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In Phase 2 of Storm King’s Thunder, the PCs travel to one of three cities: Bryn Shander, Goldenfields, or Triboar. Each of these cities will be attacked by giants shortly after the PCs arrive, and in each of these cities there are six “Special NPCs” that the DM is supposed to give to the players to play during the attack:

In this chapter, each player runs not only a player character but also an NPC who has ties to the settlement that the characters are defending. Once you’ve determined where the adventure begins, make photocopies of the six NPCs corresponding to the location you’ve chosen.

(…)

Each NPC comes with a brief description, personality traits (a bond, an ideal, and a flaw), and a stat block. When the giant attack begins, give one NPC to each player and tell the player where the NPC is at the start of the encounter, as noted in the encounter description.

The structural concept here is that each Special NPC who survives the giant attack will deliver a Special Quest. The DM is supposed to spell this out to the players, by reading the following boxed text aloud:

In addition to your character, each of you has received a special nonplayer character with ties to the location where the adventure begins. Take a moment to review your NPC’s personality traits and statistics. One of your goals in this part of the adventure is to keep your special NPC alive. For each of these NPCs that survives, your party will receive a special quest that yields a reward upon its successful completion. The details of these special quests won’t be revealed until the end of this part of the adventure.

These Special Quests are the scenario hooks that propel the PCs from Phase 2 into Phase 3 of the campaign. The point, obviously, is for the PCs to exit Phase 2 of the campaign with a fistful of scenario hooks pointing in a whole bunch of different directions. In Bryn Shander, for example, you can get hooks pointing to:

• Ironmaster
• Waterdeep (x2)
• Hundelstone
• Neverwinter
• deeper into Icewind Dale

Looking at this section of the campaign, I really like the Special NPC dossiers and the gimmick of taking on these additional roles during the giant attack can be quite effective in lending an epic scope to these events.

What I DON’T like is that “explicitly explain the structural conceit” thing. It pierces the veil in a way that makes the game world feel less like a real place by popping a yellow exclamation mark over the NPCs’ heads. It’s also a little awkward to hand the players brand new characters to play just as a major combat is breaking out, because the pace of events will get bogged down in the procedural aspects of passing out the dossiers, explaining what they’re doing, figuring out the stat blocks, etc.

RUNNING THE PROXIES

Instead of waiting for the giant attack, give the Special NPCs to the players as they’re approaching the city limits. For example:

You see Bryn Shander on a hill rising from the wind-swept tundra. The sun is lowering in the sky and the chill of the wind is taking on a vicious edge. Ahead you can see two 30-foot-tall cylindrical towers flanking the gate.

CUT TO: Six people living in Bryn Shander.

At this point, distribute the NPC dossiers to the players and give them a minute to look things over. Put a copy of the Bryn Shander map on the table for the players to reference. Then prompt each player to frame a simple scene:

• What is something Augrek does every day?
• Where is Sirac right now?
• Markham is in Rendaril’s Emporium. What is he looking for?
• Duvessa Shane is having an argument. Who is she arguing with?
• Beldora is following someone. Who?
• Sir Baric, give me a Perception check to see if you catch the pickpocket taking your purse.

Briefly play through these scenes. Then cut back to the PCs entering the town.

Your goal here is to very quickly make the town come to life and get the players invested in it. When the giants attack later, the players now have a reason to really care about the community AND they’re already oriented to the Special NPCs and their lives, so they can jump straight in.

BEFORE THE GIANT ATTACK

The PCs will now go about their business. (Shopping, finding lodging, following up on whatever scenario hooks brought them to this city in the first place.) As they’re doing this, reincorporate the NPCs whenever you can:

• The PCs meet Sirac when they look for someone to give them directions.
• Markham is, conveniently, who they’re looking for.
• Duvessa comes in while they’re talking to Markham. She wants to talk to him about the argument she just had.
• As they head to the general store for supplies, they run into Sir Baric who is just finishing that pickpocketing scene.
• At the store, they meet Beldora.

And so forth. Whatever feels right for your group, based on how those first scenes played out.

The PCs don’t need to coincidentally meet every Special NPC. (No reason to force it.) But if that happens naturally… great!

Then, suddenly, in the middle of one of these scenes: GIANTS ATTACK!

AFTER THE GIANT ATTACK

In addition to the NPC dossiers, you’ll also want to have prepped a short handout for each scenario hook they can offer to the PCs. After the giant attack is complete, hand these to the appropriate players and let them frame up the scenes where they give the hooks to the PCs.

(You can give these out over time instead of all at once if that feels more appropriate. The pacing here is more art than science.)

