Dungeons & Dragons - Priestess: Ancient World Divine Class

Today I'm going to check out a DMs Guild product by Jason Bradley Thompson, who does the walkthrough maps that I like so much. He made a new class for 5e - the Priestess. The class is not restricted to one gender, which I'll talk more about below.

You can buy this right here.

Disclosure: I was given a review copy of this product.

I am not a big numbers guy or a character-making guy. As a DM, I am primarily interested in cool ideas. So I was a little apprehensive about checking this out, but I flipped through it and saw that it is overloaded with great ideas.

Quality: This pdf is 22 pages long and extremely professional-looking. The layout is fantastic, the art is great and the material inside is very well thought out. They took the time to consider all possibilities with the concept and then hammered out the details.

I can tell you right off the bat that I'd make a Priestess character in a heartbeat.

The Idol

A priestess is connected to an "idol," a statue related to their deity. This book won me over completely just by showing that your character's idol can be the demon statue from the 1e AD&D PH cover. How awesome would that be? You could buy this mini and live life on the razor's edge.

A Priestess is proficient with no armor at all. Yikes.

Idol Progression: The priestess starts out with a tiny idol. As they gain levels, they need to get idols that are bigger in size. By 13th level, they need an idol that is Large.

If the idol of a priestess is lost or destroyed, they can't regain spells until they get another one! They have a special spell called "Repair Idol" which can solve this dilemma.

Boons:

Your idol can grant you boons, which you can save ("boon points," basically). Those boons can be spent to get special benefits. There is a limit to how many boons you can hold onto that increases as you level. Spending one boon might give you temporary hit points, while spending seven might let you fuse your consciousness with the idol and go on a rampage. You can still cast spells in this form! How awesome is that?

Aspects

Gaining boons depends on which type of idol you have. Here are some of them:

Bloodthirsty Aspect: You gain boons when you kill creatures within 5 feet of the idol. There are specific counts for how many creatures must die for you to gain a boon and everything.

Resplendent Aspect: You must offer money to the idol or buy food for other followers of your god. I love this idea. You could do a lot of fun in-game things during a big feast like that.

Mortifying Aspect: Egad. You can hurt yourself as a bonus action to automatically hit your opponent! If you subsequently gain any kind of healing during that battle, the idol is displeased. There is a big section on how to redeem yourself in the eyes of your idol.

Spells and Powers

As you gain levels, you gain special powers. My favorites:

• You can share boons with your party.
• Nonbelievers who touch your idol take damage!
• See through the eyes of the idol and cast spells through it.
• There are a couple of ways to bring your idol to life for a short time (up to 10 rounds, more or less). You have to save up your boons for it, so it's a pretty special thing when you finally unleash it.

Every few levels, you get to pick a power for your idol. There's a million of them! My favorites:

• Spend a boon to raise a zombie minion for ten minutes.
• Humanoids, giants and fey who come close have to make a save or be awed by the idol's beauty. They are charmed!
• The idol speaks. Sometimes the priestess controls what it says, other times the idol speaks on its own. I could do a million things with that.

New Spells: There are about 8 new spells in here, many of which deal with the idol. You can make it come to life and attack for a moment, which will be really epic once you hit 9th level and your idol is Huge. My favorite spells:

• Kiss of Passion: You kiss a willing creature and heal them. You're also immune to exhaustion for up to one minute. I'll add this to my Planescape campaign post-haste.
• A floating disk spell specifically tailored to transport some of the heavier idols around.

Observations

I think this is a really great class. It is very well conceived and presented. I don't really have any criticisms, but a few things stuck out to me.

"Priestess": There are some players who don't like playing characters of one gender or the other. I had a number of players in the past who wouldn't play a female character. I had others who only played females. I think that when people who don't want to play female characters see the name of this product, they might just pass it by.  

Sacrifices: The Bloodthirsty Aspect is awesome, but to regain spells during a long rest you need to sacrifice a number of creatures. Quite a few creatures! It suggests that livestock could be used as sacrifices. It seems like the whole idea of ritualistic sacrifices might cause problems with some parties. I could see quite a few of my players not wanting to team up with someone who makes sacrifices to their god all of the time.

Cheeseballs: The Mortifying Aspect Priestess regains spells by maintaining a state of ritual purity. There is a list of 10 restrictions which you must pick three of. Your character has to stick to those restrictions forever.

Some of the restrictions are really great: Don't drink, don't have sex, don't speak except to pray. But I can see some cheesy players taking these three:

• You can not consume spices.
• You can not cut your fingernails.
• You can not cut or groom your hair.

It's tricky to figure out restrictions that have a tangible effect on the character without hampering them too much. I think you need the right type of player for this aspect.

Overall

This thing is just three bucks and it is of professional caliber. It was meticulously crafted and very well done. I can imagine this adding a lot of fun moments to your campaign. If the Priestess sounds at all interesting to you, you should definitely check it out.

Dice, Camera, Action: Episode 23 - Curse of Strahd

Title: Van Richten's Wild Ride

• You can watch this episode here.
• I have a Dice, Camera, Action Episode Guide here.
• You can buy Curse of Strahd here.
• Check out the Dice, Camera, Action section on reddit.

The Party

(Anna) Evelyn - Human Paladin of Lathander
(Nathan) Paultin - Human Bard 
(ProJared) Diath - Human Rogue
(Holly) Strix - Tiefling Sorcerer

Last Time: The group is in the Amber Temple. Strix was killed by some vampire spawns. Chris confirmed on twitter that the spawns cannot turn her into a vampire.

Paultin went through a portal to the Amber Temple. He's down below where the vestiges are. He casts invisibility just as two creatures (vampire spawn?) clamber down the wall to get him.

Meanwhile, dead Strix is in mist. In the fog, she sees dark grey forms. She meets a little kid named Jesper who died of an illness. She thinks that the longer they stay here, the less real they will become.

They run into the crazy kid who tried to kill the group a while back. He has no feet. He is weird and creepy.

Diath is holding the corpse of Strix. Evelyn and Barmy the lich are nearby. Barmy tells the heroes that one of the vestiges can bring her back. Hee hee.

Paultin actually gets dropped by the vampire spawns. Oh boy. Wait, Diath and Evelyn hear the noise. Evelyn charges in. Paultin is invisible still, so they don't know he's there. Does invisibility go away when someone drops to 0? I think it is a concentration spell and since he's unconscious, he can't concentrate.

Evelyn trips over Paultin and lays on hands for 5 units of well-being (!). The group isn't sure if it's really Paultin or another simulacrum.

Paultin becomes visible. They hear someone below yelling "Back in the name of the Morninglord!" I think it is Van Richten. Chris is doing an Anthony Hopkins type voice very well. It's fitting, as Hopkins played Van Helsing in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Van Richten

Wow. Diath tells the vestige it can do what it will with him as long as Strix is brought back to life. Zurdun the Corpse Star (Curse of Strahd page 196) offers him the power to raise the dead.

Diath becomes an emaciated, ghoul-like thing. Blinding white light fills his eyes. He's been invested with ancient power. He can use the power once and then it is gone forever.

From page 196: "The beneficiary of this dark gift takes on a corpselike appearance and is easily mistaken for undead."

Diath will need the spell component to cast the resurrection spell. The spell component is a 1,000 gp diamond. He goes into the treasure area to look for a diamond.

Resurrection is on PH page 272. It looks like Strix will have a -4 to all rolls. It will improve by 1 with each long rest. It looks like Chris decided not to use that, which is good. Those penalties are a real bummer.

Van Richten talks with Evelyn. He reveals that he was disguised as Rictavio, the guy who interpreted Madame Eva's reading in Vallaki way back when. Evelyn asks about Dee and it sounds like we'll see her again soon. Good! Erika Ishii was my favorite.

Van Richten.. ohhhh poor Diath. Van Richten has a scroll of raise dead. Ohhh wow, that is really funny. Jared is hitting himself in the head with a book.

Van Richten uses the scroll of raise dead on Strix. Jared wanted to use his power but Chris kind of scrambled to have Van Richten take care of it. It seems like Chris wants Diath to have that spell in his pocket for future use.

The group goes up to the entrance. It was blocked by rubble, but something burrowed a tunnel. It was Van Richten! Apparently he had a creature imprisoned and let it free.I think he had a tiger in his wagon. What creature was this? A bulette? An umber hulk?

Hey, I just remembered. Van Richten killed Paultin's parents. I wonder if Paultin is going to do something to him.

Van Richten tells Strix she has the key to defeat Strahd. Is he referring to the Tome of Strahd?

The group piles into Rictavio's Wagon. He drives like a maniac. They go through Tsolenka Pass. Uh oh... here comes that winged creature that Strix heard but didn't see! It's a roc!

It scoops up the whole wagon. Awesome. Strix uses hellish rebuke to damage it. The roc drops the wagon right on the edge of the bridge and the wagon doors open. Oh no, Strix fails her save! She falls out and plummets into the chasm. She thinks she can assume gaseous form to save herself. She does.

Van Richten is prone on the ground near Paultin. Welp. Paultin has an opportunity to take a shot at the guy right here. He doesn't. A reader pointed out that Chris later said on twitter that they ran out of time. Apparently Paultin had something up his sleeve.

The carriage is teetering. The horse is tethered to it. Diath tries does a sweet maneuver to get out of the wagon. The roc is flying away. That's the end.

