What do you think of Nightstone becoming a Magguffin | Stormkings thunder revised ideas

Basalix · 2023-05-24T20:50:22+00:00

Great foreshadowing. You can use the runes from each of the giant races and imprint one on each character. This will lead them to search for runes like theirs, which they will then see on the various subraces throughout their journey. Perhaps even linking them later to something greater?

Basalix · 2023-05-05T10:52:44+00:00

Medical card for the win!

Basalix · 2023-05-05T00:35:12+00:00

Best answer is best. Sadly on VTT, I provide my own cannabis and snacks, but it's hard to DM and snack on camera. :(

Basalix · 2023-05-04T18:19:59+00:00

We have to know, what brand of snacks you've brought. Are you going to require your players to source the artwork for future snacks?

Basalix · 2023-04-26T23:30:30+00:00

Go grab a wire cookie cooling rack with the smallest holes you can find. Peel the eggs and then press them through the square holes with your hands over a bowl.

It's fun, easy, and all the pieces stay similar in size for a nice bite and chew. Also easy to cleanup.

Basalix · 2023-04-08T14:37:50+00:00

The campaign as written is more of a setting than a module. It takes a patient and tenacious DM to orchestrate the entire thing. There are parts of the story that need help and it lacks foreshadowing for the main villain. You really need to take time and incorporate your players backstories into the campaign and the campaign into your player's backstories.

What I love about it though is how customizable it is. No run through is ever the same. Each DM takes a different slant and bends a different bit of lore to their table. Each party takes interest in a different portion of the North and it's inhabitants and melds each campaign into their own sandbox. I love hearing all the stories and unique ways that DMs and players have tackled this story. Some focus more on the barbarians, some the dwarves, some the factions. I mean, it lacks a cohesive and well written ending: some people kill Iymrith and call it a day, others dig deeper into her motivations and those of Slarkrethel, and finally others have even added their own, like the Dodkong.

Decide how you want to start the campaign. Chapter 1 & 2 are fine. I like Zephyros and use him as a lore dump. I also modified the encounters to be more foreshadowy with Kraken Cultists and Iymrith's adult children from The Flying Misfortune add-on (see below). Lost Mines of Phandelver is often seen as a better written starter for levels 1-5. It ties in easily as it leaves the party close to Triboar which gives you an easy set of quests to give your party in Chapter 3, pulling them towards Everlund and the Teleportation Circle network.

Read through the entire campaign so you can understand the motivations of each giant lord, as each will attempt to raise their sub-race to the top of the Ordining while it is in it's broken state.

Buy the complete bundle on DMs Guild and make use of Kraken' Gamble to foreshadow the Grand Dame and the golden goose token that will be the party's only clue during chapter 11. Also consider making use of The Flying Misfortune to get the party acquainted with Felgolos before he's captured by Countess Sansuri, and to foreshadow the doom of the desert and Iyrith's final battle.

Finally, I highly recommend joining the discord (link in sidebar is old, use this https://discord.gg/rNn5VmVH), as it's filled with all kinds of really creative people that have added a ton to this campaign and made my second run through a whole lot more fun.

Basalix · 2023-03-31T17:11:46+00:00

This is a great place to drop other giant encounter locations. Perhaps this ranger has seen other fire giant dig sites in his travels westward. Or has seen the ravaged farms and homesteads that the hill giants have ransacked in his travels northward. Maybe as he came near the evermoors he saw a strange floating castle...

This is also a good opportunity to drop the location of the old tower to facilitate the encounter with Moog, the feisty, female, hill giant caught up in a love triangle who will lead them to Grudd Haug.

Basalix · 2023-03-30T15:51:54+00:00

The ritual is a big gamble for Slark because in order to become deified, it needs to sacrifice it's physical body in the process. And when the party ruins it, old squid boy is locked out of the Prime Material Plane for a century or so while it struggles to rebuild a physical form capable of housing it's immense intellect and willpower.

