Storm King’s Thunder #3 – Captives, Caverns, & Cloud Giants

               It has been some time since I have been able to write about my Storm King’s Thunder campaign. My group is all about 40 years old with careers, families, and responsibilities, it has just been crazy for all of us for different reasons. We finally got to meet up this past Friday and continue our game into the murky world of SKT. When we last left our group had just fended off the Orc attack on Nightstone and was considering options in attempting a rescue on the civilians in the caverns to the North. They had Felgolos go to the caves to scout, he returned and told them that the villagers must have been captured, and they decided to have him go to Waterdeep to send help. The village seemed to be on everyone’s radar as open for the taking, and they needed help in keeping it free. Like the good “Bro” that Felgolos is, he decided to help again.

Hekaton looking great

                The first order of business was the party wanted to deal with Kella. She was chained to Shandy, but helping against the Orcs with solid advice, if anything to keep herself alive. Towards the end of the Orc fight, things looked like they were not going the party’s way, Shandy decided to cut her free and told her to run. Taking full advantage of this, she did and took off into Nightstone. Now that the incident was over there was a big debate as to what to do with her. They noticed that the drawbridge was not down, so she could not have left yet. She must be in the town. The party, being three people, split into three different chains of thought on what to do with her. Shandy wanted to let her go, and even wanted to try and see if she would help them with the rescue of the villagers. Izumi took the exact opposite track and wanted to bring her to justice for her crimes, possibly killing her. Ionas took a middle path, he wanted to lock her up until they got back from the rescue, then release her. He did not want her loose while they were away. They never fully came to an accord once they found her and it got rather heated.

                Kella had made it back to the Inn and she was gathering her belongings. This is how in the standard adventure path you find her and I felt this was an appropriate time to reveal that she had been in the town before these events. They approached and asked her to come down peaceably, but Izumi had a much harsher tone stating, “If you do not come down now, I will kill you.” This did not go over well with Kella. Izumi kept calling her out for stabbing them in the back and how she has no honor. Shandy was trying to smooth over the wrinkles, but to no avail. Eventually after being berated for a while Kella shot back at Izumi, “I have no honor? You attacked my friends unprovoked and killed them. You are the honor-less killer.” Then she challenged Izumi to single combat to resolve the situation. I really wanted this to happen, because I honestly did not know how it would shake out. She is the spy template from the Monster Manual, at this point Izumi is a 4th level Bard from the College of Swords. It would have been close I believe. Shandy and Ionas stepped in, and Ionas reminded everyone that he was the one that actually was stabbed in the back and tells her that she was going to go into a cell for a time, until the group came back. Then she was going to leave and that was that. Ionas is usually pretty soft spoken, so this was unusual, and everyone agreed. They locked her up, and ordered the stooge guards not to let her out until they got back.

Kella still causing problems

                The group set off for the caves hoping to be able to rescue the townsfolk from the clutches of an enemy they believed correctly was goblins. They still have not done a long rest since the Orc fight, but got a short rest while on the way to the cave. While headed there they decided to look for any signs of activity and see if the tracks looked like anything they recognized. They did well on the roll and I described obvious goblin prints, but some other humanoid prints were there as well, something big. At this point they have giants on the brain and thought that this was part of the giant narrative. I did mention if it was giants, it would be giants on the smaller end of the spectrum, possibly giant-kin. They approached the cave and Izumi went to scout and discovered the main room. It had some goblin guards on ledges, and an Ogre bathing in a mud bath. They decide to try and lure the guards out by making an illusion in front of the cave, and hiding above the entrance. When setting up for this, Ionas noticed a bit of smoke coming out of the top of the hill. When they investigated the smoke, they realized there was a chimney up top and decided to descend into the caves that way.

                Immediately they run into Snigbat and attack him, luckily for him he lives long enough to be pathetic. They take pity on him and he agrees to betray Hark and show him where he is located. He encourages them to kill him, and then Snigbat will take over as boss, and free the prisoners. The party seemed to agree, and Snigbat upheld his part. He led them over to Hark’s area and they see Hark and 2 other goblins betting on giant rat fights, while other giant rats are feasting on the corpse of a villager. Now is a good time to discuss how module think things will play out, and how they actually play out. The module spends a good two paragraphs discussing “if the party tries to negotiate with Hark”. This, I believe, is wasted ink. Most gamers I know will show little mercy to a goblin that is eating people and feeding them to giant rats. There might be some out there, but I don’t know many. Hark sees the party enter with Snigbat, and begins to speak, before that can happen Shady sees the bodies and says, “I rage and throw my spear at him.”

