Storm King’s Thunder: Episode 14
The dreaded TPK (Total Party Kill) — it can be a rite of passage for some groups, and an adventure destroyer for others. If players don’t feel threatened, or never face consequences for their actions, then they’ll act in less realistic ways. The threat of death needs to be ever-present, even if as a DM you can “save” them from their mistakes or bad luck.
Dealing with death has always been tricky for me as a DM. There’s a multitude of options: you could roll up a new character (maybe at a lower level) and somehow justify them joining the party. You could treat it for the in-universe nuisance it is — there’s plenty of resurrection magic available, at a cost of course. Maybe you just say they don’t die, and got very seriously injured instead. Whatever you choose, it helps to lay these ground rules down before the adventure starts.
The Party:
(Adam) Auberon — Elf Druid
(Terry) Cygnus — Half-elf Warlock
(Matt) Xavian — Human Rogue
(Stacy) Zedrick — Human Cleric
The Path:
Ironslag
And so for a time it looked as if all the adventures were coming to an end; but that was not to be.
Auberon, Xavian, and Zedrick had been defeated in combat, but I didn’t let my players know what had happened to them just yet because Cygnus was still alive. He had cast Meld into Stone to hide within the walls, and spent all eight hours there until the spell ran out.
Once it ended, he and his Tressym carefully navigated their way through the yakfolk village and down the mechanical elevator shaft through the mines. Eventually it landed down in Ironslag’s forge, where the fire giants were working hard to rebuild their Colossus.
Cygnus wasn’t great at stealth, but he did have a lot of spells. He Polymorphed into a mouse and scurried around, trying to find out what happened to his friends.
I had essentially “killed” the rest of the party, but thought I’d come up with a good way to keep them going in the story. Duke Zalto would revive them as his prisoners, and he would demand for them to go on his behalf to a rival giant’s lair and destroy whatever progress they were making to get to the top of the Ordning. I would suggest Jarl Storvald of the Frost Giants, since they’d been up North before, and it was a small and simple dungeon.
This way I could selfishly get to explore another of these captivating giant lairs, the story could continue and still basically made sense. They would have “failed” this mission, and would get a final chance to redeem themselves.
I needed some further punishment however. Duke Zalto’s description shows that he wields an oversized hammer that is actually a small cage. In this cage resides one person who he wants to torture at the moment, by bashing them around, and generally making life a living hell, as they try to stay alive inside the weapon of a giant lord. At the moment, a Zhentarim agent named Jasper Dimmerchasm occupied the cage.
I would have Duke Zalto demand that one of the party must stay behind as collateral, to ensure they did the job properly. They could then return, and have them back. I had a character sheet ready for Jasper, as I figured he could tag along for this mission. I assumed Xavian would volunteer to stay behind, as it was his idea to come here and to attack the yakfolk, and the delicious irony of being forced to choose to become a captive again in the very place you escaped was too great. It seemed like a fair, yet devious plan, and I was quite proud of myself.
Duke Zalto laid out this plan in his own brutish way, and awaited the party’s response. They seemed stunned, and talked among themselves to figure out what to do. What they came up with was nowhere near what I thought they would do, showing further that DMs should never try and guess what their players will come up with.
They accepted the offer, and volunteered Auberon to stay behind. Instantly, I realized the problem. Auberon could easily just Wild Shape into a small animal and escape. I scanned the book to see if there were any other defences the weapon had. If I had thought of it in time, I would have had Jasper mention a permanent Anti-Magic Field in the cage, so they would have this knowledge beforehand. But it was too late.
They were tossed out of the dungeon (Cygnus caught up to them just in time) with Jasper, as they returned to the forest. By that night, Auberon had returned as a fly and Wild Shaped back, safe and sound. They told Jasper to take a hike, and debated what to do next.
Weakness and scruples had defeated strength and ruthlessness.
The party still had the option of going to the frost giants, which is what I wanted, but they wanted revenge on Duke Zalto. Also, they said “we don’t need need to travel across Faêrun — we’re right here.”
Cygnus cast Polymorph on Xavian to turn him into a fly. Then Auberon Wild Shaped into a fly. They could sneak into Ironslag, turn back into a human and an elf, somehow find and steal the conch, then use Auberon’s one remaining Polymorph spell and Wild Shape ability to turn back into flies, and escape without a fight.
They zipped through the mines, passing none-the-wiser giants and goblin henchmen. Cygnus had done some exploring in mouse form, and told them where he thought Zalto’s bedroom was, so they started there. They flew into a room which turned out to actually be the bedroom of the Duke’s petulant daughter, Princess Cinderhild. She was throwing a tantrum as her hobgoblin servants looked on.
Auberon and Xavian flew to a closet and transformed back into their regular selves. Auberon summoned a swarm of bats which frightened the servants away, and Xavian began to sweet talk the princess. They’d had an encounter before, where she tried to escape to the outside world. So Xavian started talking about how amazing and luscious the outside world was, and Cinderhild promised to sneak them out if they would show her around. They agreed, as long as they could merely hold her dad’s conch beforehand.
She led them across the hall to the Duke’s bedroom and pointed at a large chest. Xavian grabbed his thieves tools, and rolled a high Dexterity check. He opened up the chest, but released a fiery explosion trap in the process. Auberon and Xavian avoided much of the damage, but Princess Cinderhild got hit hard. She screamed and ran out the door for her dad.
That was the duo’s cue to leave. They grabbed the conch and a couple of other treasures inside the chest, and transformed back into flies. They flew right past the team of fire giants who were looking for what caused the disturbance, and returned to the party, with the conch in hand.
With a conch in their possession, the end of the campaign was starting to appear in sight. They’d use it to gain access to Maelstrom, the home of the Storm Giants, and find out what was going on with the giant leaders. Hopefully, it wasn’t too late.
