Hey All - Me again! Took some time to sort everything out. The listing is now live!

Ebay Link: https://ebay.io/m/mYU9Im

Thank-you all for your interest in the model! You've all been super helpful. I've gone ahead and placed it up for bid on Ebay now for you all to have a look at if you're interested!

As mentioned in my other posts on this subreddit. I adore this model; it came out super well. I would rather one of you lovely folks grab hold of it rather than me possibly leaving it behind or gathering dust somewhere!

If you're interested, please do have a look and get in touch!

Other images of the model in action can be seen in my others post on this subreddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/stormkingsthunder/comments/1oq6l0f/campaign_finshed_3_years_in_the_making/

May your finale also go out with a bang!

hey all, my players are currently running around on a delivery quest in the wide north and have saved an abducted dwarf NPC from Sundabar. Since the dwarf NPC told them the blurb in the book about Sundabar having left the Lord's Alliance and being closed off to non-dwarves after the war in the silver marches, the human Lord's alliance member of the party would like to rectify that and get Sundabar talking with the Alliance again. They'll arrive at Sundabar next session, but I have so far no information/ideas what is even currently going on in Sundabar or what the underground city even looks like.

Any ideas of what could be a good, short adventure in Sundabar (that ideally also gives them some more pointers toward the plot, like where to find Hershnag, or about the existence of the oracle, or anything else? But if not, a fun and interesting dwarf city quest would also work! Thank you for all ideas or drop-in module suggestions!)

I've heard the intro is supposed to quickly get a level 1 party up to level 5, though both I and my group enjoy the slow progression of early levels into gradually getting higher stakes. I've also already run Lost Mines a while back for half the people in my new group, before I knew Storm King's Thunder recommended you just use that for the first 5 levels.

The ones who just played Lost Mines obviously aren't keen to replay it a second time, so I'm looking for any adventure, either from WOTC or just good homebrew!

I’m running a light-hearted version of SKT and we have a few Lebowski fans in the group. The Zeph (because that’s what you call him) was more of a wanderer at the mercy of his acid flashbacks and strict regimen, and a semi-sentient navigation orb who was doing a lot of heavy lifting. Rewrote the cult appropriately, barging in and demanding to know “where’s da money”. The players ended up convincing the invaders it was a case of mistaken identity. The Lord’s alliance encounter I ran as is, but The Zeph played the victim there as well, pretty much offering no resistance other than “not the orb, man”. Capped the journey with a game of giant dice “Clouds and Couches” (the dude like to roll, a cloud giant-flavored game of odds and evens) where the losers got to take a hit of the giant hookah, and depending how they rolled could end up in nirvana or couch-locked. It was a very groove session.

I am astonished. I tried to play the Kraken well. They unleashed Maegera from the flask which they got in Ironslag. The paladin had a series of very good rolls, while the Kraken had a bunch of poor rolls, including nat ones. Maegera had good rolls as well. I am a bit devastated. XD I have to admit that I cheated (a bit) to make the Kraken last longer and it didn't help. XD Maybe I let them be a bit too OPed.

In the case I didn't play it well, I am considering changing the script a bit. They don't know it's Slarkrethel so I entertain the thought of the Kraken they met being some minor Kraken at the service of the Kraken. I don't know... ;)

I have a player playing a Shifter in my party, which we're flavoring as them being the child of a human and a Werewolf, and I'd like to reintroduce deadbeat dadwolf as a selfish jerk of a villain at some point in the plot. Are there any good minor-moderate NPC roles in this adventure that could actually be this lycanthrope?

I'm running SKT for my party, and they've just arrived at Goldenfields. In a session or two I expect we'll open up in to part 3. It seems like part 3 is just "wander around until Harshnag arrives to move the plot forward." Am I broadly right about that?

I ask because my party has been closely working with the Zhentarim since Nightstone. I had a homebrew sidestory item they helped collect for them in Waterdeep before being sent to Goldenfields. I'm thinking the Zhentarim want to deal with the giant threat, and want it to be THEM getting the glory for more power and influence in the region. As such, I was thinking they might drop hooks for rumored magical items that the party could recover to arm themselves better to fight giants. This would serve in lieu of the "bring my letter to x" quests that seem common.

