Campaign Advice/suggestions wanted

[mudbunny]

The DM of my current group is taking a hiatus from DMing for a while (new kid, wants to play) and so I volunteered to take his place. Now I was expecting to have the group play 4E, but they were quite resistant to it, and really want to continue playing their current characters (3.5/Age of Worms).

Given that I have never DMed before (any edition), I come looking for advice, suggestions and ideas.

We were running through the Age of Worms campaign, and are level 5, almost level 6. The old DM has quite kindly sent me a list of various open-ended plot devices that he has left in the game for his potential future use, and told me to steal/modify/bastardize as I want.

1. Some orcs and half-fiedish ogres that we fought had some roby-necklaces that radiated strong necromantic energy. We left them with our contact (local wizard/magic Item ID guy) who was going to ship them to Greyhawk for safe-keeping/disposal.
2. A side quest that we were working on involved a magically locked book (several thousand years old) that had recently been stolen. We tracked down half of it (it had been ripped in half somehow) and returned it to Greyhawk library. There is no mention of a specific Deity in it from what is left, although there are links to Vecna (the book was stolen by a cult of Vecna), and Erythnull (we fought some orcs tattooed with his symbols who were also trying to get the book from the cult of Vecna).
3. We also managed to find the magic key that was supposed to open the book (however the book had been ripped in half by then). The key appears to be useless now due to the book being ripped in half.

I am asking for advice and suggestions on where the links could go. I would like to have some ideas for each, so that the players have a choice.

I have an idea for 1 that I would like help fleshing out: In the transport back to Greyhawk, the note indicating that the necklaces were to be sent to Temple X for destruction was misplaced somehow, and they just got placed in general "stuff traded into us by adventuring party". Some local nobles watch commanders saw them and decided that they would look nice embedded into their armor and did so. Since then, however, their continual exposure to the necromantic energies have done bad things to them. I am just not sure what yet.

Ideas?? Suggestions?

Thanks!!

 

[Herobizkit]

The easy answer is that they inherit the half-fiend template. The more interesting answer is that they actually become half-fiend Ogres. The most interesting answer is that they become energy vampires - they leech energy from people around them without their knowledge, but said energy feeds the guards and makes them stronger. They don't realize they've actually become undead until shown evidence. Or, maybe they're happy with their new form...