Both my games this week featured Ogres

                The Goblin Boss in the Monster Manual is downright amazing, l love the little guy. He is mean, and has a handful of great abilities. He gets two attacks, can disengage as a bonus action, and can use his reaction to shift an attack onto a nearby goblin. He was very fun to play. The spear came at him in a surprise action (I know they are not in 5e officially, but I still use them), he pulled his mate in front of him and that goblin nearly died. Then the combat ensued. Hark managed to move around, and get all the other goblins in the room killed by dragging them in front of him, including Snigbat (it does not say the goblin has to be willing). He had his rats attack the party and in the end, everything was dead, except him, he had 1 HP and the party was severely hurt. Giant rats tore the party up, and I forgot their pack tactic rule.  At this point Hark tried to negotiate, and was going to let the people go, the party was having none of it. He did warn them, “I can make sure the Ogres don’t…..” he never finished the sentence as Shandy cut him in half. Speaking of the Ogres, I had them making listen checks every round and they were on their way.

                The party disagreed as to what to do, Shandy wanted to stay and fight, Ionas and Izumi wanted to flee and come back. Shandy decided to move to a choke point where he could only face one Ogre at a time, Izumi fled up the chimney, and Ionas said he was leaving, but ended up backing Shandy with the few spells he had left. Remember the party still hasn’t had a long rest since before the Orc fight, supplies were at their breaking point. Shandy and Ionas managed to kill Throg the Ogre, but their mate was a different story. Ionas decided to pull the Iron Bands of Billaro and wrap up the second Ogre. At that point Shandy and Ionas made short work of the Ogre who failed to break out of the Bands. Izumi came back down, with a combined effort of illusion, thaumaturgy, and a screaming warforge carrying an Ogre head, they scared the rest of the goblins from the cave.

                They rescued the villagers, but I did give them the body count of those that were eaten. The group was a little hard on themselves for not acting sooner, but all things considered they did well. I tried to ingratiate them to Morak Ur’Gray the dwarven proprietor of the Nightstone Inn, because of the upcoming events and sending them on a quest to Bryn Shander. Morak did not want the mantle of leadership that the party was thrusting upon him, making him make decisions for the group. He did step up though because he cared about the townsfolk and respected the party. I decided to play Morak, like many of my dwarves, as Ron Swanson from Parks & Rec. I plan to write a larger article on how Ron Swanson is the perfect dwarf stereotype, but that is for another day.

                The party brought the villagers home, and spent the next few days helping to fix the town as they received word from Waterdeep that supplies were on their way, and a small contingent of Griffin Riders would be patrolling the area to keep the riff raff away. They also received orders from the Harpers to continue deeper into the North and try to recover any information about the situation with the giants. Kella did stick around a few days, helping with the clean-up, she knew many of the villagers from her spying days, and is not completely heart-less. That is, until Izumi and Ionas pushed the issue. Izumi wanting her locked up, and Ionas wanting her gone. They left it to Morak, who was told about her friends trying to take over the city, and he decided it “might be for the best if you leave”. So she packed her things and moved on.

Zephyros

                Morak then asked the party for a favor, his friend Semile was killed in the attack and wanted to know if the party would pass the news and some of the personal items onto her brother. Her brother, Markham, is in Bryn Shander and this would allow them to go deeper into the North and see what they can find out. This is a contrivance of the story, because if the party says “no” it is hard to get this puppy back on track. Especially because Bryn Shander is extremely far away. My group are old veterans of D&D and smell a plot hook and bite full force. They set off for Bryn Shander. They don’t get but a day away from Nightstone when they hear a horrible and loud crash off in the distance. When they move to see what has happened they see a floating tower, surrounded by clouds, that has crashed into the ground. There is energy surging all over the tower and it looks dangerous in general. The party knows that something similar to this attacked Nightstone and move to investigate. They manage to scale the side as the tower begins to slowly rise. They then meet the owner of the tower Zephyros the Cloud Giant.  

