dungeonblaster's page

Some good ideas, all.

I, too, am considering running a post-apocalyptic game featuring the Age of Worms. I DMed AoW and the PCs lost, so now it's time for them to see just what happens when they lose. I'll probably run this in 4ed, but right now I'm in the brainstorm phase...

A couple of things I am having trouble with are:

1. The Age of Worms feels very *all encompassing*. I mean, it's not just a god being reborn here, it an entire new Age coming-to-be. How does this affect the other gods? Why didn't they do more to stop the Age of Worms from happening? What stops them from fixing it now?

2. In a few years, the entire planet would be spawn of kyuss. But, that doesn't sound like something Kyuss would actually want. It's pretty hard to terrify the living and enslave them if they are all undead. I think he's smart enough to realize that his worms may be *too* effective. Or is he?

3. What does Nerull think of all this? He's the god of death right? Or is he the god of the dead?

4. What is Mak'ar's role in all this? I had a feeling that perhaps he was in some way greater than Kyuss...pulling the strings to something more vast than a mere Age of Worms on one planet. Perhaps the freeing of Tharizdun?

Kyuss has a negative affinity ability that makes him react like an undead creature to positive and negative energy. So yeah, he uses harm to heal himself.

wasn't there a riddle saying not to choose the green door? i mean, that's a hint right? RIGHT??? :)

Great post Hastur! Kyuss should have fire resistance 20 (although the module says otherwise) due to his divine nature. Fire seeds can do quite a bit of damage and he should view them as a real threat.

I'm wondering if freedom of movement could have protected Kyuss from the air monolith? If not, all he needed to do is cast protection from good.

Didn't know I could do that. Thanks for the tip, I think I will have my future Pathfinder issues sent via UPS!

Even with the large "DO NOT BEND" lettering, mine still showed up creased and with a broken spine. Just shows that the postal workers aren't paying much attention. :(

IMC, the PCs obtained the sphere after destroying the unlife vortex, which exploded and then collapsed in on itself, forming the sphere. It seemed to make sense to me, with the unlife vortex being an immensely powerful gate to the negative energy plane, and with spheres being created from negative planar material. They won't have much of a chance to use it because I have three wormdrakes circling the top of the tower, each with the ability to use the gate spell 1/day.

Never received mine either...please send.

Here's a picture I created in photoshop using images from the modules. I'm not an artist or anything, so mostly I just screwed around with various layers until it turned out how I wanted.

I think it looks pretty sweet.

http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc44/dungeonblaster/Apocalypse2.jpg

Ilthane can be encountered in PoRH and the fragment isn't really necessary for the adventure (and can even be a bit of a red herring). If the PCs like dungeon crawls, leave AGoW in.

See my post here for some changes I made:

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dungeon/ageOfWorms/kyussDefeated

One of the most dangerous spells Kyuss can cast is antimagic field, since he is immune to it, but the PCs are not.

In a few weeks I will be DMing my group's last session of AOW. I've made quite a few changes to the last adventure, which I will not post here. However, I did feel that Kyuss needed a little something to make him truly a force to be reckoned with. So, I made the following changes:

1. Kyuss has two salient divine abilities (as he should according to the rules). His abilities are Hand of Death and Automatic Metamagic (Quicken spell-like ability). Along with the multispell feat, this will allow him to get in a few actions a round.

2. Replaced sorcerer levels with Dread Necromancer. He loses access to the all-powerful time stop, but gains a bunch of other useful spells. Besides, he can cast two quickened harms every round.

3. Three Wormdrakes circle overhead. They can use their gate ability to destroy the sphere of annihilation.

Honestly, I think this should be the *only* way for the PCs to survive Demogorgon. Some creatures just aren't meant to be defeated in physical combat.

yeah, there's definitely time for someone to use it before me...anyone?

I'm doing the dragotha fight in about a month... would like to get in on this as well.

I'll try to be succinct with Darl's backstory.

IMC, the Faceless One was a simulacrum of Darl. Darl himself is the leader of the Vecnan arm of the Ebon Triad, and therein lies the connection to Mother Maggot. However, it gets more complicated. Unbeknownst to Mahuudril, Darl is also the most powerful cleric of Vecna and is fully aware that the Ebon Triad is a sham. His goal is to uncover knowledge about the Age of Worms and turn it to Vecna's advantage if possible (and stop it if he must). In LoLR, he sought the fountain of dreams not for the knowledge of creating the Overgod, but for knowledge of the magic of the Order of the Storm (in particular, the spells the used to hide themselves from the world). He failed to obtain that knowledge, but through the PCs actions he learned of Dragotha's phylactery and realized that if he could obtain the phylactery he could use it to enslave Dragotha. Mahuudril didn't know of his treachery, or that he possessed the Hand of Vecna, and brought him along to help recover the phylactery. He attempted to take it from the PCs, even following one of the PCs to Magepoint. However, he was forced to flee when Agath showed up, and he plane shifted away.