Timestamps


(57:34) Diath makes a dark pact.

Overall

Very good episode! I like how pretty much every session is eventful. None of them feel like "filler."

Jared is Good: I think that Diath is becoming a great character. He did whatever he had to do to help his friend. Jared was being very unselfish, which to me is the hallmark of a great player. I didn't realize how much Jared contributed to the game until I made that episode guide. When I dug around for my favorite moments of the show, I realized pretty much all of them were because of Jared.

The next show isn't until October 1st, and that will be the live Twitch Con show. Erika Ishii will be there. I have absolutely no idea what will happen. I guess they are going to go through chapter 11, which is one of my favorite areas in the whole adventure. It is very D&D. I think it is going to be epic. 

Planescape - The Castle at the Edge of Time

Last night we wrapped up the Tales from the Infinite Staircase adventure, and it went really well. While I heavily modified a lot of that book, there were a lot of fun and useful ideas in it.

When planning this "final boss" battle, I sat down and tried to organize my thoughts. In Planescape, there are three core philosophies:

• The Rule of Three: Everything comes in threes.
• Unity of Rings: Everything is circular. Often, you will end up back where you started.
• Center of All: There is a center of the multiverse and it might be right where you are.

Weirdly, in Planescape, there are NPCs with the same name as the three core philosophies. Two of them are given big entries in Uncaged: Faces of Sigil. Whether they are an embodiment of these concepts is sort of left up to the DM.

The group already met Rule of Three a few times. He's the son of Graz'zt, and he's trying to unite the demons and devils. Unity of Rings is a deva who goes around giving people advice. I'm not sure who Center of All is. I think I read a mention that it's a rilmani - one of the neutral creatures who live by the central spire in the outlands.

I decided to change it so that Center of All is The Nameless One from Planescape Torment. I'm about to give spoilers, so flee if you must...

The Nameless One keeps dying and getting reborn. He loses his memory every time this happens. Ravel Puzzlewell is in love with him and only he can answer her riddle: "What can change the nature of a man?"

In Torment, the actual answer of the riddle is whatever The Nameless One really thinks it is. She just wants to know his answer.

I decided I'd make it so that there is one "correct" answer to this riddle. I saw a poll on this site where people voted on the true answer to the riddle. The result is very interesting: regret.

That's going to be the "true" answer to this riddle in my campaign.

In Torment, some of the Nameless One's incarnations are evil and some are good. I decided that the one they encountered tonight was evil.

I had been thinking about the ultimate ending for this campaign. I liked the idea of one or both of the characters becoming the ruler of Sigil by being in charge of the most powerful faction (The Sensates, probably).

Now I am thinking that the group is actually going to inherit and embody the philosophical concepts.

• Bidam will become Rule of Three.
• Theran will become Unity of Rings.
• They will get to choose who becomes Center of All. Whatever NPC they like.

This will put them at odds with the current Rule of Three, Unity of Rings and Center of All. I am planning on having the group battle and defeat both Rule of Three and Unity of Rings during the Hellbound adventures.

The Nameless One will probably be dealt with later and I think I can do a lot of fun things with him. Ravel Puzzlewell is extremely powerful. The group will probably have to kill her, too.

The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Platinum-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Half-Dabus/Half-Elf Wizard
* NPCs: Nin the heresy devil, Pyranicus the baby abyssal dragon. 

The heroes own a cluster of buildings known as "Deadbook Square."

Last Time: The heroes killed an earth genie and were given estates in the Great Dismal Delve. Now they are ready to take on the entity known as The Iron Shadow, who is unmaking planes.

Rule of Three

The heroes found out that they'd lost their weird powers. They could no longer create portals or buildings. They couldn't Maze people or slice them up with their minds. Apparently, the Lady of Pain or whoever had granted them those powers had taken them away.

The group rested for the night. The next morning, Theran's book glowed. There were weird, new pages inside. The book explained the concepts of Rule of Three, Unity of Rings and Center of All.

A whole bunch of clues pointed them toward the NPCs of the same name. The group found Rule of Three at the Black Sail tavern. Bidam had stolen his magic earring back in Graz'zt's palace. When you say the word "gold," 33 gold appears in your hand. Rule of Three demanded it back.

Then he reluctantly handed them a book he'd been reading about the theoretical center of the planes.

The group found Unity of Rings at A'kin the Friendly Fiend's new shop. Unity of Rings stared a hole through Theran. Unity subconsciously sensed that Theran was poised to take his place. They are destined to have a huge battle. The group nabbed a scroll that had information about dreams.

The quest for Center of All led the group to Fell, the fallen dabus. He makes magic tattoos. He has slices of people's skin with tattoos on them that he hangs for display. One tattoo caught their eye - it was grey skin with the tattoo of the symbol of torment.

Fell hates the adventurers, but they were able to persuade him to hand over the tattoo to save the multiverse.

The Deep Ethereal

What this boiled down to was that the group needed to pull memories of the planes from the plane of dreams. Theran could take those memories and put them into "dream pearls," which could be placed in the exact center of a plane. This would allow the plane to "remember" its original form and undo the damage the Iron Shadow had done to it.

They needed Bidam's five ladies to carry the pearls. Each lady was connected to one of the damaged planes.

Once all that was figured out, Theran's book lit up and created a portal to the Deep Ethereal.

They went through and they brought a horde of NPCs with them: The 5 ladies, Nin the heresy devil and Pyranicus the baby abyssal dragon/son of Bidam.

Torment

The Deep Ethereal is full of fog (visibility: 30 feet) and has no gravity. The adventurers saw the Iron Shadow hovering above a giant stone symbol of torment. On the symbol were five doors.

The Iron Shadow had been sliced up by the slaads a few sessions back. They saw that her wounds were slowly healing.

Beyond the symbol was The Castle at the Edge of Time, a location from the Guide to the Ethereal Plane. I was thinking that the group would deal with the shadow first and then go to the castle, but they flipped it on me.

The group went into the castle and found Center of All beating up Feurina, the warder devil. Feurina was linked to the Iron Shadow, but had become friends with Bidam.

The group jumped in and we had a pretty epic battle. Center of All had lich stats. I had heard that liches were weak in 5e, but one glance at the spell list was beyond alarming. Here's two spells I used:

• Disintegrate: Did 72 points of damage. If it kills you, you are literally dust.
• Finger of Death: Did about 60 points. If it kills you, you are a zombie under the caster's command!

When preparing, I decided not to even give the lich Power Word: Kill. I figured that spell would wipe out my group.

Bidam took a ton of damage, but smartly used healing after the disintegrate. What was really crazy was that Feurina jumped in, made two attacks, and rolled a 20 on each attack!

Center of All had just one hit point left. Theran finished him off with a lightning bolt.

I had Center of All lying there, conscious, slowly turning to dust. I had planted clues that he had the answer to Ravel's riddle (she asked the heroes "What can change the nature of a man?" way back when they broke into her maze). They didn't pick up on the clue, though. They did see that the tattoo fit right on his shoulder and they put it on him.

The group found a pile of treasure. 10,000 gold worth of rubies and these:

• Staff of Power: (which has a million spells in it)
• Armor of Invulnerability: Take half damage from nonmagic attacks.

The group feels very weak to me, so I wanted to beef them up before we start the Hellbound adventures.

Repairing The Planes

Then the group dealt with the Iron Shadow. Basically, they had to open a door, go into each plane and place the dream pearl in the center of the plane (marked by the symbol of torment). They had three rounds to do each one, otherwise Bidam's lady would be unmade.

This ended up very chaotic, as the group frantically went from door to door. They were able to successfully save each plane:

Infinite Staircase: The shadow had wiped this place out. All that was left was a single platform. I put agents of Vecna there, as I am planning on running the Vecna adventures at the end of this campaign (I want to see if I can fix Die, Vecna, Die).

Long story. The Infinite Staircase in the books is linked to a forgotten realms goddess. I've decided that when it is remade, it will now be linked to Vecna, allowing his agents to spread all throughout the multiverse.

Bidam's lady was killed by The Eye, an agent of Vecna.

Elemental Plane of Earth: The center of this plane i actually located in the head of Grumbar, the Living Mountain, lord of earth elementals. Bidam was able to move a boulder and place the pearl while an earth elemental tried to beat him up.

Limbo: I decided that the center of this plane is located inside of Ssendam, Lord of the Insane. He's one of the slaad lords and I really like him.

I did this thing where the modrons were bringing their big clockwork planet from Mechanus into Limbo (in the 5e monster manual there is a mention that the modrons are trying to make Limbo lawful). Ssendam was fighting them off. Theran used mage hand to put the dream pearl inside of Sendam's goo.

Ssendam hit him with a pseudopod for 30 damage and Theran went down. Bidam's lady, Yulmanda, healed Bidam but was sucked into Ssendam and utterly destroyed. Theran escaped.

Barovia: I used a room from the Amber Temple in Curse of Strahd. The center of the plane is in the mural down in the room with the vestige of Tenebrous. Tenebrous, of course, was defeated by these heroes at the end of the Dead Gods adventure.

There were three flameskulls hovering between Bidam and the symbol, so he hilariously side-rolled under them.

The vestige in the block of amber pulsed and offered Bidam great power. Bidam said "OK" and touched it..

