First of all, if this has been discussed already exhaustively, just point me to the right thread.
What I want to know is, did anybody run the AP (at least half of it) in the FR? What experience did you make, any caveats about handouts giving wrong names etc.
Furthermore it looks quite complicated to me to convert all characters and locations (esp. in Diamond Lake/Daggerfall) or is this just a wrong impression?
Last, what did you do about this Bane/Bhaal/Myrkul story (ok I did not read the conversion notes thorougly yet). It looks a little bit lame to me: Just stop Kyuss and all the other gods go away, so why not stop eg. Bhaal from rising?
Thanks a lot for your thoughts. Hopefully I will start AoW next month and I am still unsure whether to convert or just play it in a generic/Greyhawk setting.
Honestly, if you are just looking for less work I would recommend just running it in its generic setting.
However, all that said, I don't think it would be difficult at all to transport it to FR.
For the city porting I would just probably port over Diamond Lake all by itself. There is no reason there can't be cities that aren't currently on maps. But then again the city itself isn't horribly important to the story. You can do it elsewhere, dig out a copy of one of Volo's guides and just rename where things take place to match names in the guide.
The free city being called Waterdeep isn't a big deal either. And since most of the activity takes place in just one small section/ward, it doesn't really preclude it from just coming right over. If you feel ambitious you can rename things in AoW to match existing parts of Waterdeep, but unless your players are going to really appreciate and notice this, I wouldn't take the time.
As for the Bane/Bhaal/Myrkul thing... You could easily just change descriptions of the Ebon Aspect and maybe even change Kyuss to Myrkul if you wanted... your call. But even if you keep him the same I don't see that much work would need to be done.
Sean Mahoney
I'm running AoW in the Realms and my group is just now entered The Champion's Belt. I kept diamond lake as is and stuck it a couple day's ride east of Waterdeep. There's pleny of unmapped area's there that work just fine. Renaming things isn't too difficult. Check the conversion notes of each module and the big pdf all in the downloads section. For 3FoE I turned the gods into Bhaal, Myrkul, and Bane then set the time period forward to 1370 DR. With the Anceint Empires supplement I believe there is a feat that allows a cleric to draw spells from a dead god, if not a little DM perogative and you have and interesting mystery that should stump players that know the FR Setting book by heart. Everything else has been running just fine in FR.
FR conversion is easy. Take the supplemental materials online and use what's necessary but try to keep everything the same unless it absolutely ruins the game or brings up Greyhawk recollections from your players (my players wouldn't recognize a Greyhawk name if it bit them on the nose).
I set Diamond Lake on the Sword Coast, north of Waterdeep and in the mountains, west (inland) of the Mere of Dead Men. I also changed the supplement's suggestion of making the Lizard Marsh (FR) be the Blackwall Keep setting and made the Mere the backdrop instead. That keeps the first three chapters of the AOW (WC, TFoE, BK) north of Waterdeep. Then the characters can travel south to Waterdeep for the fourth installment.
As for the Ebon Triad -- Bhaal and Myrkul are not really themselves are they (one's in a crown, supposedly, the other is spread out in Bhaalspawns...) to they can't really be thwarted by the PCs. These gods will come to power as you, the DM, desires. Bane is around, yes, but how are the PCs going to really affect him. So, nothing really is in jeopardy of being ruined. The PCs have Kyuss to go after and this sect of the Triad cultists made up of outcasts from all three Gods' minions.
I strongly suggest introducing the subplot of Bane cultists who HATE the Ebon Triad... they contact the PCs and want to work with them to stop the Age of Worms activities. It presents great moral dilemma for the characters (if good) or great allies (if evil).
First of all, if this has been discussed already exhaustively, just point me to the right thread.
What I want to know is, did anybody run the AP (at least half of it) in the FR? What experience did you make, any caveats about handouts giving wrong names etc.
Furthermore it looks quite complicated to me to convert all characters and locations (esp. in Diamond Lake/Daggerfall) or is this just a wrong impression?
Last, what did you do about this Bane/Bhaal/Myrkul story (ok I did not read the conversion notes thorougly yet). It looks a little bit lame to me: Just stop Kyuss and all the other gods go away, so why not stop eg. Bhaal from rising?
Thanks a lot for your thoughts. Hopefully I will start AoW next month and I am still unsure whether to convert or just play it in a generic/Greyhawk setting.
