MattW's page

My Age of Worms campaign started with my regular group, which runs 8 players meeting every other Friday here in the Twin Cities in Minnesota US. I had to stop the campaign due to a series of life events, mostly the birth of my two boys.
After my group wrapped up a Rise of the Runelords campaign under another DM, we voted as to what adventure path we should tackle. Age of Worms beat out a modified Council of Thieves barely, and after a 4 year hiatus we had our first session recently.
We run a very old school band of players, and since we are starting 'the Hall of Harsh Reflections' I made several plot modifications.
1)The PC's met Eligos, and are looking for a way to transform an NPC Vampire (long story, I ran White Plume Mountain as an adventure in between BlackWall Keep and Hall of Harsh Reflections).
2)After 4 years of little succes Eligos has heard rumors of something called 'Apostolic Scrolls' which are akin to 'Scrolls of Uncertain Provenance'(see Magic Item Compendium for details). He sends for the PCs.
3)One of the PCs is recruited to spearhead a team in the upcoming Champions Belt Games.
4)Khellak the wizard from Aurics Warband sees the PCs when they come into town, follows them, and casts a knock on the Chimera cage and then invisibility to disappear. The two thieves steal things from the PCs during the fight with Sleight of Hand checks.
In our case a PC had an item which could Locate Object, and he tracked his pouch to the Thieves where they were counting their ill gotten gains at the 'Crooked House'. The PCs beat the thieves up are took back their items.
5)When the PCs get to Eligos' manor, they find he and Pollard murdered. While investigating the manor, after 5 minutes of reading his journal and seeing the 'Kyuss Worm Paste' recipe, a doppleganger disguised as a homeless waif claiming to have heard screams, has summoned a cadre of Guards. The PCs are arrested and spend the night in jail.
The next day they are taken, in chains and bags over their heads to the Sodden Hold.

As the adventure was written, Eligos was assassinated later, after the Champions Belt. Later, in the Spire of Long Shadowes he is raised/resurrected. His death and rebirth has no real impact on the PCs. Now it is a meaningful event. As the adventure states, The PCs are framed, as the doppleganger crew desires. From Zyrzog's view, a sage who has been snooping into things best left alone is eliminated/discouraged.
Eligos, who eventually will be raised, states that the PCs rushed into his home and slew Pollard, then him. Naturally they were leveled dopplegangers pretending to be the PCs. He will be distrustful at best, even after the PCs kill the nest of dopplegangers.

Any ideas? I was thinking of setting it somewhere in the 'formerly' Great Kingdom.

A friend of mine has a gaming palace/home in Golden Valley MN. I thought I'd share the following picture. He has a stulpter turning a tree stump into a 9 foot tall statue of a silver dragon in his front yard.

Enjoy.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=293316&id=1636803757#/photo.php?p id=317863&id=1636803757

Hi there. I work most Saturdays so was unable to get a free copy during my local gaming stores giveaway of this module.
I am looking to buy a copy now, and can't find one anywhere. Is there a PDF version? I would rather pay more to get a hard copy.

My campaign is running D1 with Bugbears bad guys and Goblin slaves rather than the kobolds since my group is higher level. Everything else is amped up a bit to 6th/7th level. This is a fantastic module and I just had to use it, since I love the Dwarven Ruins and new monsters from D1!

I'm working up the affiliations of PCs in my campaign. First off is the Greysmere Covenant.

The Greysmere Covenant

Type: Business (racial-dwarf)
Scale: 10 (regional)
Description: The Greysmere Covenant functions as a “super-clan”, the group has a number of non-dwarf allies, but only dwarves can earn affiliation.
The Covenant often sends members on trade or scouting missions, and the most honor is earning by killing their main rivals –giants and ogres.
The Dwarves of the Greysmere Covenant are masters of mining and negotiation. They work tirelessly and well together to enrich the dozens of clans which make up the Covenant. Each member of the Covenant’s 1200 members treat other Covenant members as family, indeed they are all distantly related. Their genealogy is recorded in the Covenant’s ‘Book of Names’.

Criterion:
Character level +½ PC’s level
Charisma 13 or higher +1
Kills a giant type of equal or higher CR +1
Kills a giant type of CR 10 or the PC’s level whichever +2
is higher(does not stack)
Kills a true giant of equal or higher CR than the PC, +¼ of the CR
and learns the giants name before it’s death
(does not stack)
Base attack of +5 or higher +1
Base attack of +10 or higher(does not stack) +2
5 ranks in Appraise, Craft, or Profession (Miner) +1
10 ranks in Appraise, Craft, or Profession (Miner)(does not stack) +2
Can cast divine spells +1
Recover a Dwarven relic or artifact over 20,000 value +1
Marries into an important clan with the covenant +2
Completes a mission assigned by a superior +2
Acts in a chaotic or evil fashion -10