In the Curse of Strahd book, there are a lot of qualifications to receive this dark gift. If you qualify, Tenebrous gives you the ability to make a soul phylactery and a potion that can turn you into a lich. You gain a flaw: You are obsessed with treasure. Also, once you become a lich, your character is an evil NPC under the DM's control.

I changed it. I'll make it so that if Bidam wants to become a lich, he can, but he's going to need to fight off the evil influence of Tenebrous. Maybe I'll adapt the 2nd edition "Dark Powers" checks or something.

George did point out to Jessie that if Bidam becomes undead, he's going to have a hard time scoring with the ladies.

Dessakrul

Astral Plane: Both heroes converged here. This door opened to an area deep inside Tu'Narath, the city of the githyanki (as detailed in the Chris Perkins adventure "The Lich Queen's Beloved" from Dungeon Magazine 100).

I set up a thing where there's a pit that the two-headed red dragon is sleeping in. Next to it is a room that is an "emotion node." This is where the center of the plane is. When you go into the emotion node, you have to make a saving throw or be overcome with sorrow (and wake up the dragon).

Theran made Bidam invisible, and Bidam rolled really high the whole way through! Bidam got in and out without a hitch. They never found out what was in the pit.

Victory

The group had fixed all of the damage that the Iron Shadow had caused. The Iron Shadow proceeded to flake and fall apart. In a moment, all that was left of her was a little ball of light slowly floating down to the symbol of torment.

I decided to break a rule for this. I really don't like it when DMs "steal" ideas from players. But for this, I decided that whatever the players believed would happen with this ball of light would be true.

They were certain it was going to cause an explosion! So.. the whole symbol broke apart and became a vortex of swirling stone.

The iron tome became a portal back to Sigil. The heroes realized that Nin, Pyranicus and Feurina were all in the castle and would have to fly through the vortex to get to the portal.

All three of them were killed! I rolled real low for them.

The two devils appeared back in hell. Pyranicus might be dead. I need to read up on what happens to demons when slain outside of the Abyss. That will be really sad.. he's a baby dragon. I'll figure something out.

The group were back in Sigil! They had saved a number of planes and now were poised for some time to relax and enjoy Sigil. The next few sessions will be dealing with:

• Their festhall
• Raja Khan, their rakshasa enemy
• The return of Shemeshka the Marauder, their arcanaloth enemy
• Their estates in The Great Dismal Delve

Then we'll start the blood war adventures, which should be awesome.

Adventures in Eberron - The Mark of Prophecy

I played in my friend's Eberron game yesterday. I am running an 8th level sorcerer who talks like Sean Connery (badly).

We had finally assembled the deck of many things. The DM was expecting us to draw from it, but nobody wanted to! I had originally planned on drawing 3 cards, but once my character died and was raised, I got scared. I am much more cautious now.

Then, that beanstalk we made a few sessions collapsed. We had forgot - the flying island above it was losing its magic. The island fell on the graveyard. It was sort of a disaster.

We did have a mission with these cards. We had to put each card in the hand of a different statue i this weird underground place.

Potion Smugglers

First, we wanted to get some healing potions. We went to House Jarasco - they're the clan that specializes in healing. It turned out that healing potions had been made illegal.

Because of the collapsing island, the ruler of Sharn decided that adventurers in the city needed to be dealt with. So the thinking is that without healing, adventurers will either quit or die off.

The ruler of Sharn right now is this princess who we are very suspicious of. She is apparently linked to an entity known as the Lady of Plagues.

We immediately started planning a black market potion-selling scheme through the bar we will be opening soon. I love the idea of us going to other cities and stealing healing potions, then coming back to Sharn and selling them,

We hit the library and did some research. We know there are some rakshasas involved in this whole story somehow. In real life, I know that's bad. They are immune to spells level 6 and lower! But I don't know if my character knows that or not.

In my games, I let players use any knowledge they have. To me, it's a benefit you earn by playing the game a lot. We can always make up a reason why your character knows it.

We eventually learned all about rakshasas,

The Draconic Prophecy

Then we went down below and placed the cards. Glowing images appeared in the room. They showed spiders crawling over all of Eberron, and a mark of prophecy. Marks of Prophecy are some kind of Eberron thing that I know nothing about.

I think they have to do with the draconic prophecy, which is an Eberron thing I know nothing about. It might have something to do with the dragonmarks, which are marks that some people are born with that gives them special powers.

We also saw a vision of these three stones banishing a warforged to some other realm. Three people were holding the stones - our characters from the previous 4e campaign.

Eventually, we learned that each of those stones were located in planes we could access in my well of worlds. Once you have all three stones, you can access a new plane.

While we gawked at the glowing images, a portal opened up and this giant spider came out. It really messed us up with acid webs, but we eventually defeated it.

I was kind of expecting some sort of massive explosion now that we have assembled the deck, but from what I can tell we are now going to be trying to stop some evil scheme involving Lolth and Orcus.

We did a bunch of stuff back up in Sharn as we tried to figure out all of the clues in the vision we had down below. This all lead us to the apartments of two people who were are pretty sure are the rakshasas. We needed to break in to their apartments.

We are the worst at breaking in. One locked door completely shuts us down. That said, we did pretty well this time. Two of us crept in, invisible. I used dimension door to get us into an apartment. We lowered a rope out of the window down to the fighter and he climbed up.

A thorough exploration turned up almost nothing, except for a cauldron that apparently was a one-way portal. We eventually jumped in and we appeared in a dungeon.

As we explored, we saw a magic elevator that was powered by a couple of items. We needed that elevator to go up. Without it, we were stuck down here. It took a lot of trial and error to figure it out.

We thoroughly searched this whole level. We got attacked by a phase spider and killed it. We found an altar to Orcus guarded by a monster I'd never seen before - a Mohrg.

We also fought some intestine-snakes with fangs. They paralyzed me and man I could not make my save.

Eventually we found the two items we needed:

• An amulet in a closet full of cursed items.
• A glass eye floating in a gelatinous cube.

I was able to use mage hand to extract the eye from the cube.

We used the items and activated the elevator. That's where we stopped!

Overall

It was a good session. They're all good! We players all work together and there's no dysfunction in the group dynamic.

Metagaming: The thing I've been thinking a lot about in this campaign is metagaming. In the beginning of this campaign, I never worried about anything because I assumed the DM would scale everything to our level. The other players don't think like that. They assess every situation and if it sounds too dangerous, they don't want to do it.

Now I try to think like that, too. I'm getting better at it. I defer to them as often as possible. It's sort of like they are teaching me how to be a player.

In addition to this campaign, the DM runs a weekly 4th edition game. I love hearing about other people's campaigns, so I've heard a lot about it. When he tells me stories, all that 4e stuff comes back to me. I loved 4e, but wow, I do not want to play it again.

Dungeons & Dragons - Storm King's Thunder Review

Today I am going to try to write a review of Storm King's Thunder, a D&D adventure for characters level 1-11.

Disclosure: I was sent review copy of this adventure.

Lord Drylund, one of my favorite pieces of art

We're going to go over the good stuff, then the bad stuff, and then I'll give my overall thoughts. Real quick: Storm King's Thunder is pretty good and worth getting if you have time to sort through it.

The Good

More Improvement

One of my big complaints about previous adventures was that there was no adventure summary. When you don't have a summary, it makes preparing the adventure very tedious. You have to go through the whole book to figure out what the overall story is.

In this adventure, not only is there a summary, there is also a flowchart! That is greatly appreciated and very helpful.

There is also a large but concise outline of all of the major NPCs on pages 5-6. I do appreciate that, but honestly I didn't actually refer to it at all when I prepared this thing. I am trying to think of how it could be better utilized. Maybe a quick line of essential stats, including AC, HP, attack bonus and damage?

It's also a bit odd because they don't put page numbers in, but we'll get to that below.

It might have helped to list enemies on one page and allies on the other. In my guide, I made a list of every member of every faction in the book and it was very useful when I laid out my plan for the adventure.

I think the NPC list is good, but it needs some refinement.

Big Art

In Curse of Strahd, we got some full page art. In this adventure, we actually get double page spreads! That's pretty great. I really like the fire giant spread on pages 178-179.

The only problem here is that the binding eats up some of the central details. You really can't make out the huge demon idol tribute/forge in the background, and to me that is the coolest part about that painting.

I also don't like how they put a little bit of text over the art describing what it is. I'd prefer if there was a table that listed all of that information on the table of contents.

But I appreciate that this was done. To me, D&D art is very important and it helps a DM bring the adventure to life. Those big pieces can be shown to the group right at the table and the players will have no trouble making out the details.

I'd love it if they were able to make a little booklet with art to show the players like they did in the Hellbound boxed set.

Use of Factions

In the previous adventures, the factions were barely used. This made running these games in the Adventurers League a bit awkward. Players would sit down, make a character and pick out a faction... then the faction was barely mentioned at all. Sometimes it felt like factions were pointless.

In this, the factions are heavily involved, particularly the Harpers and the Zhentarim. I really like the Harper tower and the faction-connected ships that might see use in chapter 11.

Strange Bedfellows

I love that the heroes can team up with villains to battle the giants. Being an ally of a chromatic dragon like Klauth opens up so many different, fun possibilities.

