The adventures in the path are:
- The Whispering Cairn (1st – 3rd)
- The Three Faces of Evil (3rd – 5th)
- Encounter at Blackwall Keep (5th – 6th)
- The Hall of Harsh Reflections (7th – 8th)
- The Champion’s Belt (9th – 10th)
- Gathering of Winds (11th – 12th)
- The Spire of Long Shadows (13th – 14th)
- The Prince of Redhand (15th)
- The Library of Last Resort (16th – 17th)
- Kings of the Rift (18th)
- Into the Wormcrawl Fissure (19th)
- Dawn of a New Age (20th+)
Furthermore, there are three Backdrops:
- Diamond Lake (issue #124)
- The Free City* (issue #128)
- Alhaster (issue #131)
In addition to the content included in Dungeon, each adventure also includes an online supplement, available for free at paizo.com. These supplements consist of maps (both with and without keys), the art from the issue, and conversion notes for running the campaign in either the Forgotten Realms or Eberron. In addition, the Age of Worms Overload is a separate online supplement that includes an outline of the campaign, material cut from the first Backdrop, stats of all the major players in Diamond Lake, and additional conversion notes.
Dragon magazine published a series of articles titled Wormfood that also tied into the adventure path. I was not generally impressed with their quality and allowed my subscription to lapse during the period of their publication. Therefore, I will not be reviewing them.
This review is of the first three adventures in the path (The Whispering Cairn, The Three Faces of Evil, and Encounter at Blackwall Keep) and the first Backdrop (Diamond Lake).
The Whispering Cairn
Issue #124
Written by Erik Mona
The first adventure in the path is an excellent dungeon crawl with a few engaging twists and side quests. The namesake of the adventure is a burial cairn built by the Wind Dukes of Aaqua to honor a warrior that battled against the Queen of Chaos. As with the other adventures in this review, the hook for journeying to the cairn is one of the weakest elements of the adventure. The adventure assumes that the characters have chosen to explore the cairn in order to gain sufficient funds to leave town and make their way to a better life. This is a particularly weak motive for such an epic campaign, and something that should have been addressed either in the adventure or one of the numerous supplements.
The cairn itself is a solid dungeon crawl, staged in manageable chunks and separated by side quests and puzzles. In order to fully explore the dungeon and make their way to the true tomb, the characters must first locate a pair of lanterns hidden in the cairn and then negotiate with the ghost of Alaster Land, a young boy who died while exploring the cairn. Alaster is capable of opening a locked door for the characters, but requests that they first take his bones from the cairn and bury them with the rest of his family’s remains on their farmstead.
What sounds like an incidental side quest soon becomes much more difficult when the characters discover that the remains of Alaster’s family are missing. The trail leads to a gang of ruffians in the city of Diamond Lake employed by a corrupt mine manager named Balabar Smenk. The ruffians are in turn working for Filge, a necromancer associated with Smenk and no longer have the remains. Learning this information requires the characters to negotiate with the gang, either through intimidation or diplomacy.
Filge has set up a macabre laboratory in an observatory outside Diamond Lake. The remains of Alaster’s family have been reanimated as skeletons and are encountered there. Eric Mona puts in several creepy touches, such as a gruesome zombie dinner party, where the undead guests toast Filge and recount how they deserved to die at his hands. The encounter with Filge is particularly cinematic as multiple zombies burst forth from vats of greenish goo and attack the characters.
Having recovered the remains, the characters are able to make their way to the true tomb. Among the treasure is a pair of inactive artifacts, including a talisman of the sphere. These devices play a role later in the Age of Worms adventure path.
The Whispering Cairn is a challenging and well designed adventure. The puzzles are just hard enough and the side quests are entertaining rather than tedious. Its connection to the rest of the adventure path is not strong, and it could easily stand on its own. This is probably its greatest flaw – the Whispering Cairn feels like it is the first adventure in a totally different adventure path. The backstory of the cairn focuses on the battle between the Wind Dukes, the Queen of Chaos, and Mishka the Wolfspider, not the main villain of the adventure path, Kyuss. Furthermore, the clues in the cairn suggest that the campaign will revolve around assembling the Rod of Seven Parts, when in fact the artifact is merely incidental.
