I'm in the middle of DMing Three Faces of Evil, and just realized that Grallak Kur has a note that explicitly mentions the rise of Kyuss and the start of the Age of Worms.
Now, I had read the whole AP when it first came out, but as I'm now getting around to running it I'm only reading small bits ahead at a time. This bit took me by surprise because I hadn't remembered it. In my mind the first clue to the existence of Kyuss and his goings on was the Spawn of Kyuss in the basement of Blackwall keep and the worms in the Lizardfolk lair.
Is it just me, or does the note from Grallak Kur seem to be a bit too much too soon? I'm tempted to change any references of Kyuss to "Worm God" but even then, the cleric in my group has maxed his ranks in religion knowledge so a decent roll should reveal the meaning behind that.
Anyone else have this issue? What did you do to change it?
Thanks,
Greg
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I left in snippets of information about Kyuss, sufficiently vague that the party might come to the wrong conclusion.
The initial speculation was that Kyuss was the name of a demon or devil that served the high priests of the Ebon Triad. I let this misconception go on for quite a while.
My group has just gotten to the part of the adventure path where they finally know the whole story. The real purpose of why the Ebon Triad was formed, who manipulated them, and the real deal on Kyuss himself.
I too left it in. I think the average DM that has read the whole thing presumes that such little snippet clues gives the whole game away but my experience as a player argues against that. With so little information its hard to really connect all the dots. What players are really looking for is for certain names etc. to crop up repeatedly. Once that starts happening the playings start to become confident in things like the source of the evil.
Hence the first mention of Kyuss is unlikely to have your players really being certain of anything but the combo of the mention of Kyuss followed by the realization that their are Kyuss Worms here and there and. lo and behold, Kyuss Spawn in the basement makes it clear to them that Kyuss is a major evil figure in the story.
In general repetition is a good thing most of the time - it makes the players understand that there really is a plot and keen to explore that plot.
Creative Director
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Revealing Kyuss's name that early in the adventure is, in fact, a direct result of complaints we'd received from players of the previous adventure path "Shackled City."
And I happen to think those complaints are spot-on.
Basically, it's MUCH more rewarding to know who the bad guy of a campaign is early on rather than have to wait until the end of the campaign to finally figure out who the big bad end guy is. For Shackled City, we played it VERY close to the chest—you actually don't find out who the main bad guy really is until you're like 17th level in that AP, and that's a shame.
By the same extension, think about your favorite movie, whatever that movie is. Very few movies that go on to become beloved movies save until the very end of the movie to reveal who the bad guy is. And even if they don't come out and say it in the first 3rd of the movie, that first 3rd needs to do some foreshadowing. Darth Vader shows up quite near the start of the movie, for example. The shark in Jaws is doing its thing in the very first scene. The alien from "Alien" doesn't actually show up until pretty late in the show, but you're seeing things that it does to its victims from quite early on.
Only in mysteries does this really turn on its head, and even then, a well-crafted mystery puts clues in the movie for the viewer to decipher. So at the very least it doesn't feel like a trick when you get to the end—it feels logical that you got to the place the movie made you think you were going to.
And so we name drop Kyuss near the start of the Age of Worms adventure path. If you feel that's too soon, by all means omit it—but keep in mind that if your players are eager to "get the adventure's plot rolling," the longer you withhold key information like that, the more frustrated your players will grow.
Thanks for all the input, especially the player's point of view. Truth be told, aside from one session maybe 8-10 years ago, I haven't been a player in over 20 years. I've only been a DM. So maybe I see it too much from my side, and not from the players.
Not sure yet what I'm going to do, but James' inputs are well taken. This is my first AP, so I'm not entirely sure what to expect from an execution point of view.
Thanks all,
Greg
Yeah, I really wouldnt worry about it. There are so many "name-drops" in this AP,(rod of Law/seven parts, Dragotha, Thessalar, Tenser, Greyhawk, Wind Dukes, Vecna, SoA, etc) that its likely to be overlooked as another one for awhile. And even if its not, its still more than likely that the PC's wont figure it out. Example: My group thought that the overall theme was to get the Rod of Law restored for awhile, then they thought the Ebon Triad were going to be the arch-villians.
I'm in the middle of DMing Three Faces of Evil, and just realized that Grallak Kur has a note that explicitly mentions the rise of Kyuss and the start of the Age of Worms.
Now, I had read the whole AP when it first came out, but as I'm now getting around to running it I'm only reading small bits ahead at a time. This bit took me by surprise because I hadn't remembered it. In my mind the first clue to the existence of Kyuss and his goings on was the Spawn of Kyuss in the basement of Blackwall keep and the worms in the Lizardfolk lair.
Is it just me, or does the note from Grallak Kur seem to be a bit too much too soon? I'm tempted to change any references of Kyuss to "Worm God" but even then, the cleric in my group has maxed his ranks in religion knowledge so a decent roll should reveal the meaning behind that.
Anyone else have this issue? What did you do to change it?
Thanks,
Greg
I don't think so. I was largely silent on him for the rest of the game though. I have noticed the AP's give DM's great background information, but the players never have a way to get access to it, and that limits the stories a lot. I don't tell them everything at once. I kind of filter it out over the course of the campaign. Knowing his name won't mean much, and by the time they find out he tried to become a deity and failed there was not anything they could do about it.
I left Kyuss' name and ramblings about Age of Worms. But I added a considerable amond misdirection, primarily through pointing that (fake) apocalyptic prophecies and belief in the imminent doom are staples of evil cults, and that guys in the mine had even more questionable grip on sanity than typical for said cults. I also have played up the importance of Ebon Triad-equivalent a lot.
We finished off Thur's night's game with the start of the battle against Gallak. I'm now leaning toward leaving it in. But it may be moot, as I realised the other night that it requires a Decipher Script to read the note about Kyuss and nobody in the party has put any ranks into Decipher Script. So it doesn't look there is going to be any big reveal anytime soon.
But on a related note, can comprehend languages or anything else be used to beat a Decipher Script DC? Comprehend languages (in the d20 SRD) does say "read otherwise incomprehensible written messages". Does that count as an automatic Decipher Script? It does say it doesn't reveal codes, but is Gallak Kur's ramblings a code or an incomprehensible message? I've ruled that comprehend languages won't reveal the Faceless One's notes to Theldrick because it is specifically referred to as a code. But I'm not sure Grallak's ramblings are the same.
Greg
We finished off Thur's night's game with the start of the battle against Gallak. I'm now leaning toward leaving it in. But it may be moot, as I realised the other night that it requires a Decipher Script to read the note about Kyuss and nobody in the party has put any ranks into Decipher Script. So it doesn't look there is going to be any big reveal anytime soon.
But on a related note, can comprehend languages or anything else be used to beat a Decipher Script DC? Comprehend languages (in the d20 SRD) does say "read otherwise incomprehensible written messages". Does that count as an automatic Decipher Script? It does say it doesn't reveal codes, but is Gallak Kur's ramblings a code or an incomprehensible message? I've ruled that comprehend languages won't reveal the Faceless One's notes to Theldrick because it is specifically referred to as a code. But I'm not sure Grallak's ramblings are the same.
Greg
I would allow Comprehend Languages to work if the letter was a mix of various languages, but if it is a code then it should not work.