#JULYGANTIC Up in the Sky!

Cloud giants!  Storm giants!  Today we take a look at some more adventures featuring the sky giants as well as cloud islands.

 AERIE OF THE CLOUD GIANT STRATEGOS

I'm partial to cloud giants, so Joseph Browning's Aerie of the Cloud Giant Strategos was an easy pickup.  It's an OSRIC adventure for levels 9-14 - let's check it out.

Aerie is meant to follow G1-3 as an alternative path, avoiding "the Drow thing" and moving the action into cloud giant territory.  The adventure location is the immense cloud island Synnefonisi, and the castle which rests upon it.  The island is currently anchored to a volcano (just like the one in Shadow of the Storm Tyrant), but in this case the anchor is a branching beanstalk providing access to different parts of the island.  The adventure provides a rundown of how the cloud island works, and its inhabitants, at the very beginning of the book - the various cloud and fog giant commanders, the dragon, and so forth.  The Strategos has several human wizards in his employ - if this were a later edition we might've seen a cloud giant with caster abilities fulfilling this role.  As is traditional with Against the Giants homages, there are visitors/ambassadors present - in this case, a pair of noble lamia with an Egyptian theme.

The cloud island is several miles across, and half of it has been nurtured with soil and allowed to turn into grazing-land for cattle, and a verdant forest.  This provides PCs an interesting opportunity - you could hide in that forest a long time, making scouting runs and strikes at the castle.  In fact, there's been a druid living in this forest for the last six years, doing precisely that.  The druid, Bodhmal, can serve as a patron and ally for the PCs.

Castle Nephothantos, demesne of the Strategos, isn't the biggest castle map you've ever seen in D&D, but it's pretty darn big with plenty of encounter locations.  The setup is as old-school as it comes: encounters in locations, occasional NPCs with short motivational notes, but none of the "ongoing intrigue/metaplot" you'd get from a modern version.  It's not a trap-laden dungeon (although the magical pillars are pretty cool), it's a lived-in castle, so the majority of the challenges here are the inhabitants.  In addition to the myriad cloud giants, the several nasty high-level wizards, and the lamia, there are other things here and there - mihstu, elementals, etc.  Plenty of monetary treasure, some killer magical items, and even spellbooks are to be had by a thorough party.  Also of note are some original magic items that look fun.  Enchanted shuriken that turn into spiders when they hit!

If you're running the original Against the Giants with an old-school system and looking for another step on the giant ladder, this might be the one to grab.  Given the choice to call the leader a Strategos, and his lieutenant the Hypostrategos, I do wish there was more Classical stuff in there.

PALACE IN THE SKY

Dungeon Magazine #16 gives us Palace In The Sky for levels 7-10.  The setup here is that livestock go missing, there are giant footprints that just end...so cloud giants.  PCs will have to track and deal with these cloud giant raiders, their wizard ally, and their bugbear guards.

The raiders' cloud island is a decent size.  There's a landing dock with some flying rowboats, commanded by voice, and a bugbear guardhouse.  A cloud dragon!  More mihstu!  Definitely jam all cloud-related monsters in a cloud giant adventure!  Snark aside, I've never used or fought a mihstu, so I guess I need to rectify that.  They drain CON, so that could be pretty snazzy.  This island also has a forest on it, which the cloud giants established as a hunting preserve, so it's full of critters.  Ditto the lake.  If they can steal this island, the PCs will enjoy a very fine headquarters indeed.

There actually aren't that many cloud giants on this island; but they all have names, and goals, and personalities, and there's some friction going on between the leader and his cousin.  The giants keep an insane monk as a jester.  Lots of nice little details here - for example, in the Game Room it notes that the cloud giants love chess and would be happy to play the PCs using this giant chess set.  There's a gnoll butler!  In the dungeons beneath the castle, there are some prisoners you can free from their two-headed troll jailer, and assorted other monsters, some of which I was surprised to see (the thessalhydra, the beholder).  The wizard Sazor Stratos maintains his own tower on the island, but there isn't much to it.

All in all, Palace In The Sky is a solid location for its era.  It hits all the "I wanna run a cloud island" marks pretty well.  I'll note that there's an 'Adventures in Filbar' module out, Lofty Pursuits, with a very similar gimmick, but I haven't read it.

I love the retro sci-fi cloud-island controls in this Dykstra illustration.

STORMING THE CLOUDS

Storming the Clouds is one of the scenarios in Dungeon Delve for 4th Edition.  As such, we can expect it to be heavily focused on staged combat scenarios rather than exploration.  And indeed, it's just three combat encounters strung together by an overarching goal - in this case, disrupting the ritual of some storm titans trying to return a primordial to the world.  It's an Encounter Level 27-29 thing, which is spectacularly high-end.  There are a few bullets suggesting how to expand it.  Let's see if there's anything worth stealing.

The first encounter is with some storm giants and some bluespawn defenders, which look like some kind of huge blue-dragon-derived humanoid, so we're keeping with the storm theme.  There are "ice clouds" in the area providing concealment but also causing cold damage if you start or end your turn in them.  You can really see that these 4e delves are meant as tactical exercises, and I don't say that to deride - it is what it is.  And there's opportunity here - if you're the sort of DM who maybe isn't great at always scratching that tactical itch for your players, perhaps lifting encounter setups from a 4e adventure might help out.  Read through something like this and see how painstakingly they've put concealment, verticality, choke-points, environmental hazards on the map; and see how the monsters they've chosen potentially interact to shape the battle.  This is an aspect of the game that I know I'm not great at, so sometimes I need to read this sort of encounter with my wargamer brain turned on, and be willing to learn something.

