I've really enjoyed and benefited from reading this thread as I've been DMing STK. Here are some notes of changes I've made (some of which come directly from this thread). Hopefully this is helpful for some of you.
Major Changes:
-Dropped the Kraken. Iymrith is behind everything. Her cult replaces the Kraken Society.
-Instead of a racial caste system, the ordning is just the law that prohibits giants from interfering with the smallfolk. It is enforced through the divine magic of Hekaton’s royal decree. His disappearance is causing the lack of enforcement and confusion. Serissa, although his rightful heir, can’t activate the divine magic of the throne. This is why she believes her father to still be alive. Returning Hekaton to the throne (or having him die so that Serissa can inherit it) is what will restore the ordning.
Players’ Backgrounds:
Kolgate (Dwarven Life Domain Cleric) grew up on a small turnip farm with his adoptive human family near Ardeep Forest. A band of traveling bards left him there as a baby. The farmers (Jonathan and Martha) didn't know why or where he came from but
they were very religious and raised him to be too. One day he discovered a strange structure somewhere peaking out from the ground near the farm. That night, everyone in his family (Jonathan, Martha, and his adoptive brother Stefan) started having bad dreams and hallucinations. No matter how much they prayed, the dreams and hallucinations would not stop. In desperation, the family sent Stefan to go to the
Eltorchul Academy in Waterdeep to send a scholar to come investigate. The academy sent
Orville (Half-elf GOO Warlock), an archaeologist, to check out the site. The academy enlisted
Neena (Human OOD Paladin), an acolyte of the Order of the Gauntlet, to offer protection for Orville.
Orville dug out the structure to reveal a strange cat-like statue. But, when he touched it, he started seizing and foaming at the mouth. He had a psychedelic vision of Lay'la, an ancient cat creature. He thought it was just a hallucination but when he awoke he found that he had some strange new powers and could still hear Lay'la's voice in his head sometimes. When Kolgate, Orville, and Neena returned to the farm they found that Jonathan had hung himself, driven completely mad by the side effects of the statue. Martha and Stefan cursed Arffur, having lost their faith, and told Kolgate to leave, blaming him for finding the statue and ruining their family.
Luna (Wood Elf Archer Ranger) watched this dramatic exchange from the shadows at the edge of the woods. She had been secretly having an affair with Jonathan and had been on her way to visit him after being exiled from her own village. She was exiled after being accused of murdering her sister, Nereida, when the two of them were out hunting. There was a pair of witnesses who were also out hunting and saw Luna do this from afar. It was actually not Luna at all. She was secretly with Jonathan when it happened. However, she is too stubborn to admit to this because her conservative elf parents and village would be outraged if they knew she was sleeping with a human so she had no alibi. Nereida was the only one who knew about the affair. After being exiled and since Nereida and Jonathan are both dead she has nowhere else to go and vows to find whoever framed her. However, her only clue is some dead leaves. Despite it being Spring, many of the trees near where her sister was murdered had leaves in shades of yellow, orange, and red.
Luna meets the rest of the party a short way down the road from Kolgate's farm. They see a notice posted on a fence along the road from Lady Nandar that Nightstone needs to hire adventurers as protectors. Neena wants to go to get another chance to prove her worthiness to the Order of the Gauntlet since this mission has not been very successful so far. Orville is reluctant to return to the Eltorchul Academy in Waterdeep because he does not want to become a subject of study and fears they will want to experiment on his brain. Never losing faith, Kolgate thinks this is just the sort of random adventure that Arffur, his deity, would have stumbled into. Luna wants to make some allies who may be able to help her hunt her quarry. The party heads to Nightstone.
Chapter 1 Changes:
-The tressym becomes Orville’s Familiar
-After clearing out the goblins, we ran the “Seven Snakes” and “Earseekers” encounters simultaneously. Each of the three factions (Orcs, Zhents, Nandar Keep Guards) want the PCs to help them defeat the other two. Dramatic fight with rushes to close the drawbridge as orc berserkers are scrambling over it and climbing up the scaffolding of the damaged bridge to the keep. Ultimately, the orcs were all killed (their bodies had evidence of a recent battle with hill giants), one guard barely survived, and Kella escaped as the rest of the Zhents were killed.
-Hark, the goblin boss, is incredibly confused when he sees Luna (wood elf ranger) because he is convinced that she is the one who showed his gang this cave and said she didn’t need it anymore. He doesn’t believe Luna when she says that he has the wrong person. There is also a very large bed in the back of the cave made of dead autumn leaves.
-Instead of Morak sending the PCs to deliver messages to dead villagers’ family members, he appeals to their curiosity. He sketches the rune that appeared on the stolen Nightstone (one of the ancient giant runes of your choosing) and suggests they find a faction who can tell them what it means-Goldenfields for the Emerald Enclave, Triboar for the closest town with a ranking Lord’s Alliance officer, or Bryn Shander for the last known residence of an old pal (Artus Cimber) who happened to be a Harper. If your party is more motivated by treasure or power he can instead suggest that these organizations might pay a reward for information about the rune or know how to unlock its power.