Name: Emerd (bard 6/scout 6)
Location: The phylactery vault - KoTR
Catalyst: Staff of Malediction

Upon reaching the vault containing Dragotha's phylactery, the party was ambushed by Darl Quethos, Krekie, and Mahuudril. Darl unleashed a Wail of the Banshee, and fortunately, all survived but poor Emerd.

Name: Eloi Glimbell(sorcerer 1/beguiler 10/effigy master 5)
Location: The phylactery vault - KoTR
Catalyst: Darl

The PCs were reminded of a certain scene in the movie Galaxy Quest, in which an alien pig is transported onto the starship...inside out...and then it exploded.

Just finished the third fight with Darl Quethos. As you can tell, I'm using him as a recurring villain, although this may have been his last appearance in this campaign.

PCs are about 17th level on average, versus Darl, a nycaloth commander, mahuudril, and krekie...each side fighting to obtain Dragotha's phylactery.

The fight lasted about 8-10 rounds and was quite brutal. In the end, one pc was imploded, a cohort failed against a wail of the banshee, and the pcs managed to keep Darl's hands off the phylactery by tossing their bag of holding into their portable hole and sending the phylactery adrift in the astral. They later used a wish to recover and destroy it. Good fun.

My PCs were a bit low level (~15th), so I had them fight Darl, Krekie, and the Sinfire Twins. I also had Darl go a little easy on them (i.e., not use the Hand of Vecna). The battle was a good one, with Darl losing, then winning, then finally being forced to retreat.

They have since encountered him again and the second time the PCs were forced to retreat, tails between their legs.

Here's some tips for you:

1. Keep Darl out of melee range.
2. Give him Disjunction as his domain spell.
3. Bust out the Hand of Vecna and unleash a 20th CL Blasphemy to get things started.
4. Realize that the Sinfire Twins aren't particularly tough.
5. Fight Dirty. Really Dirty.
6. Begin the fight on Darl's terms.

"they know that I've said that anything they can legally cast from any Wizards sanctioned books are cool."

There's your problem. Just because a spell or feat comes from a WoTC splatbook doesn't mean its balanced (shivering touch, anyone?). And spells or feats that were balanced at the time of their creation often become unbalanced as later spells and feats are introduced.

But, if the players and you had fun, then really it was a success!

The way I see it is that Kyuss can only accomplish relatively passive actions while in the monolith. So, his remote sensing ability works, but he cannot cast spells or use most of his abilities. However, I am allowing him to use his ability to designate any follower as a familiar... and the PCs will encounter his familiar instead of Maralee. The familiar will have Maralee's stats, but will look like the pic of Kyuss in SoLS. I'm hoping that they will think it is actually him.

I actually didn't like the idea of a horde of dragons attacking...feels too "dragonlance" to me. I also felt that it made dragons seem like mooks, albeit powerful mooks.

Also, it didn't really make much sense that Dragotha would be able to control and manage thrity-odd dragons who have little to gain by dying at the hands of giants. Instead, I replaced them with advanced favored spawn of kyuss wyverns. I reasoned that Dragotha had destroyed the blackwind (or whatever they are called) Derro tribe and turned the wyverns into kyuss spawn. Worked out pretty well, that is until they started turning undead :)

Yes, the Alkilith demon was very deadly. Its SLAs and Cloudkill form were particularly devastating. Still, a good battle, and one that the players remember.

I made some major changes to LoLR, so my players never experienced the fight with the WW or the "dream battle", which I felt made no sense. The night twist was a pushover, but I used a regular night twist, not an ancient night twist. The octopus tree was far more difficult for them.

Your players didn't think of using antimagic field?

Darl was certainly difficult. The players bested him the first time around, but that was because he didn't use the Hand. The second time they fought, he used the Hand and they were forced to flee. The third battle ought to be fun... score is 1 - 1.

i gave lashonna a rink of mindblank. Seemed appropriate, and well within her means (financially).

Probably means permanent image

I went with swords of kyuss riding advanced favored spawn of kyuss wyverns myself.

PC Name: Thell (fighter 10/pious templar 5)
Adventure: N/A (between LoLR and KoTR)
Location of Death: Tryptich Well
Catalyst: The high cleric of Vecna takes no prisoners.
Long Description: The PCs are gaining the advantage in a heated battle with Darl Quethos, when he reveals the Hand of Vecna and unleashes a Blasphemy on them. He subsequently targets the pious templar with a Destruction, followed by a Dominate Person, and finally a Wail of the Banshee. Sadly, it was more than she could bear.