Rank Title: Benefits and Duties
3 or lower Member of the Covenant: Not affiliated or junior
member with no benefits.
4-14 Defender of the Covenant: +2 on all Bluff, Diplomacy,
Sense Motive checks when two or more members are
present.
Duties: Destroy 5 giant types to gain 1 potion of your
choice once per month. More expensive potions take a
month to receive.
15-22 Hero of the Covenant: Re-roll a failed Bluff,
Diplomacy, or Sense Motive check once per day.
23-29 Champion of the Covenant: Call in Favor – lower your
affiliation score to gain a divine spell or scroll.
Lower your score by 2 to gain a spell or scroll of 4th
level or lower for ¼ price, and lower it by 5
permanently for a 5th level or higher scroll or spell
for ¼ standard price.
30+ Leader of the Clans: Ancient Advisors (Using the Pyre
of the Ancients in the Greysmere Covenant’s home you
can cast a Commune spell once per month.
Duties: Must vie for the leadership of the Covenant
against current leader or affiliation score drops to
29 and member cannot vie for leadership until 1 year
has passed. Challenge can take the form of a contest
of crafting, or of arms.

I want to heartily thank the folks on this forum. I used much of the thread concerning Balabar Smenk's estate to form the raid my players staged recently.
I made a few additions:
1) Balabar Smenk supposedly leaves town for Greyhawk to validate his claim on the Dourstone mine (see #3 below) and to hire a new mine manager, since the last one was decapitated by Grimlocks.
2)Smenk hires a band of thieves called 'the Black Talons' to kill the PCs by luring them into a farm house with 2 cockatrices, then disguised as a neighboring farm family they try to slit the PC's throats. They are hired by Smenk, but know only an intermediary in Greyhawk.
3)Dourstone had a dwarven bodyguard whom Smenk bribed. While the PCs raided the Ebon Triad, the bodyguard beats up and drags off Dourstone to give to Smenk.
4)Smenk claims that before Dourstone and his bodyguard left town Dourstone sold his mine to Smenk.
5)The other mine owners smell something rotten and have a man watch Smenk's estate constantly. Eventually he sees Dourstone's former bodyguard leave Smenk's estate, and return an hour later. The spy sells this information to the other mine owners and the PCs.
6)The PCs raid Smenk's estate, since the dwarven PCs wish to find Dourstone on behalf of the Greysmere Covenant. The bodyguard knows that Dourstone is below the house in catacombs occupied by Smenk.
7) The PCs find Dourstone barely alive, and Smenk escapes barely. Amongst Smenk's coffers they find evidence incriminating Smenk and Mayor Neff. In this case Mayor Neff was spurned by a sorceress for whom he had formed an unhealthy obsession. Smenk arranged for the woman to be captured and petrified, then placed in Mayor Neff's garden. The knowledge of the crime put Neff squarely in Smenk's pocket.

If the PCs win they find a scroll of Break Enchantment in Smenk's treasury to unpetrify the sorceress Mere.
Note: The plot between Mayor Neff and Mere the Geomancer dates back to the Doom Grinder module so I'm not making it up completely.

I'm posting my response to the 'USPS despises local D&D enthusiast; Satanist?' in a new thread in the hope of reaching a larger portion of the D&D community. Don't stand for demonizing Gamers or Letter Carriers.

Well,
first off I'm a letter carrier and have been for several years. I also have played D&D since Keep on the Borderlands.
I have posted as a letter carrier on these boards before and will again in the future.
I won't defend your letter carrier. In fact I suggust you phone her supervisor to complain. Then watch to see if the service improves or in the rare instance she retaliates and deliberately mangles your mail, then that is grounds for disciplinary action or dismissal. You will have to document your allegations and any fraud on your part would mean criminal prosecution.
OK on to the rest of the complaints about the postal system.
1) Boorish behavior is unseemly and wrong, but it's hard to change.
2) A postal carrier is a delivery vehicle and is allowed if delivering the mail to park in restricted space such as in yellow tow away zones, etc. We are noy allowed to drive in an erratic or hazardous fashion. Doin so is subject to discipline. The case mentioned on a carrier parking for his/her break in an restricted spot is unclear to me. It may be allowed but courtesy would deem it inprudent.
3) Folded magazines are not cool. Let me first mention one possible culprit - the too small apartment mail box. As letter carriers we are obligated to attempt delivery of all first and second class mail we recieve every day. We deliver to mail boxes in apartments made of brass which are too small for the size and volume of todays mail, but because we initiated delivery to that mail box, we are not allowed to cease delivery. In other words an apartments small boxes are the fault of the apartment owner and we are required to attempt delivery.
4) The postal system has undergone a series of reforms both within and dictated by congress. In the late 70's the USPS was mandated to become financially self suffient. It is today. In fact the federal government tried to take money from the post office to cover the pension obligations of veterans employed by the USPS for time served in our military. That financial burden was reversed by the act just passed by the Congress and signed into law in 2006. Note the President added a signing statement to that act which would allow agents of the federal government to open mail without a warrant. This is something which goes against the Postal Code.