-On the way to their chosen location, the PCs run into a hill giant dragging a sack of stolen crops and livestock.
-After the hill giant encounter, Zephyros’ flying castle approaches. The PCs are incredibly weary after having just left a village that was decimated by a flying castle. The tressym darts up the cloud staircase so they have a reason to go up too. Zephyros, through his contact with other planes, has also had visions of the strange ancient cat creature that led him to meet Orville and the rest of the party. He knows that the ordning is shattered but doesn’t know why.
Chapter 2 Changes:
-My PCs chose to go to Bryn Shander. If they would have gone to Triboar, I would change Darathra Shendrel’s backstory to make her an officer of the Lord’s Alliance and their main point of contact. If they went to Goldenfields, Lifferlas or Zi Liang (or a repurposed druid Nathene Drathkala) would be their Emerald Enclave contact. Had they sided with Kella Darkhope and the Zhentarim in Nightstone, she would have sent them to meet a Zhent contact in one of these cities instead.
-I took the advice of one of the posters in this thread to have the PCs interact with all of the special NPCs before the fight.
--When entering the town, a guard gloomily comments "Welcome to Bryn Shander. (Sigh) I wish I was still stationed in Neverwinter. It's been overcast here for weeks. Curse Auril". This is an important clue in the Sirac of Suzail quest.
--The PCs wander past The House of the Triad which is a temple of Torm, Tyr, and Illmater. Sirac of Suzail is outside trying to resolve an argument that he asks Neena’s help for when he realizes she is a knight of Torm. The argument is based on this quest from Knights of the Old Republic but adjusted to be magical instead of science fiction. “Calder was found, murdered, in the snow outside of the Ten Towns this morning by an arrow to the chest. Another bloody arrow of a different make was found nearby. The acolyte's magic determined that arrow did not have Calder's blood. Etc.”
--Afterwards, Sir Baric approaches them thinking Kolgate is The Weevil in disguise. He apologizes once he realizes he is not and that Neena is also a member of the Order of the Gauntlet. He shares the wanted poster and warns the party to be on the look-out.
--After they've been walking for a while someone realizes they are being followed. It's Beldora. She is carrying the strange giant-hunting gear outlined in this thread somewhere else (crampons, crossbow with a harpoon attached to rope, etc.). If they press her, she will admit that she plans on hunting giants but not that she is a Harper. She says she's been following them because she overheard them talking about giants. She wants to fire a crossbow bolt with a rope line attached to it into a giant. Then she'll use a mechanism built into the crossbow to reel herself in at tremendous speed, launching herself onto the giant's body. She can use the claws and boots to grip the giant, climb around and stab it in vital places. She's never actually tried this before and her contraption is not ready yet.
--They finally get to the Speaker's Palace. The group finds Town Speaker Duvessa Shane, Sheriff Markham, and deputy Augrek in a meeting. The NPCs don't know anything about the Harpers, Artus Cimber, or the rune from the Nightstone. They're meeting because they are concerned that the giants are all over the place, causing problems. They offer that maybe there's someone in Ten Towns who knows what the rune means. They ask the PCs to stick around tonight and they will call a meeting of the Ten Towns tomorrow. (Drufi and the frost giants attack in the night and Sirac reveals his true identity).
-Instead of using the quest hooks from the surviving NPCs, I just assigned whichever ones I wanted from any of the towns to the NPCs here.
--Beldora admits she is a Harper but doesn’t know the meaning of the rune from Nightstone. She also says no one has heard from Artus Cimber in over 20 years. She does however reveal that she has heard rumors that the Storm Giant King Hekaton has gone missing. She gives you the name of another Harper, Dral Thelev, in Everlund to ask about Hekaton and/or the rune.
--Sir Balef shares that he heard The Weevil was last seen around [insert place of your choosing] Mirabar.
--Markham Southwell knows a legend about a magic giantslayer sword (Urgala Meltimer quest from Triboar)
--Sirac wants to go to Luskan so as not to draw any more heat to Ten Towns
--Orville (the GOO warlock) has a reoccurring dream about freeing the ancient cat-being Lay'la from a relic she is trapped inside in a place called Beorunna's Well.
Chapter 3 Changes:
-On their way out of Icewind Dale, around Hundelstone, they meet a well-dressed noble who wears fancy red clothes. If asked he will introduce himself as Lord Klauth. He heard about their victory in Ten Towns and is curious what they plan to do next. If they don’t offer this information he straight out asks if they are planning on killing more giants. He responds with satisfaction or “too bad” depending on their answers. The next innkeeper or whoever the party meets will be shocked and explain that Lord Klauth is a red dragon.
-Drop clues that the Weevil was seen near Xantharl’s Keep once the PCs are closer and then drop hints about the new stable boy once they arrive. A fire giant shows up to assault the front gate with the ogres and goblin huckers that the PCs didn’t get to see from the battle at Goldenfields. This, however, is a diversion so that some hobgoblins can sneak over the back wall with grappling hooks and escape with The Weevil. The party is challenged to defeat the giant and ogres while minimizing commoner casualties and preventing the hobgoblins for escaping with the Weevil.
