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Just concluded our 2.5yr run of the AoW. I had accelerated it near the end, but the last bit was a blast.

It was set in Eberron, with a paladin/deadgrim/greyguard of the Silver Flame, a shifter moonspeaker, gnome warlock/enlightened spirit, half-elf artificer/windwright captain, half-orc dragon lord who worked for Manzorian, and an human archivist.

They discovered their usage by Lashona and planned on killing her dead. Manzorian have the the skinny, three wish scrolls, and access to the Happy Fun Ball (Sphere of Annihilation) and guidance not to rush the tower.

So instead they fly in on the airship.

Two broodfiends, 3 deaths, and a narrow escape later, they decide an air approach is better. They deal with the Church squabble and slaughter lots of knights, but not before almost loosing too many.

Unlife Vortex wasn't too bad for them as they didn't explore most of the complex. They considered opening a gate to the Positive-Energy Plane equivalent to shut it down, but just blew it up the old fashion way instead.

Wish One: Get us the hell out of Dodge when things go *BOOOM*

Without resting (time pressure), they push onto the spire. By using the airship again. You'd think they learned.

On approach, three broodfiends appear. They decide to ram the tower to get away from them... and run into Maralee (Smenk in my campaign) and his backup. After everyone died or was turned canatonic except for the archivist and the shapechanged druid, they go the hell out of Dodge.

Miracle + Wish Two: Bring somebody needed back to life and get the hell out of Dodge...

After resting in Magepoint, they TP back in. With backp (gated in solar). The broodfiends and the abanoned airship is gone... strange... They face Smenk, much easier this time, and the solar is the only one to see Hemris. She is imprisoned long before anyone can get her story...

Battle with Lashona. Druid casts sunburst three times. Hardly scratches her. His shapechanged Balor self kills the eryines with two snicker-snacks (the other was banished by the archivist). Lashona is brought low by the charging paladin after her antilife shell is dismissed. She flees.

Solar follows her to the ruins of her lair. Battles the Pit Fiend for a good two hours real time before just trying to kill the reformed Lashona directly. Pit Fiend uses his one wish to get the pair of them away... so Lashona is out of the equation.

Group regroups, lots of resources expended.

Wish Three: Let us rest as if no time passed...

Refreshed, they top the spire. Kyuss emerges while they scratch him some. Artificer used the maximized Staff of the Magi to summon lots of vrocks. Kyuss cuts off the Colossal druid's head and traps the dragon lord in a blade barrier. They think them have when...

Time Stop. Harm. Harm. Harm. Antimagic field.

They bring out the Happy Fun Ball. Kyuss kills the warlock in control and used the HFB to destroy the archivist. Artificer gets control and starts using it against big K. He drops the field, destroyed the happy fun ball.

Time Stop. Harm. Harm. Harm. More buffs...

The battle continues until the paladin manages to land a great charge just before Time Stop #3. Kyuss is defeated, and they flee Alahaster before the spire kills them all.

Alahaster lies in ruins, abandoned by the heroes and is remaining inhabitants. Green clouds of mists and broodfiends appear throughout the Principalities, and in each case an airship is seen beforehand (Lashona dominated the Elemental for her own personal broodfiend delivery platform). And somewhere, an elven woman who is not what she appears picks up a segmented green worm...

The Age of Worm is averted... for now.

My group's been going at AoW since '05 now, and we are just finally getting past AGoW. I know some of my players are going to be leaving in the next half-year, so I want to accelerate the pace (we can only play every other week).

To that end, I'm contemplating gutting a lot of the latter half. I realize that will require some redesign on my end (leveling down things specifically), but I'm curious on folk's thoughts.

The plan is as follows:
- Run "Prince of Redhand" next instead of SoLS; have "our friend" direct them to the Spire instead of after the phylactery
- Run Spire next, which the death of the Spell Weaver needed for our friend's plans (I'll think of something)
- Then run a toned down Dawn of a New Age.
This essentially cuts out the Dragotha arc of the campaign, which is fine by me---I wasn't looking forward to running all those combats anyway. My group is mostly newbies, so Dragotha doesn't resonate with them (nor does Vecna, etc., etc.)

So, my questions to y'all are:
- Any major plot dangles anyone foresees?
- Any suggestions on how to tweak the mods for the appropriate new levels (13th for Prince....)

Any others have fun with a (modified or not modified) Moreto?

So, for AGoW, the PCs have an airship (one PC is a windright captain in Eberron). So I'm planning on having Ilthane ambush folks from skyward.

I've made some modifications for the fight, but does any one have any interesting suggestions?

I've tweaked the list a little bit: Removed nabbasu, jovoc, and the guecubu; moved bar-lgura and added in some more fiendish dinos. Here are the affected levels:

Summon Monster V
Demon, bar-lgura (FCI)
Elemental, medium
Fiendish deinonychus
Fiendish giant crocodile
Fiendish shark, huge

Summon Monster VI
Demon, armanite (FCI)
Elemental, large
Fiendish elasmosaurus
Fiendish monstrous spider, huge
Storm elemental, medium (MMIII)

Summon Monster VII
Demon, arrow demon (MMIII)
Demon, babau
Elemental, huge
Fiendish giant octopus
Fiendish girallon
Fiendish megaraptor
Invisible Stalker
Storm elemental, large (MMIII)

Comments solicited.

For STAP, I'm playing a crazed archivist (Heroes of Horror) driven by concerns that "something" is out there. While this will fit with the eventual theme of the campaign, I am also interested in random occult facts on Greyhawk such as deities, demigods, weird magic, etc. that my mad one could have heard rumors of. Could be made up things (I'm doing that a lot IC), but I am interested in folks who know Greyhawk better than I who could suggest some odd things as above.

I've looked at the Deity list at Wikipedia for Greyhawk, which is a start, but I'm interested in other suggestions. Mostly for fun, so my character can mention that "The Koran Horn has power to bind the Dark Mountain Walker according to the The Legends of Black Furyondy" or "The Seven Signs of Shargoth ward against specific plagues, but when used together have resonance with places curses."

This is not a spoiler thread; as I said, not looking at STAP specific lore (that's what in game Knowledge checks are for). Just things appropriate to the setting. Could be fun to make up a few!

I'm runing AoW in Eberron; I modified the temple to be Blood of the Vol (Hextor), The Shadow (Vecna), and The Keeper (the other one). For the Keeper, I used irvhir kobolds in replacement of the grimlocks---their dark living creatures who love traps.

So far, its been great! My players, veteran D&D players, when the finally realize they are facing kobolds, got all smug. Then, the best part---the battle against the kennel master:
Player: "I hit the kobold. Yup, its dead."
Me: "How much damage?"
Player (looking funny): "13 points"
Me (making notes): "It looks wounded, spits at you, and keeps fighting."
Players: "WHAT?!?"
The players dropped it to -1, not realizing it was only at -1, then cast cure minor wounds to stablize it. It staggered awake, drank its cure light potion (suriving the AoO), and keep fighting! :)

The look on their faces when they faught the kobold female barbarian (weilding kurki's) was great as well. Can't wait 'til they see the rest of my changes (evil grin).

Morale of the story---Kobolds are just cannon fodder anymore! :)

Any similar intersting/unexpected changes?