The next room, accessible via the rune-circle in the previous one, is fire-themed.  You now face a Superior Fire Titan (478 hp), some dragonborn, and a Great Conflagration, which is apparently an immense air-fire elemental.  This is pretty cool stuff, it's just so high-level that you might have to look at this entire set of encounters for ideas and then dial the thing waaaay back to suit your needs.  For example, you wouldn't want to drop this encounter in King Snurre's palace as-is!  Jets of fire spurt out of the walls, there are lava cauldrons to kick over, and a floating dais.  See what I mean about environments to play with?  The final encounter is storm-themed, and it's a colossus, two storm titans, and two storm gorgons.  Storm gorgons have lightning & thunder breath, of course.  There are lightning rods that shoot lightning at anything in range here.

I can't recommend this scenario as an adventure, it's too short and too 4e for easy conversion in either direction.  However, if you come across a copy of Dungeon Delve cheap, there's plenty in it worth looking at for ideas and general adaptation.

This is the level at which we're operating here.

Ooh look, fantasy art with colors in it

THE PLIGHT OF CIRRIA

Dungeon #9 presents this level 8-12 adventure that involves tracking an archmage through the jungle (eventually to a cloud castle) to rescue a cloud dragon.  There's a page of backstory, but the bottom line is that you're working for cloud dragon Cirria to rescue her mate Cumulus, who's been taken by the archmage Ezoran (in a prison of Zagyg, no less).  You have a vague map from the archmage to assist you in tromping through the jungle.  There's a hexmap for the jungle, and it's populated with good tropey jungle stuff - killer piranhas, a yuan-ti temple, a cyclopskin lair.  Enough stuff here to get extra sessions out of for sure.

The cloud fortress itself, which Ezoran took from a cloud giant, is pretty standard.  Vapor rats!  Some good little details here (there's a girdle of giant strength, but it's in the form of a yellow silk sash).  The castle has a rotating-room gimmick with plenty of traps.  There's also a golem about, but the real threats are Ezoran and his partner Draxella, both of whom are formidable mages.  Ezoran is a worshiper of Fraz-Urb'luu, but you could swap in any demonic association here to tie the adventure to your campaign.

I like this one, it has some neat stuff in it and you could likely get multiple sessions out of it if you ran the overland travel portion.  If you go look at Bryce's review of this one at Ten Foot Pole, you'll note he found it 'tedious', but the one guy in the comments who actually ran the adventure had a blast with it.  Funny how that works, huh.

Consider renaming the cloud dragon to 'Agador Spartacus'

 

#JULYGANTIC: Storm King Adjacent Adventures

 At this point we've spent a goodly amount of time talking about Storm King's Thunder and the DDAL adventures that go along with it:

In Stealing Storm King's Thunder part one, we looked at stealing the giant lords' lairs for use in your home game.  Then in part two we examined the metaplot ending of SKT, again with an eye toward stripping it for parts.

In Running Parnast, I looked back on the tier one modules from Season 5, and then we also took a look at the tier two Hartkiller's Horn sequence - which I haven't run.

Now for one last stop on the Storm King's Railroad!  A look at some scenarios that are related to the whole epic plotline...

THE IRON BARON

DDEP05-01, The Iron Baron, sees the PCs infiltrating a fire giant facility in order to rescue prisoners and sabotage the eponymous Baron's efforts to build a pair of immense magma bombards.  You can see how thematically this rolls right along with Duke Zalto and his mecha.  Disguised as mercenary caravaneers, the PCs make their way into the complex and then split up with different goals by level.  Tier One groups (levels 1-5) are charged with freeing prisoners; Tier Two groups (6-10) sabotage the forge portion of the facility.  In the final sequence, the lowbies fight the Captain of the Guard on the way out, and the mid-levels face the Iron Baron himself (and lieutenants).  

I think you could absolutely run this as less of a con event and just use a single PC group, the maps, and the encounters, and let the PCs figure out how they want to sabotage the place themselves.  Keep in mind that part of what makes the epic fun, though, is the multi-table aspect...when I played through The Iron Baron at a con, I remember the tension in the air as each table waited for the others to pass inspection and not blow everybody's cover!

The encounters in this one are fairly straightforward, but played with an eye toward stealth will be even better.  Yes, there's a salamander and some hell hounds.

I don't mind saying that this is the coolest thing that happened to any of my DDAL PCs, and if I ran 'The Iron Baron' in some non-5e system I would absolutely still use this on the survivors.

DURLAG'S TOWER, DURLAG'S TOMB

DDAL05-08 and -09 are the two-part Tier Three sequence that lay the groundwork for some of the shenanigans later in the season. Cloud giant nasty Baron Rajiram seeks the secrets of the tower of Durlag, a dwarven hero - and the PCs must delve into this trap-riddled place and the tomb below to stop him.  Oh, and the tower is made of special stone populated by dwarven spirits, and reflects magic.  It's a race into the tower ahead of Rajiram's forces.  Regrettably this adventure takes what I call the "Undermountain method" of challenging higher-level characters, and that's by making half of their cool stuff not work.  You can't teleport or phase within the tower, etc.  While there are reasonable in-world explanations for why a magic architect would set things up this way, it definitely serves to neuter PCs, and in a canned scenario like this, the PCs don't have the opportunity to prep/research/avoid the neutering at all.  There are some puzzle-traps, and plenty of nasty threats - invisible assassins, slaads, a beholder zombie (!), a nutty druid, invisible stalkers, nalfeshnee demons, more slaads...what is the theme here?...it's a mish-mash.  Reminder that this is not a plane-hopping wizard's tower, it belonged to a dwarven hero with the nickname 'Trollkiller'.  

Part two, the tomb, has some deathtraps and devils.  Similar statuary throughout the tower and tomb will carry some clues if the PCs are good observers or are spun up on their dwarven religion.  When the characters try to leave after exploring the tomb - hopefully after recovering a macguffin - they're jumped by agents of Baron Rajiram.  All in all, this two-parter really does nothing for me.  