I've always found that one key to running an interesting game is to give your bad guys some good qualities. That extra dimension opens a lot of doors and makes the NPC stick out in the group's mind.

Klauth goes out of his way to help the adventurers in this. I think that is really cool. Rubbing elbows with the cult of the dragon seems like it could lead to all sorts of wackiness.

Integrating the Lore

By far, the thing I like most about this adventure is that they took the time to use old material and build on it. I'm not a Realms guy so I am sure I missed a billion references, but you can just look at the list of products on the credits page and see that this adventure uses material from a wide range of old products, even stuff from Dungeon Magazine!

I also think it is great that they refer to other 5e products. Blagothkus from Tyranny is in this. Harshnag actually made a little cameo in Rise of Tiamat. The air cult from Princes shows up here early on. You can go to locations from every other adventure except Curse of Strahd. The Gauntlgrym information in Out of the Abyss is extremely useful if you use that drow scenario on page 85.

Easter Eggs: I used to be a huge fan of The Simpsons, and one of the things they went out of their way to do was something they called "rewarding you for paying attention." There were a million secret jokes in the background on the show. If you paused certain episodes at the right time, you could catch all sorts of things.

The more they could do of that in these adventures, the better.

Continuity: I love it when we are reassured that the old stuff "counts." I can't imagine how they could possibly integrate material from hundreds of old products, but it seems like that is what they did. I would imagine that Realms fans would absolutely love this, but I really haven't heard much talk about it online.

They even used stuff from the novels! I have always been a little fuzzy on what books "count." For example, did the events of the Rod of Seven Parts novel actually happen in official D&D continuity?

I think they should count whatever they can. I know a lot of people way back when that were very disgruntled when they would find out that the Star Wars books that they loved didn't actually happen in the movie continuity. It feels like making the effort to include all of that stuff is just going to build excitement and interest in future products.

In particular, I hope the people on the Candlekeep forums check this out. I would love to hear their thoughts on this adventure and how it relates to other Realms adventures and books.

Ahead of the Curve

Here's a sentence you will see a lot of in this book: "...good-aligned males and females of various ethnicities on riding horses." They go way out of their way to point this out repeatedly. I feel like D&D is way ahead of other forms of entertainment in some ways.

Milestones

In this adventure, it is suggested that you don't track XP and just level your characters at certain points in the story. I like that because I think that most groups stop tracking XP as they play and switch over to this method, anyway.

That said, it does make me sad to think that XP itself would ever go away or become irrelevant. Maybe in the future, XP is something that should be used solely to calculate encounter difficulty.

I do think there is a lot of fun to be had simply wandering around and killing monsters for XP. It sort of feels like that kind of game deserves its own separate adventure. In fact, that is what a "sandbox" is, to me.

Design

I love the quality of the paper. Some of the other books have paper that is a little "smudgy." I actually really liked the paper in the Tyranny books, but it did make the art come out a little dark. I would say this paper is pretty much perfect.

I absolutely love the page design. I'm talking about the white background with the blue/grey clouds and runes. It looks really cool and is much better than the "page rips" in the Player's Handbook. To me, this is by far the nicest-looking book in 5e so far. Because the background is white, it is less intrusive but it still has cool little designs that make the book stand out from the others.

The Maps

I think we'd all be happy if it was all Schley all the time, but the maps in here are really good. There are some really nice burial mound maps and I love the maps of the giant lairs, especially the ones that include an artistic rendition of the place.

Future Stories

We keep getting told that there are clues to future storylines in these books. In this one, we are outright told that Artus Cimber and his ring of winter are somehow involved in a future adventure.

If you look back to Hoard of the Dragon Queen, you will see a few sentences about how Blagothkus is trying to rally the lethargic giants and shake things up. This adventure came out about two years ago! They were planting seeds for this from the very beginning. I think that is really great.

I have also noticed that we are getting lots of mentions of devil-worshipers. In Curse of Strahd, there were the Wachters in Vallaki. In this, there is Othovir's family (page 56). I seem to remember something about a tiefling and her kid worshiping Asmodeus too, but I can't remember where it was from. It might have been an online game that Chris Perkins ran.

I enjoy trying to find these clues and I appreciate the effort put into it.

Final Battle

I really like chapter 12. I like the lair, the sinkholes, the gargoyles, the trebuchets, everything. Well, except the yuan-ti. I don't really get that. I kind of assume this is some stuff that will link to a future adventure..? The entity in the hole?

It just feels like a really epic encounter. One big, sprawling, chaotic assault. I think every dragon fight should be like this - fully developed and spotlighted with a lot of thought given to the various trappings.

The Bad

Before we jump in, I just want to point out that I think this adventure is probably the second-best one so far. I have a lot of issues with things in this book, but in general I'd say that if you have a little time to sort through this and pull out the stuff you like, it is worth buying.

Commitment to the Sandbox

Apparently, most people like the sandbox approach, where the adventures are not linear, but rather a collection of things for you to assemble however you like.

I don't like that, and I feel like a lot of other people don't like it either. Maybe I'm wrong.

It takes so much time to go through these giant books and figure out what to use, where everything is, what stats I need. It's a major chore and a little baffling considering all of the talk that people just don't have a lot of time to prepare (or even play in a weekly game!).

I can accept that this approach is just how they're going to do things. If it is working, then they should keep doing it.

But for me, this is definitely the adventure that gave me the urge to start using and converting Pathfinder adventure paths to 5e rules. I love how Paizo makes their stuff. They have it down to a science. They give you maps, sourcebooks and minis that all are designed specifically for their path.

Other Old Gripes

They are also committed to not giving us page numbers. That approach makes that NPC list on pages 5-6 kind of useless. It takes up a lot of column space when instead of saying "Page 128" you have to say: "Chapter 4 ("Eye of the All-Father," area 11)."

I realized something when I was reading this. My theory as to why they don't use page numbers is that if they add errata to a future printing, the page number references won't need to be changed.

If they do someday print updated versions of any of these books and the page numbers change, I will have to go through every one of these guides and change all the page numbers. I am weeping already.

Finding Monsters is a Pain: I can just imagine all of the DMs who are going to want to shoot themselves when they try to find the axebeak statblock. Same with awakened trees and shrubs. They're not even in the Monster Manual table of contents.

They Made Five Dungeons and Want Us to Use One

What is the deal with this? In chapter 2, there are three fully fleshed out scenarios. Giants attack the settlements. We are meant to use just one. What a tremendous waste of space!

I know you can still use the other ones, but now you're wondering how to work it in, if it will cause the group to level too quickly, all that stuff.

Worse, if you run this in a session and you let your group choose which of the three cities to go to, it is entirely possible you will need to have read and retained all three giant, complex areas each with their own batch of NPCs for the group to run. But you're only going to run one of them.

That's asking an awful lot of a DM who, in theory, bought this book so they wouldn't have to do a lot of preparation. It really feels like it is actually more work to use a published adventure than it is to just sit down and make something up.

Giant Lairs: Same thing with the Oracle in Chapter 4. As written, the group is probably going to go to just one of five fully-made giant lairs. One out of five! Again, what a waste.

I have read some talk of "replayability." How many people run these adventures more than once? Does anybody run the same adventure for the same group of players twice? I don't see the value in this.

One of the big problems of the early adventures is that they took too long to finish. By making an adventure that is, I guess, meant to be replayed, you are once again causing groups to end up spending a year or more on one adventure, meaning they won't need to buy the next one.

Maybe the thinking is that with all of these people running games on streams, that each campaign will be vastly different and worth watching. But from what I have seen in life, even extremely linear adventures come off completely different from one group to the next just due to the DM's style and the proclivities of the players. You don't need to go to these extremes to hand out a varied play experience.

Chapter 3

What the heck is this? I mentioned in my guide that this chapter is 46 pages long and details 164 locations. To me, this material belonged in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide rather than in an adventure where space is at a premium.

I do really like that they compiled all the lore. I love doing that kind of thing in this blog, and what they did here is a sort of mammoth achievement. It feels like this could be kept and used as a basis going forward. It could be updated when each adventure comes out to act as a really useful resource for DMs.

I can't tell you how much I love that they developed the story of Daggerford (from Scourge of the Sword Coast). D&D Next "counted!" I really do like Daggerford. I feel like I missed something, though. Where did the Duke go? What about his magic sword?

That said, this chapter was absolute torture for me to read. I had to go through each entry to see which areas I would actually want to use. Out of 164 places, I liked about 10 of them.

The worst part here is that the entries are so vague that they're almost useless.

Here's an example. In Port Llast on page 104, the place is in heavy fog and there are 20 frost giants destroying the town. The group can use the fog as cover and kill giants "one or two at a time."

That could (and should, IMO) be an entire 30 page adventure on its own, but we get half a page on it. It is completely up to you to unpack and design it. You need to come up with encounters, allies, events, stats, and contingency plans. When do the giants run away? What are the chances that other giants notice a giant being assaulted? How do we keep 10-20 giant fights from being boring?

There's good material in here, but they are asking a lot of you. Especially new DMs. It feels like every single adventure they put out has these giant roadblocks that are going to hamper or ruin a new DM's first campaign.

Underdeveloped Encounters

In general, the 5e approach to published encounters is broad. We get a few sentences and then the DM does the rest. I don't like that. I want details. I want terrain. I want cool moments, special flavor text, awesome twists. If I was able to always come up with a mind-blowing encounter, I wouldn't be buying this book.

