I like to reuse old school modules in my campaign world where I need to give lore to the module. This time I decided to use a very classic one: G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief by Gary Gygax. During this process I usually change so much that you cannot identify the original module. Still, it gives me the foundation, it is the seed I put into the incubator.
I created the initial blog post here but I thought someone could reuse it so I created this post here with the same content:
Reusing G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief (D&D 5e)
Background
I like to reuse old school modules in my campaign world where I need to give lore to the module. This time I decided to use a very classic one: G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief by Gary Gygax. During this process I usually change so much that you cannot identify the original module. Still, it gives me the foundation, it is the seed I put into the incubator.
The Lore
In our long running campaign, the party has just finished the Tomb Of Annihilation - placed into my homebrew campaign world - and they failed to prevent the birth of the new, evil god. This new god immediately started to effect the world with fresh wickedness.
One of his deeds is to bring back giants into existence. In my campaign world giants are good creatures of a long forgotten past, who don't live there anymore. The giants are now reborn from the dream of humans altered by this evil deity. So the giants appeared on the world at once with history and memories but with a twist. Due to the evil deity's intervention these new giants are nasty, evil creatures (although not very clever ones).
They live in a long forgotten place, in the middle of a forested hill from where they started to raid the borderlands of the human kingdoms.
Giants as opponents
After the lore I took a look at the Monster Manual to see how interesting the (Hill) giants are. They are not very interesting from combat perspective. So I changed them a bit and I gave them some extra capabilities:
Stone catcher
What are the Giants doing?
Use the following table to randomly determine what a giant is doing the moment the PCs encounter him/her.
I created the initial blog post here but I thought someone could reuse it so I created this post here with the same content:
Reusing G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief (D&D 5e)
Background
I like to reuse old school modules in my campaign world where I need to give lore to the module. This time I decided to use a very classic one: G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief by Gary Gygax. During this process I usually change so much that you cannot identify the original module. Still, it gives me the foundation, it is the seed I put into the incubator.
The Lore
In our long running campaign, the party has just finished the Tomb Of Annihilation - placed into my homebrew campaign world - and they failed to prevent the birth of the new, evil god. This new god immediately started to effect the world with fresh wickedness.
One of his deeds is to bring back giants into existence. In my campaign world giants are good creatures of a long forgotten past, who don't live there anymore. The giants are now reborn from the dream of humans altered by this evil deity. So the giants appeared on the world at once with history and memories but with a twist. Due to the evil deity's intervention these new giants are nasty, evil creatures (although not very clever ones).
They live in a long forgotten place, in the middle of a forested hill from where they started to raid the borderlands of the human kingdoms.
Giants as opponents
After the lore I took a look at the Monster Manual to see how interesting the (Hill) giants are. They are not very interesting from combat perspective. So I changed them a bit and I gave them some extra capabilities:
Stone catcher
- As a bonus action a Hill Giant can catch a missile aimed at him or her.
- While the Hill Giant is wielding a melee weapon, medium or smaller creatures provoke an opportunity attack from the Hill Giant when they enter his/her reach.
- All melee attack done by a Hill Giant strikes all medium or smaller opponents in front of him or her within 10'.
- The Hill Giant has advantage on attack rolls against a creature he/she is grappling.
- The Hill Giant can use his/her action to try to pin a creature grappled by him/her. To do so, he/she makes another grapple check. If he/she succeeds, the Hill Giant and the creature are both restrained until the grapple ends.
What are the Giants doing?
Use the following table to randomly determine what a giant is doing the moment the PCs encounter him/her.
- Roasting a dwarf miner.
- Skinning a stolen pig.
- Hatching some logs to make fire.
- Arguing about having sex.
- Having sex.
- Raging about not having dinner.
- Sewing some clothes.
- Praying to the spirit of his/her ancestors .
- Stalking intruders.
- Sleeping like a corpse.
- Bringing some water in a bucket.
- Drinking ale.
- Having fun with a piglet.
- Eating a young elf maiden.
- Carving a human tight bone.
- Dancing like a bear.
- Picking meat from his/her teeth.
- Lying and having a toothache.
- Intoxicated from mushrooms.
- Head butting.
- Vomiting in a corner.
- Listening to strange voices from the wall.
- Hunting to humans.
- Making fire to cook some rabbit.
- Chopping up some strange, alien meat.
- Trying to come up with a love song.
- Sleeping with snoring.
- Talking to himself/herself about being great.
- Praying to dark powers.
- Watching a cage fight between two dwarves and cheering.
- Abusing a little monkey
- Arguing about the best meat (human, elf, dwarf, halfling etc...)
- Picking his/her nose.
- Trying to be festive
- Preparing a trap.
- Brewing alcohol.
- Going through some rubbish.
- Teaching his/her pet bear.
- Spying on another giant.
- Preparing for fishing.
- Sharpening an ancient magical stone axe.
- Treating Orcus.
