grognard one-shot

[CleverName]

Okay, I'm going to be running a 3.5 game for some old D&D buddies - some as far back as high school in the 80's. The PCs (bard, sorcerer/barbarian, cleric, and wizard) are around 14th level.

Anyhoo, the setup for the game is that one of the PC's parents (the bard's) were framed for a murder and left by the authorities on the border of a fire giant's land.

Later, the same PC's eldest brother was killed by the fire giants when he tried to sneak into the Fire Giant King's hall to see if his parents were still alive.

So, as you can well surmise some fire giant butt-kicking will be going on.

If you have any ideas for encounters in the FGK's lair, etc. Please let me know.

 

[Gilladian]

I presume that the fire giants realm is volcanic? Or are you going to try something more original? I once had a rift valley in a glaciated region, in which hot springs from deep volcanic activity were the only thing keeping everything from freezing. There were steam vents, geysers, boiling mud pools, etc... but no actual eruptions, lava or caldera. There were volcanic tube-caves, but the PCs never ended up in them.

You will want to use all the standard fire element monsters, but also think about lots of giant-sized creatures. Rocs, the living thunderstorms I seem to remember from somewhere, dire creatures etc... could all be interesting. Also how about BIG versions of otherwise tiny creatures, like giant worms.

I would also use heat-loving but otherwise not typical monsters, such as scorpions and lizards.

Gilladian