REEDUCATION, RECLAMATION

DDAL05-14 and 05-15 are the next Tier Three pair of adventures.  Your patron went to the ruined wizard school because the ghost of the wizard who founded it has been seen again - and he supposedly knew something about (giant) rune magic.  When she went to check out the school, she never came back etc etc.  PCs show up, fight some giants, and then delve into the chambers beneath the school where the wizard hid.  When you get down there you get to fight a vampire AND your patron, who has been charmed by the vampire.  That's a pleasant surprise I wouldn't have expected.  As the PCs depart, sky pirates approach, which leads to the second adventure.

In the second adventure, you'll be excited to hear there's a guy you have to protect because he is KEY to the adventure, since he controls the teleport portals in and out.  Your assignment is to stop the pirates from looting the library.  Pirates and nagas and sudoku golems, oh my!  I don't think there's anything to recommend this sequence, it's mostly a bunch of pirate fights, none of them particularly interesting.  And there's almost zero Actual Giant Content, which might actually serve as a nice break if you're playing through these in order, but for our looting purposes is a disappointment.

MYSTERIOUS ISLE/EYE OF XXIPHU

DDAL05-18, The Mysterious Isle, and DDAL05-19, Eye of Xxiphu, bring back the threat of Baron Rajiram the cloud giant pirate, and provide the only Tier Four (levels 17-20) content for this Season's regular (non-Epic) play.  Interestingly, these are the two scenarios in Season Five that actually relate to the Kraken Society stuff in SKT.  An artifact from the ancient aboleth city of Xxiphu is now in the hands of a morkoth who has hidden it on the mysterious isle.  The cloud giant Dworkin (lieutenant to Rajiram) seeks the powerful Eye, so we're off to the races.

I get that there's limited time and a certain expectation of format in organized play, but SO MANY of these scenarios have a ham-fisted "your patron sends you to do this distant thing because it's metaplot important" beginning.  In this case, after your patron takes an expository dump, she issues extra magic items (surely a sign this is going to be rough?) and then mounts you on bronze dragons who give you a ride to the adventure.  Wasted opportunity: the dragons have neither names nor personalities, but you're encouraged to talk to them.

When you get close to the island, there are aquatic elves with intel on the giants, then sharks attack.  Lots of possible combats on your way to the island, as multiple factions want the Eye of Xxiphu.  There are some pretty clever setups here with some of the combats, combining threats, illusions, and traps.

It is imperative in this adventure game that nobody explore, get lost, or fail.

You'll encounter plenty of sahuagin loyal to the Kraken Society who are here to take the Eye of Xxiphu away from the psychic illusion-casting morkoth who runs the place.  When you succeed, the magic of the Eye teleports you home, but unstuck in time, so you arrive in the past when your patron is much younger.  You'll have to go back through the portal and fix things, but thankfully that portal will stay open long enough for a long rest first, thank the 5e Gods!

When you get back, the Eye has screwed up magic so that some of your standard powers don't work right, or at all.  I hate this Undermountain nonsense, it is NOT appropriately writing an adventure aimed at high-level characters to throw their powers out the window.

Kudos to Merric Blackman for the 'Tooth of the Damned' encounter here, which contains a reference to Black Dougal.  Otherwise the scenario has more traps, combat, illusions like the first part since we're still dealing with the morkoth.  There's a neat bit with the PCs potentially piloting crystal golem bodies.  After the morkoth is dealt with, the PCs chase the cloud giant wizard's skyship, mounted on the dragons.  Okay, this suitable high-level crap, although it would be more meaningful if the characters had negotiated with (or dominated) the dragons instead of having them handed to them... but at this point I'm not going to complain.  PCs on dragons chasing a skyship, let's do this.  Your patron's pseudodragon helps by flitting about and granting advantage to each of you in turn.  I don't know how I feel about that kind of a forced "I'm helping!" gimmick.  Aren't the NPCs doing enough in this adventure?  This final battle is big, a little convoluted, and going to be challenging to run.

I think there are things worth stealing from this pair of adventures if you're willing to strip out the NPC theatre.  The underwater illusion-supplemented fights are intriguing, and the massive end battle will be memorable.

ARK OF THE MOUNTAINS

DDEP05-02, Ark of the Mountains, has the PCs trying to stop the cloud giant pirate Rajiram and his flying galleon by exploring an ancient dwarven flying ship (the Ark).  Rajiram wants his runestone back - it was probably located by PCs or their allies during the Durlag's Tower adventures in the Tier Three sequence.  As an epic, just like with The Iron Baron, Ark of the Mountains is designed to be run with multiple tables at varying levels, as the different PC groups investigate different decks of the ship, etc.  Far as I can tell it might run fine for a single group as well.  The gimmick here is that the Ark is in mid-combat with Rajiram's galleon, and you have to explore the old ship to get the weapons functioning again, that sort of thing.  The ship has guardians and traps - and in addition, giant boarders from teh galleon will show up as well. Because it's a multi-table epic, you'll also have baddies wandering around the ship (ie from table to table).  Time for some chaos!

Much of it is adjusted by party level, but there's some crazy stuff here regardless

There are four sections of the ship, and the adventure wants your group (or each group, if it's run as an epic) to complete three of the quests in order to 'win' and allow the Ark to defeat the sky-galleon.  I have to admit, I'd be inclined to run an adaptation of this.  

Best DDAL handout ever?

#JULYGANTIC Frosty Situations

 Frost giants seem to get the most play - is it the viking thing?  Strong elemental flavoring + the viking thing probably does it.  Let's take a look at a few more frost giant-related adventures.