-Somewhere near Triboar (or somewhere else - it doesn’t matter) some commoners get very excited when they see Luna. “You look just like her!” They explain that their bard caught a glimpse of Gwaeron Windstrom in the woods nearby and painted her portrait and Luna looks exactly like her. Insert the other information from the “Gwaeron’s Slumber” section of Triboar including the clues about the autumnal leaves despite it being Spring and the missing rangers. Upon investigation, the PCs find a cave with someone who looks exactly like Luna eating the corpse of an elf, some flameskulls, and some traps. When the cannibal elf’s hp goes down to half she reverts to her true Oni form. She loves the taste of elves. She saw Luna in the woods one day and stole her form so she could infiltrate her village. She killed Luna’s sister and was going to eat her but was interrupted by the witnesses so she fled. In her cave the PCs find a letter from Kella Darkhope asking the oni to send her the location of more Ostorian artifacts so she can leak them to the stupid giant lords and assuring her not to worry because the Zhentarim don’t suspect anything. This hints at the fact that some organization (Iymrith’s cult) is stirring up the giants and is growing right under the nose of the Zhentarim.
-Zymorven Hall goose chase for the giantslayer brings the players onto The Grand Dame where the wooden goose chips are mentioned nonchalantly.
-At the bottom of Beorunna’s Well, in addition to several Uthgardt guards, is an altar holding an urn with all kinds of depictions of demonic-looking cats and ancient warnings. The Uthgardt are distrustful of arcane magic users (witches) and hate cats. When the PCs arrive, the tressym darts for the urn and knocks it over which causes it to break. This opens a portal. Each round a different monstrous cat escapes and attacks-a displacer beast, a chimera, and a manticore. The Uthgardt attack the cats and the party unless the PCs find a way to win them over (ours didn’t). After the monster cats are defeated, a giant ancient cat creature (Orville’s patron Lay’la) emerges, does something odd, and then flies into the night.
-We did a quest based on the Xzar and Montaron quest from Baldur’s Gate 2. This was part of the giantslayer goose chase as Xzar offered info on where to find Zymorven’s son in Yartar in exchange for the party breaking into the upper level library of the Harper “Inner Circle” compound there to find out what happened to his partner. I replaced the spectral harpers with a golem and made some other minor changes to details.
-At some point, the PCs encounter a wagon of merchants who were just saved by a blue giant with a skull helmet. Maybe this could happen more than once.
-Eventually, it is one of the Harpers (could have been Lord’s Alliance or Emerald Enclave or Zhentarim if PCs had chosen different allies) who suggest they go seek out a frost giant up north to get answers about the nightstone rune/king hekaton/shattering of the ordning. Harshnag is cynical after having saved the world several times only to see new threats emerge. The party has to convince him that it is worth fighting for again and he will agree to take them to the Eye of the All-Father. It’s been a long time since he’s been to the Storm Giant Court but he can reveal a little more about the politics of what’s going on: Neri is dead, Hekaton is missing or dead, Hekaton named youngest daughter as heir because the other two are unfit, mean, cold, or whatever. This will help the PCs know what to ask when they consult the oracle and build on the hints dropped earlier in the story by Zephyros and Beldora.
Chapter 4 Changes:
-Rather than figuring out which rune meant what, the archway puzzle became a matter of getting the statues’ weapons into their hands. This allowed me to incentivize exploring the rest of the temple by hiding more than one weapon. I left the frost giant axe in the room with the remorhaz but I also hid one of the statue’s weapons in one of the secret rooms and another in the ice tunnels.
-I took out the quest hook to find Blagothkus because, after Chapter 3, the party was keen to focus on the main quest hook and not have any more sandboxing to do. Plus, it was hard enough to get them to not be interested in finding Artus Cimber back in Chapter 2...
-My party was very interested in Zephyros so he gave them a Scroll of ‘Sending’ to contact him after he dropped them off in Bryn Shander. When they tried to use it he responded that he had been captured and got cut off by the 25-word limit before being able to reveal where he was. When the party asked the oracle where he was, the oracle answered something like “seek the conch and you will find Zephyros nearby” so that he could be inserted into the cages of whichever dungeon they chose for the next chapter.
-I removed the retrieval of the artifact from Uthgardt because a) as others pointed out, its pretty shady and b) I already involved the Uthgardt as a faction and what I found to be their most interesting location through Orville’s patron quest. Instead the oracle finds a way to give them information on where to find all of the giant lords and they can just choose which one to pursue.
-Harshnag’s sacrifice was more dramatic because he could reference the specific conversation he had with the party to convince him to save the world one more time.
-If the PCs indicated that they would fight more giants to Klauth back in Hundelstone then the airship arrives and references that conversation.
We are in Chapter 8 now.