PC Name: Hiro
Adventure: Library of Last Resort
Location of Death: Tilagos
Catalyst: Charging an octopus tree.
Long Description: Eight attacks a round and a high grapple bonus quickly nullified this holy warrior of Heironeous, who could do little against the punishing blows of the octopus tree. Upon meeting his god in the afterlife, he received a stern lecture over the fine point between valor and stupidity.

I, too, am at then end of Kings of the Rift. Not sure how long it took us, but I'd guess about a year. Started off with 3 players and 4-5 sessions per module, but now we're going through the modules in 2-3 sessions. This can partially be explained by the PCs high-level abilities enabling them to circumvent encounters and easily obtain information. The primary reason, however, is that we are playing 8-10 hour sessions now instead of 6-8 hour sessions.

The players are still very interested in the AP, but I'm losing my interest a bit. Don't get me wrong, the adventures are well-designed, but I am finding high-level play to be tedious and quite stressful to manage. There are simply too many numbers to crunch, bonuses to account for, etc... I'll be glad when the whole thing is over.

I haven't quite gotten to Wormcrawl Fissure yet, but I'm noticing that the PCs can handle CRs 4-6 above their level. For example, I had them encounter a wormdrake at 15th level and they beat it. Granted, I removed its gate ability, but I still figured they would have to run away. Perhaps my tactics weren't great, and perhaps I went too easy on them in the beginning of the battle. All said, it was a great fight, just one I didn't expect to lose :)

I have a PC who is a 10th level rogue/3rd level wormhunter/4th level dungeon delver. He wants to know if his crippling strike works on undead since he can sneak attack them. What's the official ruling on this from the folks at Paizo?

Are you sure they won't just decide to windwalk/shadowwalk/travel ethereally? In fact, I got rid of the whole shipwreck encounter because I couldn't see why Darl would waste his time with a sea voyage.

How about a spell that allows you to become a worm that walks for a short period of time?

Control Undead isn't any more of a problematic spell than dominate monster. Your problem was that you allowed them to up the DC through the roof using supplemental rule-books.

I know I stated this on another thread, but I'm gonna give Dragotha a whole bunch of wraiths and dread wraiths, the victims of his death wind breath weapon. Maybe a dread wraith swarm...that would be fun.

I would love to have players who didn't use buff spells. Then I wouldn't have to use them on the bad guys and everything would be a heck of a lot simpler.

I just finished the battle with Darl, and although he escaped, the PCs still believe that he is simply an agent of the Ebon Triad. They have no idea of his ulterior motives (and how could they, I guess). We shall see if he becomes a recurring villain or not.

Some other changes I made to the adventure included removing the whole battle with the swords of Kyuss. Instead, I just had the PC who drank from the fountain watch the battle from above (like the visions in SoLS). He never saw Lashonna die, so he doesn't have any questions as to how she could be alive now. Now that they know she is a silver dragon, one of my players said "well, I no longer have any doubts that Lashonna is a good-guy". Hah.

The PCs then decided to take a break and craft some items. I'm gonna give them a week before they are too late to retrieve the phylactery. If they arrive at Kongen-Thulnir within a week, they will encounter Dragotha's forces. If they arrive within 7-8 days, they will encounter Dragotha's forces as well as Dragotha himself. If they wait any longer, they will be too late. Dragotha will slay one of his dragons and hide the phylactery and the body somewhere safe. He will then seek out the PCs and attempt to destroy them.

Of course, Lashonna knows that Dragotha will be after the phylactery the moment its location is revealed. So, she will warn the PCs that they have very little time. She will also warn them that even those they consider allies may have ulterior motives and to stay alert. A few days later, she will use a false sending to appear as Tenser and instill some doubt in the players' minds about their favorite archmage.

Try and convince them (subtlely) that it would be better not to kill Dragotha, but to use him to their advantage. At least that leaves open some options in the future for you. In all likelyhood, I doubt the players would fall for this, so you might be stuck with a dead Dragotha. Perhaps if you play up Kyuss or Lashonna, they will realize that Dragotha is really just an obstacle (kinda like the Balrog in LoTR) and his defeat doesn't really do anything other than make the last battle easier.

It can be difficult to handle losing a favorite monster, even when you want the PCs to win. I just had the experience of DMing the battle between Darl Quethos and the PCs, and Darl lost. In hindsight, this is really good, because if he had won, the whole campaign would have been derailed or even ended (yikes!). Still, it was a bit disheartening to see him pull out all the stops and still come up behind. I know I'll feel the same way about Dragotha. I also know that in hindsight, I'll be glad they won.

dungeonblaster wrote:

BTW, I replaced the red river...with lava.