ANCIENT BLOOD

Dungeon magazine #20, for AD&D, levels 3-5.  This viking-themed jaunt starts with the PCs couriering a shipment of black lotus.  Yes, really!  The journey may feature encounters with mundane animals, a hag, and some half-ogres with mastodons (love it).

When the heroes get to the village to make their delivery, the real nonsense starts.  You deliver the black lotus to the chieftain, and during the evening feast, he tells the tale of the frost giant king Mok-Turoknin and the giant-slayer Rognvald.  It's a long story, and at the end of it, the candles blow out and the ghost of Mok-Turoknin bursts into the meadhall, chops the chieftain in twain with his ghost-axe, cackles and fades out.  Well, there's a start to things!  Maybe start this one at the delivery!

How to end the ongoing curse?  The answer is provided by NPCs: go to the frost giant's tomb, find Rognvald's giant-slaying sword, and get back here before the next full moon, when Mok-Turoknin's ghost is sure to strike again.  This is all fine stuff but I wish it weren't a mid-game expository dump and instead the PCs could find it out on their own, or intuit it.  So it's off into the frozen giant-lands, where mammoths and devil-dogs and quaggoths dwell.  (Three cheers for quaggoths)

We're told that recent seismic activity has shaken the frost giant's hall, causing a) new monsters to be able to get in, and b) Mok-Turoknin's axe to fall from the hand of his frozen corpse, thus stirring the ghost, causing the chieftain's nightmares, and so forth.  Earthquakes in D&D have a lot to answer for, they do this stuff all the time.

The Hall has some neat stuff in it, but man this adventure is wordy.  Sign of the times I guess.  It has the standard arctic foes - ice lizards, white pudding, snow-variant beetles and the like, and of course the inevitable remorhaz.  It's a frost giant's hall, but there aren't any giants here - the place is long-abandoned and in ruin.  The tomb of Mok-Turoknin is short but does feature barbarian skeletons (that's fun to say), and it's where you might find the giant-slaying sword Thorgrim, which can cause its wielder to fly into a berserk rage in the presence of giants (so that'll be a surprise for the PC that walks away with it, since there are no actual giants here).  The PCs can either put Mok-Turoknin to rest (avoiding combat), or screw it up and have to fight his apparition (not an advisable course).

This adventure has potential.  I think it benefits from actually doing the overland horrible snow-trudging portion, really punch the desolation angle.  Tonally it would fit pretty nicely with Doom of the Savage Kings. 

FROZEN CASTLE

Frozen Castle is for 11th-level 5e characters, and was released as expansion content for Tyranny of Dragons.  Don't let that fool you, though - believe the cover art, this is a giant adventure.  It involves chasing after a crashed flying castle and potentially getting it running again, and while its designed to be a certain castle from Tyranny, you could run this by itself with a suitable motivation.

The map gives us an orc tribe loyal to the frost giants, a dwarven settlement, and the meadhall of Brunvild, frost giant chieftain.  There's also the cloud giant Blagothkus, a white dragon, some werebears, a colony of yeti... plenty of stuff going on, some of it environmental, and a lot of it factional - stuff you could really leverage as a PC.

The issue is that since Frozen Castle is meant as extra content for Hoard of the Dragon Queen, it doesn't have the maps of the cloud castle or the glacier. So on its own, it's less useful as an adventure in itself; however, if you're looking for some bits & pieces to drop on a corner of your tundra map, this supplement has something for you.

A GIANT RANSOM

A Giant Ransom was released in chunks during the 3e era on the WotC website; it's for 11th-level characters.  The Duke's cargo train, moving belongings to his new keep, was waylaid by giants.  The most important thing stolen was a golden lion statue; in order to avoid conflict, the Duke offers the giants a ransom to return the statue, and they agree.  The PCs are called in to provide security for the exchange.  Unfortunately, the white dragon Whildenstrank knows what's going on, and is prepping to steal the statue...

The PCs are within sight of the frost giants as the dragon swoops down and attacks; by the time they get to the site of the battle, it's all over.  The surviving giants suspect the dragon was working for the Duke, and the PCs head off to follow the dragon.  Along the way they encounter Velg, a frost giant ranger and dragon-hunter, who can either be fought or talked to for information.  

Later, the PCs are attacked by arctic landsharks bursting up from under the ice and snow (this is for sure the most original encounter in the adventure).  When that battle ends, the ice beneath the PCs crumbles and collapses (no roll here, tickets please).  PCs can dig themselves out, head through some ice caverns, engage with winter wolves and a remorhaz...and then fight the dragon.

There's not much here that you wouldn't have put together yourself.  The idea of a white dragon dominating a pack of winter wolves into being his minions is neat.

WHITE DEATH

Dungeon magazine #6, for AD&D levels 4-7.  A snowy town has placed a sizeable bounty on a white dragon - go get 'em.  The rumors the PCs get make the dragon out to be worse than it actually is - would be interesting to see that play out at the table.  

The journey to the dragon's den has a wilderness encounter table and talks about arctic weather conditions.  That encounter table has some frost giants on it, as well as winter wolves, remorhaz, ice toads...you know the drill.  This adventure will work better if those frost giants are a known quantity and potentially have intel on the dragon.

The lair itself is small... the gimmick here is that atop the pile of treasure is a dead, older dragon, preserved by the cold and the ministrations of the current dragon occupant, who awaits to leap down on invaders.  Also, that treasure pile is fake.  Also, the young dragon was previously subdued and in captivity, so attempts to subdue it make it go berserk instead.  That's a lot of screw-yous in a row, I think the results are going to vary by table.  There is real treasure here - some monetary (but maybe not enough to stave off anger after the bait-and-switch), and some magical (good stuff, but hidden).  One thing the adventure doesn't address - but which your PCs will ask about - is whether the preserved dead dragon yields enough scales and hide to do KEWL DRAGONY ARMOR STUFF with.  They will ask.  They should ask.  And in that case, the real treasure from this encounter is two dragon corpses.