That's really the thing that struck me the most when I read this. There aren't many "holy crap!" moments. There aren't any encounters that I got excited about. Usually in an adventure, there's at least two things that really blow your mind, something really different and fun.

Like having to dive into a monster's gullet to have an encounter with something else that was swallowed. Or a huge major NPC showing up out of the blue in the middle of an encounter. Or some kind of disaster that throws everybody for loop (like, say, getting sucked into a whirlpool and plopping out on the isle of dread or something.

I'd really love for someone to make a really well thought-out, developed chase scene. I don't think I've ever seen one that didn't require some pretty major tweaking in a published adventure.

Too Fiddly: In general, there are a lot of moving parts to everything in these adventures. As a DM, you are already multitasking. Keeping all of these movements and "if this, then this.." stuff in your head is impossible. The "alert" sections in each giant lair, to me, are just too complex. I think I would have liked it if they just said that in the case of an alert, the giant lord does this and a patrol of 5 giants goes to investigate the problem.

I just don't see being able to eyeball those alert charts while I'm running the game and it is too much information to keep straight without extensive pre-game memorization.

Typos

I didn't expect this. Early on in the book, there's about three very noticeable typos, including what looks like a few omitted words. I'm not sure how much I care about this.

I've noticed that typos are more common now than they used to be in the old days of the newspaper. I think I see typos every single day on major websites. Because most things are read once and then never looked at again, does a typo really matter?

In a book of this size, does anybody care about three typos? I think that a typo here and there doesn't really matter in the big picture. If there was an ongoing issue, I guess it would feel like the book is of a lesser quality.

Honestly though, I kind of wonder how many people actually read through these entire books. If I wasn't writing this blog, I think I would have skimmed vast swaths of this adventure.

Overall

If I were to rank this, I'd say that Storm King's Thunder is the second-best adventure for 5e yet. Curse of Strahd was quite a bit better, in my opinion. Curse of Strahd was extremely popular and probably a classic. It's almost unfair to follow it up with a return to the realms in an adventure with monsters that are kind of cool, but have been used a lot before.

There is plenty of stuff worth pulling out of this. I would use a streamlined version of most of the giant lairs. I really do love the idea of defending a city from a giant attack.

Rune Magic Items: The rune items are pretty cool, but I feel like there's something missing from them. They're a little confusing, too. I don't really understand the whole "transfer" thing.

Stone Giants: I like how effort is put into making stone giants cool, but when you have to choose one or two dungeons, I just don't see many people picking Deadstone Cleft. It's a very cool place, but if it's a choice between that and fire giants, I feel like the fire giants are going to win every time. Because they're fire giants!

Other Types of Giants: I wish that instead of using up pages to provide a bunch of dungeons that you choose one of, they used that space to include other types of giants, like:

• Death Giants: I love the ones with soul gems flying around them. 
• Astral Giants: From Revenge of the Giants. They have really cool minis and are just interesting to me.
• Eldritch Giants: You could do a lot of fun stuff with them.

Sticking to just the traditional types makes this adventure feel a little stale. I think this story might have been much cooler if some of the newer giant types tried to make their way up the hierarchy in the ordning. This was the perfect story to do that in!

In fact, I think I wouldn't have even used stone giants and hill giants in this. Not that they're bad. I like both of their dungeons. I just think this is too similar to the endless reiterations of Against the Giants over recent years.

All in all, this adventure is quite like the others. If you have the time to dig through it, organize it and pull out all of the stuff you like, it's definitely worth buying.

Dungeons & Dragons - How to Run Storm King's Thunder

If you bought Storm King's Thunder (you can buy it right here) and you are having a hard time figuring out how to run it, this one's for you. I am going to do my best to explain how to prepare and run this adventure.

New DMs: If you are new to being a dungeon master, it is important to remember that you can do whatever you want with this book. The authors are expecting you to change things to suit your style. There is no "wrong" way to run this.

Also, if you're new, don't get stressed out over running this thing. Being a DM is hard and nobody is expecting you to be the greatest DM in the world. The important thing is to always keep things "fun" and to try your best to be fair. If you have time, watch some Dice, Camera, Action to see how Chris Perkins runs his games. He wrote this adventure.

If the group comes up with a clever plan, let them be clever! It's important to find the right "difficulty setting" for your game. You'll probably do a lot of tweaking. That's what we do behind the DM screen, we fiddle with knobs.

The best thing of all about this adventure is that chapter one is pretty straight forward. All you have to do is read it and take some notes, then let your group go nuts. That chapter alone should take you a few sessions and will give you time to find your footing.

I made a guide to this adventure. You can get a pdf of it on the DMs Guild site here:

The Structure

I am going to give you my approach to how I would run this adventure. My way isn't "right" or "better" than anyone else. I am doing this so you can see how you can take this adventure apart and then put it back together to form the adventure you want.

Let's do a quick, basic outline.

1. Nightstone: The group goes through chapter 1. That's very straightforward. The villagers need help.

2. Pick One of Three Locations: Chapter 2 is trickier. The group will have to pick a hook. If there is one place you want to run, just give the group that one hook. For example, I like Bryn Shander. So I would have the group be asked to go tell Markham his sister is dead.

3. Zephyros: Now we fly in the cloud castle to Bryn Shander.

4. Bryn Shander: In Bryn Shander, we go through the frost giant attack.

5. Sort Out Chapter 3: Then we get to the most complicated part of planning this thing out. Chapter 3 is wide open. Ultimately, the group is meant to meet Harshnag (page 118). How and when that happens is completely up to you! Remember, if you like another of the chapter 2 locations, there's nothing stopping you from using it now.

6A. Winging It: If you are a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of DM, then just let the group go where they want and when it feels like it is time, plop in Harshnag.

6B. Planning: If you are like me and you like to prepare, I suggest that you go through chapter 3 and find all the things that you want to use. Then look at the map on pages 74-75 and see where all these places are in relation to each other. Then just connect the dots - make a reason for the group to go from one place to the next. I have already broken down this chapter into quick little blurbs in my Guide to Storm King's Thunder.

7. The Oracle: Once the group meets Harshnag, then they are off to the Eye (page 121). The group will be asked to go to all those burial mounds in chapter 3. I don't like those, so in my version I changed it. Some people online have said they didn't like the idea of desecrating holy sites, so consider your group before you run this as written.

8. Iymrith: The group gets the artifacts and returns to the oracle. They learn that they need a conch. On the way out, Iymrith attacks and Harshnag makes a heroic sacrifice.

9. Find the Conch: In the book, every giant lord has a conch. The heroes will need to go steal a conch from a giant lord. I liked a lot of these areas, so in my version I changed things a little so I can use Svardborg, Ironslag and the Cloud Giant castle in my campaign.

10. Use the Conch: It takes the group to Maelstrom (page 201). There, the heroes hopefully expose Iymrith and get a clue to Hekaton's whereabouts.

11. King Hekaton: The group tracks down Hekaton and saves him!

12. Final Battle: The adventurers team up with Hekaton to take down Iymrith. As written, there's a bunch of NPC giants with the group. That seems a little unwieldy, so think about if you really want to take these NPCs along.

Foreshadowing

Once that is done, I suggest that you go back through your neat little outline and place clues and ideas. A lot of stuff in this adventure feels kind of out of the blue. I think it's a good idea to let the characters hear about some of these things in advance so it doesn't feel so random. Here's some topics to consider foreshadowing:

• The Golden Goose Token: I think it would be fun to have the group gamble on The Grand Dame (page 216) during chapter 3. You can watch the group light up when Serissa shows them the token in chapter 10.
• Iymrith: I think the group should hear legends of Iymrith before they meet her so it's more awe-inspiring and epic when they face her. 
• The Wyrmskull Throne: Serissa gets paralyzed when the Korolnor Scepter is taken from her (pages 209-210). This might feel very bizarre and random to the group. I suggest having the group learn about the Wyrmskull Throne and how it interacts with the scepter beforehand.
• Slarkrethel and the Cult: If you can, let the group hear tales of the legendary kraken and maybe hear word of the cult that worships Slarkrethel. This is tricky because this organization is kind of a surprise villain and you don't want to show your hand. I think if you present this detail among a sea of other details, it won't stick out. So I'd say you should present legends and rumors of two other shadowy organizations in prior sessions first to get the group used to this sort of presentation. That way, your inclusion of a mention of the Kraken Society won't stick out.
• Felgolos: If you are going to use the Cloud Giant castle, you might want to have the group meet Felgolos early on so they'll care when they find out he is being tortured.
• Harshnag and the Gray Hands: Harshnag was a member of the Gray Hands, now known today as Force Grey. The group should hear about their exploits, so when they meet Harshnag they know who he is.

Remember that your plans are not set in stone. Who knows what weird choices the group will make? Just adjust your outline as you go and indulge the players as much as you can.

Leveling

Once you start rearranging things, you might get worried about when to level your group. Chapter 3 is so huge that the adventurers could gain quite a few levels. I don't think you need to worry about the group getting too powerful. The giants are really tough. Worst case, just add in another giant to each encounter.

As an example, fighting those 4 ambassadors in Maelstrom seems like a tough encounter for a group of almost any level.

I don't think you need to be concerned if your group ends up at 13th level or whatever.

