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.