My goal in creating the conversion notes was to convert everything non-Realms to Realms-appropriate. On the spectrum of conversions, I felt I should err on the side of too much rather than too little. I figured it was easier for the DM to choose the bits and pieces of the conversions that he liked rather than force him to do those conversions if I didn't do enough.
In other words, I tried to show how to do a complete conversion, but I'm not recommending that any DM actually do all the conversion. Using Diamond Lake as a new town rather than adapting Daggerford is a very reasonable and convenient fallback. I just wanted to show DMs how to do it if they didn't want to drop in a new town "out of nowhere".
--Eric
Eric, you did an amazing job on the conversion, and I was very happy to use most of it in game. Thanks for being thorough!
I second Eric's praise, even though I haven't used but parts of it :)
I just made Diamond Lake a 'subdivision' of Daggerford. My players were familiar with D'ford (there are an amazing number of similarities between AoW and my previous campaign, but that's another story).
My players aren't Greyhawk-knowledgable, so I nicknamed Waterdeep (where they just arrived), the 'Free City', to cover my inevitable screwups in that respect.
I did convert the three dead gods as Eric wrote. It worked just fine - the players bought into it because I was able to quote some Wikipedia info showing how they were all related.
All in all, it hasn't been a big problem at all. My players aren't that familiar with FR either, so I spoonfeed them a little canon at a time.
One thing I recommend is keeping an NPC list, along with location names, in plain view and updated. It will help both you and the players.
Eric,
Please don't think I was indicating above that your more indepth conversion was not a good way to go, it certianly is. I was just looking at two factors that I think would concern most DMs looking to convert.
1 - Time. The less work that is needed, the better. Your conversion do a better job than just porting things directly, but take more time. (God's would obviously need to be ported though)
2 - Player appreciation. In many cases your players won't even notice some of the differences unless they are FR-philes. If that is the case than it may be worth the extra effort... it just depends on your group.
I do actually have a question though. In porting over the Ebon Triad, can you go into more detail on the history and motivations of your new group? In the AP they were created by the cult of Kyuss as a sort of cover, however, you indicate that in FR they are actually on to something. Your conversion worked beautifully with the AP during the early modules when it came out, but falls apart a bit more in the later ones (undoubtably because they weren't written yet when you did your conversion).
Sean Mahoney
Eric,
Please don't think I was indicating above that your more indepth conversion was not a good way to go, it certianly is. I was just looking at two factors that I think would concern most DMs looking to convert.
1 - Time. The less work that is needed, the better. Your conversion do a better job than just porting things directly, but take more time. (God's would obviously need to be ported though)
2 - Player appreciation. In many cases your players won't even notice some of the differences unless they are FR-philes. If that is the case than it may be worth the extra effort... it just depends on your group.
Sean Mahoney
I agree fully that the conversion was really well done. But the aforementioned is exactly my problem: time and lacking appreciation by my players. But what did I buy my City of Splendors Book for;-)
I think I will convert, but I will leave Diamond Lake and Redhand as they are (I am also afraid that I will get confused over changed locations and NPC names/characters thus reducing fun of roleplaying them). And I think, I will leave out Bhaal for now and make Kyuss the reincarnation of Myrkuul, second step towards the reign of Jergal.Also a question: what about Dargotha and the Cult of the Dragon? Would they not be very interested to strike a deal with such a powerful dracolich...
Also a question: what about Dargotha and the Cult of the Dragon? Would they not be very interested to strike a deal with such a powerful dracolich...
I don't think Dragotha has much use for anyone's agenda but his own. AoW doesn't really need more bad guys, but if you wanted to invlove the Cult, I would do so as unwitting pawns of Dragotha.
I've run up to Prince of Redhand in FR. I used the conversion notes as supplied where needed and made stuff up when I felt like it. It is, after all, my world, not Mr. Greenwood's.
My only problem so far is the utter failure of the party to meet the challenge of the Champion's Belt. The subsequent transformation of 99% of the arena audience into Wights has posed some logistical problems as well as continuity challenges.
I was tempted to have some Elminster types craft some sort of epic spell to address the issue, but I had a hard time reconciling that in a logical fashion so currently Waterdeep is largely a smoking ruin full of swarming wights with small besieged pockets of powerful hold outs.
All of this is somewhat of a digression, but the point is, it's your game, there's no rule that says you can't, as has been said, just add magepoint to the map (what I did) or change some existing city into magepoint, or whatever. If you read the source material for FR and the background articles provided, it'll all come together well enough.