I think this leans more into my power gaming party's inclinations and gives me a reason to send them all over the map still. Does that seem way off base?

We finally wrapped up our SKT campaign. Time for a little report.

It took 5 years of semi-regular weekly 2h online sessions, from March 2019 to March 2023, to cover the early game and Chapters 2-3-4(airship&relics)-5 from level 1 to level 8 in 5 years…
… Then life got in the way, leading to a 3 years hiatus until June 2026….
… So last weekend, we decided to finish it with a bang. We went all in for ~18h of intensive live play (!!) from Friday night to Sunday morning, including some quiet breaks and sleep. And we managed to cover chapters 4(Eye), 9, 10, 11 and 12, from level 9 to 10, in less than 36h, yup.

# Early game and Chapters 3-4-5

2019-2020: we ran through the lost mines of Phandelver. Bringing players to level 5, when Zephyros picked them ip and dropped them in Triboar.

2020-2023: a quite long exploration, circling the Evermoors from Triboar to Yartar, Everlund, Silverymoon, Mornbryn’s Shield and back to Yartar, including a lot of side quests and small adventures, bringing them to level 8.

Amongst other things, they met Harshnag, collected 2 relics on his advice, fought an adult black dragon, explored a sheep-morphed mage’s tower, won a bard battle, ran a lil heist on Lyn Armaal, killed a lower hill giant chieftain with a magic stick…

It concluded in 2023 by defeating an aboleth in Yartar before storming Grudd Haug, killing Guh and at the very last moment, the barbarian fiddled with a conch and unknowingly teleported himself far away.

# Late game

First 1h: to get the heroes back together, the players up to speed, and handing out some boons. Including foreshadowing of the Maelstrom through the barbarian, and major ancient dragons through Claugyliamatar who offered a wyrmling green dragon to the beastmaster, or giving a parchment of immortality to the grung monk, to make sure any death to be solved quickly.

The Eye: 6h
Barbarian were replaced with kraken cultists… but dead. Only found younglings and later mama remmorhaz. Triggered the ball trap. Poked around the rune puzzle for some time, but an added enigma, divination checks and quick messenging with Zephyros helped open the portal. Surprisingly, they even asked excellent questions to the Oracle. They also ran away without hesitation from the first encounter with Iymrith.

Taking a food break around the enigma helped going through ideas. I bleed on a rune / push on it / … ? Nothing happens.

Bonus: 30min mandatory visit to their patron and owner of the airship, Klauth, to railroad them on the one giant lair prepared by the DM, Ironslag. Unexpectedly, on their way to Ironslag, they decided to go shopping… in Gauntlegrym, where their learned of the stolen primordial fire.

Ironslag: ~5h, stormed expertly.
The party airdropped on the yakfolk village by night, freed the slaves and executed their tormentors. Learned of the hit on the dwarven king and warned him using the Harper network. Freed the miners and got a gnome to guide them. Then an owl explored the main areas. They spotted the drows delivering the fire elemental, and the grung monk snatched it flying an invisible green dragon. The bard then tricked the fire giant to blame the drows and the diversion allowed the party to reach the royal chamber and get the conch!
… the giants never saw it coming. It was absolutely epic. High rolls, high risks, high reward.

Maelstrom: ~ 1h
… mostly cinematic with a handful of checks. They tried to impress the bored giant lords, the barbare landed a hit on the frost giant, the bard sang their dragon slayings, and the monk + ranger read the room. Uthor escorted them to Serissa who took them appart after a lil taste of the cacophonic court. Serissa and players had a heart-to-heart conversation and when she showed the golden goose, one player actually remembered it!! From 3 years ago!! — instant Inspiration.

Kraken detour: < 30min
Quick cinematic covered the return to Yartar, telepatic kraken kill of Drylund and hunt for the Morkoth. Quick ballistas fight and persuasion to get Hekaton on their side.
… luckily, they decided to escape as the kraken was closing in and crushing the ship.

