D&D 5E Brainstorming needed for DnDNext playtest: "Against the Tyranny of the Frost Giants!"

[Piratecat]

I'm prepping a 7th level D&D Next playtest game, and for inspiration I want to hearken back to G2 in Against the Giants. Who doesn't love frost giants? I mean, if they aren't trying to stomp on you. I don't plan to use the original map, but I'll want to come up with a tower outpost that carries that same sort of feel. Everything is huge, all the opponents are deadly and reasonably implacable, and it's up to the PCs to save human lives at the edge of the frontier.

What sort of encounters, rooms, or plot do you guys think I should use? What would you add, if you were running this?

Thanks!

 

[pemerton]

For true homage, I think you need at least one opportunity to be knocked over an ice cliff and land in a remorhaz lair!

For a bit of a 1st ed AD&D vibe it could also be fun to make one of (or some of) the boss frost giants an illusionist of some sort. Which can also work well with ice cliffs! Ideally, you'd find a mechanical technique for linking the "mundane" burdens on navigation and visibility (wind, snow, ice etc) with magical deception. But I don't know D&Dnext well enough at the mechanical level to suggest such a technique.

 

[Piratecat]

Interesting. I was thinking about setting it in a glacial rift - because hey, why wouldn't you? - and I'm sure there's something that supports some good illusion magic. I like the idea of a frost giant shaman or warlock.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm not sure this harkens back much to G2 per se, but I've always been a big fan of making the environment a Big Deal when you're going somewhere extreme (a la a glacial rift).

Perhaps whatever MacGuffin or whatever is leading the PC's here is also the cause of some massive blizzard. Boston was hit with a doozy just a week or so ago -- imagine trying to adventure during that gusty, snowy, blinding mess! Imagine Frost Giants looming out of the grey blizzard, as a dark shadow in the twilight of a stormy mid-day, cleaving through people's houses like they were made of matchsticks, not just killing people with their direct attacks, but destroying their refuge from the storm.

I'd personally try to make sure my group paid attention to proper gear and played smart in the wretched conditions -- maybe their first bits of minor treasure is climbing gear, ice picks, crampons, and warm outfits. Food is also expensive up where plants don't grow -- bits of hard tack might be worth more to some folks up there than coin.

If you're going with the giants and the glacier, you might as well toss dwarves in there, too -- some significant dwarven NPC, or a dwarven ruin that plays a role. If the weather outside is frightful, than a dilapidated below-ground structure might be comparatively delightful.

Anyway, that's not really anything having to do with G-2, but I've been pondering snowy-style adventuring a lot for my own nefarious purposes recently, so it's been on my mind, and I saw Frost Giants, so...

 

[RangerWickett]

Frost giants, in a glacial rift, with dwarf slaves who 'mine' into a glacier to remove pieces of a giant petrified monster/demon/dragon, which the giants use to enchant Fimbulwinter Stones. The stones extend the scope of winter, and the frost giants are slowly encroaching on civilized territory.

Outer patrol checks the stones -- a couple giants with a creature that looks from afar like a polar bear, but is actually a nastier beast wearing a polar bear fur coat.

Tunnels run throughout the glacier, accessible from the rift. The giants live on one side of the rift, in giant rooms carved out of the ice. The slaves and mine are on the other side, with a couple ice bridges connecting them. And sure, a remorhaz in the bottom of the rift, which is occasionally tossed disobedient dwarves.

When the party arrives, the jarl is in the mine, and he sends out warriors to hold the party at bay. Have several chambers that interconnect with tunnels, so the giants can flank. One or two frost mages who can split the party with walls of ice.

Then face the jarl himself in the bottom of the mine, under the leering petrified face of the massive monster. The jarl wields a hammer made of demonstone, which is wrapped with a chain that connects his life to that of the slaves. While he attacks the party, they have to free the slaves from their chains. Otherwise, attacks against the jarl just kill slaves without harming him.

 

[RangerWickett]

STOP READING MY MIIIIIND!

 

[pemerton]

For [MENTION=63]RangerWickett[/MENTION]'s version, doesn't the petrified <thing> have to come to life in some fashion at the climax?

 

[RangerWickett]

At 7th level, . . . I dunno, you want a TPK?

 

[pemerton]

I don't have a very good sense of D&Dnext's relative power relativities.

But the "some fashion" needn't be combat, either. Maybe the mine starts collapsing and the PCs have to do the classic "escape from the collapsing dungeon." I did this in The Well of Demons (from H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth) as a skill challenge, and it worked pretty well. (The PCs would have been around 8th level.)

Anyway, I was really just trying to milk your set-up for all that it's worth!

 

[steeldragons]

For additional homage-age [?]...harken back to The Mountain of Mirrors choose your own adventure and give one of the frost giants (the leader or shaman I suppose) a "pet" white dragon. If memory serves, it was youngish, animal/low intelligence, doesn't speak or anything. More a "monster" than a "dragon" if that makes sense....but c'mon, I mean, it's still a dragon!

"You enter the great hall to find the remnants of massive feast. The hall is empty except for the young frost giantess chastising a white dragon atop the massive ice-slab table, rummaging through scraps and leftovers while she's trying to clean up..."