King abducted by outside forces; Queen murdered by same; youngest daughter on throne as favorite; elderest being opportunistic, yes, but completely unaware of actual plot; secret dragon running plot.
Um, no. Shallow coincidences like the King having three daughters and the youngest one is favored don't make a case, especially when the rest of the facts don't match.
Perhaps you should take up the matter with the designers, who repeatedly stated that they partially based the adventure on King Lear? If you dredge up some old threads on speculation before the adventure was announced, you'll find continual references to the upcoming "King Lear with giants" module. Granted, it's not a point-by-point match, but there's more resemblance than you're claiming...
Well, the thread is generally about how WotC has poorly designed elements in their published adventures, so I suppose adding not being able to follow the plot of your supposed reference could be added. So, the, what bugs you about how badly they got the plot of King Lear wrong?
| King Lear | Storm King's Thunder |
| Lear decides to divide his kingdom amongst his daughters and holds a flattery competition. He awards his kingdom according to how well his daughters praise him. The eldest fawn, but the youngest blunts says she cannot compare her true admiration for Lear with anything else. Mistaking this, Lear rages and banishes Cordelia and splits his kingdom equally among the other two daughters. The King of France still likes Cordelia, and agrees to still marry her even after being banished (they were betrothed) | Ammun the All Father, God of Giants, decides giants ain't gianting well enough and breaks the ordning. The Giant begin to compete amongst themselves for place in whatever new ordning arises. An evil dragon takes advantage of the situation, allies with a Kraken, and then kills the storm giant queen and kidnaps the storm giant king. The storm giant king's youngest daughter has been named heir, and so ascends the throne in her father's absence. Her spoiled sisters work to try to take power for themselves, but have no idea about the dragon's plotting or even that there is a dragon, and so far have done little to weaken their sister. |
| Lear's sisters work to weaken Lear and manage to separate him from much of his support and drive him mad. Lear eventually reunited with Cordelia, now leading an invading French army. The other sister get up to shenangians with murder and sleeping around. One is widowed, both are still struggling for power. The English nobles gather to fight off the French. | Um... the party runs around the countryside and kills one or more giant lords that are doing bad things in the lords' quests to gain rank in the new ordning. The evil dragon manages the storm giant court from the shadows, making sure things stay unstable and the storm giants can't bring the other giant clans to heel. The two sisters play music for other giant lords and maybe plot and stuff -- not real clear here. |
| The French army loses, and Cordelia and Lear are captured. The sisters get betrayed, and die. Cordelia is executed. Lear dies of a broken heart. As is typical of Shakespeare's tragedies, pretty much everyone dies in the end. One of the surviving nobles takes the throne (and, interestingly, who it is varies by version -- that wily Bard, inventing alternate endings!). | The PCs get to Maelstrom, meet some hill giant guards, the elder sisters try to bump them off (poorly), and then, maybe, learn of the kings abduction and out the evil dragon plotter. The PC then maybe rescue the King, or not, but the youngest daughter keeps the throne. Eventually, the PCs go fight the Dragon. |
