the missing pages from the evil book in various Age of Worms modules (as well as some filler adventures). All up, it took the group until the end of the Champions Games to finally "finish" the Mad God's Key adventure, i.e. that was when they finally pieced all of that "evil book" back together again. Then they promptly returned it to the Free City Library.

Worked out really well - the group has actually now set up their own base in Diamond Lake, and are currently about to head off to the Spire...


There's a few other suggestions for starting the adventure in this thread (including my own.)


My thought for how I would run AoW when I finally get the chance is that each adventure will have one 'novel' type of adventure element to it to set them apart. Some already have this built in, but I think more can be added.

For the Whispering Cairn I am actually going to start things 10 years before the start of the actual adventure. Those PCs playing the races that would age similar to humans will be playing children who convince one of their friends to stay in the Cairn itself overnight. If I can swing it, this will be an NPC or a player who will later be playing an elf or the like playing a kid who goes into the cairn but ends up never making it out (see the skeleton in the entry of the cairn).

Even better would be to have the members of the group that are of longer lived race be friends with an older sibling and be part of a group sent to pull the kids out.

It is all still pretty rough in my head, but I have thoughts of something between "It" and "Stand By Me."

The idea is that the PCs will realize that even though they have grown apart in life, they are the only ones who know of this particular cairn and if they want out with out someone jacking their claim they should probably only involve those who already know about the claim.

Other adventures will have other unique ideas, most culled from the boards. Three faces of evil will have an actual puzzle they will need to solve to find the final dungeon (the three churches will be split up). The next adventure will steal the idea to play the guards at the fort while the PCs are storming the lizardfolk camp.

Anyway... those are my thoughts.


My campaign began, of all places, in Brancast, in the kingdom of Furyondy, where the local baron wanted information about a secret cabal of yuan-ti known as the House of the Circlet ("Within the Circle" by Sam Brown), who had been secretly feeding him information about the movement of Iuz's forces. Among the texts recovered by the PCs in this adventure, they discovered one containing information about a yuan-ti magic item called the amulet of Abyssal invisibility (unique creation). The baron and his wizard believed the information was worth investigating further, hoping it might lead to something useful in the war with Iuz.

Unfortunately, the clues pointed to the Cairn Hills, located many miles to the south. As the PCs were preparing to leave, they learned that Crimson, the perpetrator of a series of heinous murders in Brancast, had been apprehended and killed recently, and that a public funeral was planned to restore confidence among the citizens ("Funeral Procession" by Mark A. Hart). The church of Pelor asked the PCs to be present for it, just in case.

After burning down the local slaughterhouse and killing one of its owners in front of a crowd of townsfolk attempting to contain the blaze, the PCs had a hard time convincing people that the place had been "filled with zombies". Even the baron and the church of Pelor felt hard pressed to overlook the situation. After a mock trial, the PCs were sentenced to a prison term in the baron's dungeon, from which they were promptly, albeit secretly, released and sent on their way to Diamond Lake, where they were to seek out Allustan, an old acquaintance of the wizard of Brancast.

In Diamond Lake, they delivered a message from an old half-elf priest of Pelor, whom they met upon their arrival in Elmshire, to a woman he had tutored when she was a girl. The woman (new player)turned out to be the cousin of Luzane Parrin and a monk of Pelor recently returned from the Solitarn Monestary to help her cousin's embattled business and hopefully bring some sense of light back to the benighted town of Diamond Lake.

Since this post is already pretty long, I'll summarize the rest of the intro to the "Whispering Cairn" by saying that Allustan led the original PCs to believe that the clues in the yuan-ti journal they had might point to the old cairn located near town. Meanwhile, the monk remembered stories about the cairn from her childhood and thought that it might provide some treasure that could provide a much-needed infusion of cash into her cousin's business. They all agreed to join up to investigate.

Liberty's Edge

I liked the idea presented in the adventure for getting the players involved, but I thought it was a little vague and undetailed (apologies to Eric Mona) as presented in Dungeon. I guess it only takes a little creativity and leg work on the part of the DM to tailor it to his/her party and make it work though. I like the tailored idea that Sean presents here. I had a similar idea in mind, ie all or most of the PCs would have been kids in Diamond Lake either 6 years ago (when the girl got eaten by the snake in the tomb) or 30 years ago (when Alastor Land disapeared) and be part of the gang of local kids "in the know" about the tomb, but gave up on exploring it as youngsters when their friends died / disapeared.
I must consider actually getting them to roleplay their younger selves as Sean suggests!


I pretty much used the dungeon hook, although I too found it to have some vagueness. (I would rather of it been detailed, even if I would change some details).

I ended up saying they were all kids and they played in a lot of these tombs, which were worthless because they were raided. Then one day one of their friends Allostor Land died, and most of the children were not allowed to go to any of the tombs anymore.

Then a member of the party oberhears some big shot adventureres talking about a tomb that the party had been due as kids... I get the member (still in NPC mode) to say "Oh yea, the whispering cairn... its over hear." A lie.

So its pretty good. The competing party has a grudge against the party because they know the pcs sent them in wrong direction. I tell the PC's they are poor, and they want to go explore this cairn...maybe it has gold in it.

That was my hook, and I must say it worked wonderfully. I especially like the idea that they KNEW allestor land when they were kids... sort of makes it a Diamond Lake/Hometown adventure.

Dark Archive

office_ninja wrote:


I had Allustan organize several escorts for his apprentice (the wizard PC) to investigate possible relics from the Battle of Pesh that may lie in the Cairn Hills.

We did the same and it worked out nicely :)


My players decided they all wanted to follow one faith with this party, and chose St. Cuthbert. So the entire party were billets for DL's Chruch of St. Cuthbert. Being the god of retribution, getting them to the cairn was easy.

I had one of the lower-lifes in town, who also happened to be one of the people that knew about the cairn as a child, rob and kill a member of St. Cuthbert's clergy, then run and hide in the cairn. The ranger tracked him there, and once he was taken care of, they decided to explore the place, in case it was a hideout for others of his ilk.


Sean Mahoney wrote:

My thought for how I would run AoW when I finally get the chance is that each adventure will have one 'novel' type of adventure element to it to set them apart. Some already have this built in, but I think more can be added.

For the Whispering Cairn I am actually going to start things 10 years before the start of the actual adventure. Those PCs playing the races that would age similar to humans will be playing children who convince one of their friends to stay in the Cairn itself overnight. If I can swing it, this will be an NPC or a player who will later be playing an elf or the like playing a kid who goes into the cairn but ends up never making it out (see the skeleton in the entry of the cairn).

Even better would be to have the members of the group that are of longer lived race be friends with an older sibling and be part of a group sent to pull the kids out.

It is all still pretty rough in my head, but I have thoughts of something between "It" and "Stand By Me."

The idea is that the PCs will realize that even though they have grown apart in life, they are the only ones who know of this particular cairn and if they want out with out someone jacking their claim they should probably only involve those who already know about the claim.

Other adventures will have other unique ideas, most culled from the boards. Three faces of evil will have an actual puzzle they will need to solve to find the final dungeon (the three churches will be split up). The next adventure will steal the idea to play the guards at the fort while the PCs are storming the lizardfolk camp.

Anyway... those are my thoughts.

Wish I would have seen this before, its fantastic IMO. It kind of also reminds me of Stephen King's "Dreamcatcher" as far as the four buddies reuniting again.

Nice ideas Sean. :)

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