Deluxe Outline

This would be my plan for the campaign going in. As we played, it would probably change once I saw what interested the players and which NPCs were popular.

What you want to do here is make a skeleton outline like the one above, then go back through it and place in various elements you want to include in your game.

After some thought, here are things I want to make sure I do in this campaign:

• I want to do some quick, stylized intros right off the bat to introduce the heroes and give them some background links to various things that are important to this adventure.
• I want to use the white dragon Arveiaturace, as I think she is cool.
• I want to use Felgolos the bronze dragon (he ends up getting caught and tortured by the cloud giant in chapter 8).
• I want to build up the legend of Iymrith so the final battle will feel big.
• I want to make sure Harshnag is foreshadowed a bit so it feels really cool that he is with the group for a stretch.
• I assume at least one player will want a winged cat, so I'll plan accordingly.
• We should think about encounters with giants that are too powerful for the heroes.

Before We Start: I'd ask the players to go through the magic item charts in the DMG and pick three items that they want from each chart and write them all down. This adventure is LOADED with rolls on the charts and I want to make sure the group gets items they are excited about and can use.

Pet: See if anyone wants a tressym (winged cat) familiar.

Giant Items: Cook up some more mundane items like those on the chart on page 18. When you roll on this chart a billion times, you're bound to end up repeating dull results quite a bit.

Prologue

When we first sit down to play, I'd run each player through a very quick scenario. It wouldn't be fully rolled out. There would probably be one roll or choice. Each of these should take just two minutes. We want to get it done as fast as possible so the group is excited rather than bored.

King of the Giants: When one character was a kid, let's say they were in a boat, fishing out in the water on the Sword Coast. Suddenly, a giant rises from the depths and explodes through the kid's little boat. Have them make a Dex check. Fail: Unconscious. Succeed: Cool maneuver.

The giants are Queen Neri and Princess Serissa. Neri likes the small folk and wanted to show the Princess around a bit. Crashing through the little boat was an accident.

The giants apologize and patch up the hero. Serissa takes a liking to the character and asks them to come back to this beach in a week. For the rest of the summer, The character hangs out with the giants. The character can tell them about small folk customs. The giants will teach the character the giant language.

As summer is winding down, one of their meetings is interrupted by King Hekaton. The King is appalled that his wife and kid are talking to a small one. He takes them back to Maelstrom and they never return.

The Gray Hands: So from what I can tell, Harshnag the Frost Giant was a member of an adventuring group called The Gray Hands. This scenario might be good for an elf, because I'm not sure how long ago the Gray Hands were around. It looks like it was around 100 years ago.

The Grey Hands were going to make an expedition into Undermountain, and they needed a torchbearer. That's our hero.

The torchbearer has to go first in the dungeon. The hero will need to make a perception check. Fail: Fall in a pit trap. Succeed: Dodge it and earn the respect of the Gray Hands. Either way, a bunch of cultists and a mindflayer pop out of a side door and ambush the group. The hero may not realize this, but they are members of the Kraken Society up to some nefarious scheme.

Harshnag protects the hero from cultists. There's a moment where the hero will need to stop a cultist from throwing a dagger in Harshnag's eye. If the hero fails, Harshnag loses an eye. If the hero succeeds, he doesn't. Either way, Harshnag doesn't hold a grudge.

The Gray Hands end up being sent on another mission and the hero never gets to work with them again.

Hand of Stone: I want the group linked to the Harpers if possible because I most definitely want to use Moongleam Tower in chapter 4 and on.  I'd ask a player if they want to have a hand made of stone, permanently balled into a fist. It can do damage like a mace or something.

Not too long ago, the hero tagged along with a harper on an adventure. It was either Beldora or Thwip Ironbottom (page 40). They ended up stumbling right into Iymrith's lair through a sinkhole and were captured by her gargoyles. Now, the pair are shackled to a wall. They watch in horror as the dragon uses her magic to turn an orc into a gargoyle.

Iymrith plays a cruel prank on the hero. She makes the hero pick who's next - the hero or the harper NPC. Either way, Iymrith intends on doing the hero next. She starts the process. The hero's hand turns to stone - but then they are interrupted. More Harpers burst in to the room - Zaldar Floshin and Arrow (page 220), Daviana Yalrannis (page 82) and Artus Cimber (page 42).

Show off all the crazy crap that the ring of winter can do. Go out of your way to have Artus utter some memorable turn of phrase, maybe a Forgotten Realms swear like "Dark and Empty" or "Blood of the Lady!" That's for chapter 2 - we're going to use that as a clue for the heroes to discover the son of Artus Cimber. Give the hero a chance to snatch an item or get a shot in on Iymrith. Something to give Iymrith cause to despise the hero.

The Mad Dragon: I love Arveiaturace and I want to use her in this. The hero is up in the frozen north, hunting. The adventurer comes to a clearing and sees a white dragon with the corpse of a wizard sitting on a saddle on her back.

The white dragon is weeping and talking aloud to her master. Her master's ring fell off into the snow and she can't find it. Play up how sad and pathetic she is. The hero spots it nearby in the snow - the wizard's whole rotten hand fell off! The ring is on the hand.

The hero has a choice: Help Arveiaturace find the ring, steal the ring, or just run away. If the hero helps her, she is overjoyed and tells the hero that her master is pleased. Maybe she gives the hero a gift, like a magic item or something. If the adventurer doesn't help, she will notice the hero and chase them off. She will never find the hand and when the group encounters her in the adventure, the wizard corpse is still missing the hand.

If possible, have the character notice a gleam in the eye of the corpse. We're going to reveal that Arveiaturace has some kind of magical link to this corpse. Maybe it really does talk to her in some way.

Slave: Our hero is a slave of the yakfolk. The hero and the moon elf princess Halani Meliamne (page 173) are cleaning clay vessels. Halani drops and breaks one accidentally. One of Kartha-Keya's wives, Nahala, is enraged. The hero knows a whipping - or worse - is about to take place. Nahala asks who did this. The hero has a chance to take the beating for her, a noble act that Halani will never forget.

Whatever the hero's choice, the beating doesn't take place. A fire giant shows up and says that Cinderhild (page 182 - she's the spoiled Princess) wants the hero down in Ironslag.

The adventurer is brought to her. She dismisses her hobgoblin handmaidens. She wants to hear everything that the adventurer knows about the outside world. She gets excited, and decides that both of them are going to sneak out through the adamantine doors on page 183. Have her use the pass phrase.. if the player thinks to make a note of it, good for them!

The hero and Cinderhild creep out but it is noticed quickly that she is missing. The duke releases his hell hounds to track her down. We can do a thing from The Fugitive where the hero can jump into a waterfall to escape the hounds and win their freedom. Make a Dex check: Fail: The hero nearly drowns and from now on suffers from a fear of water (which they will have to overcome in Chapter 10 and 11!) Success: Stuck the landing!

NightStone

Let's have it where the heroes don't know each other. The heroes are each coming to Nightstone for a different reason, drawing from their background and the list of hooks on page 19. Some of them are coming through the woods, others are on the trail. All of them hear a cry.

Kella Darkhope (page 25) is in the guise of a monk, being attacked by four goblins. Her arm is singed very badly from the lightning breath weapon of Felgolos. In my version of the adventure, she was heading to Nightstone in a Zhentarim caravan. That caravan was annihilated by Felgolos the bronze dragon. She was the only survivor. She's been hiding here waiting for help to arrive. She decided to creep out into the woods to find some berries but it turns out the woods are just as dangerous as the village.

This battle isn't meant to be dangerous, it's just a chance for the players to show off what their characters can do and to meet each other.

From here we can go through the whole Nightstone adventure. Once it is done, but before the group can rest, run "seven snakes" (page 27). The Zhentarim are here and they want to take this place over!

We're going to change it. Felgolos the bronze dragon shows up and attacks the Zhentarim - preferably once the group is about to fight them.

Felgolos has this weird luck thing going on. When he first shows up, I'd have him crash into the church (area 5) and accidentally send the steeple flying at a random person (PC or Zhent). Felgolos fights along the heroes. I like the idea of giving him a luck aura. When the group fights alongside him, their critical hits and misses are enhanced. I'd probably dig up some cool charts or modify the Critical Hit Deck, which was mega popular in my 4e campaigns.

Once the Zhents are dealt with, Felgolos can assume the form of a halfling and make friends with the heroes. He should talk to them about the giants and point out that the giants are everywhere wreaking havoc. He should also point out that all dragons are potential allies, even chromatic dragons.

If you want, run the orc encounter, too. Felgolos can help with that and he will keep watch while the group rests.  

Once they've rested, Felgolos takes leave of them. He assures them he'll be watching them from afar.

Hooks

I don't really like the hooks to send the group to the different areas. I want the group to go to Bryn Shander. I'd have Felgolos tell the group to go and talk to his friend Duvessa Shane (page 248), ruler of Bryn Shander. She will know what to do about this giant menace. Additionally, the group can take the quest to tell Markham that his sister, Semile, is dead (see page 32).

Soon after, Zephyros shows up. He takes the group to Bryn Shander. For the encounters on that trip, I'd change Operation "Orb Strike" on page 37. I'd use Felgolos instead of the silver dragon. I don't want to confuse the players by introducing too many dragon NPCs, and I really want the group to feel like they know Felgolos so that when they find out he is captured down the line, they will be outraged.