I'm actually quite interested in seeing this same situation happen in Waterdeep in my campaign. It would open up some nice possiblities for future adventurers/campaigns, in addition to keeping a couple powerful somebodies from interferring with the party and thier quest. Not that I'm working against the group to have this happen but i'm not going to be upset if they loose. We are going into Champions belt next session.
I'm actually quite interested in seeing this same situation happen in Waterdeep in my campaign. It would open up some nice possiblities for future adventurers/campaigns, in addition to keeping a couple powerful somebodies from interferring with the party and thier quest. Not that I'm working against the group to have this happen but i'm not going to be upset if they loose. We are going into Champions belt next session.
I was enormously pleased with the outcome myself. I have great admiration for Mr. Mona and his crew for this entire campaign arc, but I do feel they missed the boat on this point. The swarming undead laying waste to waterdeep really brought the coming age of worms home to my players. Their somewhat complicity in the event just makes it more delicious.
Periodically I give them little "News at 11" snippits about what is happening in Waterdeep That Was. For instance as they entered Mage point they passed an encamped army that was there seeking recruits and help from Manzorian before attempting to retake Waterdeep. They even tried to convince the generals not to attempt it.
On their return they'll hear how that went. I don't plan for it to be pretty :D
Converting all the names is a chore that I did not take part in, but I do like that such information is available. I set Diamond Lake to the far southeast of Waterdeep (Free City), just between Trade Way and the Misty Forest (using the Lizard Marsh as the Mistmarsh).
As for the Ebon Triad, I don't quite see how Bane would decide to join with Bhaal and Myrkul. I could see Bane crushing and destroying any aspects of Bhaal or Myrkul, but joining them to form some Overgod seems more like the machinations of some fear-mongering cult, which is exactly how I'm portraying the Ebon Triad. Investigation will eventually reveal that the cult is nothing more than that, and their assumed connection to Kyuss is only a tool used by Darl and Bozal to scare devotees into submission. I can imagine if Fzoul heard about this Ebon Triad, he'd guffaw before casually waving in a dozen beholders, eye rays flashing. The Ebon Triad is certainly formidable in my campaign, but their goal of uniting three gods is a lie.
Concerning Dragotha and the Cult, I might include some "Wearers of the Purple" as part of a side mission just to let the PCs know that the Cult is on the periphery looking for a foothold on this Age of Worms through Dragotha (or through Ilthane and/or Brazzemal). On the flip side, one could easily assume that Dragotha is powerful enough to shrug aside the Cult through shear might (and fear, of course). It's up to you.
My group hasn't even made it past TFoE yet, so I have to sort much of this out at some point.
Converting all the names is a chore that I did not take part in, but I do like that such information is available. I set Diamond Lake to the far southeast of Waterdeep (Free City), just between Trade Way and the Misty Forest (using the Lizard Marsh as the Mistmarsh).
As for the Ebon Triad, I don't quite see how Bane would decide to join with Bhaal and Myrkul. I could see Bane crushing and destroying any aspects of Bhaal or Myrkul, but joining them to form some Overgod seems more like the machinations of some fear-mongering cult, which is exactly how I'm portraying the Ebon Triad. Investigation will eventually reveal that the cult is nothing more than that, and their assumed connection to Kyuss is only a tool used by Darl and Bozal to scare devotees into submission. I can imagine if Fzoul heard about this Ebon Triad, he'd guffaw before casually waving in a dozen beholders, eye rays flashing. The Ebon Triad is certainly formidable in my campaign, but their goal of uniting three gods is a lie.
Concerning Dragotha and the Cult, I might include some "Wearers of the Purple" as part of a side mission just to let the PCs know that the Cult is on the periphery looking for a foothold on this Age of Worms through Dragotha (or through Ilthane and/or Brazzemal). On the flip side, one could easily assume that Dragotha is powerful enough to shrug aside the Cult through shear might (and fear, of course). It's up to you.
My group hasn't even made it past TFoE yet, so I have to sort much of this out at some point.
Crust, you might want to read ahead a little, Issue 131 specifically, changes you make now might make it harder for you in the long run.
Crust, you only have to look at the conversion notes from Dungeon 130 under "Lord of the end of Everything" and that would put your mind @ ease about Bane,Bhaal & Myrkul.
Yes, Jergal. That's some good reading. I'll have the PCs uncover this as they progress. It'll certainly give them a chill learning that this supposed cult might actually have something in their schemes.
Thanks for pointing me back to that.