                Zephyros lets the party in on the main plot of the entire SKT module and he has been looking for the party to help them fix what is broken. Here are his main points:

• The All Father of the giants was mad at the giants for the events in Rise of Tiamat. He decides to abandon his children, and shattered The Ordning.
• The Ordning is the giant’s hierarchy, and determines their place in society.
• King Hekaton, Lord of the Storm Giants, was keeping the giants in place through force.
• Queen Neri was killed by “small folk” and this sent Hekaton into a rage.
• Princess Serissa, next in line for the throne, convinced her father to investigate the problem.
• Before that was resolved, Hekaton disappeared, leaving the three Princesses vying for power.
• All the other giants are trying to please the All-Father in their own respective ways, so that when the Ordning is restored, they will ascend. This is what is causing the madness in the North with all the giants.

               Zephyros has been contacting other planes of existence in order to try and find a way to fix the problem, this surge of energy is interfering with the control orb in the tower causing it to crash on occasion, and destroying his own mind. He did receive information that he was to help the party on their quest, because it leads towards the restoration of peace in the giant kingdoms. He agrees to escort them to Bryn Shander, but it will be almost a month of travel.

Next stop!

               This is where we ended the session, the party has met with their traveling companion and is on their way to Bryn Shander. I just had one of my party members message our group chat saying that he is really enjoying the game. I am happy about that, I am having a good time too. What adventures aboard the tower await? Who knows? Tune in next time.

I went ahead and created a Facebook group for the blog, if you are interested the link is here.

Storm King’s Thunder #2 – Snakes & Dragons

               This game flowed a lot better than the first one, mostly because beginnings are hard. You do have to do some shoehorning to get characters where you need them, to set them on their way. Since all of that was behind us, the game really flowed. I felt a bit more confident in my knowing of the story and the options I wanted to put in front of the players. I am still striving to keep the game a bit more open than the “story” allows, which hasn’t been too hard. I am also desperate to sprinkle in some foreshadowing for characters and plots later one, which seem to come out of nowhere. I am going to be a little more discreet in my details (not too much) mostly because I forgot that my actual players read my blog and some details could get spoiled.

Picture is unrelated to this particular session, but it is cool.

                We left our ban of adventurers crossing the broken bridge into the keep after clearing the goblins out of Nightstone. Shandy, after crossing the bridge pauses and has a “glitch” and his normally dulcet blue glow, becomes a raging red flare for just a minute. The player decided to take a level of barbarian based on how we constructed his background that he has absorbed others memories. This confluence of emotions causes him to erupt with rage at times and makes him quite dangerous. The “cleric”, Ionas, took a level of wizard working towards a specialization in Divination and Izumi took a second level in Bard.

                Once Shandy snapped out of his trance, he then led them into the main hall of the keep where the four guards are arguing over what to do. They had been stuck for several days with the corpse of their beloved leader, and their town had fled. As described, I played them as infighting and looking for any form of leadership. Izumi being a minor noble fulfilled that role quite nicely and they “snapped to” quickly. The guards explained about the flying castle, fleeing villagers and guards, the cave to the north, and the death of the lady of the house. The group chats and decides that it is going on dusk, they should bury the body in the family crypt, then rest for the night and head to the cave at dawn. Little did they know they wouldn’t be getting any rest soon!

                As they are making their way back into town, they spend some time making a jury-rigged bridge patch that I rule can have one person at a time go over it, slowly. As they work the sounds of distant horses approaching alerts them. They try in vain to get to the main gate and close it, but horses are much faster than people. They then meet up with the Seven Snakes, who try and make a deal with them. I tried desperately to not make the Zhentarim mustache twirling villains, but corporate focused people looking for advancement. Xolkin, the half-elf leader of the Seven Snakes, told them they had received a rumor that the town had been “vacated”, and they were here to help rebuild the town and establish some law and order. The players were not having any of it. It tried to escalate the negotiation, Xolkin offered to let the PCs take anything at all that they could carry out of the city, and the would not try and stop them. They even said they would be more than happy to take the townsfolk back and help the rebuilding process. PCs gotta PC, and they are not having it.