I'd change this so that Felgolos crashes into the castle due to an unlucky gust of wind and maybe one of the heroes or NPCs almost falls off. I think I might also have it where Felgolos spots a Zhentarim caravan and asks the heroes if they want to go blow it up with him. Felgolos flies away once this is resolved. He promises to try to keep tabs on the group and help them when he can.

Bryn Shander

This whole "players control the NPCs" thing is awkward. I think I'd concoct a scenario where the group gets to meet each of them as they enter and explore Bryn Shander.

The cloud giant drops the group off at Bryn Shander in the frozen north. The heroes can go in town and look for Markham and Duvessa.

The group walks around and hears a familiar voice say "Blood of the Lady!" or whatever quote you used in the prologue with Artus Cimber. That character will think that Artus Cimber is here. But he's not. It's his son, Sirac of Suzail. Sirac is doing church stuff and nervously says he doesn't know who Artus is. If pressed, he admits it but asks the characters to keep it under their hat.

Sir Baric (page 249) approaches the group, wondering if one of them is "The Weevil" in disguise. Maybe he's on his horse, Henry. After grilling the group, he realizes he's been rude and apologizes, and explains that this Weevil guy is causing a lot of problems. As a token of apology, he offers the group a yeti-skin coat made "from the finest yeti!" He always keeps one in a saddlebag just in case there's a gale-force wind.

If a hero puts it on, I'd have everyone compliment them on their yeti cloak and give some stupid fact about yetis from MM page 306, like: "My cousin Bort said that the voices of loved ones killed in avalanches and blizzards sound out in the wails of the yetis, crying warnings of ill omen."

I just think the yeti-skin coats are funny.

As this goes on, a PC notices someone is watching them. It's a hooded figure in an alley. This person will try and slip into the shadows, but the group can catch up to her. It's Beldora (page 249). If she was in the prologue, she'll recognize the character. If not, she'll try to lie her way out of it and keep it secret that she's a Harper. She likes to lie, according to her fault.

The group should notice she has some weird gear - a modified crossbow, boots with weird spiked soles, metal claws on her wrists, and lots of thin rope. If they press her, she will admit that she plans on hunting giants. She wants to fire a crossbow bolt with a rope line attached to it into a giant. Then she'll use a mechanism built into the crossbow to reel herself in at tremendous speed, launching herself onto the giant's body. She can use the claws and boots to grip the giant, climb around and stab it in vital places.

I am thinking that for the early levels of this campaign, killing a giant should be a little like Shadow of the Colossus and/or Attack on Titan. Defeating a giant could be a major project involving a lot of cool maneuvers.

I am going to say that Beldora has never actually tried this before, and when she does try, she has a hard time with it. If the group likes it, they can use her gear and perfect the technique. They can become known as expert giant hunters over time.

The group finds Markham (page 248) and they can tell him that his sister is dead. The guy buries his emotions and gets stoic. The group notices Augrek (page 248) watching, concerned. She has a thing for Markham. She tries to console him but is rebuffed with extreme prejudice.

Duvessa comes over and asks the heroes about the giants. She's concerned that the giants are all over the place, causing problems.

Then we do the whole frost giant attack thing.

Chapter 3 Sorted Out

Once that is resolved, We'll deal out some quests. I'm not even going to give out the quests from Augrek or Barick. The group will basically have three places to go:

1. Explore This Area: Go around Icewind Dale and check out the giant activity.
2. Hundelstone: Say hi to Thwip Ironbottom.
3. Waterdeep: For the Duvessa quest and the Sirac Quest.

So now we enter the wild world of chapter 3...

Icewind Dale: Technically, we're already in Icewind Dale. The group is asked to check around the area for frost giant activity. You can read more about the whole "Ten Towns" area here. Here's how this search goes:

• Destruction: The group finds a caravan smashed. All of the people are dead. Two giants attacked them - they were here looking for the ring of winter.
• Yeti: The group spots a yeti with an especially spectacular coat of fur! If they want, they can hunt it and sell it for a hefty sum as long as they don't do too much damage to the fur.
• Dragon Fight: The heroes are tramping along in the snow when they walk smack dab in the middle of a battle between Arveiaturace and a frost giant. This encounter will be partly about just surviving the chaos - an avalanche, the ice beneath them breaks, stray breath weapon. They have the option of helping Arveiaturace, or running, whatever. If possible, have Arveiaturace tell a character to use a certain spell they have memorized. How does she know? Her master told her. Again, we want to play up the idea that there is some kind of weird magic going on with the corpse. She will eventually kill the giant and the group won't have the opportunity to question it. Make sure to narrate the big ise rune (page 125) on the giant's belt. We want to foreshadow those runes for the encounter in area 6 of chapter 4.
• Another Giant: A huge storm hits. The group needs to find shelter. Of course, this would be the time when the other giant finds them. Let's give this giant the weighted net power from page 246. It wants to question the group about the ring of winter and then kill them. The group is going to have to defeat this giant or escape. The giant will definitely mention Storvald and how he will plunge the world into an ice age, and how he travels in a ship with 20 frost giants.

Then the group can go back to Bryn Shander and tell Markham, whose eyebrows will rocket straight into the sky as a result of this alarming news.

Waterdeep: The trip to Waterdeep should be a pain in the groin. We want to impress upon the group how dangerous travel is now. That way, they will truly appreciate the harper portals and the airship when they get them.

This trip looks like it is about 600 miles! You'll really need to be wary of pacing. These kind of trips can drag down a campaign, as some sessions might feel like "filler" to the players.

Long Journey to Waterdeep

PH page 182 says that the group can travel 24 miles per day, whether on foot or horse. The group might want to take a boat once they get to Fireshear or Luskan. On PH page 158, we can see that ships travel between 2-4 mph depending on the vessel. They can travel 24 hours per day, so that's between 48 to 96 miles per day!

If the group decides to take a ship, you can use one of the ships on page 220. I'd probably use either the Kelpie's Kiss or the Ravenous. Honestly it would be hard to avoid a disastrous encounter with a massive boat full of frost giants.

Detour to Fireshear? Fireshear has the griffons, but I think I would remove that whole idea. For right now, I want the group to get a feel for the dangers of traveling on foot/horse.

Bryn Shander to Hundelstone: This should take a full day. If you look at the map on pages 74-75, you can see that Klauthen Vale is nearby. I want to set up Klauth the red dragon, so we better do it now.

The heroes are making their way down the road, when an airship (page 132) drops out of the sky. It's piloted by the cult of the dragon. They hover 100 feet up and tease/question the group. I think I'd have Delsephine do the talking and play her as a little sassy. Basically I'd give the group a chance to either be jerks to her or be flirty and go from there. Down the line, the group will be working with her so let's establish the dynamic now for future fun.

A frost giant shows up, and the group can team up with the cult to take it down. Klauth himself shows up and hopefully he is impressed with the group. He can use his wands to wipe out the frost giant, if necessary. Klauth asks the group what they know about the giants and he can add that he believes that the ordning has been shattered and that this has the giants scrambling to re-order their hierarchy.

Hundelstone: While the heroes stay here for the night, Thwip Ironbottom will keep an eye on them and see if they are Harper material. I think he should use the expression: "By the clocks of Neverwinter!" if possible. Apparently that's a realms saying, according to the forgotten realms wikia. They can complete the Beldora quest and maybe get a clockwork dog.

The trip to Luskan will take 3 or 4 days. When they cross that river on the map, I'd have some ogre huckers (page 50) launch goblins at the group. I just like the idea of heroes walking along and suddenly goblins are falling out of the sky right at them.

Camping in Ruins: I also want to have a scary encounter where the group may want to hide from the giants. Let's say that it is getting dark and the group spots a stone area partially overgrown with vines that people have obviously used for camping quite often. The group doesn't know it, but these are Ostorian ruins. There is a giant building with an opening that once held a door that is ideal for resting in. The walls contain carvings that are clues to the history of the giants and the ordning. There are also clues that there is a secret stash of treasure here. Maybe there are carvings in the walls of all the different giant runes (shown on page 125).

Let's say that there is actually a secret compartment in here with ancient magic items in it:

• A potion of giant size (page 236).
• The orb of the stein rune (page 235).

That night, cloud giants show up. They are looking for the trove of dragon magic! We'll give them the fling and wind aura powers from page 245. To display that some cloud giants are good and some are evil, let's have one of each. The group will need to do some serious hiding as the cloud giants scour the ruins. They can overhear them talking about Countess Sansuri and whether or not she is mad. They are going to read the carvings on the walls and they realize that there is a treasure trove here. They will end up going right into the building.

One giant is nice, the other is a bully. The bully doesn't want to kill the adventurers, but he might want to see how far he can fling the ones who give him lip. If a hero uses the potion of giant size and beats up the bully, he'll apologize. The other one is happy to see the bully get what is coming to him, but won't let the group kill him.

Luskan: (page 98) The group gets here after the frost giants attacked it. There's dead frost giants floating in the water and burning ships in the harbor.

Luskan to Port Llast will take about three days.

During this trip, let's do the horse-drawn wagon encounter (page 71). I'd have the guys get loud and drunk, and have a hill giant show up. The group could offer the giant some food or attack it. The giant will have a crude tattoo of the Haug rune and can say that Chief Guh wants to marry him so he is getting as far away from her as he possibly can.