Anyway those are some thoughts. Just remember what goes around, comes around. Nobody is perfect, myself included.

Take care,
Postal Carrier Matt W.

I recently received this web post from my long time friend who is DMing the Age of Worms. He constructed a scale arena for the match. Uber-cool!

First stage: http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=25590

and

Second Stage: http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=25781

We will use it a second time, since he's running a character in my AoW campaign. Check it out and be awed fellow dorks.

Matt W

Our campaign has a large number of PCs (8) and we run side adventures to keep the PCs up to the level the adventure path. So they group went through 'A Night on the Town' side trek which appears in other posts in this forum. This occurs after the Whispering Cairn but before 3 Faces of Evil.

Chapter I: I changed the emphasis of that side trek. Thurbiss and his goons kidnap Constance Grace (see the Midnight Salute entry) because she is the paramour of Ragnolin Dourstone and knows too much. The PCs track Thurbiss and his guys to the dead hole mine and fight them and a priestess of Vecna. From the captives they learn Constance had been thrown down a pit where a dread monster lurks. They rescue Constance, and kill the Harpoon Spider. Finally they get a reward from Purple Prose.

Chapter II: During 3 Faces of Evil, 2 PCs die fighting the Grimlocks. 2 Replacements and Melinde the Heironean Paladin are contacted and hired by Constance Grace to protect her from Ragnolin Dourstone whom she fears.
Constance is kidnapped and carried off before the trio meet with her face to face. They see the kidnappers running off through a broken window and give chase. They find them going into the Dourstone Mine.
The trio eventually fight the evil doers as they are about to throw Constance into the Dark Pool from a high ledge. The bad guys include 2 kenkus, an apprentice of the Faceless One, a Lurking Strangler, and a cloaked and cowled Purple Prose. All are killed except Prose who surrenders.
As the fight ends the other group of PCs encounters them and they parlay.
Melinde and Constance take Prose prisoner and head to the surface to warn the Militia. Prose brokers a deal which allows her to head to Celene in exile from the lands of Greyhawk. She will be a prisoner of Ellival Moonshadow, the patron of the two elf PCs. The next silver shipment Ellival sends to Celene he will have Prose taken to the temple of Hanali the elven goddess of love and beauty for punishment.
Prose tells the PCs most of the backstory of the Ebon Triad, as she is an old and valuable agent of the Faceless One and pays lip service to Vecna.

One of the elf PCs loves to play the role of 'the Brilliant Planner' or 'Wheeler/Dealer'. He learns valuable information and later when the PCs find the Faceless Ones letter, he is invested in what is happening.
I have also played up the dire history between the elves and Vecna, who was a flannish human wizard who learned much from the elven kingdoms then destroyed much of the elven realm.
It should be interesting as they encounter agents of Dalt in the near future. Prose will also pop up again, repentant NN rather than NE. In time her survival will be important to the Age of Worms as the PCs will need someone to take up the relic Dalt possessed.

Just want to let our blog out into the wider world to wander and bump. We are a group of mostly 30-40s old school D&D guys who drink, belch and fight. Sometimes nachos are involved.
So far the Kullen scared the piss out of the group. An albino half orc. His first encounter he was bribed, then the next time he got Filge's head, the third time he kidnapped and scared the dwarf cleric with Intimidate, the last time he fought and killed the lead fighter on the first hit. Unfortunately he was laid low, but the group left his head in the back hall of the Feral Dog.

http://ageofwormsminnesota.blogspot.com/

While rounding out a few discrepancies in the AoW for my home campaign I put this together. I found on an earlier post in the Overload thread a request for Ragnolin Dourstone's stats. Here they are, feel free to use or change (i.e. be a DM).

Ragnolin Dourstone CR 5
(Mine Manager)
Male dwarf expert 6
NN Medium humanoid
Init +0
Senses Spot +0, Listen +0
Languages Common, Dwarven, Gnome
AC 15, touch 10, .at-footed 14
hp 36 (6 HD)
Fort +5*, Ref +3*, Will +6*
Spd 20’
Melee Master-work Light pick +7 (1d6+2)
Base Atk +4; Grp +6
Abilities Str 15, Dex 10, Con 15, Int 14, Wis 11,
Cha 8
Feats Earthcraft (+2 to Knowledge engineering, architecture, and dungeoneering), Persuasive (+2 to bluff and Intimidate checks), Skill Focus (Appraisal)
Skills Appraisal +12, Diplomacy +5, Bluff +10, Intimidation +7, Knowledge (Engineering & Architecture) +13, Knowledge (Local) +5, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) +13, Profession (Miner) +7, Sense Motive +7, Use Rope +9
Possessions masterwork light pick, chain shirt, ring of
protection +1, cloak of resistance +1(annotated with a *), potion of hiding, 12 pp, 4 gp
Hook “Bah, that's gonna cost.”