I am overwhelmed by the quality of the "Age of Worms" material. I am a recent subscriber (subscribed because of Aow), and I have enjoyed most of the Dungeon content, but AoW is what keeps me going, and unique, inspiring adventures like Prince of Redhand make it worth my while.
I'm frustrated that my level 3 PCs that just finished Whispering Cairn have to wait until 15 to play it! But I happen to know that one of my characters will be a permanently enlarged fighter/warforged juggernaut/hulking hurler. I just know I'm going to have a blast when Zeech is trying to decide if it is better to protect his guests by preventing the entry of a large-sized construct covered in spikes, or if it is better to impress his guests by admitting what could well be the most impressive freak of them all.
Most of the letters to Dungeon I see request more variety in campaign settings. I don't care about campaign settings... I want variety in adventures. I want to see more of this political style of adventure, where my players lives are very much at risk, but they can't just swing their sword and make it all better. My players scoff at the utility of bards--how foolish they will feel when none among them will know which of the ten spoons they are supposed to use to eat the worm!
My congratulations to Mr. Pett. Come down from your tree and write us some more adventures. When I finish AoW (sometime in 2008, I'm guessing), I will revisit Alhaster, and Zeech will most definately come in to play. I can't imagine how this would work without an even more tremendous dinner party.
I do hope you all realize that you need to do something that no one has seen before to follow up AoW. You've set a high bar for yourselves.
Excellent post, sir.
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My congratulations to Mr. Pett. Come down from your tree and write us some more adventures. When I finish AoW (sometime in 2008, I'm guessing), I will revisit Alhaster, and Zeech will most definately come in to play. I can't imagine how this would work without an even more tremendous dinner party.
You might also want to check out Dungeon #121 for Mr. Pett's deliciously dark adventure "The Styes."
Also, regarding Zeech... have you read the "Age of Worms Overload" PDF, specifically the summary of the last 'episode' in the Adventure Path? What you'll find there--and ultimately, how things are described in that upcoming adventure--could make you either sad-panda or happy-clown, depending on how you run things in your campaign.
Check 'em both out!
To the rest of your post, mougoo, I agree heartily! I'm on the other side of PC-issues, though, in that one of our three heroes is a Changeling (from Eberron) Rogue with significant skill in "working the crowd," and I'm anxious for the time when we play this adventure so he can really shine.
The other DM in our group has forbidden me from reading Dungeon issues 112-128 in the immediate future, but I'll check out The Styes when I get the chance.
Thanks for the tip about "Overload," I must have an old copy of it... mine just says the last episode is "to be announced."
It was just the author that was "to be announced", the adventure description should be right under that. It is in mine and I downloaded it as soon as it was released.
I think The Age of Worms has been of very high quality throughout, and it was great fun to write a segment. Often the role of the editors is overlooked on these posts but it's important to stress that they've had the difficult job of coordinating all these adventures and wrote the outline in the first place. Redhand was a great outline to write from but of course had its own unique challenges; mainly that it was definitely non-combative in feel. However, those challenges tend to bring out the best in writers, and James and Erik and Jeremy have been great throughout my whole involvement with this adventure. There are many touches of their own within it (the acidwraith for example) and it's these touches that help to compliment the work of individual authors and make the adventure path cohesive.
Thanks very much everyone for the kind words, it's great to write something that is very well received, I'm going back to my computer now to try even harder to best Redhand with my next submission.
Rich
I can hardly wait to run this for my players. A chance for the bard to shine and the "whack everthing" cleric of Kord to be smacked in the head by other players and told to SHUT UP! The fact that the palyers of these two characters are dating should really make things interesting.