The text from Storm King’s Thunder can serve as a good base for these briefing sheets, but you may want to tweak them a bit. For example, Beldora’s reads:

Beldora urges the characters to head southwest and take Ten Trail through the mountains to the mining settlement of Hundelstone. She suggests they make contact with a gnome named Thwip Ironbottom, who lives there year-round. If one or more of the party members are Harpers, she tells them that Thwip serves as the organization’s eyes and ears in Hundelstone. Beldora uses her sending stone to inform Thwip that the characters are coming.

This is very scripted and will likely feel awkward to the player. Shift the phrasing to give the player more leeway in playing the scene:

Beldora is impressed by the actions of the party and would like to recruit them as Harpers. If they’re interested, she’ll direct them to make contact with Thwip Ironbottom in the mining settlement of Hundelstone (which lies to the southwest and can be reached by following the Ten Trail through the mountains).

It’s a small shift, but hopefully the effect is fairly clear.

EXTENDING THE GIMMICK

In the Storm King’s Remix, you’ll repeat this same structure three times. This is good: Each time you do it, the players will feel more comfortable with what they’re expected to do, and the results will grow stronger as a result. You might worry that it will become repetitive, but in practice this won’t happen because the NPCs are unique and the circumstances distinct. The result will play out very differently each time.

Having done so, you might think about how this gimmick could be extended. (Particularly if it seems to be well-received by the players.) There are several ways to do this:

• When the PCs return to one of the three cities, take the time to once again frame up day-in-the-life scenes with the Special NPCs.
• Even if the PCs don’t return to one of the cities, perhaps one or more of the Special NPCs could be encountered elsewhere. (Beldora, for example, might be reassigned by the Harpers.)
• If the players seem really attached to their Special NPCs, you might use some light bluebooking to allow them to stay connected to the characters and follow up on what’s happening with them. (You could also use this as a vector for establishing the scope of the crisis affecting Faerûn; you might even have these NPCs maintain some form of correspondence with the PCs, allowing them to be conduits for additional information or scenario hooks as the campaign continues.)

You might also consider keeping an eye out for opportunities to use a similar technique in other locations during the campaign. (You would, of course, have to write up the appropriate NPC dossiers.) For example, what if the players took on the roles of various giants in Maelstrom when visiting the storm giant court for the first time?

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We’ve analyzed the revelation lists of Storm King’s Thunder and we’ve revised those revelation lists by adding and enhancing clues throughout the campaign.

Before we move on, I want to talk for a moment about the fact that what we’ve seen so far is not what my typical revelation list looks like. In the middle of a session, of course, you don’t want to have to remember that there’s a clue on the revelation list that you need to inject into a particular scene or location. You want that information to be at your fingertips and ready to go.

So although we’ve been detailing what our revised clues will be on the Remix’s revelation lists, what I would do in actual practice is:

• Work the clues into the actual key of the adventure.
• Write up a much more streamlined revelation list to serve as a combination of index and checklist during play.

The revelation lists that we’ve presented here in the Remix, therefore, are best thought of as worksheets or to-do lists. The expectation here is that you’ll add this material to your prep notes, develop it where necessary, and distill a final revelation list for use in actual play (that isn’t bloated with the now extraneous details).

MAKING THE REVELATION LIST

Let’s consider the revelation list for Deadstone Cleft. In Part 3B of the Remix, our worksheet list for this revelation looked like this:

DEADSTONE CLEFT – CANYON OF THE STONE GIANTS

• Uthgardt Blessings (Stone Stand). Members of the Blue Bear tribe, which has recently formed an alliance with Kayalithica of Deadstone Cleft, seek blessings from the Grandfather Oak at Stone Stand for their efforts. They do so by describing their endeavor on the tanned hide of a bear, which is then tied with blue gut-string in ceremonial knots and left within the clefts between the old oak’s roots. One of these was left by Kriga Moonmusk (p. 66) seeking blessing for her alliance with Kayalithica. The document includes a reference to Deadstone Cleft as Kayalithica’s fortress. (The PCs should be able to make inquiries to identify the location of Deadstone Cleft.)
• Silixia (Grayvale), p. 88. This young brass dragon will point the PCs towards Deadstone Cleft.
• Grudd Haug – Area 13: Prisoner. Gryhawk, the Uthgardt prisoner here, is from the Blue Bear tribe (instead of the Elk tribe). He was a spy sent by Kayalithica, but was captured by the giants. If freed, he will thank the PCs (as described on p. 144) and tell them that he is certain they will also have the thanks of the greater giants that he serves when he returns to Deadstone Cleft.
• Svardborg – Area 1G: Throne Room. Jarl Storvald has correspondence from Kayalithica, in which she proposes, with the Ordning dissolved, an alliance between them — one in which her giants will “tear apart all that the little ones have built, restoring Ostoria to its glory” under her rule, while Storvald’s reavers will “rule the seas.” Her letter notes that she has traveled to consult the oracles of Deadstone Cleft in the Graypeak Mountains, and it has suggested that the All-Father and fortune alike would smile on such an alliance.
• Questioning/Backtracking Giants. Grayvale Run (p. 88), Llorkh (p. 96), Orlbar (Zorkh, p. 103). The origins of the giants in Grayvale Run and Llorkh are not indicated in the text, but are from Deadstone Cleft.
• Eye of the All-Father, p. 151. Oracle gives them directions.