Despite its lack of a hook and red herring flavor, The Whispering Cairn is a very good adventure, worthy of a 5 for both Style and Substance.
Style: 5
Substance: 5
The Three Faces of Evil
Issue #125
Written by Mike Mearls
After a strong start, the Adventure Path suffers from the two weakest entries in the series. The second adventure, the Three Faces of Evil, suffers mostly from a lack of editorial oversight. The adventure was written concurrently with the Whispering Cairn, and it shows.
The hook for The Three Faces of Evil is that the players are seeking to investigate a strange green worm that they found in Filge’s lab in the prior adventure. However, the hook assumes that they do this by going directly to Balabar Smenk with the worm. Considering that Filge was working for Balabar Smenk and that the players likely killed him, and quite possibly Smenk’s gang of reprobates, the idea of them going to discuss the implications of the green worm with him is laughable. Nonetheless, this is the premise for the adventure. Should the characters go to Smenk, he informs them that he swiped the worm from a rival mine manager who allegedly has an evil cult operating out of his mine. The cult is blackmailing Smenk to provide supplies and he asks the characters help in rooting the cult out.
The cult, called the Ebon Triad, worships the idea of Vecna, Erythnul and Hextor merging into a single overgod. Each of the three mini-dungeons is occupied by a cell that worships one of these three gods.
This location of the mine is where a major editorial mistake crops up. The backdrop article about the town of Diamond Lake places the mine in the center of the city, but The Three Faces of Evil states that the mine consists of a barricaded mini-fortress guarded by more troops than the local keep. This is inconsistent with the map of Diamond Lake and illogical given the location.
Getting into the mine involves bribing or otherwise bypassing the guards. The module details a number of potential strategies, including entering disguised as a miner. Attacking the guards or miners is also possible, but likely to have serious repercussions unless the characters can connect them to the Ebon Triad.
The Ebon Triad resides in three separate mini-dungeons at the bottom of an elevator shaft deep in the mine. This set-up provides a number of logistical problems for a low level group, not the least of which is that there is no safe place to retreat and rest. Going back through the mine is likely to draw attention, and until the party cleans out one of the three mini-dungeons, there are few safe places to rest. On top of this, there is a credibility problem because, although the three groups are aligned, none of them react to an attack that is not directed at them.
The Temple to Hextor is the first mini-dungeon presented. (In an earlier draft of the adventure, this was the only area accessible. The other two doors could only be unlocked by obtaining keys from the leaders of the cult of Hextor and Erythnul, respectively. This idea was written out, but the keys remain in the possession of some of the NPC’s). The Temple is extremely well organized, and an almost impossible challenge for third level characters. Editorial errors run rampant in this section (rooms are misidentified, creatures wield weapons for which they lack proficiency, and the number of cultists in one room is missing entirely). The centerpiece of the section is an encounter in a gladiatorial style arena, in which must tip over a statute to reach a balcony above. Unfortunately, the characters are unlikely to survive the battle if it plays out in the way Mike Mearls has it written.
The Temple of Erythnul is a series of caverns occupied by grimlocks. The blindsight ability of the grimlocks severely restricts a party’s ability to scout. Unlike the Temple of Hextor, the level of organization is minimal, and the characters need not worry about being mobbed. The caverns have some unique elements, including a cavern shaped like a U that requires the players to descend to the floor while being peppered by archers and then climb back up the other side using a decrepit rope bridge. The end boss is a fanatical grimlock prophet with the eyes of a beholder stitched in his empty sockets.
The final temple consists mainly of a large maze. While mazes are normally difficult to run (particularly if the DM doesn’t use a battlemat and has to verbally describe the passageways), Mr. Mearls does a good job of building a manageable encounter around the gimmick. The maze is the size of a standard battlemat, and the text notes on which square the entrance should be marked. While in the maze, the characters must deal with hit and run attacks from a group of kenkus. Because the kenku are able to open and close the numerous secret doors in the maze with a swift action, the encounter plays out in a series of hit and run battles. The foes are perfectly calibrated to frustrate the players, but then allow them to take out that frustration once they connect against the low hp kenku. At the end of the maze is the Faceless One, a wizard with an almost featureless face. He is an excellent villain, and it is too bad that the adventure path does not utilize him more.
