Storm King’s Thunder: Episode 11
Options, options, options. Storm King’s Thunder is essentially written to be re-playable. There are so many points in the adventure where one of many things can happen, but only a single one needs to happen to move the story along. These options are great in the sense that it shows how much choice the characters get in their narrative. But I don’t think any players who’ve played SKT would get much enjoyment out of playing through all the way again.
But it’s certainly nice for a DM, since they could re-run the adventure and have a vastly new experience. I’ve run Lost Mine of Phandelver three times for three different groups, and even though LMoP is awesome, running the same goblin ambush can grow stale. So I appreciate the opportunity to run SKT again in the future, and have it be new and fun for me. But for now, I’ll continue with my first play-through.
The Party:
(Adam) Auberon — Elf Druid
(Terry) Cygnus — Half-elf Warlock
(Matt) Xavian — Human Rogue
(Stacy) Zedrick — Human Cleric
The Path:
The Spine of the World, Uthgardt burial mounds all around Faerun.
Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.
The party had avoided Klauthen Vale when they were travelling around the Frozen North, but it would appear they caught Klauth’s eye all the same. As they exited the temple, they heard a voice call out from above, and saw that a group of Dragon Cultists were speaking to them — from the cabin of an airship. They said they were an offering from the great red dragon Klauth.
The party was suspicious, but the idea of sharing an airship was too sweet to turn down. They cautiously came to an agreement, and began their search for the burial mounds from the skies.
I wanted my players to experience the coolest burial mounds, but at the end of the day, where they go is in their hands. Many of the burial mounds had very neat little mini-stories that could lead to an interesting encounter. They could have went to Great Worm Cavern and met the tribe of barbarians they killed at the Eye of the All-Father. Or they could find a magic stone that controls the weather at One Stone before being chased away by earth cultists and bulettes.
They only had to get a single relic to offer at the temple, but what fun would that be? The more relics they found the more choices they would get from the Oracle for which giant lord to pursue. So they thought they might as well get a handful. First, they headed to Raven Rock.
Raven Rock was filled with many different mounds and plateaus. In the centre of the highest one stood a 100-foot-tall stone statue of a perched raven. It was surrounded by raven roosts which were constantly visited by squawking ravens, and an altar carved in a wolf-shaped depression nearby.
Auberon used the Divination spell to ask where the buried relics might be. Divination offers the DM some creative ways of “answering” a single question, and since Auberon is a druid, I thought having an animal help out would be appropriate. He noticed a raven look at him, and perch himself straight up and dig under his feet to reveal a brass ring.
The players caught on and began to dig underneath the raven statue. I told them it took hours to complete, and that a group of six ravens watched them very intently the whole time. They found an old fire giant’s ring made of magma, but they left without looking for the second relic.
Close by was the spirit mound of the lost Thunderbeast tribe, another band of Uthgardt Barbarians. The mound is shaped like a crude, long-necked, wingless dragon, with a ridge of bones jutting out from different body parts. As the party approached, they could see several dig sites left by previous plundering treasure hunters.
There were many places to dig so the party split up. The adventure book says each character that spends eight hours digging can make a DC 20 Investigation check. If they succeed they find a random magic item. If they keep digging, then on the second success they find the ancient relic (a giant-sized tooth).
Without any specific location to find, their Divination spells were not as much help. I showed them omens of teeth, which prompted some players to dig near the head. Rolls were bad, and the party ended up spending over 24 hours just digging away at Morgur’s Mound. Finally they got the relic, fought off some Thunderbeast skeletons, and escaped on their airship.
Knowing where the trap is — that’s the first step in evading it.
Since the digging took so long, the group decided to hire two dwarfs, Thrinain and Urin, from the mining city of Mirabar, who could make the excavations go faster. Now they were close to Shining White, so they flew there next.
This spirit mound sat atop a rocky hill overlooking a tributary of the Surbrin River. It’s called Shining White for the 280-foot-tall spire of white chalk that sprouts from one of the hills.
When the party arrived they could see that stone menhirs had been toppled over, and the altar sitting in the middle of a griffon-shaped indentation in the earth had been smashed.