Ultimately, in my prep notes for the campaign this revelation list would look like this:

DEADSTONE CLEFT – CANYON OF THE STONE GIANTS

• Uthgardt Blessings (Stone Stand)
• Interrogating Silixia (Grayvale), p. 88.
• Uthgardt Prisoner (Grudd Haug, Area 13)
• Kayalthica’s Letter to Jarl Storvald (Svardborg, Area 1G)
• Questioning/Backtracking Giants. Grayvale Run (p. 88), Llorkh (p. 96), Orlbar (Zorkh, p. 103).
• Directions of the Eye of the All-Father, p. 151.

It’s not difficult, obviously, to see the rather radical difference between these two lists, and how much easier it would be to reference and use the latter during play. (For more details on this, check out Using Revelation Lists.)

ADDING THE CLUES

In How to Prep a Module, I discuss how I prepare my notes for a published adventure like this. The short version is that, rather than rewriting entire locations, my notes usually consist of a diff doc (which simply notates what changes or new elements are added to the published key).

For example, Area 13 of Grudd Haug (STK, p. 144) reads:

13. PRISON

In the area north of the pigpen, rivulets of water trickle down the north wall and carve shallow ruts in the floor as they snake their way across the room and through openings in the opposite wall. Five wooden cages are arranged about the room. Their doors are situated on top, with heavy rocks placed on them. A creature can use an action to attempt a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) check to knock off a rock or open a cage door that has a rock pressing down on it. The sound of a rock hitting the cave floor alerts the guards in this area.

Three of the five cages contain prisoners destined for Guh’s gullet. Two bugbears guard the prisoners. These bugbears can’t be surprised once the alarm sounds or if they hear combat in area 12.

PRISONERS

Unless otherwise noted, all the adult prisoners are commoners. Child prisoners are unarmed noncombatants with AC 10 and 2 hit points each.

One cage contains human farmers: a father, a mother, and their three children (a teenage girl and two boys).

A second cage holds an unarmed tribal warrior of the Elk tribe, Gryhawk (CN male Uthgardt human). He fights alongside his liberators. If he makes it out of Grudd Haug, he bites the palm of his hand and tries to smear his blood on the faces of those who freed him. Anyone who succeeds on a DC 13 Intelligence (Religion) check realizes that this gesture is a sign of gratitude. Gryhawk leaves to return to his tribe whether the characters accept his gratitude or not.

A third cage holds an unarmed prisoner: Emerald Enclave member Ghalvin Dragonmoor (CG male half-elf scout). If freed, he asks the characters to escort him to Goldenfields, so that he can report to the Abbot what he has seen.

In my prep notes I would simply write:

AREA 13 – PRISON

Gryhawk: Blue Bear tribe member.

• Spy sent by Kayalithica.
• If freed, tells PCs that he is certain they will also have the thanks of the greater giants that he serves when he returns to Deadstone Cleft.

And that’s it. Super simple.

When running adventures like this, my procedure is simply to check my prep notes first to see if there are any modifications to an area and then refer to the printed adventure. (This means that I have the changes I need to make in mind as I scan the text, and can easily apply them as I go.)

On rare occasions, an area or scene may need to be so completely redesigned that it’s easier to just rewrite the whole thing. If that’s the case, I indicate this in my prep notes (with a tag like [REVISED]) and then I know I can just ignore the printed adventure entirely for this bit.

I also recommend paying attention to opportunities to prep physical props. Kayalithica’s letter to Jarl Storvald is a perfect example of this: Actually writing out the letter will take a little extra effort, but it will be a big value-add for the campaign and pay dividends as the PCs explore the sprawling twists and turns of Storm King’s Thunder.

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The core structure of Phase 1 is fairly straightforward:

• The PCs arrive in Nightstone and discover the town badly damaged by a cloud giant attack, abandoned, and infested with goblins.
• After discovering that the townspeople evacuated to the nearby Dripping Caves, the PCs go to the caves and rescue them from the goblins who have taken them prisoner.
• The PCs receive (in the Remix) adventure hooks pointing them towards Bryn Shander, Goldenfields, and Triboar (see Part 3A).

