So, after running AoW for a year and a half, and with most of the big fights being cakewalks for my players, we ran Dawn of a New Age last Saturday and, thankfully, the campaign went out with a bang.
I had done all the roleplay and prep stuff in email beforehand, so we could hit the ground in Alhaster running when the session started (we really wanted to end tha campaign that day).
And boy did they hit it running. The party teleported in to the temple of Kord (a different diety in my campaign, but I'll use the campaign standard info, so people know what I'm talking about.
Upon their arrival at the temple, the priest (whom they had befriended in Prince of Redhand) began ringing the bell, which started the "A Clerical Dispute" encounter. As the crowd gathered, and the priest began urging them all to flee the city, the prist of Hextor showed up, shortly followed by the priestess of the Scarlet Spire (whom the party had also befriended).
The party was swiftly becomming divided, but the PCs quickly rallied the crowd, just as the Kyuss Knights showed up. The party managed to dispatch the Kyuss Knights with little fuss (and no loss of life), which was more than enough to lift the crowd's hopes and get them cheering. They quickly followed the party's plan to divide the crowd up among the churches, and went on their merry way (with the two groups going to other churches being guided by party members).
This left only two PCs remaining at the church of Kord, watching out the front door for the other party members to return. So they were watching as the Advanced Overworms erupted through the buildings across the street. The collapse of the buildings allowed them to see the new, smaller crowd approaching the church, who were now in immediate danger from the worms.
The fight with the worms was much tougher than the fight with the Kyuss Knights, mostly due to the party only having two of its members present for most of the fight. This time they lost bystanders, but were able to save most of them -- certainly more than enough to count the encounter as a win.
From there, they gathered themselves back together and headed for the boneyard. They stopped at the boneyard before talking to the priestess of the Scarlet Spire, so they were just searching blindly, but they weren't too blind to catch a glimpse of the green mist, and the Broodfiend which promptly attacked them (joined soon thereafter by a second nearby Broodfiend).
The broodfiends proved to be tough hombres, but they took them out soon enough. They then consulted with the priestess and got the information about the back entrance to Lashonna's dungeon.
After being shown which mausoleum to enter, they made their way to the dragon stairs and headed down. Of course, with no rogue, they walked right into the dragonbreath trap, but being 20th level, they just stood there and took it for the few rounds they were actually in the trap.
They made their way quickly to the Unlife Vortex room and soon found themselves in a fight with four ghostpriests and eight liches at once. Of course, with the party cleric being a Radiant Servant of Pelor, the undead down there were quickly turned. I determined that none of the other occupants of the dungeon had heard the fight (it was over too quickly) so they wound up being able to study the machinery unmolested long enough to figure it out, so they shut it down and smashed the machinery, then left precisely one round before Vulras and his shadowdancer vampires arrived to investigate.
From there, they gated in a Solar, teleported to the top of the zigurrat, and were immediately involved in combat with Marilee and the Kyuss Knights stationed with her. Despite some close calls with Marilee's gaze attack, they made quick work of them, and headed up the stairs of the Spire. I had the three broodfiends who were nearby attack them on the way up the stairs.
Now, the way I interpreted the rules, the nasty negative energy effects were gone, since they'd destroyed the Unlife Vortex, however the Presence of Kyuss effect was still going because, while they'd successfully completed three of the four town adventures, they'd still not killed Lashonna. And a particular wording in part of the module led me to believe that killing Lashonna was required, not just the three out of four encounters. (If any Paizo peeps want to chime in and let me know if I interpreted that right, I'd appreciate it).
This fight was very tough, and dropped the party Paladin from Int drain. His mount dragged him out onto a protruding balcony to get him away from the fight, only to have him killed by the lightning from the obelisk. But no great loss, as the death pact on the Paladin kicked in, and he came back just in time to help finish off the broodfiends. From there, the party made their way to the top.
When they appeared on the top of the Spire, they found Lashonna, her three Blessed Angel bodyguards, Hemriss, and Lashonna's pet Pit Fiend (whom she'd sent one of her Angels to fetch after she'd discovered she couldn't just teleport herself). And Lashonna greeted them with a "Hi, nice to see you, too bad you're too late," at which point I called for initiative.
Only one party member beat any of the NPCs, and wasn't able to do much, before Kyuss' turn came, and he started emerging from the monolith. Lashonna came next and dominated the paladin without much trouble.
The battle was thick, and hairy, and several times came close to being lost altogether, but they finally were able to kill Lashonna, which ended the nasty unhallow-like effect (and dropping Kyuss to a rank 0 deity), and sent the Blessed Angels fleeing the field of battle. The Pit Fiend stayed to get a few more licks in, but when it became clear it wouldn't be enough, he tried to flee too, but got toasted on the way out.
This left only Kyuss (Hemriss had been held), and though he was still very hard to hit, they knocked him down enough to where the paladin was able to take him out with an effective charge.
After a campaign with too many cake walks (good players with well-built characters, not the fault of the authors), I was worried the final fight would be too easy and that Kyuss would go down like a chump, I was glad to see the final battle be a very exciting and challengin one, and one that came close to going south multiple times.
So, ding dong, Kyuss is dead.
It's been a fun ride, but it's nice to be done with the AP.