Once the characters have defeated the three aspects of the Ebon Triad, their final encounter is with an aspect of the overgod – a six armed creature combining facets of each of Vecna, Erythnul and Hextor. The aspect appears immediately after the last of the three high priests is defeated, forcing the characters to come up with a strategy to defeat it despite their diminished resources.
The Three Faces of Evil is a good adventure at its core with some terrific set pieces (the arena, the rope bridge, and the maze), it just needed another pass or two by the editorial staff. A common fix discussed on the Paizo message boards is to break up the dungeon into its three separate components and allow the characters a safe zone in which to retreat. This takes off some of the pressure and provides a justification for why the various cults do not alert each other about (or become independently aware of) the player actions.
Despite its editorial errors, The Three Faces of Evil has a lot of clever ideas and interesting encounters. Substantively, it needs some significant revisions.
Style: 4
Substance: 3
Encounter at Blackwall Keep
Issue #126
Written by Sean K. Reynolds
Though better edited than the Three Faces of Evil, Encounter at Blackwall Keep lacks the style of the first two adventures. Again, the adventure starts off with a weak hook. While attempting to unravel the mysteries of the Ebon Triad and the mysterious green worm found in the observatory, the characters will likely have interacted with Allustan, Diamond Lake’s highest level wizard and “smartest man.” Allustan informs the characters that a friend of his at nearby Blackwall Keep has reported seeing a similar worm and that the group should travel there to learn more. Although this hook is more plausible than that of the Three Faces of Evil, it’s fairly mundane.
Encounter at Blackwall Keep is the first adventure in the path to feature random encounter tables. These take up a significant amount of space and add very little value. The individual encounters each have a paragraph, but for the most part are unexceptional. The party may encounter NPC traders or the usual humanoid band of raiders, but nothing that does more than waste time with a meaningless battle.
Upon arriving at Blackwall Keep, the characters discover that a band of lizardfolk have laid siege. This is where the Sean K. Reynolds renders a shocking misevaluation of the CR/EL system (particularly considering his stellar credentials). A significant portion of the text warns that the 5th level characters will be committing suicide by attacking the group of 30 odd lizardfolk head-on. There is even a warning that, barring a freakish combination of rolls, there is no possible way the PC’s can succeed. The fact of the matter is that, while on paper, this assessment is correct, in play, the encounter is not challenging. The lizardfolk simply do not have sufficiently high attack bonuses to injure the 5th level PC’s. Tack on top of that area effect spells to control the battlefield, such as entangle or fireball, and the average party can handle the encounter without breaking a sweat.
Another problem with the siege encounter is the way Allustan is handled. As a 10th level wizard, he would easily steal the characters’ thunder if he were to participate in the battle. Thus, it is entirely reasonable to remove him in some manner. The way the adventure is written, he uses a scroll of teleport to Diamond Lake, get additional troops, and return a couple days later. This cowardly course of action is likely to spoil the characters’ relationship with Allustan. Considering that he is the hook for the sixth adventure, Gathering of Winds, the relationship between him and the party is something that must be managed with care.
Once the characters have defeated the lizardfolk siege, they learn that the person they’ve traveled to meet has been taken prisoner by one of the lizardfolk raiding parties. To make matters worse, the lizardfolk have a history of eating their prisoners of war. Again, what could have been an interesting chase is undermined by Mr. Reynolds underestimating the capabilities of a 5th level. The lizardfolk have a four hour lead, but should the characters push through the night, they are very likely to overtake the band. The adventure suggests throwing a random encounter in the way of players that choose to push hard, but does not otherwise provide guidance on how to handle this contingency. Should the characters succeed in rescuing the prisoners before the lizardfolk reach their lair, there is little reason for proceeding onward with the rest of the adventure.
The lizardfolk lair is well designed, consisting of a grove of trees thick enough to constitute walls. Mr. Reynolds takes the time to detail the possibility of hacking through the trees to access the lair, the effects of a fireball on the natural structure (its too wet to burn), and the routines of the lizardfolk life (when they patrol, what they do for food, etc…). If all you’re looking for is a lizardfolk lair, you would be hard pressed to find a better example. However, despite the level of detail and thought that have gone into the lair, the narrow passages mean that the lizardfolk are unable to capitalize on their numerical advantage. The characters can easily choose a chokepoint and slaughter the lizardfolk from relative safety. The greatest challenge comes from the non-lizardfolk in the lair – an otyugh and a pair of harpies.