This is an okay setup, it's definitely from the "we've all fought dragons a dozen times and want something with a twist" era.  I think this would work far better plopped on a map than as a "here's what we're doing tonight" adventure.

#JULYGANTIC: Aesirhamar

 Nestled in the pages of Dragon issue #90, Aesirhamar by Roger E. Moore is an AD&D adventure for characters of 9th or higher level.

Dammit, Bjorn, stop shouting 'Ricola' every time I blow this thing.  You're freaking out the berserkers.

Seeking revenge on Thor for killing his brothers, the mighty giant Hargnar kidnaps the dwarf Brokkir and bullies him into agreeing to forge a weapon as mighty as Mjolnir.  Brokkir returns to Midgard and works with his brother Dwalin to forge the weapon they call Aesirhamar.  Unfortunately both brothers covet what Hargnar has promised - Thor's house as a reward once the god lays dead - and scheming begins.  Dwalin curses the weapon such that any non-dwarf who wields it will kill the first dwarf they see, and reward the second one they see.  You can guess where this is going - Brokkir, concerned about just such a betrayal, throws a curse on Aesirhamar so that the wielder will reward the first dwarf, and slay the second.   The game is afoot, and Moore gives us a suitably Wagnerian setup here.  Brokkir heads across Bifrost, and his treacherous brother Dwalin follows invisibly.

Heimdall thinks Brokkir is acting sketchy and of course he can see Dwalin...so he sends a valkyrie to Midgard to check things out, and soon learns that the dwarves have likely been forging a major weapon.  Heimdall tells the Aesir, but none of them can locate the dwarves by magic, and Odin's not around.  Wanting to stymie whatever's going on with the dwarves, but cautious about a potential god-slaying weapon being out on the streets of Gladsheim, the gods come up with the obvious ploy of getting some mortal heroes to find the dwarves...Interestingly Moore tells us the adventure is designed for three or four 9th level (or higher!) characters.  That's a small number for a classic table, but I can see why you'd want to do "trio of heroes" for something like this.

PCs are contacted by the gods, hike up Bifrost, and meet Heimdall, and get the exposition and the quest.  If they're reluctant, there's always geas.  Here's a map to Jotunheim, crossing the river at this ferry is recommended.  TIME TO QUEST!  Hopefully the PCs don't attack the two giants who run the ferry, because like many giants in Gladsheim, these guys have caster levels in addition to being whoopass Jotunheim giants.

Once across, PCs can try to track the dwarves through the desert and into the mountains.  Interestingly, the adventure spends some time talking about these locales and hiking among them, but doesn't provide a particular encounter chart.  You'll want to work that up ahead of time if you want it to be suitably Asgardian and not just your "usual" desert and mountain tables.  You'll be pleased to hear that you make it to the giant community of Smoke-Top two days after the dwarves regardless.

Brokkir has already given the hammer to Hargnar, and the dueling curses ("random curse") has taken effect.  Hargnar slew Brokkir, then wounded Dwalin.  Dwalin high-tailed it out of there and hopes to find an ally to help him escape Jotunheim.  When the PCs make it to Smoke-Top, they have a choice of passes by which to enter, each with a different encounter (a fire-wyrm, trolls, two different groups of giants).  Once you're on Smoke-Top, there are a mess of caves and settlements around - this is where we find our obligatory encounter table, featuring everything from wild ettins to frost giant kids at play.

Also on that encounter table is our boy Hargnar, looking for dwarves to kill.  Hargnar is only as strong as a storm giant (!) but with the extra powers of Aesirhamar - to include spell-stealing - he's going to be quite an encounter if played right.  Fight too long or too loud and other giants will surely come to his aid.  Dwalin the dwarf lies on the encounter table, too.  But chances are you won't encounter either of them immediately, so we're supplied with details on a whole mess of giant-halls and caves and a temple to Thrym and all that sort of stuff.  There's lots to do (and slay, if you're so inclined).  Regrettably all of the giants' magic gear was Gladsheim-made and thus will lose its enchantment if brought back to Midgard.  LAME.  Obviously you can't keep Aesirhamar, you're supposed to bring it back to the Aesir and be suitably rewarded - potentially with up to two wishes per PC.  That's no joke.

Aesirhamar is an outline of a scenario, with a map and a mess of locations on it.  It's funny that it looks anemic compared to so many modern adventures (bloated or otherwise), but there really is plenty to work with here.  Everything you need to run the adventure is here, it's just lean and mean without boxed text and hand-holding.  If you have a couple Aesir-worshipping PCs in your campaign who might make it to name level, take a look at Aesirhamar as a possible vacation to Gladsheim.

BONUS READ-THROUGH: THUNDER OVER JOTUNHEIM

Thunder Over Jotunheim is a solo adventure for Marvel Super Heroes, in which Thor goes to Jotunheim (duh).  The book contains all the stats up front, both for your hero Thor and the baddies; then there's a guide to running MSH combats solo, with some randomization for actions NPCs will take, or spells they might cast.  The whole thing uses the MAGIC VIEWER (ie a red piece of film - you remember these from your Transformers perhaps) to reveal encounter numbers on the map, as well as text in the book.

The plot: Loki has stolen Frey's magic sword and is raising an army of giants.  Boom, time to roll.  You don't need any more exposition than that.  Stop Loki, prevent the giants from marching, bring back Frey's sword.

Thor's journey begins with a waking-dream of Karnilla, who offers you a one-use magical item, one of six, to aid you on your journey.  This is where the replay comes in, gang.  From there the encounters are out of order like a Choose Thine Own Adventure saga; you have to pointcrawl across the map and reveal which encounter to read.

