In my SKT, Auril is using the Ring of Winter as a conduit to the Necklace of Ulutiu in order to siphon power from Ulutiu. This woke Ulutiu from his slumber, thus breaking the covenant between him and Annam All-Father. Ulutiu has set his faithful, primarily frost giants, to finding the Ring of Winter and stopping the siphoning, not because he fears for his own existence, but because should he perish, the Great Glacier of the North will melt, raising sea levels and flooding Faerun and other continents.
This is the real reason why Annam freed his children from the ordning. Prior to this, it was forbidden to war amongst themselves, but now they can all pursue the frost giants and prevent Ulutiu from rising. Annam doesn't care that Faerun will flood, in fact, he'd welcome it so that his children can once again establish their dominance and rebuild Ostoria.
The dragons, in turn, were rising to fight the giants, because a new Ostoria threatens their very existence. In fact, the Cult of the Dragon were trying to bring Tiamat back to save all dragon-kind from such a fate.
But the giants have all abused the opportunity and are using it for personal advancement and power rather than banding together and stopping Ulutiu like Annam wished. Only a strong leader, on the seat of the Wyrmskull throne, can unite them and lead them against the traitorous frost giants, like Annam intended.
Of course, this would in turn be to Auril's advantage, and against dragon-kind. Thus Klauth's aid, since he sees all and knows what's really going on and is betting on the adventurer's to suss everything out and make the right choice, which is to find a leader to sit on the Wyrmskull throne who will recognise the truth and not fight the frost giants, but truly unite all of giant kind to fight Auril, and maybe even make an alliance with the dragons for their mutual benefit and survival. Of course, he can't tell them all of this because they wouldn't trust a dragon, so he merely aids them and nudges them in the right direction.
In truth, Auril is merely a puppet of Slarkrethal, though, who genuinely wants to flood the world so that he can reign over it. He wants Auril to cause as much conflict as possible and is playing all sides against each other in order to weaken them and lead them towards the melting of the glaciers. His revenge against all the young upstarts. He mentally controls Artus Cimber to work as a conduit for Auril in order to facilitate all of this, and has bargained with the Cultists of the Dragon, and Iymrith, as well, promising them secrets and power and revenge; basically whatever he thinks they want to hear in order to get them all to fight each other.
