SKT: Recap

 Hello all! I'll be posting session summaries on this blog after every session, so if you feel you missed something or need to refresh your brain on something that happened in-session, this is the place to look first.

Now, let's recap what happened before our hiatus from Storm King's Thunder.

~

Our story begins with a Zhentarim crew transporting the adventurers as prisoners. As the crew is thinking of a way to escape their captors, a dragon ambushes the Zhents. The adventurers, a unique bunch, chose to align with Felgolos, the cocky adult Bronze dragon. Tazi the minotaur, Lucien the aasimar, Dhrys the drow, and Alazahr the gith helped Felgolos dispatch the Zhents.

Felgolos informed the party that their current location is in the forests near Sundabar. The dragon's deed of freeing the prisoners was not free, however. He requested (demanded) that the party help him retrieve his pipeweed, called Yondalla's Delight, from the lair of two young blue dragons to the east. The party obliged after he also noted that they could keep any treasure they found, he only wanted the pipeweed. The lair of the blue dragons was near Ascore, the crumbling remains of a desert city. 

Moving under the radar of the two blue dragons, the party was able to retrieve the pipeweed along with some other goods from the dragons' lair, seemingly unoccupied. As the party began to make their way out of Ascore, however, the shadow of the dragons passed far overhead as they began to descend on the intruders of their lair. In a quick flee from the scene, the party narrowly escaped the dragons' breaths and made it out of Ascore, alive, pipeweed in hand. 

It was then that a booming voice sounded from a nearby bust of a dragon statue.

"I am in disbelief that I have spawned such feeble offspring, that are so easily defeated by smallfolk and a fumbling metallic. You all are lucky that I have not the time nor the patience for such pedestrian matters at the present moment. But your time will come, and you will know my vengeance. the Doom of the Desert abides no insolence."

 Only time will tell if this group of odd characters will live through this omen.

~

As Felgolos flies the party away from Ascore, he tells them of a giant near Mirabar who shouts about needing adventurers to help him fight the Iymrith, the Desert Doom. The party, deciding this must be connected to the voice coming from the dragon statue, asks Felgolos to drop them in Mirabar.

Speaking to citizens of Mirabar confirmed Felgolos' stories. There had been a frost giant, occasionally coming down to Mirabar from the north, urging "only the best and strongest" adventurers to make the trek up to the Spine of the World to fight him and prove their worth. The locals also warned that many adventurers did not return, and those that did return were not without injury.

After a few days' travel through the foothills of the Spine of the World, the adventurers reached a temple decorated with massive statues of all types of giants. The steps up to the temple were littered with several bodies of slain frost giants. The entrance to the temple consisted of a large hallway, at the end of which was a large frost giant wielding a massive axe and wearing a dragon's skull for a helmet. He shouted at the party as he broke into a sprint towards them.

"Prepare to face Harshnag's challenge!"

The party put up a good fight against Harshnag! After exchanging multiple blows, Harshnag halted the fighting.

"You are worthy. I will tell you everything I know..."

He led the party into an expansive chamber housing an 80-foot tall statue surrounded by six smaller statues. Harshnag walked the party to the wall in the far end of the chamber and sat underneath the runes carved into it.

~

Harshnag explained that he means no harm to small-folk and wants to help stop giants' attacks across the North. He told the party everything he had learned since his staying at the temple. There is an oracle within the temple and he had spent his time here asking it questions.

Giants have been rampaging and destroying the North because the ordning has broken. The ordning is a caste system imposed upon the giants by their gods, chief among them Annam the All-Father. 

The order traditionally stands as follows: 

• Storm Giants
• Cloud Giants
• Fire Giants
• Frost Giants
• Stone Giants
• Hill Giants. 

Annam the All-Father decided to shatter the ordning to encourage the giants to show their power after the disappearance of King Hekaton, the Storm King and ruler of all giants. Giant lords of each kind are commanding their subjects to action. Each giant lord is pursuing a different goal to prove themselves to Annam and to get their kin higher on the ordning totem pole. Harshnag shared the names of each of the lords, as well as their goals:

• Countess Sansuri is the leader of the cloud giants and aspires to find a lost trove of dragon magic.
• Duke Zalto is the leader of the fire giants and aims to rebuild a dragon-slaying colossus.
• Jarl Storvald is the leader of the frost giants and wants to bring about the Age of Everlasting Ice.
• Thane Kayalithica is the leader of the stone giants and works towards obliterating the works of the surface-worlders.
• Chief Guh is the leader of the hill giants and eats endlessly to become the biggest giant the world has ever seen.
  

King Hekaton's disappearance is a result of him being misled by his oldest daughter, Nym, as well as the ancient blue dragon Iymrith. The blue dragon has infiltrated the storm giant court under the guise of a storm giant named Yrsi and acts as an advisor to the current holder of the throne. Currently, King Hekaton's youngest daughter, Serissa, holds the throne in his place and potentially has a clue to his whereabouts.

The storm giant court resides in the hold of the storm giants, called Maelstrom. To reach Maelstrom, one would need two of King Hekaton's conches of teleportation. When two conches are brought together and willed to activate, they teleport those wielding them to Maelstrom. These conches are not easy to obtain, however. King Hekaton only grants one conch to each of the giant lords. At least two are required to teleport as a safety measure. Ensuring that the giant lords had to gather prior to teleporting made it so that a single giant kind could not attempt to storm Maelstrom with an army.

Harshnag finished by informing the party on how to get the locations of the giant lords.

"When human barbarians came to these lands, they fought our kind and stole our relics, burying them in the ground. The humans built altars to Uthgar, their god-king, atop these relics and surrounded their altars with burial mounds. You must go to these mounds, retrieve our lost relics, and bring them here as tribute. Do this and the oracle will provide you with paths to the giant lords. The more relics you deliver, the more paths you will have to choose from."

Harshnag created his challenge to find adventurers to retrieve these relics and help him challenge the giant lords. He wanted to weed out weak adventurers, since the first group he worked with failed to return after. He expressed that he never fatally injured or killed anyone attempting the challenge.

~

With this new information, the party left the temple to begin retrieving relics, but found a strange vessel hanging in the sky overhead. It appeared to be a small ship with sleigh runners, held aloft by a giant red balloon. This airship housed members of the Cult of the Dragon, a group following the orders of a red dragon who calls himself Klauth, the Great Dragon of the North. Once the adventurers entered the airship, a woman adorned in black leather armor and a horned helmet unfurled a scroll and read its contents to the party.

"We come to you on behalf of Klauth, the Great Dragon of the North! Klauth offers you this vessel and our services as a gift, so that you may cross his vast dominion while avoiding the many perils of the land below. War against the giants is inevitable, but the Great Dragon commands you forge ahead and face your destiny! The ordning of the giants is broken, and they are not united. Slay their leaders, and you may yet prevail. If you succeed in quelling the giant threat, Klauth bids you come to his hidden vale, so that he can reward your bravery."

Klauth had been tracking adventurers attempting the challenge and ordered the cult to assist the first group that succeeded. Klauth hates giants and despises Iymrith even more, so he wants to aid the party as much as he can, free of charge.

The party worked with the cult to retrieve three relics:

• Half of a porcelain, giant-sized mask
• A gold-plated, giant-sized tooth
• A mithral, giant-sized spear tip

Our adventurers presently fly in the cult's airship with relics in their possession, ready to find what information the oracle may present in return for their offerings...