OMG! How did they manage to traverse it!? Sure, the fly spell is practically requisite for that navigation to the bottom, but for Icosiol's Tomb, I thought the doors were behind a waterfall. I may have superimposed that idea myself, but wow! That was a gutsy move!

Well, I thought it would make the spillway trap a heck of a lot more interesting ;)

Fortunately for them, they had a rogue/dungeon delver with a +26 Search. There really isn't a trap that he can't find and disarm if he decides to search for one.

Yes, there is a waterfall...of lava...that the PCs had to cross through. The party's spirit shaman burned through a lot of protection from energy spells.

In the end, the lava wasn't nearly as difficult as Augerric.

Well, you could claim that she's technically been dead for 1500 years, so not even true resurrection would suffice. Nor would she neccesarily have the desire to return to life to be redeemed.

I agree with Jebadiah. You're in the DM vs. Players mindset. It sounds like they did their due dillegence preparing for the encounter and should be rewarded for it. This doesn't mean that Dragotha's allies won't attempt to rescue the undead dragon, of course.

Your biggest chance for success lies with the wormdrake and its gate and greater dispelling abilities. Have it gate in a powerful creature that has the spells or spell-like abilities that would be useful in finding and recovering dragotha.

Oh, and here's a suggestion for any DMs planning on running the Dragotha battle and worried about MDJ: Place all of Dragotha's treasure in a mound on the pyramid.

Don't see this as much of a problem. Sure, they'll have Dragotha's assistance for a little while. Eventually, the control undead will be dispelled/disjoined, and they are in for a world of hurt.

Protection from evil would negate control for a long as the spell is in effect.

So, avolakia teleports in after scrying on Dragotha, casts quickened protection from good or magic circle against good, and Dragotha plane lays on the hurt (until they dispel it, that is.)

Also, one should note that PCs who have access to all the splatbooks are FAR more powerful than PCs who are core-only or have limited access.

Hmm...logically, it makes no sense, but this is D&D. I think it is a creative approach and would likely allow it.

I made the Faceless One a simulacrum, and have ambushed them with another FO simulacrum a while back. My reasoning for the FO's lack of a defined face is that the real FO didn't want to have his identity known if his simulacrum was captured or destroyed, so he didn't give it his face. Problem with it being Darl's simulacrum is that Darl is a cleric and FO was a wizard. Suppose he could be a mystic theurge, but i'm tired of redoing stats.

Yes, Mahuudril would never fight Lashonna if she had a choice. She would, however, be quite safe in the Wormcrawl Fissure. Lashonna's attempt (successful or not) to destroy Mahuudril is only partly revenge; she is afraid that if the PCs track down "Mother Maggot", they will learn the truth about her. At the very least, it will make for a more interesting encounter with Mahuudril in the Wormcrawl, where she can use her high diplomacy and bluff skills to good effect.

You mentioned Kyuss's monolith, and I have a change to make with that as well. I think I will have the monolith remain in the Wormcrawl while the PCs fight Dragotha (the presence of the monolith will make this battle a bit harder, but from the many stories on this board, it seems the battle is generally too easy). Lashonna will then attempt to persuade the PCs to bring it to her. If they refuse, she will steal it (shouldn't be much more difficult than stealing it from Dragotha). Either way, the monolith will end up at the top of the Spire and events will progress more or less as normal from that point on.

it's not too hard to get though, and seems like a far better option than using ms paint.

I didn't really like how Darl didn't have any ties to the Age of Worms plotline, so I made some changes that I thought I'd share.

after learning the location of Tilagos from Lashonna, Mahuudril double-crosses her and sends an agent of the Ebon Triad named Darl Quethos to recover the fountain of dreams. Lashonna realizes that she must act quickly and sends the PCs to Tilagos, hoping they will find the fountain before Darl and Co.

Mahuudril claims that the knowledge of the fountain will reveal the final rites needed to awaken the Overgod. Darl, however, has other plans for the fountain. Unbeknownst to Mahuudril, Darl is actually a very powerful priest of Vecna who knows that the Ebon Triad is a sham. He intends to use the knoweldge of the fountain for his own purposes (to recover the Eye of Vecna? To learn how the Order of the Storm magically erased the records of their deeds?). He will eventually betray his companions (the Sinfire twins are monks of the Scarlet Brotherhood who became followers of Hextor, and then Ebon Triad cultists), but he must first ensure that the PCs do not gain access to the fountain before he does. He keeps the Hand of Vecna hidden with a black glove, and not even his companions or Mahuudril knows that he posseses the powerful artifact.

While the PCs are at Tilagos, Lashonna attempts to destroy Mahuudril. I haven't yet decided if she will succeed or not.

Didn't the energy of the monolith convert creatures into kyuss knights? You might consider including that when they touch the monolith. Also, a save for "visions of the worm" might be appropriate.

I haven't received my copy either... hm.