There's plenty to do on the map.  Fight trolls, giant wolves, lava-men, a stone golem.  Encounter a mysterious hag, a giant spider, a talking lizard, and the Swamp of Endless Flame!  All kinds of neat stuff, all perfectly themey.  Not a lot of actual giants, though.  Lots of choice-points for Thor throughout, complemented by a little bit of new art and some selections from Walt Simonson.

I have no idea how well this module - or any of the MAGIC VIEWER experiments from that era - sold for TSR.  But this one is a solid amusement, even if it needs more giants.  There are a couple encounters in here where you might say "oh fun, I'll absolutely steal that for D&D".

#JULYGANTIC The Hartkiller Sequence

 Although I ran the entire Parnast sequence from DDAL's Season 5, I didn't run any of the other stuff save this first adventure we'll talk about below.  The Tier Two (levels 5-10) sequence deals with Hartkiller's Horn.  The valley of Hartsvale was the scene for major conflict between giants and humans in antiquity, when the giant demigod Hartkiller rallied the human side against his kin.  These adventures all take place in that region (including the village of Stagwick and Hartkiller's old castle, Hartwick), and play off that history.  Let's take a look at these and see if they're worth running or stealing from.

DDAL05-04 In Dire Need

The frost giant Jarl Ryndolg and his army of giants and ogres seeks the artifact Hartkiller's Horn.  Some dwarven soldiers are trapped, under siege.  Time for PCs to go rescue them!  Regrettably these adventures tend to have the same "your Patron tells you to do it" opening.  Alas, organized play!

Some time is spent discussing cold weather and travel in the Icespire mountains - the eighteen miles you have to go will not be easy given the snow and storms.  Flight is not a good option.  The adventure offers a selection of optional wilderness encounters and events.  As you get closer to the rescue site, you come across a frozen dwarf's remains.

Once you arrive, the DM must figure out how late you were in arriving and how many dwarves are already dead.  Kudos to the author for using actual passage of in-game time as the measure here rather than some artificial construct.  How shall we get past the besieging ogres to extract the dwarves, who lie at the bottom of a gorge?  The adventure offers some pretty interesting stuff at the ogre camp - ways to sneak around, things to interact with.  There's also the classic "challenge to ritual combat" option.

No matter how the PCs get down into the gorge, there's a timer here - hill giants are coming.  You're given a full roster of the dwarven soldiers, complete with names, and a table to generate personalities as needed.  The dwarves at the bottom of the gorge found a holy runestone relic thing and an open giant-sized sarcophagus - that may be important later.  I really like that the author does not prescribe a particular way of solving the issues, and addresses several more likely courses of action the PCs may take.  There will certainly be combat with ogres, giants, and winter wolves, but more interesting is trying to scale the gorge.

There is a "set-piece escape" offered in which the characters cause an avalanche and use the sarcophagus lid as a toboggan to slide down the mountain.  Certainly memorable, and it's the ending I used when running the scenario at a convention.

I told this AI website to draw Frost Giants.

DDAL05-05  A Dish Best Served Cold

Blood Riders eager to whack a giant have kidnapped a young frost giant and claimed that they were attacked, breaking the uneasy peace in the region.  What a bunch of liars.  While internal factions of Blood Riders argue about whether to kill the giant, the giant's mother is searching for him and informs a frontier scout.  This is where the PCs come in - can they locate the kidnapped giant and solve this situation before it breaks into further hostitilies?

The scenario begins with frontier scout Wum Burdun introducing the Frost Giant Mom and explaining the predicament.  This would be far more effective if Wum were someone the PCs had met before, and trusted.  To get to the Blood Riders, you have two paths - fast and dangerous, or slow and less-dangerous.  At least the PCs get a choice here!  There is risk of exhaustion either way (and exhaustion is no joke in 5e).  Better to move at a heroic pace through the perils of the Icespires.  When they find the abandoned camp, they grab some clues and continue on the Riders' trail.

The trail takes you to a river befouled with pixie dust (magic ensues) that also features a random encounter and the potential discovery of the corpse of a Blood Rider, killed to maintain order.  Really the interesting bit here is the river's random effects, and the fact that the random encounter (be it treant, ettin, hag, or orc) know about the river and will take advantage of it.  The treants and hags here are interesting and have their own goals - I can't help but feel these types of encounters would have more resonance if the PCs at least knew of these named NPCs.

Eventually the PCs make it to the new Blood Rider camp, where they can assault the place, stealthily free the young giant from his cage, or try to talk the Riders into freeing him.  The negotiation is essentially a skill challenge, as-written.  

Interestingly from a DDAL standpoint, there's a note in the rewards section about characters who might have a story award from a Tier One adventure in the Parnast series.  Totally possible, even likely, that a character would play through Uninvited Guests and then later, having levelled-up, play this scenario.  Nice to see that interplay, since the Tiered sequences are often treated as very separate things.

Note that the last two adventures are tagged as two hours in length!  You have to keep a serious pace moving on these if you want to hit that goal.

DDAL 05-11 Forgotten Traditions

PCs are dispatched to meet with a stone giant, and discover the location of ancient Hotun-Shul complex, where they will learn more about rune magic and what's going on with this Jarl nonsense.

The Halls of Hotun-Shul are a small dungeon with pockets of wild magic and dead magic.  Much of the place alternates traps, magic stuff to interact with (watch out for the elementals!), and artwork that serves as an expository dump.  There's also a giant ghost you can talk to.  Very little combat during this exploratory phase, but the PCs can't leave Hotun-Shul without tangling with the Rune-Forged Guardian.  This critter is a tough fight, and sure to be a memorable set-piece if your PCs survive.