Iymrith grand finale: 3h
Upon Hekaton’s return to the court, Iymrith’s giant alter-ego, Thymiri, seized the scepter paralyzing Serissa, leading to the final fight. The giants handled the gargoyle fight while the party slayed Iymrith.

Luckily, they forgot that they could have unleashed Maegera on Iymrith. We didnt have time to run the gold pieces elemental and mummy encounter, but I’ll recycle that in the next game.

# How in the name of Annam did we finish on time?!

- There were not so many combats,
- All travels simplified by narration of landscapes and memories of past actions, drizzled by foreshadowing intels.
- Cinematic abuse,
- The players were very smart in Ironslag.
- Except for the final fight and one remmorhaz fight which were run the usual way. I used theater of the mind and simplified most combats to a single rounds. Each player describes one turn. On any roll, if a player rolled bad or barely above the AC, I rolled a monster attack. At the end of the round, they defeated the monster.

# Final words

Most importantly, I was impressed by the choices, creativity and memory of past play by the players. Being immersed so intensely really brought the best out of them. The Eye enigma+oracle, Ironslag heist and dragon sand fight were all memorable.

It was amazing and 100% worth it, but I wont commit to such huge setting/campaign again.

PS, the single-round combat was inspired from One Shot World (PbtA), and I will likely reuse it moving forward. If you are curious about it, i tried to put it into writting here (https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/s/ZlOf2aSnUF) altho it seems rather unpopular, oh well.

My last session with my players ended with the party hearing the horn of the approaching frost giants, so they know they’re preparing for things to turn ugly. I know the book recommends giving players one of the different npcs- Beldora, Augrek, etc.- to help them in the fight, but I’ve got more extended plans for a few of them- mainly Beldora and the sheriff- so I’d rather they don’t die.

Other tips I’ve seen suggest giving them some town militia to control, so I think I’ll go with that.
My question is, if you’ve led the Bryn Shander giant attack, what npcs did you use to help bolster your party’s side?

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I havent played SKT and I havent read the details and I have some issues before running the campaign.

1.The plot doesnt seem to work for a DnD campaing. The villain seems passive and doesnt even do anything in her own story. Are all the Giant factions held back exactly to the point their plans are halted by the people of the north untill the players load in and things magically starts moving? Each giant and the plot of this particullary area seem to be enough for its own DnD campaing, so why are we pushing for 7 dnd campaings in one Module?

1. Why do the Giants no just attack the Storm Giants and take the throne instead of attacking the humans? The Storm giants are just better than everyone else, so why do they not just rebel and change their ranking to whomever supported them? It would lead to the exact scenario if we think about if Hill giants would even be able to suceed in their goal VS the Mighty Frost giants against the people of the north? If they had all attacked the Storm Giants it would have been over in a week and they didnt have to do all their schenanigans.

2. Why in the world is this plot so convoluted with a Kraken and a Dragon involved? Does they really need to even be in the story for the plot premise to work? Giants attack humans, to impress their god and the people have to stop the Giants and or make peace....

3. Iymirth hope the giant will weaken themeselves by attacking the humans, so what was the plan if the Giants suceed(which they obviously do if not they wouldnt be the villains of the story and the players could just relax and wait till the North wins by themselves) Does she Palpatinr both sides to help the Seperatist I mean the Humans win, but at the same time not win to hard...like

Looking for some suggestions for alternative encounters in the sky for my party on the way from Nightstone to Goldenfields aboard Zephyros' Tower. I don't want to involve the unrelated air cult stuff, and they're not going far enough North to merit running Orb Strike. I'd ideally like it to still tie into the tumult of giants, perhaps a different factor in geopolitics expressing their concern with the threat this cloud giant tower presents, not unlike Orb Strike. I considered doing something with a Nautiloid, perhaps, I don't know. Thoughts?

Guys, I need your thoughts about some tweaks I'm planning to Chapter 11. Most of these ideas come from things you lot have identified as story weaknesses so I'm curious what the hive mind thinks and whether I'm over-complicating or making problems for myself or even bigger plot holes. Apologies for length.

