Would anybody be interested in a narrative story of the Age of Worms adventure path? It wouldn't be an actual play journal, more of just a narration of what I think the Path would read like as a story. I'd want to do this for two reasons, one as an exercise in fiction writing (which I don't do enough of) and second as an exercise in rules familiarity as I decipher all the rules and dice roles that go into an adventure without the stress of having to figure it out quickly so the game can continue.
Plus it'll allow me to "play" characters of my own creation through the path and see how they'd develop by the end of it.
To seal my pitch, I've written Chapter 1 of the Whispering Cairn to give you a feel of some of my characters and my writing style. Please give it a read and let me know if you'd be interested in reading more from me. Come to think of it, since this is supposed to be a writing lesson of sorts, I'd even welcome the critical feedback if you wanted to offer some.
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Samiel spotted Juba’s waving hand from across the Spinning Giant's taproom and tried to press his way through the crowd to reach him. The off-duty soldiers from the neighboring garrison rolled their eyes at his apprentice’s robes, but he wasn’t riffraff enough for them to truly object to his presence. With little fuss, he threaded his way to where Juba sat with their other companion, Devrik.
As a half-orc, Juba drew his own share of glares from the soldiers who only new his kind from the war their mates were waging with the orcs from the Savage Coast. Juba seemed to get a big kick out of ignoring their stares, though, and just sat casually amidst the veiled hostility. It also didn’t hurt that he was sitting next to Devrik. Compared to the other two, Devrik fit right in. In fact, he was still sporting his armor when Samiel arrived.
“Come straight from the coach?” he asked.
“Norril was rigging another team as we pulled into the stablehouse,” Devrik answered. “Another two seconds in there and I’d have been riding guard on another coach back to Greyhawk.”
The way Devrik so nonchalantly dropped the Free City’s name like that impressed Samiel more than he wished it would. He and Juba had never been far from Diamond Lake and Devrik’s tales of travel were frequent pastimes when they got together like this.
“How about you?” continued Devrik, passing Samiel the beer they’d ordered for him while waiting. “How’d you get away from Allustan?”
“Yeah, I figured you’d be up to your neck in collecting bat guano or something,” joked Juba.
“Believe it or not, Allustan’s out tonight,” replied Samiel with a sip from the offered mug. “And when the master’s away…”
“...the apprentice will play,” crowed Juba with a toast of his own mug. By all rights, the half-orc should have finished his own apprenticeship to Masrin the carpenter a year back, but Juba showed little drive to start a business of his own and his master seemed glad to have his strong hands and back. Samiel suspected their relationship was evolving into a partnership, but neither Juba nor Masrin ever called it that.
“So where does Allustan go when he goes out?” asked Devrik.
“He goes to the court of the Efreet king,” offered Juba jokingly.
Samiel smiled. “He goes to play dragonchess,” he admitted. The first thing he’d learned during his apprenticeship was that wizards are far more mundane than most people suspect. “Allustan heard of another wizard from Greyhawk visiting Diamond Lake and he went to meet him at Lazarre’s.”
“Is this that the wizard who came with those adventurers?” asked Devrik.
“There are adventurers in Diamond Lake?” Samiel asked back.
“So I’ve heard,” answered Juba. “Three of them, from the rumors, but I’ve only laid eyes on one of them, some baby-smooth braggart chasing veils at the Midnight Salute.”
“Why are there adventurers in Diamond Lake?”
“Some great quest into the Cairns, apparently,” chuckled the half-orc.
Samiel joined in the laughter. “Hells, WE’VE been into the Cairns,” he said around his ale mug. “That doesn’t make us adventurers.”
“That’s because we never left sight of the entrance,” declared Devrik. “To be an adventurer, you have to turn a corner or something.”
Samiel and Juba both laughed in agreement. Truth was, they were all kids the time they entered what they called the Whispering Cairn on a dare from Aristedes. Although they’d all been terrified at the time, none of them had thought of that night in years and laughed harder for the memories.
“Do you think they’ll find anything?” Samiel asked as the laughter died down.
“The adventurers? Are you kidding?” retorted Devrik. “Those tombs have been picked over by grave robbers for a hundred years.”
“I don’t know,” chimed in Juba, “the warrior at the Salute seemed pretty confident. He was boasting that his group knew something that nobody else did. Some secret about the Stirgenest Cairn.”
“Like how there’s no stirges in it?” laughed Devrik and his friends all broke into another round of laughter.
The trio fell quiet for a minute as their laughter faded, each one collecting his thoughts and drinking quietly from his mug. Juba was the first to speak again, but he was really just echoing the others’ thoughts.
“Kind of makes you wonder what secrets might be hidden in some other cairns, right?”
“Like maybe the Whispering Cairn?” continued Devrik.
Samiel thought back to the night he and his friends had spent in the mouth of their cairn all those years ago. His mind filled with the possibility that they could have been just feet away from undiscovered treasures.
“Why are we even debating this?” he finally declared. “We’re grown men. We can just walk into it, look around, and see what’s to see.”
“Sure,” agreed Juba. “We’ll poke around a bit and see what doesn’t pop up. If nothing else, it’ll make me stop wondering what we might have missed.”
“I wonder if we should get Aristedes,” suggested Samiel. None of them had spoken with him since they’d outgrown his brand of fun several years back, but they’d all seen him around town and knew he was still here.
“Why?” countered Juba.
“He’s taken dozens of kids to the Whispering Cairn over the years,” answered Samiel. “He’s got to be practically an expert on it.”
“What kind of expert do you need to be?” challenged the half-orc. “We just walk in and poke around.”
“Anything still left in there isn’t going to be found with a simple poking around,” reasoned Samiel. “If nothing else, he can tell us what he’s already seen so we can focus on what hasn’t been checked out.”
Juba still seemed skeptical at the idea, but couldn’t continue to argue too strongly against it. He recognized that Samiel was taking this far more seriously than he was and couldn’t fight that.
“I’ll go visit him tomorrow morning and offer the invitation,” decided Samiel before Juba could find another point to argue. “If you’re lucky, maybe he’ll choose not to go.”
Juba couldn’t help but smile at Samiel’s friendly quip.
“If you’re really looking for an expert in Cairns, you know who we should ask?” he offered in return. “Dienne.”
Juba’s smile got bigger as he saw his two friends staring at him blankly. Samiel had to recognize that she probably would be a good person to have along when exploring a tomb, but it had been a while since he’d felt comfortable around her and knew the intervening years since she’d joined her church hadn’t cleared up anything.
“I’m sure she’ll be too busy with her temple stuff,” he finally suggested feebly.
“I think it’s a great idea,” offered Devrik at the same time.
Juba smiled into his cup and Samiel couldn’t help but chuckle. They hadn’t been able to trust Devrik’s judgment around Dienne since they were kids. It was funny how some things never changed.
“Okay, then,” declared Samiel. “That sounds decided. I’ll go visit Aristedes tomorrow morning and Juba, you see if you can’t get a hold of Dienne.” Samiel paused for fun to see how Devrik would react to not being picked to go see her himself. All the guardsman did was empty his beer mug, so Samiel continued.
“And tomorrow afternoon, we’ll all go visit the Whispering Cairn.”
Go for it. I like it so far. :)
Yes - more please! Great stuff!
Can't argue with that, I guess I better get some dice rolling.
Yep, I'm going to be running this using the same rules of chance that any normal group of players would face off against. I may even post the character stats, but I think it'd be more fun if y'all only had the narratives to work off of (although I welcome blind guesses).
Thanks for the encouragement.
thats great. keep up the good work. i loved playing this adventure path, reading it will be great.