This is advice I posted in a similar thread a while back...
Storm King's Thunder can be a great adventure, with some work.
I ran a 1-20 level campaign that mashed up Lost Mine of Phandelver, Tyranny of Dragons, and Storm King's Thunder. Sort of. I changed just about everything. But those campaigns were my primary inspiration.
If I had another group of committed players, SKT would be the first campaign I would run. I just love the scope and scale of giants on the warpath.
SKT benefits from an introductory adventure. Lost Mines of Phandelver works. So does Keep on the Borderlands in the new Starter Set. If you want to get extra ambitious, you could do a mashup of Red Hand of Doom (but change the bad guys from dragon worshippers to giant allies) and SKT.
Heck, almost every 5E adventure has something you could repurpose. Pick anything that strikes your fancy and then sprinkle in some elements that foreshadow giants on the warpath.
Give the players a reason to care. Make them saviors and heroes of a town they care about, then have giants come along and smash it to pieces. Grudd Haug and the hill giants are great candidate for this--perhaps the players need to save a few cherished NPCs from Chief Guh's cookpots.
You can put the giant lairs anywhere. Move them around as needed to suit your campaign.
Play up the chaos and disruption caused by the giant raids. It should feel like a war!
There needs to be an evil mastermind that has set this all in motion. In the published adventure, it's Imryth. In my campaign, it was the Zhentarim. Try to foreshadow that villain and show how they benefit from the chaos. Give them agents, minions, thralls, and heralds who are in the giant lairs. Savvy players will capture and interrogate them and thereby learn more.
Get rid of the conches. Find an alternate reason to have the players visit every lair. In my campaign, the players were hired by different factions within the Lords Alliance to make decapitation strikes on the giant lairs, while their traditional armies fought off giant raids all across the North.
After that, the players had to find the Eye of the All Father -- the temple of Annam -- which would take them to the hidden lair of Hekaton. In my campaign, it was a flying castle. There, they discovered Hekaton held captive by the Zhentarim and an allied blue dragon. Mayhem followed. Did the flying castle crash to the earth? Oh, yes, it did.
On DMs Guild you can find a few issues of Dungeon magazine circa issue 200 that reimagine the Against the Giants campaign. They have amazing maps, which are also available on Mike Schley's website. You might want to pick those up as great alternatives and/or expansions to the SKT giant lairs.
Have fun!
Storm King's Thunder can be a great adventure, with some work.
I ran a 1-20 level campaign that mashed up Lost Mine of Phandelver, Tyranny of Dragons, and Storm King's Thunder. Sort of. I changed just about everything. But those campaigns were my primary inspiration.
If I had another group of committed players, SKT would be the first campaign I would run. I just love the scope and scale of giants on the warpath.
SKT benefits from an introductory adventure. Lost Mines of Phandelver works. So does Keep on the Borderlands in the new Starter Set. If you want to get extra ambitious, you could do a mashup of Red Hand of Doom (but change the bad guys from dragon worshippers to giant allies) and SKT.
Heck, almost every 5E adventure has something you could repurpose. Pick anything that strikes your fancy and then sprinkle in some elements that foreshadow giants on the warpath.
Give the players a reason to care. Make them saviors and heroes of a town they care about, then have giants come along and smash it to pieces. Grudd Haug and the hill giants are great candidate for this--perhaps the players need to save a few cherished NPCs from Chief Guh's cookpots.
You can put the giant lairs anywhere. Move them around as needed to suit your campaign.
Play up the chaos and disruption caused by the giant raids. It should feel like a war!
There needs to be an evil mastermind that has set this all in motion. In the published adventure, it's Imryth. In my campaign, it was the Zhentarim. Try to foreshadow that villain and show how they benefit from the chaos. Give them agents, minions, thralls, and heralds who are in the giant lairs. Savvy players will capture and interrogate them and thereby learn more.
Get rid of the conches. Find an alternate reason to have the players visit every lair. In my campaign, the players were hired by different factions within the Lords Alliance to make decapitation strikes on the giant lairs, while their traditional armies fought off giant raids all across the North.
After that, the players had to find the Eye of the All Father -- the temple of Annam -- which would take them to the hidden lair of Hekaton. In my campaign, it was a flying castle. There, they discovered Hekaton held captive by the Zhentarim and an allied blue dragon. Mayhem followed. Did the flying castle crash to the earth? Oh, yes, it did.
On DMs Guild you can find a few issues of Dungeon magazine circa issue 200 that reimagine the Against the Giants campaign. They have amazing maps, which are also available on Mike Schley's website. You might want to pick those up as great alternatives and/or expansions to the SKT giant lairs.
Have fun!