Cygnus used Divination this time, and asked his god for a clue as to where the relic was. As his god, Ghaunadaur, is a patron of slimes and oozes, I showed Cygnus some slime spilling out from beneath the smashed altar. The party told the two dwarves to start digging.
As they were digging, they could see four griffons approaching in the distance. An aerial battle followed, with the griffons nearly destroying the airship. The dwarves made it aboard the ship with the relic — a colourful porcelain mask — and Auberon killed one of the griffons before they managed to fly to safety.
However, any creature that kills a griffon at Shining White is horribly cursed. Well, not that horrible — but Auberon suddenly gained an insatiable craving for horse flesh, which for an animal-loving druid could make for some awkward moments.
The group had to get their airship repaired, which would make travel a little more difficult. They were enraged to find out how expensive the repair was, which made me think I might have been skimping on the treasure I’d been handing out to the party. I quickly decided my players were whining, and airship repairs would just have to be a luxury.
They paid what they could, and used the Harper’s teleportation network to get close to Everlund, and head deep within the High Forest to the Grandfather Tree.
Without the airship, they’d have to travel by foot, using Auberon as a guide through the forest. Even with his expertise though, they ran into a patrol of Tree Ghost tribal warriors. I rolled to see how strong the patrol was, and got 16 warriors accompanied by one of Great Chief Boorvald Orcbane’s children, who carried a magical Oathbow with her — a significant threat. The battle happened out in the open forest though, so many of the party’s area-of-effect spells came in handy, and they killed all of the barbarians. And now Auberon had a new magic bow.
Soon they arrived at Grandfather Tree, an immense oak tree with a 350-foot crown. The tree was surrounded by two rings of raised earth with normal sized oaks around it. Zedrick cautiously approached, as he could see seven centaurs under the crown of the tree. They smelled disgusting, and he found out that they were seeking a cure to their unfortunate curse (they had been exploring some ancient ruins in the High Forest).
Four dryads emerged from the smaller oak trees and demanded the characters leave at once. They were stern, but the party persuaded the dryads to let them stay as long as they were respectful to the earth. Auberon rested while the Grandfather Tree cured his horse-curse. He noticed that the relic was stuck inside some roots. Cygnus sent his Tressym to fish it out, and soon they had another relic in their possession — this one being a U-shaped piece of jewellery (actually an old hill giant’s nose ring).
Too much knowledge never makes for simple decisions.
They returned to their airship and made their way to Flint Rock, the spirit mound of the Elk tribe, situated above a gnarly knob of flinty stone that’s perpetually shrouded in fog. An enormous basin shaped like a leaping stag surrounded an altar mound where the relic was hidden.
When the characters landed with their dwarven excavators, they could see two elks foraging for moss. They observed the party, but did not run or attack. The party carefully began searching, and soon found the mithral spear tip.
This encounter was one of the milder ones (only if they attacked the elks would anything happen, and even then, it was just a curse)so it was too bad that they had to end on this note.
The whole “burial mound exploration” was interesting. I like that there was an incentive to seek out more than one, but if the party desired, they could just stop whenever.
My players cast a lot of Divination spells, and it was actually pretty fun to come up with creative answers to their questions. The spell has some flexibility, so I could have ominous omens give a vague clue, or sometimes I would compose a little rhyme on the spot, like for Morgur’s Mound:
Dig dig dig some more
Until you find the truth
And when you’ve dug and dug the lot
You’ll find a fire giant’s tooth
There was no time to think of anything better!
The encounters had some fun flavour, but the problem was the battles. Since they were essentially out of danger, if they did happen to get into combat, they could just spend all of their powerful spells and abilities, and just rest afterwards. So all fights were overwhelmingly easy. If I had to make a change, I would put more encounters that had lasting effects, like the horse curse. Maybe the elk at Flint Rock could have been protecting the altar, and players had to coax it away, otherwise they would be cursed too.
Either way, they’d visited five of the burial mounds and obtained five relics, so that meant it was time for the party to head back to the Eye of the All-Father and discover their next step.