The leaders of the lair include a hermaphroditic druid unhappy with the current leadership. (S)he is willing to negotiate with the characters if they are willing. The adventure does a good job of making this negotiation seem like a reasonable course for the druid, and it is likely that the characters will choose to parlay. The druid can reveal to the characters that the lizardfolk attacked the keep because their chief claimed that the humans destroyed a clutch of the tribe’s eggs using parasitic worms. The druid does not believe that the humans are responsible for the tragedy, and suspects the chief’s advisor, a black dragon named Ilthane.
Either through negotiation or force, the characters eventually reach the tribe’s egg chamber. Therein lies Ilthane’s egg, along with those of the lizardfolk. Ilthane has told the lizardfolk that the egg is there to demonstrate that she will protect their eggs as if they were her own. In fact, the egg is a devious trap. If broken, a hoard of tiny immature Kyuss worms come pouring out. Left unchecked, they burrow into the lizardfolk eggs, creating nasty little undead lizard creatures. The characters must figure out how to destroy the worms while minimizing the damage to the lizardfolk eggs. The whole encounter is clever and creepy.
Upon returning to Blackwall Keep, the characters discover that a Spawn of Kyuss that had been trapped in the basement is now free (the creature was once the keep’s old wizard, but was locked up when he started to transform.) The characters must deal with the Spawn to complete the adventure.
The biggest flaw with Encounter at Blackwall Keep is that it is too easy by far. While it is nice to see how powerful the characters have become since the days when they feared max damage from a greataxe, having an entire adventure be a cakewalk is a little boring. On top of that, Ilthane’s motives for creating a conflict between the lizardfolk and the humans are not clearly explained.
Encounter at Blackwall Keep is a functional adventure with a few well written elements. Its failure to account for the capabilities of a 5th level party is what really limits it to the realm of the mediocrity.
Style: 3
Substance: 3
Backdrop: Diamond Lake
Issue #124
Written by Erik Mona
The Diamond Lake backdrop is a wonderful setting for starting any campaign, not just the Age of Worms. Erik Mona creates a vivid picture of a frontier town – part HBO’s Deadwood, part Keep on the Borderlands, and glued together with a gloss of lurid detail and political corruption.
Diamond Lake is a dirty mining town on a polluted lake with political authority divided between a corrupt mayor, a keep controlled by a militia loyal to the Free City (of Greyhawk),* and a half-dozen mine managers. Adventure hooks are sprinkled liberally throughout the setting, very few of which directly relate to the Age of Worms. The locations are interesting and evocative, and include a tavern with a freak show in the basement and a church of St. Cuthbert run by a fire and brimstone style priest. Mr. Mona embeds just enough mechanical elements in the details, such as rules for mini-games like darts and dragonchess (chess with three boards and dragon themed pieces).
The town has all the necessary locations for adventurers – a shop to sell their loot, a handful of magic items available for purchase, and a pair of temples (St. Cuthbert and Heironeous – though Wee Jas does have a presence in town as well). The gold piece limit is a little low (900 gps), and any serious shopping (or raising of the dead) will require a four day trip to the Free City (of Greyhawk).
The last page of the backdrop does include some minimal advice about integrating a party into the town and the campaign, but not enough to make up for the thin hook presented in the Whispering Cairn. Mr. Mona provides intriguing suggestions relating to how particular classes and races are viewed and fit into Diamond Lake.
The fold-out map of the town is a little bland and looks more like something whipped up for a serious homebrew game rather than a professionally published product. In fact, the cartography of the Age of Worms adventure path is merely functional, which is a shame considering the high quality of the maps contained in the prior adventure path, the Shackled City.
Ultimately, Diamond Lake is a terrific resource regardless of whether you run the Age of Worms. It is a mini-campaign setting, boiled down to the most interesting nuts and bolts.
Style: 5
Substance: 5
*For reasons that are not entirely clear, Wizards of the Coast did not allow Paizo to use many of the names and locations of the Greyhawk campaign setting, despite the adventure path's strong links to that setting. As a result, the Free City of Greyhawk is referred to as the Free City, Tenser becomes Manzorian, and other minor details are altered.
