Thread by @hexcrawl

So we've been doing a Let's Read of Storm King's Thunder.

#Spoilers

We've gotten up to Phase 4 of the campaign (where the PCs are sent on a quest by an oracle).

Today, though, I think, is going to be a grab bag of miscellaneous observations.

If you want to start reading the Let's Read from the beginning, you'll want to pop over here.

https://twitter.com/hexcrawl/status/1458611914980970510

When I was first reading through Phase 3 (the gazetteer of the Savage Frontier), I was bemused by the campaign's obsession with desecrating holy sites.

There are a half dozen or so holy sites belonging to the Uthgardt tribes, and everyone delves into (what seemed like) really odd amounts of detail about how you destroy the altars and loot them.

Like... is this a campaign about fighting giants or about looting native cultures?

It turns out that the Uthgardt actually stole these relics from the giants, and the giant oracle that kicks off Phase 4 of the campaign says, "I'll trade you 1 lead for every artifact you recover."

Another thing that's going on in the campaign is that Duke Zalto, a fire giant, is seeking the pieces of dragon-slaying colossi that were called the Vonindod. He's hoping to collect enough to rebuild a functioning Vonindod.

My immediate thought is that you could unify these two aspects of the campaign by having some or all of the Uthgardt relics could be Vonindod parts.

And/or one of them could be a rod of the Vonindod (magic items Zalto's giants are using to track Vonindod parts).

The idea of frozen magical potions that you can either thaw or eat is really cool.

Feels like something to incorporate into my #IcewindDale campaign, too.

For handouts like this map (p. 132), remove the English.

1. If one of the PCs speaks Giant, give them the guide to giant runes on p. 7. When they get handouts like this, it's a fun reward for their character's expertise for them "translate" the runes.

2. If none of the PCs speak Giant, then you'll want an untranslated handout and they'll need to seek someone out to get a translation.

3. This particular map is actually detailed enough that you could puzzle it out even if you can't read the labels. (And even figuring out one or two locations would probably give enough info for them to decode most of the runes.)

I've already mentioned the airship that randomly shows up with a crew that says, "Hello! The DM sent us!"

But since we've now reached this part of the campaign, I just want to say that literally the only thing I can think of when reading this section is Cid from Final Fantasy.

GORGON MUD (p. 149) - quicksand that also petrifies someone who falls into it - is a cool hazard.

I immediately want to figure out some sort of alchemical use for the stuff.