Port Llast: (page 104) This place is being attacked and plundered by frost giants! Yikes. The group can actually sneak on their ship and steal some loot. They could also make their way through the fog and take down some giants. This might be a time for Felgolos to show up and help the group beat up some giants.

If possible, once it's all over, have some old fisherman tell the group the legend of Slarkrethel, a spellcasting kraken. He hopes to catch the kraken on his line someday.

Neverwinter: All right, it's time to let the group use that Harper Tower. This travel stuff will get old quick. While in Neverwinter, the group can impress Sandyse Thunderquill (page 118). Let's have a big bar fight, where Sandyse and the heroes are on the same side. Maybe she's being harassed and the group comes to her aid. Maybe she wins a drinking contest and the drunk sore loser tries to beat her up.

Let's use the Fallen Tower Tavern, that looks like a cool place. This bar is a neutral ground where orcs and citizens both visit as customers. Spirits of the dead swirl around in here - an aftereffect of the Spellplague.

The point of all of this is that Sandyse is impressed and decides to bring the group to the Harper Tower, using her teleportation circle.

Moongleam Tower: Here, the group can meet the Moonlord Davianna Yalrannis (page 82) and Krowen Valharrow (page 60). Make sure that Krowen rambles about the sequester spell and how he wants it to hide his treasures. This is done to foreshadow the piles and piles of sequestered treasure in Iymrith's lair on page 229.

The Harpers can teleport the group to Waterdeep.

Waterdeep: We have two quests to deal with:

1. Find the loot from the wrecked ship.
2. Talk to Lord Roaringhorn about the Ring of Winter.

Additionally, the people of Waterdeep are more than a little alarmed about the cloud giant castle that is hovering over the city.

At Lord Roaringhorn's party, I think it would be cool if an NPC from the Acquisitions Inc. game was here. He's a goofy wizard named Flabbergast and he has a cat named Mr. Snibly. I think you should have it where Flabbergast has two sips of a drink and he gets very drunk. He'll slip out of the party.

Once the group deals with Roaringhorn, have Mr. Snibly urgently try to get the group to follow it. The cat leads the group to a dark street. Flabbergast is standing there, drunk, waiting for something. The cloud giant castle is directly overhead.

Here's what happened. Flabbergast has a bag of beans (see DMG page 153), and he knows that sometimes a giant beanstalk comes out of a bean when you plant it. There are a lot of possible random effects that can happen. He found a patch of dirt here and he drunkenly planted ALL OF THE BEANS AT ONCE.

Right then, all of the effects go off:

• A bulette (MM page 34)burrows up and attacks.
• 8 shriekers appear.
• A fruit tree grows, with fruit that has powers of magic potions. Let's have some be water breathing (DMG page 188), as they'll need those for chapter 10. We could do one invisibility, one invulnerability and one vitality (all on DMG page 188).
• d4+8 pink toads appear. Touching them turns them into a monster of the DM's choice. I am thinking rust monsters! MM page 262.
• A beanstalk grows and rises all the way up to the castle.

Some guards might show up to help out. Remember that the guards in Waterdeep all wear helmets that magically modify their voices so they all sound the same.

Flabbergast is wasted so he's got the poisoned condition. Once this situation is dealt with, the group can go up and see what the deal is with the cloud giants. This is detailed on page 113. They're cartographers, so no real danger up there.

This should get the attention of Laeral Silverhand, ruler of Waterdeep. She will want to meet with the group and see what they've learned. She will ask the adventurers to seek out a legendary adventurer - Harshnag the frost giant. She says that the group can find him near Yartar. The Hand of Yartar (page 115) should know where he is.

The group can use the Harper teleport network to go right to Yartar.

The Gambling Ship

In Yartar, the Hand says they can arrange a meeting with Harshnag in a day or two.

Someone else is in Yartar - Felgolos! He's in his halfling form. There are Zhentarim up to no good on a gambling ship called The Grand Dame (page 216). This place is extremely important in chapter 11. I want to use it now so that when the group sees the token in chapter 10 they immediately recognize it.

Felgolos wants the group's help. He'll offer them loot if necessary. Lord Drylund is not on board! He's off doing Kraken Society stuff! We don't want to short-circuit the plot.

A bunch of Zhentarim scoundrels are on board, and they are going to rob Pow Ming. Remember, if the group cheats at a game, Pow Ming will use detect thoughts on them.

Felgolos's weird luck kicks in and he hits a massive jackpot. Pow Ming thinks he must be cheating. Then, Felgolor's bad luck kicks in. He drinks a weird, exotic fruit drink. It turns out he is allergic to it. He starts throwing up over the side and accidentally assumes his dragon form. All he can do is vomit. He's a prime target for these Zhentarim scoundrels, who utterly hate him for all the attacks he's made against them.

People panic/dive overboard/faint and the Zhentarim attack. It is up to the group to stop the Zhentarim now in what should be a ridiculous, chaotic battle.

Once all of that is resolved, Felgolos will need a night to shake off the allergic reaction. Then the next day he can take flight and find Harshnag, who is wandering the Dessarin Hills to the south.

The group can meet up with the giant. Harshnag wants to take the group to see the Oracle. That brings us to Chapter 4.

The Oracle

To save time, let's have Felgolos use his Frame Teleport spell from older editions:

(lvl 6) Frame Teleport: You can link two wooden frames (mirrors, windows, etc) and pass through them. This portal lasts a few rounds.

They can pass through a window frame in Yartar and appear in Mirabar. From there, the group will have to travel deep into the Spine of the World mountains. This trip is detailed on page 121.

Felgolos will bid the group adieu - he's got Zhentarim to mess with. The group doesn't know it, but he's about to be captured and tortured by the cloud giant Sansuri.

We could stick an encounter in on the way to the Eye. We could do "Battlefield" (page 69), the one with dead giants and barbarians. Maybe some of them have become undead. Zombie giants! That might be fun.

We should also use this time to try to get the group to like Harshnag. See page 120 for how to run Harshnag. He could do stuff like:

• Tell them amusing stories about the Gray Hands.
• Work out cool battle maneuvers with characters. Maybe he throws them at a giant or something.
• He can explain the giant runes and how there are rune magic items.
• He can talk about the wyrmskull throne (page 237). We specifically want to mention the korolnor scepter, how it is linked to the throne and how you can get paralyzed on the throne. That way the group understands what is going on when Serissa is paralyzed in chapter 10.
• He can show off Gurt's Greataxe (page 234). Remember, it glows when it is in really cold places like this one.

Then we get to The Eye of the All Father on page 121.

Alterations: I don't like the whole burial mound thing, so I'm going to remove it. I'm going to say that only one giant lord has a conch. The rest were lost or destroyed or whatever.

So when the group communes with the oracle, instead of sending them to the burial mounds, he will demand that the group retrieves giant artifacts that Storvald has hoarded at Svardborg.

The items:

• The boulder on page 103.
• The ring on page 105.

Waiting outside is Klauth's gift: The airship! Page 134. The way the group treated the Cult of the Dragon earlier in the campaign will obviously come into play now.

Svardborg

The group can go to Svardborg now (page 155). We're going to make a couple of changes to that chapter. We're going to put the giant artifacts in area 1G. We're also going to put the severed head of Arveiaturace's dead master there, too!

Apparently, the giants fought her recently and cut off the head of the corpse. So.. the group gets to room 1G, they get the stuff, and then the ship full of 20 giants shows up. They see the severed head and they've been clued in that it is possible that there's some kind of magic to this dead thing. Arveiaturace can be contacted through it!

So, as the group tries to survive this insanity, Arveiaturace can show up, tee off on the giants and help the group get through this thing. 

Now the group has the items and can head back to the Eye. They're flying on the airship and they hear terrible cries - it's Felgolos being tortured! The castle of the cloud giants (page 187) is just a mile away.

The group can go save him if they like. He will be forever in their debt. He's hurt bad, and will need to go off to rest for a while. 

Then we fly back to the Eye, hand over the artifacts, and the Oracle tells the group to get the conch from Duke Zalto at Ironslag (page 201).

On the way out, the group has the encounter with Iymrith. Harshnag holds her off and the group can escape.

Now that  the group has the conch, they can teleport to Maelstrom when they're ready. 

The Rest

We play through that stuff. Serissa has a clue - the token with the golden goose on it. The group will know exactly where it's from - The Grand Dame in Yartar!

They fly there on their airship and go through that whole boat encounter (page 216). This time, Lord Drylund is on board. The adventurers can learn from Drylund that Hekaton is being held prisoner on The Morkoth, a ship that can't be scried. Then Drylund dies, killed psychically by Slarkrethel.

The group can take the airship to go try to find the Morkoth. Along the way, maybe we could throw in the manticore encounter on page 135.

The group finds the ship and has that whole epic battle (page 221). If the group likes Felgolos, maybe have him show up at a convenient time for a dramatic assist.

Once Hekaton is saved, the group can use the conch to go back to Maelstrom.

Iymrith: There, the group can set things right and prepare for the final assault on Iymrith's lair. I say replace two of those storm giant NPCs with Felgolos and Harshnag.

Then we go through chapter 12! The final battle with Iymrith.

So there you go. I hope something in here gave you some ideas. Good luck!