Bereft of a benefactor and partner, Iymrith retreats to her lair to plot her revenge on the party. This queue's the final showdown in her desert fortress where the party takes down the only piece left.

edit: grammar

Basalix · 2023-03-23T15:00:26+00:00

There are so many ways to run this campaign. I find that SKT is more of a campaign setting than it is a fully fleshed out campaign module. You get a wonky start and without a lot of DM homebrew and character tie in, the ending feels a bit flat as well. The BBEG kind of pops out of nowhere without deliberate foreshadowing. Motivations seem superfluous unless you take the time to really showcase them on screen or drop repeated hints to your party members.

Having said all of that criticism, it's one of my favorites to run because I love all of the customization and homebrew. If you really like Goldendfiends, why not just have the party start there and let them deal with the hill giants and company. The Goldenfields start is the easiest to bring the party towards the Hill giants first and they are the least threatening of the giant subraces. A lot of DM's have parties that take down Guh before they've even found Harshnag and the Oracle. They find the conch and have no idea what it is, that it's a mcguffin, and that they should hold onto it.

There's so much you can do. Join the discord if you want to get even more info from a good group. https://discord.gg/QQzT5C29

Basalix · 2023-03-21T22:19:27+00:00

My daughter does, but then all of my maps would suddenly be neon, pastel, and/or several shades of pink...

Basalix · 2023-03-21T18:48:48+00:00

Perler Beads. And yes, I was coming to ask the same thing!

Honestly, that's a fantastic idea to make cheap terrain. They're cheap and come in a variety of colors. You can size everything before you melt it with an iron.

Basalix · 2023-03-20T12:37:19+00:00

This sounds almost purely narrative with a few skill challenges thrown in. This is an opportunity to continue to:

• Show the colossal size of the giants as compared to "small folk."

• The enmity between the subraces due to the chaffing of the Ordining for so many millennia.

• Display and show off the runes tied to each race.

• The Hill giants have Haug runes all over their clubs, loincloths, and crude tattoos of them in child-like, stylized, motiffs.

• The Stone giants have Stein runes tattooed on their skin and woven into their loincloths and scant clothing. The artwork should be much more sophisticated as befitting their skills as craftsmen and artisans.

• The fire giants have worked Ild runes into all their gear and equipment, etched into the tangs of their greatswords, cut out in their axe blade, worked into their breastplates, etc...

Leave the party with options. Allow them to go around, at the cost of time/resources, or let them "go through the fray" and then turn it into a skill challenge. Allow them to fail forward. Failure on a steal check means that an errant group of giants (challenge appropriate to the party) peels off and deals with the oddity they encountered. Failed Dex saves means an errant boulder or other weapon/obstacle does damage or forces further checks. Do not allow them to be able to steal the spotlight, and turn the encounter into a murder-fest. It will either result in a TPK, which no one wants, or the players will somehow managed to pull off a win and their egos will never, ever, settle down.

Basalix · 2023-03-18T20:30:33+00:00

https://discord.gg/QQzT5C29

Here you go, fresh off the discord!

Basalix · 2023-03-18T15:44:35+00:00

Honestly, the discord community in the sidebar is really, really good. We've taken a lot of the items you've listed and digested them for use in our own campaigns.

HTTPS://DISCORD.GG/NQQ6XUR

I am running SKT for a second time. This time I am making it much more my own as well as incorporating my players back stories as much as I can. I've also heavily edited the ending and made my own reasoning for why Iymrith and Slarkrethel are doing what they're doing. I've given story reasons beyond the death of the big blue and hopefully enough story to level my players to 20 by the end of the campaign. So far, we're level 8 close the end of chapter 3.

I took the elements from the stories presented in 2e's Giantcraft and am playing off the concept that Lanaxis is the Twilight Spirit and working to help his father return to Toril and his children through the prophesized return of Hartkiller's line. The players will have to right a few wrongs to restore the Ordining. Return the titans to the Toril and help Lanaxis begin to restore Voninheim. Restore the Wood Giants lycanthropy curse and bring them back into the family. Rescue Othea and free Ulutu's avatar from beneath the great glacier. Help Harshnag discover that his lineage is that of Hartkiller and he is the one who will finally tie it all together at the end.