Leader of the Seven Snakes

Kella, who had been helping the PCs, but was secretly a Zhent, tried to convince the PCs that this wasn’t their problem, and she would happily take armfuls of treasure and leave, if they’d come with her. The book suggests that Kella immediately reveal herself as a Zhentarim Spy if the Seven arrive, I found that to be stupid, why would she not try and play them from the other side to achieve the larger goal of securing Nightstone? They actually considered it for a second, but Izumi was steadfast in her refusal and drew her sword and moved towards the Seven screaming in the Wa tongue trying to intimidate them. I did note that the PCs started this engagement, not the Zhents, thought the PCs would deny that later.  The Zhents feeling they had tried to be reasonable, draw weapons and begin combat. I only have 3 PCs and this fight was pretty hefty. Six Bandits, a Bandit Captain (who gets 3 attacks) and a Spy.

I am not going to do a blow by blow, but here are the highlights. Izumi charged while Ionas held back, Shandy did not know where to go to be a meatshield. The Zhents filled Izumi with arrows, and she almost went down, while Ionas caused the Bandit leader to flee with Command and dropped another with Sleep. Holding back, and seeing this Kella made her move and stabbed Ionas in the back so hard it dropped him. This caused Shandy to run back to Ionas, and Izumi did some Healing Word action on the Cleric. It was looking real bad as the Bandit Captian came back when a loud noise of a church steeple snapping went across the field and a Bronze Dragon landed in the battlefield. He immediately started in on the Zhentarim, and the battle was a forgone conclusion, with Kella giving a noble effort to escape, but being caught by Shandy.

The dragon turns into a Halfling and introduces himself as Felgolos. I am playing Felgolos as an extremely positive, happy dragon that comes across as a 80s surfer. He is very into auras and says things like, “Mad respect, you tried your best Bra.” He then proceeded to dump some exposition on the party and talk about how giants are playing beat’em up with the North and it is all a “bad sitch”. He was the dragon that attacked the Zhentarim caravan with Kella, because “they’re assholes, man”. He is completely fascinated with the group and talks their collective ears off.  He agree to stay and “chill” for a bit with the party. They plundered the Zhents and I rolled a 00 on the treasure chart and they ended up getting an Iron Ball of the Billaro, which is pretty sweet.

I like him.

Kella is tied up and Shandy basically ties the other end to himself to not allow her to escape. She basically has a conversation with him that amounts to, “If you are going to kill me, kill me. If not, let me go. What is your exact plan here? Do you even have a plan?” They chat and Shandy comes to realize she isn’t evil per se, she just wants to climb that ladder and have a better life. She is willing to go to a bigger extreme than most to do it. Shandy also brings up that the Zhentarim “attacked them” to which she reminds him they did not, they were trying to negotiate and were attacked, and the Zhents defended themselves.

That night while on watch, Shandy saw off in the distance a large group of torches moving through the woods towards the keep. This is the Orcs from the Blood Spears (I renamed them from Severed Ears). I know Orcs don’t need torches to see at night, but I thought the visual was cool like from 13^th Warrior. This gave them a little warning that the Orc tribe was coming, and they could get prepared. They ended up being heroic and wanting to find out the situation about the possible villagers in the cave, and wanted to get information back to the Harpers in Waterdeep about the free-for-all of people coming for the keep. Instead of keeping a Bronze dragon around for the fight, they sent him to the cave, for recon, and to Waterdeep for assistance. Felgolos did report back to them that it appears that the villagers are captured by goblins in the cave, but he was too big to kit into the cave in his dragon form to save them. Convenient, I know, he then took off for Waterdeep.

The Orc encounter was a weird one, because it is difficult for the Orcs to do much. The Eye (Caster) that the Orcs have was the biggest weapon in that he was able to eventually drive the PCs off the wall with Spiritual Weapon, though he did try twice to Command them to “Jump” which would have put them into the river, and in a world of hurt. The group tried taking the Orcs out one at a time with missile weapons while they spread out looking for a place to get into the village. Kella the whole time was tied up, but giving helpful advice, because she didn’t want to be “eaten by orcs”. Eventually the Orcs find a way in, by climbing up by the broken bridge, and the Orc commander (who statistically is a bad ass) charged up the sloped area blessed by his gods and rumbled with the party as the other Orcs cheered him on and occasionally threw a javelin. Luckily he was already injured by a conflict with Elves, and he dropped before the party was decimated, and the rest of the Orcs fled. Just before he made it to the top, Shandy cut the ropes from Kella, and told her to flee, in an act of compassionate mercy. I had her leave, not knowing exactly what to do with her?