I like that this scenario has lots of options provided - alternate traps and encounters to use.  There are encounters you're supposed to substitute if certain faction members are present, as well.  This looks like a good trap-focused dungeon for dropping in.

DDAL05-13  Jarl Rising

PCs are sent north to find an ancient redoubt to view the strength of the Jarl's army, but their appointed scout has been killed by ogres.  What do?  Why, work your way through several giant encounters along the way, that's what.  The encounters as offered are pretty vanilla other than one featuring a rope bridge across a chasm.

The scout's notes can be deciphered to help this whole process.  When the PCs get to the redoubt of Ise Festing, there's a fight with some ogres there, then the PCs can use the enormous ancient spyglass to look at a distant plain and see the armies gathered there.

That's it, that's the whole adventure.  You return to your Patron and report back what you saw.   I feel like any party that runs through this one without doing the next one would rightfully feel like they lacked a conclusion.

DDAL05-17 Hartkiller's Horn

Jarl Ryndolg, claiming to possess the Hartkiller's Horn artifact, finally attacks the Hartsvale.  Giants and ogres from all over have answered the call of the Horn, gathering for war!

King Hartwick wants the PCs to go investigate a particular area of weirdness, but before they can pack up and leave, Ryndolg issues a challenge.  Three days hence, Jarl Ryndolg will do battle with the lord of the valley for ownership of the place - thus potentially foregoing the bloodshed of the valley's residents.    King Hartwick has no expectation of being able to win that fight, by the way.

The PCs head out, and along the way clash with a giant search party from whom they might learn a few things about who Ryndolg is and what he seeks.

Next the PCs find Hartkiller - who is risen from the dead and slowly regenerating.  Hartkiller is of course the true lord of the valley...but he also envisions a world in which the smallfolks serve giants, so maybe we don't want him to win this fight either.  For Hartkiller to regenerate properly, the PCs will have to hunt on his behalf - either something more mundane like a remorhaz, or perhaps the legendary Beast of Talos (a super-remorhaz).

The next chapter is the showdown, and it can go down several ways: Hartkiller can challenge the Jarl (and based on what he ate, things will be different), or Hartwick can do it, or one of the PCs can do it.  I am relieved that the PC option is in here, I really believed they were going to mandate the NPC theatre.  Once the fight starts, minions join in to attack the champion's allies.

You won the single combat as the defender of the Valley, but don't get any of the spoils.  Hooray.

The payoff to this adventure requires PC investment in the region and the lore.  It would be best if they've heard of the Beast of Talos before, for example.

Overall, I think the Hartvale stuff isn't as interesting as the Parnast sequence, and there's less to cannibalize.  I do believe you could take these scenarios and hammer them together into something cool for your game table, but it would require some work and a meaningful map.  Come to think of it, nothing in this sequence really relies on the 'shattering of the Ordnung' metaplot from SKT, which is a blessing.  All you need is one upstart frost giant.

#JULYGANTIC: Revenge of the Giants

 Revenge of the Giants was the first 4e super-adventure, released in hardback, and designed as an homage to Against The Giants.  It was such a good and true homage that they later redid Against the Giants for 4e in Dragon magazine.  Hmm.

This thing is a mess, y'all.

Best piece of art in the book.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

1.  The first conceit of the adventure you need to understand is that it's a "paragon tier" adventure, and the initial framing is that a) there used to be Justice Avengers in Justice Avengers Tower, b) they're mostly gone, and c) the last Justice Avenger is about to shanghai your PCs to be the New Justice Avengers because a mess of giants and titans are coming to kick faces in.  You'll be pleased to hear we're mostly talking about hill, frost, and fire giants here (oh, there's the homage).  There are also new astral giants, who are good guys, as well as the lion-like Torrians.

2. The ancient city of Argent is where the Justice Avengers used to hang out, so it's a multiple-use locale in this adventure.  It actually isn't that big.  Anyway, the PCs get the trappings of Justice Avengers and the means to portal back to Argent from anywhere.  Prepare for realms-hopping choo-choo.

3. We get a bestiary of giant variants according to their 4e battle roles.  We'll be seeing a lot of these dudes.  Keep in mind that in 4e, giants live not only in the natural world, but throughout the Elemental Chaos, where they are lorded over by the Primordials.  These are the giants we're dealing with.

4. Much of the book is set up "delve style", focused on combat encounters, precise grid maps, and so forth.  If you aren't into this, you shouldn't be playing 4e in the first place, but if you're looking to adapt Revenge of the Giants to another edition, you're going to have some work to do.  If D&D Beyond let somebody adapt this to 5e, with all the maps and tokens pre-loaded?  Different story maybe, some portion of the 5e crowd would go for that.

5. The PCs go to the city of Argent and get hooked up with Obanar, last of the Justice Avenger Dudes, who strings them through several more battles before he vomits exposition at them (save vs railroad).  Congrats on acquiring several quests!  Enjoy some skill challenges!

6. Argent is under attack again, so you fight some hill giants and track them back to their compound, which you must infiltrate.  G1 echo here, obviously.  The only NPC with a name is the one who's scripted to escape.

7. Side quests include...Rescue the lion-people from an adamantine dragon and its demonic master!  Well, this is a little different, I guess.  

8. Now go back in time to steal the funky metal that can be used to make the Implements of Argent.  PS, you're stealing them from Acererak, who apparently lived in Bael Turath before it fell.  He is attended by warforged, because why not.  I'm not sure if "Acererak lived in Bael Turath before he was evil/undead" stuck around as canon.  Probably not.  Yes, you meet Acererak, and it's assumed that you fight him, and also that he's pissed at you for stealing from him.  He's Unaligned here but there's no sidebar about "convincing the non-evil wizard you're from the future" or anything like that.  Let's you and him fight!