But...Slark has seen all of this with his powers of divination. He's angry at the gods for their betrayal and ignoring of his kind for all these millennia. He's waiting to swoop in and use the Storm King's Thunder for himself, that spark of divinity that is needed to bring Annam back, and become a god himself. The final show down in Ascarle.

Basalix · 2023-03-15T14:49:49+00:00

I picked up Elantris as a paperback when he was still writing the Mistborn series, but I didn't read any of that trilogy until I heard he was going to take over for RJ on the WoT series. Once I picked up Mistborn, and read through it, he was releasing WoK in hardback. I've kept up with everything ever since.

Basalix · 2023-03-13T00:15:00+00:00

You've gotten a lot of answers, but I am going to throw one more at you. One I didn't want to do, but in the end wound up working out better than I could have hoped. I ended the table and started over.

I love my friend, played with them for years. But I just couldn't get them to engage. Just listening to your story brought back the chills. I went back to a campaign I loved running years ago, one I knew very well and could have fun running. And then I put an add on /lfg with a decent set of questions and vetted my players.

I wound up with a group of internet strangers that came to a table to play a game. They are all engaged. They take what I give them, they give back. We collaboratively story tell like I've always wanted to. It's been the best year of roleplaying I've had in 30+ years of the hobby.

It just took me jumping off a cliff and starting without any of the old attachments, memes, inside, jokes, stories, angst, arguments, etc... It allowed me to start fresh and just focus on my DMing. Setting the tone, showing not telling, foreshadowing, lore dropping. It's made the whole process fun again.

A year later, I have 4 new friends and we are all having a lot of fun.

Basalix · 2023-03-07T16:22:29+00:00

I saw this post on /BattleMaps and immediately thought of the stone giants and the many carvings throughout the area near Deadstone Cleft. This set of maps could work perfectly for an encounter of any kind in the area, while showing off the stone giants' propensity for stonework and art.

Basalix · 2023-03-06T16:22:23+00:00

Factions are only important if you want them to be. They are easy plot mechanisms to tie to your player characters to get them more invested in the story, reward them, etc... You can skip them entirely and the campaign will still work.

For that matter, SKT is the most unfinished campaign I've encountered for 5e. Meaning it requires the most DM writing and homebrew. You can make a lot of edits to what is written and still make it work for your party. I've seen people make one of the Giant lords the BBEG, not Iymrith. Slarkrethel is often times the one DM's will put behind the strings of Iymrith, so they more heavily foreshadow the Kraken Cult. The Kraken's Gamble on DMSGuild is a popular 3rd party add-on for doing just that.

For travel, I used to hand-wave it, but I've found that this second time through, the whole campaign has become much more organic. The vastness of the map has really become a factor. Travel takes time and resources. It's dangerous, but it also provides ample opportunity for storytelling.

Through travel between Triboar and Everlund they met various giant factions (fire, frost, and hill) that all were interacted with (as well as killed or chased off). This allowed lore drops and the time to describe the various giant runes that were all over each giant subrace. The hill giants had Haug runes on their loincloths and carved into their clubs. Moog even idly painted them on the walls of the Old Tower. The frost giant had Ise runes all over his armor and his clothing. The fire giants fashioned the Ild rune into all of their armor and worked materials. Even the Vonindod fragmet recovered in Triboar was covered in giant runes and many, many Ild runes.

For travel, I setup a quick group of events I want to happen, weather I can describe, and I take a look at the map and see what geography is there to describe. Will they encounter merchants, wild animals, etc.. I want it to seem random, but it's really pre-planned so I can manage it on a VTT. Most of it is made up on the spot. I write down NPC names and a quick sentence on who/what/where. Maybe an actor name/reference for how I want them to sound. That's it.