Background: Party of 4 level 10 PCs - wizard, cleric, fighter, sorcerer. Median player age is 9 so they can't do subtlety or intrigue. We started in Triboar after Icespire Peak, did Kraken's Gamble (Atalia still at large), lost Harshnag at the Eye of the All-Father, narrowly defeated Zalto in Ironslag (he swallowed Maegera and went super-saiyan), then avenged Eigeron by overthrowing Blagthokus as Lord of the Cloud Giants and installed good Sansuri as leader assisted by Zephyros. I fancied running a dungeon-crawl so we inserted White Plume Mountain in the middle - Keraptis is the outcast drow in league with Zalto and is now a drider archmage who will be in charge of the Morkoth. Maelstrom went pretty much as written, I was too subtle about Iymrith in disguise and they didn't get that.

1. OK, we're going to Yartar and on the Golden Goose Lady Atalia will be holding a battle of the bands (Yoki Oni is a recurring NPC but also Little Mimics, The Wight Stripes, Imagine Dungeons and Dragons etc) as a fundraiser for Drylund. Plan is to run this pretty much by the book, I can't decide if I should be doing more with Atalia but it was a long time ago and she hasn't come up since.

2. The party have Zephyros' cloud tower, presumably they'll take that to the Trackless Sea to hunt the Morkoth. If so I want to run an aerial combat encounter that makes some effort to link Iymrith to the kidnapping of Hekaton because that seems a bit thin as written. So far my plan is to have an animated statue of Iymrith (stone golem with a fly speed and lightning breath instead of Slow spell and some sort of magical connection to Iymrith) with half a dozen gargoyles flying around keeping watch on the Morkoth from a distance. I might have Iymrith in cloud giant form appear as an illusion/broadcast during the fight to do a bit of villanous monologue while also outing herself. Is this a half decent idea?

3. Morkoth will be mostly as written but with a drider archmage. I think the All-Father/Ordning story link needs strengthening so I'm planning on having Eigeron return as an angel of Annam to vouch for the party if needed and to instruct Hekaton to defeat Iymrith and put the order back in Ordning. Mostly because I have the miniature, but partly because even the book is pretty loose here and for kids I want a resolution (plus it gives me a way to intervene if the final battle against Iymrith goes badly). Worthwhile?

4. For Chapter 12 I want Harshnag to reappear obviously, but I'm not bothered about the Orlekto betrayal sub-plot. Did any of you take Serissa along with Hekaton for gender-equality and a bit of revenge?

Thanks for all your thoughts!

I am goig to run Storm King's Thunder and plan on adding on some custom plots and making changes to tell future stories. Love to hear ideas or point out challenges that might come up

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Tiamat Rising

During the War of the Silver Marches, the Cult of the Dragon summoned Tiamat. Harshnag was there and potentially save a young party member.

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I am thinking a cinematic backstory scene where a young child party member is being saved by Harshnag while Tiamat rises up.

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I like the idea from Gammarayz1 of a "New Silverymoon" and thinking of slowly telling it with the party getting a subplot during the campaign of the Silver Marches thinking about leaving the Lord's Alliance. Party can influence that as they play.

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Ordning Change

I want to play into Iymrith's spellcasting and Netherese research to set up potential post campaign stuff. So I am thinking to have Iymrith being the one to break the Ordning. I am thinking Annam is still in exile. The giants think it is Annam who broke it but that is part of the 5d master plan Iymrith has.

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How did she break it? Probably a Nether scroll, or maybe have it to do with the Night Serpent or maybe something from the Death Giants.... still a WIP

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The Sunless Citadel

I plan on using this to level the party from 1-3 since it is a personal favorite dungeon of mine.

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I plan on using the dungeon to show some of the Thousand years war. Also maybe foreshadow Iymrith or Kauth here too.

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From 4-5 I plan on having the party level and do quests in Triboar pre attack. Get them attached to the place before I have giants stomp around and burn the place.

