Age of Worms

“The joys of the rich man are nothing, as they who hang around with sinners, scoffing at the simple paths of righteousness. Their delights are a pittance compared to eternity, and their rewards shall be devoured by the wriggling powers of darkness. They seem as trees along a riverbank bearing luscious fruits, but I tell you: they are plagued from within by blind, consuming things that eat without mercy and leave nothing behind. Not a one of them will be safe on the day of final judgment, when the slithering darkness feasts upon them. We tread toward a red day, full of writhing doom and a dread feast of bloated, ravenous hunger. Dark times are coming. Slithering times, when the clouds snuff the sky and the austerity of flesh is the path of salvation. Be ready, and prepare your body for the coming Age . . . an Age of Worms . . .”

- Jierian Weirus, Priest of St. Cuthbert

Let me welcome you to Diamond Lake, because no one else will.  

Diamond Lake is an unfriendly place, peopled by the desperate, the venal, and the crazed.  This town is the last stop before destitution.  Working in the mines for weeks at a time, breathing stagnant, polluted air, spending any precious time above ground in the gambling dens and ale halls, fighting, drunk, insensible, desperate.  If you find yourself in Diamond Lake or, worse still, were born here, all you want to do is get out.  All anyone wants to do is get out.  Well, almost everyone.  Because Diamond Lake sits only three days ride south of the Free City of Greyhawk, the great city perched on the edge of the world.  And Greyhawk is greedy.  Greedy for iron, greedy for silver, and willing to pay.  Which means there are fortunes to be made.  Fortunes for the mine managers.  Fortunes for the town leaders.  Fortunes for those who know how to grift and skim and exploit.  How will you make yours?

In Diamond Lake, you either find a hustle or you die in the dark. But your plans to skim, grift, or fight your way out are about to hit a wall. Secrets buried beneath the mud are waking up, and they don't care about your gold. When the foundations of this town, and the world, begin to crack, what will you do to survive? Will you answer the call to become heroes?  Will you carve out your fortune and escape? How far will you run, and will anywhere be far enough?  Or will Diamond Lake become your grave, and your flesh just another feast for the worms?

The game will be set in the World of Greyhawk, 595 CY.  I've provided some information on Diamond Lake and its environs in the Setting Info Forum.  You can find lots of information on the world in general online but I'm not really expecting you to dive deep into the lore.

I'll be taking four or five players for the game.  I'm taking players rather than characters so you can create a new character if your current one dies.  I will pull from the list of past applicants first should a vacancy occur.

The campaign is designed to run from 1st level to 20th and we'll be using milestone leveling.  It was written for the 3.5 rule set, but I'm using a 5e conversion and will be using the 5.5e rule set.

Combat will be in blocks by initiative roll.  Players are free to post in any order they want within their block.

I'm going to try to use the map utility here for combat and will probably try a quick experiment with it before we get going in earnest.  If we can't make it work I'll fall back on another site, my preference probably being Roll20 though I'm open to other alternatives.

What should you know before applying for this game....?

I'm aiming for a posting rate of 2-3 per week, ideally moving to something more like daily during combat;  I won't necessarily wait for everyone to chime in if that time frame has passed and there seems to be a consensus.  If we can collectively manage a faster rate then I'll move it along faster, but that's my intention starting out.

Age of Worms was written for 3.5e.  I'm using an adaption for 5e but the chassis is still 3.5e, not quite real old school levels of arbitrary deadliness but it does have a reputation for being a meat grinder in places and expects active player problem-solving, environmental interaction, and careful investigation rather than resolving everything with skill checks.

Content Warning

Age of Worms is a dark fantasy horror campaign.  It contains intense thematic elements and imagery, including:

• Visceral Horror & Phobias: Body horror, parasitism, violence, gore.  Insects, maggots, and worms figure prominently, as do themes of rot and decay.

• Psychological & Ritual Abuse: Cult activity, human sacrifice, religious fanaticism, physical torture, and mind control/psychological torture.

• Societal & Setting Themes: Corporate exploitation, slavery, extreme poverty, and systemic corruption.

• Cosmic Dread: Apocalyptic themes, unavoidable doom, mass death, and reality-bending elder evils.