Storm King’s Thunder: Episode 0

I played through Hoard of the Dragon Queen and planned to continue through Rise of Tiamat, but my group unfortunately had to disband because of scheduling. Life happens! Running HotDQ and the little we played of RoT was great… but more because 5th Edition D&D is fantastic, not necessarily because the adventures were particularly outstanding.

Storm King’s Thunder was eventually announced, and from the many previews, reviews, and Chris Perkins’s discussion of it on the Dragon Talk podcast, I knew this would be a campaign that would work much more for my style. After picking it up, I couldn’t be happier.

Power Score’s Guide to SKT and How to Run SKT are essential reading if you run this adventure. They we’re insanely helpful for seeing the weak points, where to fill in the gaps, and where to let some creativity flourish.

I loved their suggested player backgrounds, and decided to incorporate them into my game. I asked my players to create their own brief specific backgrounds, and pick which hook in the adventure resonated with them the most. From that, I could best decide which background from Power Score would get fused with them.

My player’s characters are:

• Auberon Drayiv — an elven druid that ran away from his elf tribe
• Xavian Fletcher — a human rogue with a mentor who set him straight
• Zedrick Freeman — a human cleric who is fascinated by lightning
• Cygnus Landstrider — a half-elf warlock who has been branded a heretic

After matching a background from Power Score with their own personal one, I could see that this would be a lot of information to give to my players. Since I do love making cutscenes, I figured I would make each of my players a dedicated one. This way I could show a glimpse of what each character’s story was, reinforce why they were going to be on this adventure, and get in this extra, dramatic background that tied them to the campaign even further. All the while, it would set the tone and mood in a sensational way.

As all the Power Score backgrounds had variables in them, I made multiple versions of each cutscene with small differences. I just had everyone roll or choose their actions beforehand with no context, then I determined the proper cutscene to show them, and they discovered how their rolls and/or choices turned out.

I began with a general intro the world of Storm King’s Thunder.

Then, I gave Auberon the connection with Harshnag.

Xavian escaped from Ironslag.

Zedrick met the Storm Giants as a child.

And Cygnus was a Harper recruit who encountered Lymrith.

From there, I transitioned into the present and their respective journeys to Nightstone.

And the adventure began!