9.  Diplomatic mission to the astral giants...who have been corrupted by drow.  This throwaway homage to G1-2-3 seems a little unnecessary given everything else that's going on in this superadventure.  Some more diplomatic missions are also available. including one into the feywild.  I guess diplomatic missions and skill challenges are meant to balance out the string-of-pearls combats in the other sections.

10. Finally, frost giants.  You go to a village under threat by frost giants.  Your local contact there is a djinn who has a magic ship carved out of ice, which is cool, and he can turn into a storm to push the ship, which is cool, but then WHY DOES HE OWN A SHIP.  Anyway, more exposition about the frost giants, but really the important part ought to be ship-to-ship combat against frost giant pirates on the stormy elemental sea, right?  You don't quite get that - the frost giants have kayaks.  That's a big f*cking kayak.  Are these frost giants more Inuit-flavored?  Did we give up on the frost-giants-as-Hollywood-vikings thing in 4e?  If so, that's a shame.  

11. Slaads fall from the sky.  This sounds way cooler than it is in the adventure.

12. Random at-sea encounters on the way to the Frost Giant Spire.  Fair enough.  The best random encounter is a death hag pirate captaining a ship made of bones.  YES.  This is what we came for, people.  Once you get to the frosty island, it's many many frost giant and related encounters.  Ice archons!  Winter wolves!  A remorhaz!    In order to follow the Jarl, you have to collect things from all over the map and forge a key of ice.  Ehhh.  Anyway, fight the Jarl and his crew, including Named Wizard Trying To Free A Titan who escaped from the hill giant compound.

13. Time to go to Flamefall Tower, redoubt of the fire giants, where you will fight oh so many fire giants you guys.  And salamanders, fire archons, etc.  PLUS BONUS DROW.

14. Back to Argent for the big finale.  We learn of Lolth's involvement in the scheme to bring back this titan. Lolth's exarch in this scheme is named "Lolestra", which sounds to me like when you laugh so much you crap uncontrollably.  Hopefully your PCs have the appropriate pieces of the relic machine which will stop/kill Piranoth the titan.  Some more fights until Piranoth emerges from a ziggurat, flexing like a badass and featuring over 700 hit points, which is still quite a bit even in 4e.  The print adventure comes with a bigass poster map specifically for this fight.

CONCLUSION

It's a hackfest, and not a very fun-looking one.  If you like around-the-world fetch-quest chains directed by NPCs, this might do it for you.  Is there really anything worth stealing from this?  Almost nothing.

If you need giant-themed content for 4e, I strongly suggest you forget this rancid thing exists and collect the Against the Giants redux from Dragon magazine.  Revenge of the Giants has more in common with Montezuma's Revenge than with Against the Giants.

Just wow.

#JULYGANTIC Over Hill, Over Dale

 Hill giants!  Sometimes considered less sexy than frost or fire, hill giants are no less iconic - they are the great fairy-tale giants, the immense ogres who swing tree-trunks to crush thatched huts.  Great stuff, but there aren't that many adventures out there that highlight the hill giants, and that's a shame.

WITCHSTONE

Polyhedron #21 yields this Carl Smith AD&D adventure for levels 8-12, which was an official tournament in 1983.  It's all about a tribe of hill giants, recently taken over by Mazaera the Mad (who pretends to have magic powers and has taken over the tribe via murder and deceit), which is going after the human town of Bywater.  The PCs are enlisted to procure a giant-slaying sword from a tomb and bring it back to Bywater to help fight these assaults.

The tomb, while small, is surprisingly nasty - some clay golems, a glyph, and a mummy!  The adventure provides a hexmap and some wilderness encounters - I suspect new-school design on this would've eschewed the map and just railroaded the "right" number of wilderness encounters to fill a con-slot etc.  We're also given the caves of the hill giants, of course - and in addition to the giants they feature doombats, some lizards, and tentamorts (which I'd forgotten were a thing).

I have no idea how this played out as a tournament adventure; we're not told in this for-home-play rewrite.  You could drop the situation (or adapt it) and still have a small tomb with a giantslayer sword in it, and a decent hill giant cave lair to use.

C'mon, you know you want this sword.

THEM APPLES

Dungeon #48 features this D&D adventure for low-level characters.  Hey look, Chris Perkins wrote this one, and on top of that (wonders never cease!) I've actually run it.  YEARS ago.

The halfling village of Wistil is famous for its apples, but the machinations of a rival apple-grower (involving a shapeshifter and a full page of exposition, because that's the era we're in) have left the orchard's trees poisoned and dying.  A party of halflings was sent (with considerable money) to go consult with the druids of the grove about what to do - but on their way back with the antidote, all the halflings (save one survivor) were bushwhacked and netted by a hill giant.  So that's the setup - confront the hill giant, rescue the halflings, grab the antidote to save the orchard.  Remember, you're levels 1-3.

The adventure provides some wilderness encounters, the hill giant's lair (luckily he's not at home when you first get there...), and the wildcard of the shapeshifting wood-drake who's sort-of responsible for all this in the first place.  

Brufnu the hill giant is rather domesticated and refined for his species - thanks to his late wife's home training - and lives in a proper hill-giant-sized house rather than a filthy cave.  The PCs will have to deal with the wonders of the oversized house (which should be fun for low-levels), as well as Brufnu's ogre-sized daughters and their pet lion Kitty.  And they'd better do it quick, because before long Brufnu will return home with his new bride.

Although this adventure is unnecessarily verbose, it is a solid attempt at the kind of low-level, folklore-inspired D&D that is best embodied by Willie Walsh.  This might be a good one to adapt for kids, or to run in a con slot with pregens (halflings!) or as a DCC zero-level funnel or played for laughs.