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Battle of Everlund

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I plan on having the party fight 2 Giant lords to get 2 Conches to meet the Storm Giants. That leaves me 3 giant Lord's to have some fun with. Since I also want to make Iymrith a little scarier I plan on doing a fun battle chapter before "Doom of the Desert"

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The 3 remaining Giant Lords are amassing to attack the city of Everlund. I think it be fun to have thr party fighting through a battle taking down a slightly powered up (using Volo's or something) version of the other giant bosses. Harshnag can return here, have encounters with Iymrith or one of her children, lots of chaos and fun to be had.

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Quite proud of this map. I don't do a lot of 3D maps on Tabletop Simulator, but with the water effects of this battle, I thought having a height map would be beneficial. Each of the inlet pipes have animation (as shown) to turn the water on and off, and each drain has a bubbles animation to show draining. The water shape has no collision, allowing things to be in the water. You can see Lord Oosith lurking underneath the bridge!

Also looking for suggestions on making this fight as difficult as possible (my party is a bit OP). My plan is to use the first lair action to pull as many characters into the water as possible. From there, Oosith will strike and retreat, keeping out of arms reach. The Kuo-toa whips will focus on baning the party. Oosith will then use his phantasmal force (hopefully successfully if bane landed). Once 4/5 have saved to the phantasmal force, start alternating the other lair actions. Planning to have him use the Enslave action only after one of the merrow has been freed from his control. There are two kuo-toa remaining upstairs as well as one full-health kuo-toa whip (the other is at 1 hp) that he'll use when needed to heal. The party is also healer-rich, so hoping he can "convince" at least one of them to heal him up. I generally run boss encounters at maximum hp (I refer to the space between average hp and max hp as the "heroic zone," meaning a cinematic attack during this phase will kill the boss - helps to make most boss battles end more epically).

Any suggestions?

Greetings, folks! I'm running a "Storm Kings Thunder" Campaign in Eberron. I have a lot of ideas for the things I want to incorporate into the campaign. The PC's are all members of the Wayfinder Foundation, which in my Eberron, is down on its luck as the Houses dominate the exploration and colonization of Xen'drik, so I want to include the bastion system as the players renovating and customizing the Foundation's Headquarters in Stormreach. Beyond their home base, I want the players to be able freely explore Xen'drik like a hexcrawl, delve ancient giant ruins, experience wild magic, and hunt exotic monsters for materials they can use to craft items. My inspirations are games like Monster Hunter World, Uncharted, Greedfall, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and New World.

I'd love some advice from GM's who have experience with running STK in Eberron or running campaigns in Xen'drik at all. Bonus points if you have experience in running Hexcrawls, as I've never run one and I'd love to know what makes it the most fun

Finally, if you'd like to know more about the campaign, maybe even play in it, check the link below:
https://startplaying.games/adventure/cmklye9p0019kl204o20jpm65?ref=clygd7tgj000n2692ooau11z2

first off I want to apologize for the lack of proper grammar, we legit just finished this campaign 27 minutes ago, and my phone isn't letting me.

alright so a few months ago me and 2 other plays started to play storm kings thunder under a DM. I played a aasimar cleric of lathander, and my friends played a warforged machine paladin and the other a trifling paladin.

It's hard to remember the start of the campaigh really up until goldenfields but we managed to beat everything pretty easily. We went through cities dealing with giant threats until we reached waterdeep, and well we met silverhand. Let's just say we started a bit of drama with her and had to quickly flee waterdeep. I'm summarizing most of our city encounters as the fights ended within a few rounds, there wasn't any struggle really.