And that should basically wrap things up.

… except it doesn’t.

After the PCs clear out the goblins in Nightstone, the village is immediately attacked by a completely unrelated group of orcs. And then, after the PCs fight off the orcs, the village is immediately attacked AGAIN by a group of Zhentarim mercenaries.

So, to sum up, in just a couple of days Nightstone has been independently assaulted by cloud giants, goblins, orcs, and Zhents.

That is, to put it mildly, some incredibly bad luck for this town. More importantly, it’s really repetitive gameplay that completely grinds the campaign to a halt at the very moment that it should instead be kicking into high gear.

The reason this happens is that Storm King’s Thunder needs to level the PCs up to 5^th level so that they can face the Tier 2 challenges of Phase 2 (i.e., fighting a bunch of giants). The designers level the group up after clearing the goblins out of Nightstone and rescuing the villagers from the Dripping Caves, but they don’t think they can justify more than that, so they just stuff in a couple more fights so that you can level the PCs up after each of them.

FIXING THE ORCS

They’re dumb.

Cut them.

Note: Greg Benage suggests that the orcs could be a raiding party connected to the Iceshield orcs at the Hill Giant lair of Grudd Haug. He had clues from the raiders lead to Harpsheild Castle, a location which appears in Scourge of the Sword Coast, and from there to Grudd Haug. That’s a good idea, and if the PCs end up extending their stay in Nightstone (see below) having these orc raiders show up later could work well. You could also use this idea if the PCs return to Nightstone at some later date.

FIXING THE ZHENTARIM

The Zhentarim are a bit more complicated. Before the cloud giant attack, a Zhent agent named Kella Darkhope had been sent to Nightstone to investigate the possibility of turning the village into a Zhentarim stronghold. The cloud giant attack has created a perfect opportunity, and so she’s sent a message requesting the dispatch of a Zhentarim strike team.

The presentation of the Zhentarim in Storm King’s Thunder is a little incoherent. The book can’t quite figure out if the Zhentarim should be a faction that the PCs will want to join and work with or if they’re moustache-twirling villains. This is actually a common problem in 5^th Edition books, because roughly half of the writers seem to be aware that the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide had the Zhentarim turn a new page as a kinder, gentler, more nuanced organization… and the other writers are familiar with them twirling their moustaches in the video games and novels of the ‘80s and ’90s.

In any case, the Zhent plan in the book seems to be:

1. Murder people.
2. ???
3. Profit?

This is a silly plan, because Lady Nandar, the ruler of Nightstone, was killed in the cloud giant attack. So the really obvious play for the Zhentarim to make here is, “Oh! Good townspeople! We have come to you in your hour of need!”

Then they help the PCs save everybody, the PCs move on (as PCs are wont to do; or, if not, the Zhents can nudge them aggressively in that direction), and the Zhentarim settle in as the new protectors of the town in this troubled time.

This approach has a few advantages:

• It provides an opportunity for the PCs to ally with the Zhentarim and perhaps even be recruited by them. (If so, you might consider creating a Zhentarim scenario hook pulling the PCs into Phase 2 in addition to the others found here.)
• It plays nicely with the themes of established order being upset and power vacuums being created (and filled) that resonate naturally throughout Storm King’s Thunder.
• It can be neatly incorporated into the broader question of what post-crisis Nightstone looks like.

Which sets us up for…

THE END OF PHASE ONE: NIGHTSTONE’S FATE

As noted, with Lady Nandar dead there’s a power vacuum in Nightstone. The village has also been horrifically damaged, with key infrastructure in the form of food stores and economic pillars (including farms and the Lionshield Coster trading post) being destroyed.

We don’t necessarily want the PCs to get mired in fixing Nightstone, but we do want to provide a satisfying conclusion to Phase 1 by providing closure for this crisis.

First, we’ll let the PCs contribute to rebuilding Nightstone by moving forward with the adventure. This is achieved in Part 3A of the Remix, where two of the scenario hooks leading to Phase 2 of the campaign are rebuilt to feature responses to the crisis.

Second, the key question that will wrap up the adventure is: Who will rule in Nightstone?

Options include:

• The Zhentarim
• Morak Ur’gray, the dwarven proprietor of Nightstone Inn who can act as something of a neutral figure in the community
• A patriarch or matriarch of one of the major families of the village (SKT, p. 31)
• An appointed or democratically elected council
• A PC (guess this will be a different campaign; or maybe the player swaps to a new character)

Simple Conflict. Have the Zhentarim arrive when the PCs have explored about half the town (ideally after they’ve met Kella independently). The Zhentarim won’t immediately make a play for leadership (although Insight checks might suggest that’s their goal); they’re “just here to help.”

