Hello all,
I've been collecting Dungeon for several years now, despite rarely actually running D&D. The Ages of Worms really entertained me - I liked Shackled City, but AoW brought me back to the time when my older brother used to run games for me. Names like Dragotha & Kyuss have been burned into my brain for as long as I can remember as things that were just cool.
Last month I bought Green Ronin's Black Company Campaign Setting. And after I read it, and made happy noises about the edited mechanics, I decided that I had to play it. But what story would I tell? I turned to my stack of Dungeons for inspiration...
The rebirth of the man-become-deity is classic Black Company material. I see Kyuss as a wizard who fled South during the Domination, coming to power in the southern lands. After the Domination fell, he made a bid for power himself, only to be defeated & hurled into the rift between worlds. Much like what Old Father Tree finally did with the Silver Spike. I'm thinking of setting the game perhaps two hundred years before the books kick off, which puts them about two hundred years after the end of the Domination.
For locations, I was thinking of using the Jewel City Garnet as the Free City. It was never detailed in the books, but was briefly described as having a notably large pantheon - the manipulated Cult of the Ebon Triad works whether or not the gods they worship are real. The Resurrectionist movement already exists in secret, trying to revive the Dominator. It wouldn't be too hard to have their efforts being subtly redirected towards bringing back the wrong god :)
Kyuss' temple works well in the D'loc-Aloc jungles, Ruins left by the Wind Dukes can become slightly more recent ruins from the Domination, purged from the pages of history by the efforts of the White Rose, etc.
The PCs will start on their own, but draw in others to aid them as the campaign progresses, forming their own mercenary band, and eventually a small army.
My biggest problem is lowering the fantastic nature of the Ages of Worms. The BCCS is about human evil - things like vampire-dragons have little place. In order to keep up the stakes, I'm considering replacing these kind of scenes with pitched battles. The Worms themselves are horribly appropriate for the world - my only concern is just how lethal they are in a setting with little healing magic and no ability to raise the dead.
Has anyone else considered such things, or even read both sources? I'd love to hear comments or criticisms, or ideas on how to replace some of the more fantastical sections of the AP.
Thanks in advance,
Filch