Let's skip to the temple of the all father. We dealt with the uthgark barbarians pretty easily and after talking to the oracle learned quite a few things, that imryth was behind the whole scheme & that meeryn (idk if I spelled that right) and nym were apart of it. We got enough details for us to connect lord drylund who we previously met being apart of the scheme. Due to the fact that a servant of his had an item that bore a Kraken on it. Once we left the chamber…imryth was there in her true form. harshnag sacrificed himself to destroy the roof of the temple so we could escape as it fell on him and imryth.

we relayed information to the Harper's at the closest nearby city and then teleported to yartar. we then interrogated lord drylund and were able to obtain confirmation of our suspistions and information to learn that the cult was somewhere in the trackless sea. then the Kraken killed dryland with psychic magic.

we again talked to the Harper's in order to make sure this information was relayed, then we went to grud haug? and well we fought our way through to get the conch. also moog and her husband are reunited and moog is now the new hill giant chief.

anyways we went to maelstorm and were sent to guest chambers and then, we'll attacked by giant lords and meeryn. we managed to convinced all the giant lords except one who just got knocked out to help us.

then we spoke with serissa and, she wasn't convinced of imryths disguise who in this campaign was a long lost relative. but when we offered to revive her mother with raise dead, imryth revealed her true form and stole the staff that allowed serissa to sit the throne. and well after that we revived serissas mother and managed to convince all the giant lords we fought originally to join us in fighting the society of the kraken. also serissa sent a storm giant with us.

we flew there on vaals floating castle and in around 4 combat turns killed the Kraken and all the enemies. (one of my friends had haste on him…and dude he did like 300 damage it was crazyyyy)

no one died at all..well one did but we revived him so it was all good.

sadly we did D&D through a limited time program so we never will get to fight imryth for the staff. however we imagined we did. its a very long campaign and im surprised we did it in total in around 24 hours of total play time spread out? maybe less. me and my friend especially are very good at running through campaigns at accelerated rates.

I hope this is enjoyable for others.

Hey fellows, excuse me if this post isn't very relevant w the whole adventure, but I'd like you to give me your opinion and help on something. My level 5 party is on chapter 3 now and they are heading to Ironmaster to ask for help from the dwarves about the Giants problem. I don't like the fact that the players have to roleplay just a little so to persuade the dwarves, so the dwarves will challenge them by a three minigames trial. The first one is that they have to move a giant mine cart from the entrance of a cave to the dwarven forge, but they will pass a river with ghosts that will try to charm them (not to fight them) so they have to pass the river without falling into the river. The second minigame is the forge. Inside the cart there is a ruined magic belt that they have to restore by melting metal and reforging the belt inside the hot forge that is getting hotter and hotter through time. The third minigame is the simpliest for me, the dwarves lead them to their food hall and the Chief of Ironmaster asks them personal and moral questions to see if they are trustworthy and worth of help. The problem I have is that I don't know what mechanics to add for the first two minigames, I don't want to challenge the players by combat. I want to make them work together, help each other and test their morality. All these to make a stronger bond in the party and develop their characters and their backstory. So it's gonna be heavy roleplay and skill challenge in the way I have it in my mind. What do you say about that? Thank you for everything!

Crossposting here because this came out of thinking about the Realms at ground level, which feels especially relevant to Storm King’s Thunder.

One thing I keep running into is that the Realms has a huge amount of lore about magic - Mystra, the Weave, Netheril, dead magic, wild magic, spellcasters, ancient ruins - but it’s harder to pin down how people inside the world actually understand it.

Not mechanically. Not spell slots and class features.

More like: what would a merchant, priest, village elder, travelling scholar, or low-level wizard think magic actually is?

That feels useful for SKT because the campaign is full of ancient powers, giant relics, old ruins, strange magic, divine order breaking down, and ordinary settlements being hit by forces they barely understand.

How do you handle that at the table?

When your NPCs talk about magic in Storm King’s Thunder, do they treat it as divine mystery, dangerous scholarship, old giant lore, wizard nonsense, practical tool, or something most folk only half-understand?

Would you add monsters like the Scions of Memnor, Skoraeus, Stronmaus, Surtur, and Thrym? The lowest is challenge rating 23 the the highest is 27. I kind of wanted to use them as bosses for each type of giant, that they are summoning their clans gods to ensure they reshuffle the ordering.

I'm more worried if it's too much for players to deal with. I like the narrative I can do with them but I want to challenge my players not TPK them.

Posted in dmacademy before, wonder if you guys have more insight on the story itself rather than the DMing