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Haven't seen this topic brought up yet...
When did everyone start the adventure? Or was the day/year even relevant in your campaign?
I started mine (like I do almost every adventure) on the last day of Coldeven, with the next day being Growfeast. The party has spent the first 3 days of the festival poking around the cairn. I'm playing it like any other day in DL, most of the celebration was on the first day, and took place almost all in doors as I have the townsfolk naturally dividing themselves up among the hotspots. Day 4 is Cuthbert's Day which led to some interesting fun.
I have been elusive on the year with the group. I know the module publishes with a date ~CY595 and has set some material events such as Red Death in the 570's. I've been mulling with dropping this back 12-13 years to right after the Greyhawk Wars...
What's everyone else done, if anything?
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When did everyone start the adventure? Or was the day/year even relevant in your campaign?
We started our Greyhawk Age of Worms campaign on February 5, 595 CY. And no, we don't use the Greyhawk calendar conventions. Readying is just plain old February - less tedious and players aren't asking, "Okay, what month is that equivalent to...?" every time we talk about campaign dates.
Happy gaming
Don Kenneth Brown
Salt Lake City, Utah
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27.1.595 with six inches of snow on the ground. The snow proved to be helpful on numerous fronts for starting PCs when it came to dealing with tracking and eliminating brown mold. I have one more snow storm in mind to set the mood for dealing with Filge and the observatory before the thaw kicks in. I figured the cooler months would make the aggressiveness of the lizard folk that much more peculiar as well. I'm shooting for the Champions Belt to take place during the vernal festival period. I use the Greyhawk calendar (even the Baklunish names of months for the half-Baklunish PC) as it helps set the mood of the campaign — I'm just too groggy at 2AM to remember at this point. ::smirk::
We're starting on the 12/13th of Wealsun as I'm going to be running Return of the Eight which takes place over the 9th - 11th Goodmonth and I want them to have finished A Gathering of Winds by then.
We are playing in a heavily modified Greyhawk-based campaign. I started AoW March 21st 595 (I have my own names for the months). I made the Whispering Cairn three days journey from Diamond Lake proper and the party got hopelessly lost on their first return trip - nearly finding themselves in the Mistmarsh swamps - it took two weeks for them to find their way back to Diamond Lake (forced to forage for food and water and nearly dying several times). IMC, characters must train for one week per level advancement so the date is now April 22nd and the group is finally ready to return to explore the true tomb. I chose the starting date because I wanted it to be hot and humid (late Spring or Summer) when the characters went to Blackwall Keep, figuring the oppressive humidity and annoying swarms of flying insects would add good ambiance to the scenario.
My weather chart is one of my favorite DM tools and I roll to determine the weather for each day of the campaign month. This small effort goes a long way, IMO, to making the campaign world more "real" and believable in the player's eyes. If it only ever rains and/or the wind blows when the weather somehow furthers the storyline, then the players begin to dread any mention of precipitation or weather conditions. If the DM has it snow only to facilitate tracking (a purely hypothetical statement here) then the players are going to feel "lead by the nose" in the direction of the plotline, but if it snows merely because it's winter - sometimes helping, sometimes hindering tracking efforts - then players are going to feel like they are making their own decisions (and the Controller of the weather is making his own decisions) independent of some driven storyline. This also opens up roleplaying of skills in weather sense and similar druidic/ranger abilities.
Anyway, sorry for drifting from the topic a bit.
When did everyone start the adventure?
In the good old summertime...
although winter with all that snow could have been used to such great effect. Oh well.
But the actual dates are more or less irrelevant to my game.
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I uploaded a .pdf of the Greyhawk Calendar I've had for years. It's perfect for campaign logs. It lists the lunar cycles and all the religious days of the Greyhawk Pantheon (Core gods). You'll find the .pdf at the RPGenius Age of Worms AP DM resource site. Give the administrators some time to approve the material and it will be available.