Kella, now a mystery.

This is where it ended, the players are poised to go to the caves in the next adventure and they will be 3rd level. What should I do with Kella? I could have her become a reoccurring villain? Or I could have her become a reluctant ally? Maybe a bit of both? Throw me a comment and let me know what you think?

I went ahead and created a Facebook group for the blog, if you are interested the link is here.

Storm King's Thunder #1 - In the Beginning

               I went through the module and liked the bones of the story, and I liked a lot of the details. It can suffer from points where there is not a lot of focus. The story also is relatively linear, and as mentioned in my previous article, the sandbox pieces feel a bit stapled on. I totally dig the big personalities in the story overall, and I actually plan to play it 50/50. I want the giants to be serious, and not a joke. I will play many of the other personalities much more hammy. I hoping it will give the adventure a certain charm, but not lose the narrative.

Such cool art

                Let’s talk about my PCs, first is the “Cleric” Ionas. I put it in quotes, because I believe his intention is to take several levels of Wizard, more than Cleric. This character worships Ogma the Binder, and is the Knowledge domain. His goal is for enlightenment, as he put it, “I not only want to see the fabric of the universe, I want to see the threads that make up that fabric.” His character is trying to be an oracle/diviner, which will work out all sort of nice for me down the line due to one of the major plot threads.

                Next, I have Izumi, who is a Bard from the country of Wa. For those that are not up on their Forgotten Realms lore Wa is a stand-in for Japan. Izumi was born with the unfortunate disposition of not being able to control her emotions to the standards of Wa society. She would have the occasional outburst over the beauty of the world, or a piece of art and this was an embarrassment to her family. As a minor noble she was expected to marry for political reasons, but when she refused, she was sent on a “political” mission to the far corners on the known world. This would rid her family of her embarrassment, and pleases her because she wants to learn about other cultures.

                Lastly is Chandelier (aka Shandy). Shandy is a Warforged Fighter from Eberron. He was accidently summoned to this universe and had random memories thrown into his frame. He was discovered in Wa and eventually became the guardian of Izumi in her travels. He came to consciousness fully formed, and thus knows things without having huge context for them. He also when traveling through space/time was infused with random memories of people from the Realms. I added the last part so that on occasion I could splash a bit of plot through him if needed. His name is from the first thing he saw when he was asked who he was. He was fascinated by the lights above him that were arrayed in a beautiful pattern. He asked what it was, he was told it was a Chandelier, and decided to be called that.

                Since the adventure has been out for several years it has the benefit of resources to call upon. I have decided to use a lot of information from these two Reddit Posts, and this guide that I found on DM’s Guild by Sean McGovern. McGovern’s guide is especially helpful and to anyone planning on running SKT you should check it out. Almost every suggestion he makes, I agree with. Thus, in my reports you will see a lot of his changes. Between all three sources there are a lot of common themes in changes that should be made, and nothing convinces me like consensus among RPGers, because it happens so rarely.

This is a great resource.

Ok, enough gibber gabber, get to the fucking monkey!

                I went with the idea of doing prologues with all the characters to quickly introduce them to some of the characters of the story, and start pushing ideas that need a push. I started with Izumi, and she had been in Waterdeep for several months and often took quite boat rides to view the beauty of nature and to help her compose great works. One of these quiet days was abruptly interrupted and her boat was capsized and wrecked by a set of storm giant females. They quickly apologize and help Izumi to shore. They begin talking and both a fascinated by the other’s culture. She learns that they are Queen Neri and Princess Serrissa and both sides agree to meet again and share pleasantries. Weeks go by and they meet regularly each bringing small tokens of each other’s culture and a friendship is created. One day in the middle of this meeting, another larger storm giant emerges from the water and begins to chide the women for involving themselves with “the small folk”. Apologetically the three return to the water, never to be seen again by Izumi.

                Next was Ionas, and he was a young, Harper adventurer on a quest of exploration. His group was captured by Iymrith, the Ancient Blue Dragon, and she was turning his party members into stone statues, and later into gargoyles. She taunted and teased them a bit, and then she began the ritual on him. His hand slowly started to turn to stone, as the dragon cackled. Just when he thought all was lost a group of Harper heroes came in and start wailing on Iymrith. Primary amongst them was Artus Cimber using the Ring of Winter and screaming “Blood of the Lady” over and over. Ionas was rescued, but his hand is still made of stone.

