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My players have completed 'Encounter at Blackwall Keep' and arrived at the doorstep of the Free City, but we've hit a snag: I can't find my copy of the Dungeon issue containing 'Hall of Harsh Reflections.'
I plan to replace my copy if I don't find the issue when I reorganize my office and sort through all of my back issues over the holidays, but I'm preparing some contingency plans in the meantime, including the playtesting of an adventure of my own to fill that slot in the Adventure Path. I'm concerned, though, about the plot developments that the PCs will miss if we skip the HoHR adventure.
What do you folks think about this idea? Is HoHR essential to the adventure path, or can I safely substitute a "side trek" adventure to bring the PCs up to the right level for the champion's games? What plot points do I most need to cover if I do go in another direction for levels 7-8? I remember enjoying my first read-through of the adventure, but it has been a while. I know Eligos is important, and I seem to recall some important villains being introduced, but the specifics of what I need to include to set up the rest of the adventure path escape me.
The need to see Eligos is the only real plot connection the PCs have pulling them along right now, and they'll be going to seek him out as soon as they enter the city; can anyone refresh my memory of what he can tell them about Kyuss and the Age of Worms when they first meet? How much more information is he expected to provide by the end of HoHR?
Any advice you folks can offer on these points would be very welcome! :)
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Christopher, I don't have my magazine with me right now, and I havent run AoW yet, so other people on these boards can probably provide much more comprehensive answers.
But as I recall, Eligos doesn't really give them a whole lot of information when they first meet at all. IRC he pretty much says he'll need some time to research it all, come back and see him later ... although I think he does give them the impression they've stumbled onto something fairly big / important.
The only other major plot advancement point I can recall is introducing the villian from the next adventure, the organiser of the Champion Games (name escapes me), who organised the "hit" on the characters in HOHR. I think they find a note in the mind flayer's lair with his name on it, ordering the meddlars to be killed.
The final twist is, of course, that Loris Raknian is connected to the illithid Zyrxog and has purchased the Apostolic Scrolls. So you'll need to somehow convey that information in your replacement.
Although I didn't do it, I contemplated scaling down The Styes and running it in place of HoHR. Connect Raknian to the aboleth cultist (replacing Tharzidun with the Ebon Triad, perhaps?) and you're golden.
My players have completed 'Encounter at Blackwall Keep' and arrived at the doorstep of the Free City, but we've hit a snag: I can't find my copy of the Dungeon issue containing 'Hall of Harsh Reflections.'
I plan to replace my copy if I don't find the issue when I reorganize my office and sort through all of my back issues over the holidays, but I'm preparing some contingency plans in the meantime, including the playtesting of an adventure of my own to fill that slot in the Adventure Path. I'm concerned, though, about the plot developments that the PCs will miss if we skip the HoHR adventure.
There are only three things that are important to the main plot in HoHR:
1) Introduction to Eligos as a contact/mentor/sage.
2) Discovery that Raknian is out to get them and recently purchased the Apostolic Scrolls (which Eligos can identify as evil and bad news).
3) Announcements of the upcoming Champions' Games (the next adventure).
As long as you drop these three things in, just about any urban adventure for a 7th level party will do (as long as the PCs are about 9th level for the Champions' Belt). Most of the information that Eligos passes on is repeated later in the path, so you can just drop a few clues for now to pique the party's interest.
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Thanks, folks! This is very helpful.
The issue still hasn't turned up, so I'm probably going to go ahead with the playtesting of my own adventure for that slot of the adventure path.
My adventure involves a mission to locate a pirate's hidden treasure vault and three pieces of a special key used to open it. The contact for the adventure, who provides one piece of the key, wants only a set of historical/geneological tomes believed to be in that vault; the rest of the treasure is left for the PCs to claim for themselves. (The employer believes the tomes can prove his royal lineage in a neighboring kingdom.) If I'm running it as part of the Age of Worms, though, I might just change that into a set of sealed scrollcases, ostensibly containing the same sort of geneological information, but in reality containing the Apostolic Scrolls. Thus the PCs (if they find the scrolls and hand them over) will be unwittingly responsible for helping to bring about the Age of Worms.
This seems too wicked a twist to ignore; I may just have to do it. *evil grin*
My main problem with the campaign so far is that the players don't see their PCs as having any real motivation to keep pursuing the Age of Worms investigations. They do, however, hold personal grudges, so if they end up being manipulated by an NPC into recovering those scrolls, that may just be the personal hook I need to keep them invested in the plot.
I had a similar idea: one of my players (a rogue) is keen on joining the Thieves Guild. My idea was for him to do a job as a kind of "initiation". The job will be to sneak into the Great Library and steal a rare book, then deliver it to some mysterious destination. This will seem to be a "side trek" aimed at advancing his character concept, and not related to the main plot of the campaign... until they later figure out that the "rare book" was, in fact, the Apostolic Scrolls, and he unwittingly aided Raknian by getting it for him...
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I like it!
The rogue in my group hasn't even mentioned the thieves' guild, but they only just got to Greyhawk at the end of the last session. If it comes up, I might just use the guild as a way of introducing this subplot. The scrolls could be split up into different places, allowing the library idea to fit right in with another adventure to recover the rest.
I'm not yet very familiar with Greyhawk's institutions; I wonder how hard it would be to filch a scroll without getting caught?