Foreshadowing the Age of Worms


Age of Worms Adventure Path


I am looking for some help, any advice I can get is appreciated.

I have been running a Shackled City campaign converted to 4th Edition. We've been plowing through it, and should be finished within two months. The heroes will be about 16th level.

The players really want to go all the way up to 30th level. I am pretty sure I am going to convert Age of Worms to 4E (and powered to their level). I'll shorten many of the dungeons, but keep the story intact.

The heroes will probably be ruling the city of Cauldron (the volcano city from Shackled City). I am planning on not using Diamond Lake, but switching all of the Diamond Lake adventures to the city of Cauldron. The "Free City" will be easy to plop in, as I've referenced the city of Sasserine from the Shackeld City many times. Sasserine can be the Free City.

I am now getting ready to start dropping hints and foreshadowing the whole Age of Worms story for my party. What should I make sure that I do so that the Age of Worms story doesn't feel "added in"?

- I'll need to reference the wind dukes of aaqa, correct?
- Will there be any issues as far as politics? My party will likely rule Cauldron. Is the overall kingdom known as Redhand? Maybe I should have the prince of redhand visit them sometime soon?
- Any legends they should know?
- They've already run into the Ebon Triad faction, which was very memorable. How do the triad "cells" relate to one another?
- The heroes met Celeste (who's still trapped in a magic thingie right now) as well as Ekaym Smallcask (who they HATE). Do I need to position either of them in the free city for whatever their role is in Age of Worms?

I'm just starting to sift through all of the Age of Worms material. Any advice is appreciated.


Fantomas wrote:

- I'll need to reference the wind dukes of aaqa, correct?

- Will there be any issues as far as politics? My party will likely rule Cauldron. Is the overall kingdom known as Redhand? Maybe I should have the prince of redhand visit them sometime soon?
- Any legends they should know?
- They've already run into the Ebon Triad faction, which was very memorable. How do the triad "cells" relate to one another?
- The heroes met Celeste (who's still trapped in a magic thingie right now) as well as Ekaym Smallcask (who they HATE). Do I need to position either of them in the free city for whatever their role is in Age of Worms?

I'm just starting to sift through all of the Age of Worms material. Any advice is appreciated.

I'm not as familiar with the Cauldron campaign as I am with Age of Worms, but I'll try to help you out.

The Wind Dukes play a relatively minor role in the Age of Worms campaign, so it's not absolutely necessary to know anything about them. That said, if you have access to the Rod of Seven Parts adventure series, you may want to take a look at it, because elements of that series of modules get referenced throughout the Age of Worms campaign, and it might be nice to add a little more depth to the campaign's backstory.

In the Age of Worms campaign, the PCs learn that the Ebon Triad is actually a front created by Kyuss to advance the Age of Worms prophecy without fear of discovery. The cult members are unaware of this, of course, and go about trying to bring together their three gods oblivious to the Worm God's plans.

Other than the Age of Worms prophecy, it might be nice to reference the Rod of Seven Parts somehow, because it comes up in the campaign a few times. Like the Wind Dukes, though, it plays a relatively minor role in the campaign.

Celeste is a friend of Manzorian, the archmage. The PCs meet up with her briefly at the Inn of the Seeing Eye, in Magepoint. I think she also did something in Free City to direct the PCs to Manzorian, but I can't remember for sure. Ekaym Smallcask I'm not as familiar with, but I think he sponsors the PCs in the Champions game.


At the end of SCAP, I had a "sage" come to Cauldron to see the devastation firsthand of the city. The sage talked to all the PC's and thanked them for being able heroes and saving many lives, but the eruption of Cauldron was a sign of darker things to come. Of course, the sage was implying the Age of Worms will soon be upon the world.

The sage's name was Lashonna. (She just had to see firsthand if it was true).


Are you sure you want to continue the 2nd AP with the *same characters* ??
Diamond Lake is a really place to start out a group of new adventurers. In fact, my biggest gripe with AoW is that the action wonders away from "home base" and never returns! And it's totally different from Cauldron - so by moving it to there you'll miss out on a lot of what makes the first few adventures so special.

You're high level PCs from AP1 can always show up as "guest stars" at some point, in cameo roles...


DMR wrote:

Are you sure you want to continue the 2nd AP with the *same characters* ??

Diamond Lake is a really place to start out a group of new adventurers. In fact, my biggest gripe with AoW is that the action wonders away from "home base" and never returns! And it's totally different from Cauldron - so by moving it to there you'll miss out on a lot of what makes the first few adventures so special.

You're high level PCs from AP1 can always show up as "guest stars" at some point, in cameo roles...

Well my group wants to go in an entirely different direction, so I won't be using AoW at all (though I want to some day, as it looks really good). Instead, they're going to adventure in The Abyss.

Thanks for the advice, though. I think it's cool that certain elements and NPCs cross over from path to path (although Celeste looks like a completely different person in each one). I am running the 4e Scales of War path for another group, and there's an NPC with the last name of Dourstone, which I think is one of the mines in diamond lake.

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