                Shandy was a bit of an issue, because he was relatively new to the world, and was the guardian of Izumi. Trying to get a prologue with him was puzzling me, so that is when I came up with the idea that he would have some random memories from people in Forgotten Realms. One of his memories was in a very cold and icy cave. In front of him was an Ancient White Dragon who was crying and verbally attacking herself. The person whose eyes he was seeing through was hiding, and managed to see a corpse covered in snow with its hand sticking out and it was wearing a ring. The White Dragon continues to moan about how, “The Master will not be happy. I lost it.” The person tries to make a break for the entrance and is spotted, they distract the dragon by pointing out the ring, to which the dragon squeals with delight. The person manages to get away into the cold, and the vision ends.

Looks like Shandy

                All of these are being used to foreshadow events that will come down the line and tie the characters somewhat into the over plot. This makes them a bit more in the plot as opposed to outside looking in. We decided to hand wave them knowing each other, and they all decided to be members of the Harpers. I started them having a meeting with their patron in Waterdeep. To be completely honest, I wasn’t sure who I wanted the patron to be so I pulled the oldest trick in the book, the patron is a Masked Lord of Waterdeep. The identity will be determined at a later date, you know, because details.

                The patron describes to the group how the Harpers and Force Grey have been working together gathering intel about disturbances in the North. Caravans are being raided, corpse found at random, small villages being wiped from the map. They are not sure who or what are doing these acts, but they have sent their agents out to try and find out. They received a message from Hashnag that they needed to get to Nightstone as soon as possible because there was a rumor that something was going down there soon. He was too far to get there in time, and this group of Harpers was sent to find out. Short on time and details, the party is convinced to move with great haste.

                The party collected some supplies, including a few ponies and a pack mule, and set out. On the morning of the second day they ran into a woman in the road being attacked by a pack of goblins. She is injured, and trying to fend them off. Izumi decides to take off on the pony charging into combat. Shandy, who is on foot, runs after Izumi. Ionas decides to tie down the horse and mule and follow after. I declared that it would take them 2 rounds to catch up. Izumi manages to kill one of the goblins straight away, while Ionas cast Thaumaturgy and causes the ground to shake under them to frighten them. Shandt continues his long haul to the battle. Three goblins left, 2 decide to run off, one directly away, and the other towards Shandy and Ionas. As the goblin runs by Shandy misses with a glaive strike, but Ionas crossbows him for 1 point of damage. This begins the saga of Larry the Goblin. The next round Larry is able to move up next to Ionas who draws his weapon and hits the goblin for 2 points of damage. The goblin continues to run towards the mule, and is closing in. Ionas picks up the crossbow and shoots again, hits for 1 point of damage. Larry is still running. Ionas shoots 2 more times and cannot hit him, at this point the goblin has untied the mule and is preparing to run away. At this point Ionas is overly pissed and decides to use his Guiding Bolt and nukes Larry for 13 more damage. I described that the donkey looked like the back of the car in Pulp Fiction with poor Marvin.

Imagine a donkey

                Shandy mopped up the last goblin and they rescued the woman named Kella. Izumi had noticed that Kella’s wound is an electrical burn, and she claims she was with a caravan that was attacked by a dragon. They seem to assume it is a blue dragon, and they tell her to accompany them to Nightstone. As they approach something is wrong, no one is watching the walls, and the church bells are tolling non-stop. They use caution and move into the town under stealth and notice that giant boulders are like pox marks across the city. As the move from building to building they slowly take out random goblins here and there, all with a note of silence. Even when they kill the goblins ringing the bell, they continue to ring the bells in order to hide their movements. They set a careful oil trap for the Worgs, and have no problem bringing them down. They decide to go and check out the fort up on the ridge, and begin to move across the shattered bridge.

                We decided to end it here, but as you can see it was an eventful evening and I had a lot of fun. I hope you enjoyed reading about it. We play semi-monthly, so and update will be about two weeks away.



I went ahead and created a Facebook group for the blog, if you are interested the link is here.