D&D 5E Enhancing "Storm King's Thunder"

[Daern]

The adventure continues...
I had a neat thing come up in play. They sailed across the Sea of Swords and were attacked by storm giant minions of the newly enthroned Queen Mirran. They made landfall at Rhauthym. I conflated Rhaughym and the Purple Rocks by accident one session and just ran with it. They heard rumour in the port of purple men like the guards on the Golden Goose on the west side of the island. There they found a purple beach with a company of men encamped. Just offshore was the Morkoth (the pcs saw it as a floating island. They don't know yet its actually a dragon turtle).
This kinda happened through improve, but I think it was nice to have the king near the shore and the people of the island kind of in on the plot, servants of Imryth or Skarlethel, or (in my campaign) the Cult of the Dragon. For my game this all tied together well because Imryths whole scheme is meant to be a distraction while the Cult gets ready for the Rise...

 

[Daern]

So close to the end. The Return of the King.
Next up, Imryth. Now I need your help ENWorld. How to make that battle all time epic? What have people done? How did it work out? What awesome ideas?
The party is mostly 12th level. I've been thinking that Ascore may be ridden with Purple Worms, making the approach problematic and Dune-like. This may eliminate a help from the giants. I reckon I'll use a bunch of dragon sized gargoyles to defend Imryth and spread the pain around. Making it a big table top miniature battle might be in order as well as I've rarely done that this campaign.
Thoughts?

 

[Motorskills]

I can't add to what you have written Daern, although one of my players is building a scale model of the ampitheatre out of cardboard, could be epic. My suggestion is to make Iymrith especially dangerous because the party is constantly being attacked / distracted by other things.

***

For weeks and months I have been mulling having Tiamat as the "new" BBEG, however a couple of posts on the FaceBook SKT DM's page got me thinking. One mentioned that restoring Hekaton to the throne makes for a better culmination. Another made a case for Skrel being the BBEG, with some messed-up plan for converting the world to his image. (The book makes it clear that Skrel is tens of thousands of years old, so I think he is a better boss anyway)

I think Skrel is more fitting to my campaign than Tiamat, and I can make the fight to rescue Hekaton the fight to end all fights.

Even better, my party still wants utter revenge on Oosith, the aboleth from Kraken's Gamble, whom I retro-fitted as a spawn of Skrel, so that also fits nicely.

I will need to slightly re-structure some plots - I will have the party go from Maelstrom to the Grand Dame casino ship (probably moved from Yartar after the Kraken's Gamble), and from there be able to locate Iymrith's lair.

I made Iymrith a Storm Giant Omen-Reader (L20 Divination Wizard), so my plan is that the party realise that they need to kill Iymrith in order to dispel the counter-divination magic that is hiding Hekaton. I will determine if the fight versus Skrel needs the boat to be a Dragon Turtle as well, I love that idea.

 

[Daern]

Almost at the end!
The heroes did some dragon research at Candlekeep and used the Scry spell to scout the Klauthen Vale. Klauth greeted them and they came to an agreement: A loan of the airship in exchange for the hoard of Imryth. Picked up the ship (delivered by Harshnag the Frost Giant), and sailed toward Silverymoon, enduring a demon attack along the way.
A Nalfanshee and two Vrocks made for a good fight against 12th level PCs.

 

[Daern]

Here's the story.

I gotta come up with something epic for the final battle! Minis and dioramas ho!

 

[Raunalyn]

Ok, I have a 5 man group, well balanced, who started off with Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury instead of the 1st chapter of SKT. During their incursion into the Forge of Fury, they learned that the Frost Giants were getting ready to attack the Ten Towns so that they could capture Artus Cimber. The party helps Bryn Shander defeat the giants and go on a few quests to help the townsfolk with supplies and reinforcements. Along the journey, they join up with Harshnag, who tells them about the Ordening and is guiding them to the Eye of the All Father.

In last night's session, the group encounters the ancient white dragon Arveiaturace. Old Iceclaws likes to fly around with a dead wizard on her back, and she occasionally talks to him as though he's alive.

So, she swoops over the group as they are traveling, using her fear to paralyze as many people as she can. She then lands amidst the party, chattering with her pet wizard about which one of the little ones she's going to eat first.

Which is when the wizard uses the whistle Nightcaller that he found while delving into the Sunless Citadel and uses it to animate the dead skeleton on Iceclaw's back.

The rogue (a spell thief) then uses minor illusion to make the skeleton talk. He proceeds to convince the party is actually pretty skinny and not worth the effort to eat. Iceclaws, being pretty stupid and certifiably insane, is convinced by the very reasonable suggestion of the dead wizard riding her back and proceeds to fly off.

My group is seriously making this campaign one of the most fun I've played...and I didn't think I would be having this much fun considering that the module leaves a lot to be desired.

 

[pukunui]

[MENTION=72670]Raunalyn[/MENTION]: That's awesome! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Motorskills]

That's genius Raun.

 

[Daern]

Last night the battle of Ascore began. Many gargoyles were slain.
And we ended up ditching initiative for opposed push up and pull up contests. I won the first. Then lost the next few. An unexpected twist to the campaign finale.
Next week the big blue emerges from the sands...

 

[Thurmas]

Just finished the final battle with Iymrith. Has to be the most unsatisfying finale ever. No fault of the adventure.

Battle has barely started, just the first round or two of combat, the party is fighting off the gargoyles and engaging the dragon, who is in human form.

Bard casts Unseen servant, walks him up to the Iymrith and has the servant place his bag of holding inside his Handy Haversack. Poof. Dragon gets sucked away. Gargoyles get wiped up/run in fear now that the dragon is gone. Battle ends. No epic fight. No close calls or unconcious players. Just a couple of a bags and a poof. So anticlimatic. A year of gaming for that.

Can't even finish the fight after the dragon finds a way to get back. Half the party is moving cross country and this was literally the last game session. My moral of the story: never again more then one extradimensional space per party.