One of my players is running Savage Tide, and he told me recently that there is a festival in the first adventure called 'Wormfall'. I'm sort of wondering now...how much does it give away about the Age of Worms plot? Is he now aware of the endgame events?
I'm not sure why Dungeon writers put spoilers for past APs in current APs; I will probably never play Shackled City because of a major spoiler for it that is casually inserted into a couple of Age of Worms adventures.
May I humbly request that authors for AP #4 not spoil the end of Savage Tide in the same manner?
The wormfall festival contains very little spoilers, other than the location of the final battle in the Age of Worms and dissclosure of some of Kyuss's minions (broodfiends). I'm playing in the Savage path, and we went through that encounter though we hadn't beaten Age of Worms yet. There is one particular moment in that scene that is A LOT funnier if you've already played Age of Worms, but otherwise, really no spoilers.
What spoilers besides Celeste got revealed in Age of Worms for Shackled City? Oh yeah...how it ends. Well, really, saying "They all lived happily ever after/they were victorious against the big bad" isn't much of a spoiler, and that's how I felt the spire visions played out. Perhaps I'm missing something...
I can see how the constant references to Cauldron's narrow escape with destruction would be a big spoiler. I knew none of my gaming crew were going to play it, but had I thought otherwise, I would agree with you, treehouse916, that it--along with the other "prophecies" in SoLS that make reference to many other pre-published adventures--could be disappointing.
Still, the Wormfall Festival is pretty spoiler free. I say this, considering that no significant information pertinent to Alhaster needs to be given away. From what I've gathered, there was a broodfiend (or something) attacking nearby Cauldron, and some heroes there saved that city. While it makes more sense to consider Alhaster the site in reference for Wormfall, it is almost two thousand miles away. So, it's possible that Cauldron's the most accessible source for Age of Worms-festival fodder for Sasserine.
I do like how the Adventure Paths have a type of chronology to them, hence making it more appropriate to play them from earlier to later. And for players who've played the previous AP, they're sure to like the inside joke.
I don't believe they are intentionally trying to "spoil" the previous Adventure Paths. Rather, I am of the mind that they write the adventure paths in a certain chronology, with the thought that folks playing in the second or third paths have already completed the ones prior (in which case, references to the previous paths could be fun - nothing like hearing about and seeing the effects of the previous characters' heroics).
They're pretty clearly meant to be sequential.
One of the "prophecies" of the Age of Worms is the eruption of a big volcano town, which happened in the previous campaign path, Shackled City.
And of course, the Wormfall Festival is meant to celebrate the defeat of Kyuss, in Age of Worms.
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We stopped AOW on a cliff-hanger (one rogue PC left, stranded in Kuluth Mar) to fire up STAP. I'm going to run STAP parallel with a solo survival adventure with the rogue, then briefly link the two up in SWW where the Sea Wyvern rescues the rogue and transfers her to another ship sailing out of the area. Eventually she'll get back to Magepoint, where things may take off again later. For obvious reasons, the Wormfall festival is not going to work in my campaign.
So I'm just switching the occasion to a different festival - commemorating some different event. With small modifications, you can easily run all the same encounters in a context other than Wormfall.
I'm running AoW right now (about half-way through), but we have ot played SCAP yet. I've just been editing out any references to Cauldron that might be potential spoilers. I think the references are more intended a "easter egg" style bonus material to those who have played the previous material. Otherwise, its omission doesn't really hurt anything.