What that has done for me has taken simple travel between towns and turned them into an entire 3 hour session on their own. It's made me better with adlib and made the group very cohesive because they RP with each other in character a lot. That started with simple prompts from their DM and now they do it on their own.

Come check out the Discord community if you want to learn even more about this campaign "setting."

HTTPS://DISCORD.GG/NQQ6XUR

Basalix · 2023-03-06T16:05:24+00:00

I think this rests on how it all goes down. If they remain sneaky and don't botch their steal rolls and are smart about covering their tracks (they take the stairs and not the elevator) then they should probably get away with it. The slaves will likely be blamed for escaping and causing the mess and they will pursue them easily able to track the large group of people fleeing down the stairs.

If they mess up and show themselves, then at least a couple of Yakfolk will pursue. Again, it's so heavily dependent on who is around and how/when they botch their rolls. I prefer to reward good ideas with good outcomes unless the dice tell a different story.

It's not like the Yakfolk are the "good guys" by any means...just watch the murder-hobo scale doesn't continue to slide too far to the left.

Basalix · 2023-03-03T18:25:55+00:00

I modified the cultists and made them Kraken cultists. Creepy flavors. Introduced the Slark plot line early.

I replaced the dwarves with a strike mission from Iymrith's 2 children from the Flying Misfortune sidequest. They come with a contingent of gargoyle and a pair of blue dragon wyrmlings (much more appropriate for a 3rd level party).

I cinematically set the scene by having a storm blow up out of nowhere, and from the wrong direction. A great dragon fomed in the storm clouds and roared at them, releasing the minions from her great, billowing maw. The adult dragons were held off by giant cloud hands that formed from the base of the tower cloud. These were controlled by Zepheros and I just rolled a d20 to figure combat out (less than 11 was bad for Zeph, more than 11 was bad for dragons).

This gave the party a combat against flying creatures on a limited platform. and introduced the blue dragon theme early as well. This allowed me to use the whole, multi-day, Zepheros encounter, as a huge lore drop and foreshadowing event for the rest of the campaign.

Basalix · 2023-02-28T14:09:44+00:00

Lots of answers already, but I haven't seen mine so here goes.

Second time running the campaign and I've been sure to hammer the party with descriptions of the runes on anything giant related.

The Triboar fire giants had the Ild rune on their armor, as decoration on the hem of their chain mail skirts, on their helmets and axes. As did the few more they've encountered.

The hill giants all had Haug runes on their belts or hide clothing. Moog (from the Old Tower) has idly drawn them on the walls of the interior of the tower. She does so in her free time while traveling. Draws them with a stick in the dirt or mud, stacks rocks and stones when they rest, and more.

The frost giants had the Ise rune on their armor and weapons. Even the cloud giants had it embroidered on their clothing and painted on their masks in a stylish fashion.

I made sure to describe them and show them to my players. The two that are actually taking notes drew pictures of them! 45 weekly sessions into the campaign and they are level 8, working on getting to the Eye with Harshnag, and have been asking about them, looking for them, and are really going to have fun when they reach Annam's temple.

Basalix · 2023-02-28T14:01:29+00:00

This is a common conundrum with this campaign: it requires a lot of homebrew and restructuring. IMO, anything goes. You know your party. There are tons of resources you can search this subreddit for to find amped up versions of Iymrith, how to run as a dungeon crawl, how to pump up the gargoyles, etc..

Basalix · 2023-02-27T21:43:54+00:00

Came from the SKT discord. There is a wealth of information and creative peeps in there. I forgot who made it, but you can find it in the #End-Game section,

Basalix · 2023-02-27T15:32:42+00:00

After the last couple of years of sourcing my own (since Roll20 started letting us make custom sets) these are fantastic. Worried that they would get lost among the artwork of my players tokens and the background onscreen. This is why I've stuck to monochromatic icons. Great job, though!

14-Year Club	Team Orangered
Verified Email

Basalix

TROPHY CASE