In the Dripping Caves, seed rivalry between a couple of family heads. (My eye is drawn to the Delfryndels, who own the village mill, and Taela Summerhawk, the apothecary, but you might just go with whatever NPCs seem to click with the players.) Establish early that they have different opinions about the best way to deal with the goblins and/or escaping the caves. Morak is also there, clearly trying to moderate the conflict.

Once everyone is back in Nightstone, have someone offer themselves to become the new leader. This is probably the Zhentarim if they’re still in the picture. Have others make their claim in response. Morak asks the PCs what they think and enough of the other families follow their advice.

More Dynamic. In this scenario, have just two significant candidates plus Morak. This will likely be the Zhentarim and one of the major families (I’d go with the Delfryndels, although maybe having it be Destiny Agganor, the tiefling who worships Asmodeus, would create more drama).

The key thing here is that the leadership will likely be determined by the other five major families of Nightstone. Use Morak to frame the situation, but, at least initially, avoid having him prefer one option over another. (If he expresses a preference, the players may assume that they’re “supposed” to back Morak’s candidate rather than making the choice for themselves.) Morak is concerned about the economic well-being of Nightstone, and this may also be a good opportunity to drop his scenario hook.

At this point, it’s up to the PCs to talk with each of the major families and try to influence them. Persuasion checks are easy here, but also think about small favors the PCs could do (using other skills) to win favor. If you wanted to flesh this out more, add distinct tensions and relationships between the families for the PCs to discover, exploit, and/or resolve.

Note: If the Zhentarim lose out on having Kella or Xolkin become the new Lord Protector of Nightstone, it’s up to you how they respond. You might have them attempt a last minute assassination and seize power (sparking a fight that presumably the PCs will get involved with). Alternatively, they might just roll with the punches, approach the new leader, and say, “Congratulations! Now, it looks like you’ll be needing some armed men to help keep the town safe. Shall we talk terms?” and establish a local base that way.

THE ISSUE OF ADVANCEMENT

As we discussed earlier, the PCs are supposed to be 5^th level heading into Phase 2 of the campaign. We’ve eliminated some of the milestones in Nightstone, so we’ll need to rearrange things to look like this:

• Advance to 2^nd level after clearing the village of goblins.
• Advance to 3^rd level after rescuing the villagers from the Dripping Caves.
• Advance to 4^th level when a new leader has been chosen for Nightstone.
• Advance to 5^th level after the encounters in the Tower of Zephyros.

If this seems too rushed for you, here are some other options.

Phandelver. Start the campaign by running the PCs through the Lost Mine of Phandelver from the D&D Starter Set. It’s located fairly close to Nightstone and will dump the PCs out at 5^th level, which is more or less perfect. Add a hook from Phandelver to Nightstone, level to 6^th after the Dripping Caves, and skip the level up after the Tower of Zephyros.

Dragon Heist. Waterdeep: Dragon Heist also wraps up with the PCs entering Tier 2. (This is a little less true with the Alexandrian Remix, but still close enough.) What I recommend here is starting the PCs in Nightstone, advancing them to 3^rd level, and then sending them to Waterdeep.

During the events of Dragon Heist you can seed material for Storm King’s Thunder: Harshnag can be their contact with Force Grey, for example. Towards the end of Dragon Heist, Count Nimbolo and Countess Mulara can arrive in Waterdeep in their flying castle (SKT, p. 112-113) so that the PCs can meet them and learn that they’re planning to stay for several months while studying at some private libraries in the city. (As giant stuff starts to happen later on, the PCs might return to Waterdeep to meet with those giants again.)

At the end of Dragon Heist, of course, you’ll need to come up with new hooks to send the PCs to one or more of the Three Cities for Phase 2. But since they’ll have likely aligned with one or more factions during their Waterdhavian adventures, you can ultimately just give them a faction mission to set them on their way.

Just Do It. Alternatively, just start the PCs at 3^rd level. Level them up after rescuing the villagers from the Dripping Caves and again as they get dropped off by the Tower of Zephyros.

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Storm King’s Thunder is built around two core structures.

The primary structure is node-based. In Phase 1 of the campaign, the adventure begins in Nightstone, where the PCs get a lead to one of three cities (Bryn Shander, Goldenfields, and Triboar).

In Phase 2 of the campaign, whichever city the PCs go to will be attacked by giants, resulting in the PCs getting a wide variety of leads which will point them to various locations across the Savage Frontier, the northern realms of Faerûn.

