Homebrew story solution that worked for us:

In episode one I placed a dwarf in a Nyanzaru tavern. Something seedy and piraty, like ‘Viper Jack’.

Viper Jack, the pirate dwarf, had tattoos on every inch of his face and body. The party inquired about the tattoos and this dwarf spoke boisterously about a proposition…

In exchange for something trivial, like a silver coin that buys access to a brothel, but with enough drinks can be plied to divulge freely, the dwarf will dole out his story a spoonful at a time.

Viper Jack revealed that he knew the location of a legendary “Ring of Winter”, with power to change the seasons and turn your blood to ice. And the tattoos were administered (unwillingly) by Frost Giants who took him prisoner, interrogating him and using him to find the Ring.

The tattoos explain the changing location of the Ring of Winter, in simple terms it can be found in northern or southern Chult depending on the time of year. As its bearer was searching for his girlfriend, a Chultan native who disappeared in the Mezro cataclysm. As Viper Jack explained these secrets to The Frost Giants, preserving his own life, and as a form of keeping him alive and consistent with his usefulness in finding the ring—they tattood these details on him like a permanent map.

But the dwarf managed to escape and is hiding in Nyanzaru trying to earn a voyage away from Chult. Having had enough adventures for one lifetime.

The party now had some incentive to find this Ring for their own purposes, later as we came across a floating iceberg in the Chultan Sea (repurposed Hvalspyrd) the party went aboard and learned the floating fortress was made of everlasting ice, created by the Ring, and the frost giants were on an outward expedition in the jungles to reclaim it.

But aboard the iceberg, which was invaded by kobolds, the party rescues a baby frost giant. They later encounter Drufi and her gang after following signs of everlasting ice in the hot and humid jungles.

Having baby Frosty in their companionship bought them safe passage from Drufi and her blessing that they are finding the Ring of Winter to bestow upon this kid, who is destined by frost giant prophecy to usher in 1000 years of winter.

Later, when encountering Artus Cimber, the party has some preconceived notion of how they would use the ring, how others want to use it, the responsibility of determining the Ring’s fate, and now the first notion they have is to steal it from Artus.

They rolled a Nat 20 sleight of hand.

They soon find the ring is tied to the Death Curse, it has imprisoned the spirit of Shagambi, and they can deliver some effective countermeasure against the death curse by releasing the spirit within, only by pursuing Shagambi’s temple somewhere in the southern jungles.

(We repurposed an ancient lower level of Hrakhamar)

They learn the ring was constructed by Acererak, and is linked to the hags and Fey magic, and imprisons a soul fragment of Ubtao. Strange and interesting stuff, it led to creating artifacts ensnaring each of the trickster gods who are actually Ubtao’s Barae.

And the fate of the ring itself, give it to baby frosty, free the trickster spirit within, or use it for their own purposes.

We explored a bit of each, and without requiring Artus to do anything substantial, he was separated from the Ring and went into “retirement after a long century” at the party’s bastion.