In Greyhawk, the Age of Worms signals the culmination of thosuands of years of prophecy. It is the apocalypse, the end of the world, and the beginning of an age of ruination. So, why isn't anyone but the PCs and a couple of allies doing anything about it?
The answer is, they are. Surely, the gods are aware of the prophecy and will be acting through their proxies and servants to either prevent or encourage beginning of the Age of Worms.
The purpose of this thread is to look beyond the events and characters detailed in the Adventure Path, to imagine the events that may occur as the Age draws near, to answer the greatest question of all...what IS the Age of Worms?
I have a few thoughts, jumbled as they may be. The prophecy is so old that it no longer exists except in small cryptic fragments. The complete prophecy is not known to anyone. I'd like to think that a force greater than Kyuss is truly behind it, but that Kyuss is the "harbinger", somehow connected to the prophecy's fulfillment. If there is one god that could truly cause the ruin of the world, if not the multiverse, it is Tharizdun, the Elder Eye. So, I think the Age of Worms will culminate in the release of Tharizdun from his prison of ages.
In mine, I've alluded to the fact to the PCs that if Kyuss heralds in the Age of Worms, he will attempt to surplant the portfolios of numerous Greyhawk deities such as Erythnul, Wee-Jas, and ironically enough, Nerull (The student becomes the master). In mine, this completely changes the nature of undeath, and transcendence on the material plane, effectively shunting the creation of petitioners, locking departed souls onto the material plane as undead. This effectively means a complete warping of the nature of Greyhawk into something more like Ravenloft, at least if they fail... A clean up the world campaign might be fun, but as I have run one campaign for almost a year now, many of the players as eager to switch over to a Savage Tide game I'm playing in once its all done.
I like the Tharizdun angle, since he ties in heavily with a true "end of all things" campagin that the endgame portrays. Simiiar refrences could be brought about by other abyssal things locked away, seeking the end of all. (Like Orcus)
Finally, many of Kyuss's minions, especially the Avolakia and Ulgurstasta,and Broodfiends have strange, far-realm like appearances. It is possible (since I haven't seen anything saying where Spell Weavers are from), that Mak'ar sets into motion a plan to bring his home plane, the far realm, adjoined with the material plane. The 'Age of Worms' could be a cosynchronous merging of two planes where the properties of both bleed together. The green miasma, broodfiends, and other pseudonatural occureneces can be attributed to a planar cancer forming in Alhaster. Perhaps that's where the monolith's fixation goes to...
Using the Far Realm is something I have been considering as well. In fact, I imagined that the Far Realm is where Tharizdun is imprisoned, and that when he escapes, a dimensional rift will be created between the prime material and the Far Realm.
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The whole age of worms prophecy has a different angle IMC. I'm making the Age of Worms period of re-ascendance for the Yuan-ti and evil dragonkind.
In the homebrew world I'm using, Kyuss was a pawn of Tiamat and her sleeping daugher Mersshaulk (god of the Yuan-ti). His original (failed) attempt to bring the AoW around was barely thwarted by a mustering of the last great human empire and its god-king. The effort needed to stop Kyuss broke the back of the old empire and drove the god-king into a dreaming torper (much like his counterpart Mersshaulk). The resulting dark age caused much knowledge, including the lore about the AoW, to be lost or forgotten.
IMC the purpose of the AoW is threefold:
i) wipe out most of humanity and make room for the yuan-ti and evil dragons to rule the world again. An age of Wyrms, if you will.
ii) the suffering and pain caused by the dawn of the AoW will give Mersshaulk enough power to reawaken.
iii) kill the slumbering god-king by taking away the last of his worshippers.