This launches Phase 3, featuring the second structure of the campaign, which more or less acts like a pointcrawl. Locations throughout the Savage Frontier are keyed with encounters, which the PCs will trigger as they navigate through the region (primarily by road). Many of these encounters, in turn, will point to other nodes/locations.

Thus the node-based structure prompts PCs to move throughout the Savage Frontier, which triggers content in the pointcrawl, which gives the PCs more leads to the node-based content.

The node-based elements of Phase 3 are, at least hypothetically, designed to funnel the PCs to the Eye of the All-Father, an ancient giant oracle. In Phase 4 of the campaign, the Eye requires the PCs to recover artifacts stolen from the giants by the Uthgardt tribes and scattered around the Savage Frontier. For each artifact the PCs recover, the Eye gives them a lead to a citadel of a giant lord:

• Den of the Hill Giants
• Canyon of the Stone Giants
• Berg of the Frost Giants
• Forge of the Fire Giants
• Castle of the Cloud Giants

The PCs can raid one or more of these citadels during Phase 5 of the campaign. Each giant lord possesses a magical conch of teleportation, which is keyed to the court of the Storm Giants. This is another funnel leading to Phase 6, with the PCs using the conch to travel to the Storm Giant court (in an underwater fortress called Maelstrom) and forge an alliance with Serissa. Serissa gives them a wooden coin that was found at the location where her mother’s body was recovered, and she believes it may also be connected to her father’s, Lord Hekaton’s, disappearance:

• The coin leads to a gambling riverboat called the Grand Dame.
• On the Grand Dame, the PCs must question Lord Drylund, who tells them that Lord Hekaton is being held on a ship called the Morkoth.

After being rescued from the Morkoth, Lord Hekaton invites the PCs to join him in assaulting the lair of Iymrith, a blue dragon who had infiltrated his court and was responsible for his kidnapping.

Note: There are two places in the campaign where the PCs are abruptly given access to aerial travel. At the end of Phase 1, a cloud giant offers to give them a lift in his flying fortress. And at the beginning of Phase 4, a dragon randomly decides to send the PCs an airship that they can use for the rest of the campaign.

If you look at the structural analysis of the campaign above, you can see why this happens: Overland travel in Storm King’s Thunder is handled through the Phase 3 pointcrawl. Because the content of this pointcrawl is keyed for Phase 3 (what’s happening in the game world at that time; what clues and leads are relevant to the PCs during that phase), it would cause problems for the PCs to encounter that keyed content before Phase 2 or after Phase 3 is complete. To avoid that, the designers simply arrange for the PCs to literally fly over the pointcrawl unless the PCs are in Phase 3.

For ease of use, let’s title these phases:

• Phase 1: Nightstone
• Phase 2: The Three Cities
• Phase 3: The Savage Frontier
• Phase 4: Eye of the All-Father
• Phase 5: The Giant Lairs
• Phase 6: Finding Hekaton

We’ll be referring to these phases throughout the Remix.

STRONG HOOKS

The campaign as written is underhooked. The PCs are never given a strong reason to actually care about all this giant stuff that’s going on.

The book includes four hooks:

• Get paid to fight goblins in Nightstone. (This is resolved by the end of Phase 1.)
• Get paid to guard nobles in Nightstone. (This goes nowhere.)
• Get paid to negotiate with elves. (This goes nowhere.)
• Contact an agent in Nightstone who can connect you with high-paying jobs. (He apparently can’t do that. But he will give the PCs some letters to deliver.)

As you can see, most of these dead end in Nightstone (and only one of them actually has anything resembling a satisfactory conclusion). This isn’t necessarily a problem, as you can structurally pull the PCs into an introductory scenario like Nightstone and then deliver the big, meaty hook that will pull them into and through the rest of the campaign.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t really happen either. Instead, Morak Ur’gray gives them a mail carrier hook with a generic message in order to procedurally shuffle them along to Phase 2. And even if you flesh those hooks out a bit more (as we’ll do in Part 3A: The Three Cities), the fundamental problem remains that there’s not really anything motivating them to figure out what’s going on with the giants.

This is not to say that they won’t investigate the giant stuff. But it becomes quite likely they’ll end up doing it because it just sort of… seems like the thing they’re supposed to be doing? The unmotivated play will become rote, with the players kind of drifting through the campaign. These are the types of games that often just wither away as the players put less and less priority on playing.

Of course, many players will find ways to motivate themselves or become motivated by the events of actual play. That’s the gold standard, and will almost certainly be the most effective motivation. (Stuff that actually happens at the table is almost always seen and felt to be “more real” than stuff concocted for back story.) But we can certainly prime the pump a bit.

Connections to Nightstone. In the first two phases of the campaign, giants attack four different communities. Simply giving the PCs a strong connection to one or more of these communities can do most of the heavy lifting for getting them invested in the campaign.

In the case of Nightstone, simply look at the list of prominent families and their dead (SKT, p. 31). Having the players related to one of these families not only makes for easy pathos, it can also easily explain why they’re coming home to Nightstone in the first place.

Alternatively, a PC might still live in the Nightstone. Having the cloud giant attack wipe out their home and/or business can easily motivate them. (At the beginning of the campaign, they might have been out of town on an errand. Alternatively, they can just finish digging their way out of the rubble as the other PCs show up.)

One potential problem with Nightstone-related hooks, however, is that, as written, the PCs will never actually track down the giants who attacked the town. Being unable to find that closure (or even make an iota of progress towards finding the cloud giants responsible) will be very frustrating for the player(s). Check out “Creating New Giant Lords” on p. 12 of Storm King’s Thunder and be prepared to flesh out an additional cloud giant faction.

You’ll probably also want to steer clear of having a PC related to Lady Velrosa Nandar, unless you want the campaign to really disappear down a rabbit hole. Nandar’s heir will be the de facto ruler of Nightstone after her death, making it overwhelmingly likely that the campaign will remain rooted in the village as the PCs focus on rebuilding in the wake of the crisis.

Connections to the Three Cities. Connections to the three cities of Phase 2 — Bryn Shander, Goldenfields, or Triboar — can all the follow the same basic pattern as connections to Nightstone. There’s plenty of lore there to flesh out a PC’s background and lots of notable NPCs for them to have a connection to.

This connection can help justify the link from Nightstone to Phase 2. (“You’re from Triboar? Can you take this message there for me?”) If they already have a connection to one of the prominent NPCs, it’ll also add oomph to the scenario hooks delivered after the giant attacks in Phase 2.

It’s also possible to weave these connections together. For example, a PC might be from Bryn Shander and a member of the Southwell family. Coming south to Nightstone to visit their sister Semile, they tragically discover that she’s been killed by the cloud giants. The Delfryndels (see Part 3A) give them a bundle of Semile’s things that they’ve gathered together, and they’ll need to return to Bryn Shander to let their brother Markham know that Semile has died.

A History With Giants. The other option is to simply tie a PC directly to the giants. Was their mentor/mother/first love killed by a giant? Or, flip it around, and their mentor/mother/first love IS a giant.

You may want to be a little wary of characters who “hate all giants,” though. Even though that seems like a really natural character concept for a Fight the Giants! campaign, Storm King’s Thunder requires that the PCs be willing to work with at least some of the giants. The Remix will, in some ways, reduce that strict necessity, but will also hopefully be enriching the options for giant cooperation and it might be a shame to nip those options in the bud.

(On the other hand, a character who has good cause to be prejudiced against all giants who learns that the reality is more complicated than that could be an incredibly powerful roleplaying experience at the table.)

Friendship can actually be just as strong as animosity here: There’s something wrong with the giants. The breaking of the Ordning has shattered their society, and while that’s an opportunity for some, it’s arguably a problem for all of them. If there are giants that the PC(s) care about, they’ll be strongly motivated to solve this problem. (And to do so in a way that either keeps the giant(s) they care about safe, benefits them, or both.)

MAKING THE HOOKS

How do you actually seed these elements into the PCs’ back stories?

It depends on how you actually go about creating characters for the campaign. There are, of course, lots of ways of doing this. I’ve previously written in detail about the method I typically use for campaigns like this in Running the Campaign: Designing Character Backgrounds, the short summary is:

1. Establish the campaign concept.
2. Have the players pitch their character concepts.
3. Collaborate on a public integration, with the GM using their expertise in the setting to take generic archetypes of the character concept (e.g., northern barbarian) and make them specific (e.g., an Uthgardt barbarian).
4. Have the GM do a private integration of the character, tying them into the larger structure of the campaign (e.g., Is there a major villain? Make the long-lost brother of one of the PCs).
5. Bring the party together. At least 95 times out of 100, you’ll want to explain why the PCs are all going to hang out and do things together — specifically, the usually crazy things the campaign concept is predicated on — before you start your first session. 4 times out of the remaining 5, you’ll probably want to have things pre-arranged so that they fall in together within the first few scenes.

Most of the concepts described above are going to fall into the public integration phase. Is there a PC from a small village? Suggest Nightstone and begin feeding them appropriate lore to flesh out their back story there. A major city? Triboar. Are they a druid? Give them connections in Goldenfields.

And so forth.

Note that the PCs don’t all need to have the same hook. And these hooks may or may not be the reason that they’re adventuring together. You might want to check out Random GM Tip: Bringing the PCs Together for additional tips.

If this process has not already explained why the PCs are heading to Nightstone, I recommend working with the players to come up with a better reason for that than just “maybe there’s some money to be earned there.” What you’re looking for is something specific. For example:

• Some highly specific lore about the nightstone itself. (For example, the PCs may have stumbled across information relating to the apocalyptic capacity of the stone during a previous adventure and they’re following up on those leads.)
• Did one of the players decide to create a Zhentarim? Then they’re being sent to meet with Kella Darkhope (replacing the zhent agents who would normally show up).
• They’ve been hired by someone to assassinate Lady Nandar.
• A rich uncle has left the Nespers a tidy sum of money and the PCs have been hired to deliver it.

But try to avoid anything that can’t actually be resolved by the end of Phase 1, unless you do, in fact, want to spend extra time in Nightstone and Ardeep.

Go to Part 1B: Nightstone Conclusions

SPOILERS FOR STORM KING’S THUNDER

I’ve done a couple previous remixes of 5E campaigns. The first was Dragon Heist: The Alexandrian Remix. The second was Remixing Avernus. Those were more or less intentional. This one is a bit more accidental.

Before we dive in, let’s briefly discuss what an adventure remix is and why we’re doing one for Storm King’s Thunder. I discuss this at more length in How to Remix an Adventure, but broadly speaking a remix will seek to either expand the adventure (by adding lots of cool new stuff to it) or restructure the adventure (usually seeking to fix the structure of the adventure so that it will be more robust and/or interesting in play) or both.

This particular remix is, I think, mostly going to be of the latter variety. In my review of the adventure, I delved into a number of the structural defects I think Storm King’s Thunder has, and we’ll breaking those down in more detail and building them back up.

This may prompt the question: Why remix a “broken” adventure instead of just designing something new?

Generally, because the adventure has something really cool about it (or, more likely several things). The many strengths of Storm King’s Thunder are ALSO something that I discuss in my review, and our goal in restructuring the adventure is to make it easier to bring all those cool things to your gaming table and to share them confidently with your players.

As I mentioned above, it was not my original intention to do a full remix of Storm King’s Thunder. I started out by writing what I believed would be a short series of articles with a fairly narrow focus on analyzing and then revising the revelation lists which form the core structure of the campaign.

This work remains the core focus of the Remix, and you’ll find it in Part 2 and Part 3. But while working on that material, I had two key insights.

• The Hekaton mystery which comes at the end of Storm King’s Thunder as published is not just inadequately structured and fragile, it’s impossibly broken. In Part 4 of the Remix, therefore, we’ll be redesigning this mystery more-or-less from scratch. (This task also required a deep dive into the Kraken Society, which now forms one of the major expansive portions of the Remix.)
• The published adventure doesn’t have a proper ending. We’ll discuss the specific reasons for this in Part 2, but the short version is that you can either (a) do a quick-and-dirty patch job which, unfortunately, has the side effect of making the entire campaign much less interesting or (b) create a whole new ending to the campaign. For better or worse, the new ending which is both a logical extension of the campaign and also provides an epic conclusion is… non-trivial. We’ll be working on that in Part 5 of the Remix.

And now that we’re fully committed to doing a complete Remix, we’ll round things out by strengthening the opening of the campaign, too.

Review: Storm King’s Thunder

Part 1: A Strong Beginning
Part 1B: Nightstone Conclusions
Part 2: Revelation Lists
Part 2B: Revising the Revelations
Part 3A: The Three Cities
Part 3B: The Giant Lairs
Part 3C: The Eye of the All-Father
Part 3D: Concept Revelations
Part 3E: Implementing the Revelations
Part 4: Hekaton is Missing!
Part 4B: The Path to Hekaton
Part 4C: Expanding the Path
Part 4D: The Hekaton Revelations
Part 5: The Final Act
Part 5B: Solutions
Part 5C: Running the Final Act
Part 5D: Making Alliances
Part 5E: Waging War

Addendum: Kraken Society
Addendum: Faction Reference
Addendum: Three Cities Proxies

If you’re new here at the Alexandian, you might find it useful to dive into these articles before the remix kicks off, as they include deep discussions of topics we’ll be visiting here:

• Three Clue Rule
• Node-Based Scenario Design
• Using Revelation Lists

There are many more articles at Gamemastery 101 that you might also enjoy! Please also consider becoming a patron if you’d like to support this type of work in the future!