7th Day of Patchwall, CY 580 - Into the Hall of the Fire Giant King

I feel like this chapter of the module needs to be played with some background theme music. Something like Hall of the Mountain King, but a heavier and darker (a little less Grieg and the little more Wagner). 

There was no way the party was going to enter this place without resting and recovering spell-power. Unfortunately, they were smack in the middle of the Hell Furnaces - a harsh environment that doesn't support life for anything should of magical creatures connected to the elemental plane of fire. Lava flows were surrounding them on nearly all sides, and volcanic vents were spewing massive clouds of sulfuric gases and ash that made flying overhead impossible. But there was a path that lead up to the doors and the party followed it back down the mountains. Through sheer perseverance, they were able to find a small fissure in the rocks some two miles down the road, where the lava was much less active. Inside this fissure was a small cave just large enough for the party to squeeze inside and hide. The Storm Giantess, Olgani, wished the party well through the blessings of Kord, the God of Storms, and departed.

It was three days later, on the 7th Day of Patchwall, that the party ventured back out. This is how long it took Sarril to identify magic items and refill his Ring of Spell Storing. He also took this opportunity to use his Ring of Three Wishes to use his second wish, this one to bring back his lost familiar, Krek, from the Plane of Concordant Opposition where he had previously been banished. With everyone powered up and ready to go, they headed back to great doors.

There was only one problem with the doors. . . they were huge, heavy, metal doors that required fire giant strength to open. Even the combined effort of multiple strong PCs couldn't get them open. The first plan was to wait outside for someone to come and open the doors. The party waited most of the day without any luck, and while waiting, were attacked by four salamanders. After that, they decided they needed another way in.

With Olgani gone, this required a magical solution. Sarril cast Passwall, creating a party-sized tunnel through the door. That worked well, and, after casting the obligatory Invisibility 10' Radius, into the hall they went. The hall beyond was lined with tapestries on either side. Luapan made a point to look behind all of the tapestries as they passed. All except the first one on the left, which happened to be the one that was covering a secret guard room - more on that later.

Passing what appeared to be a large hall to the right, where four ettin guards were posted by some columns, the party focused on keeping to the left path whenever possible. This led them into a kitchen, where several fire giants were busy cooking. They continued past a door that was barred from the outside, which they decided was best to ignore for the time being, and eventually came to a curtain behind which they could hear the sounds of giants talking. They decided to move the curtain to get a peek, but the curtain was very large and required a bit of effort - effort that was noticed by the alert guards waiting behind. The invisible party sprung into action and began to fight the six fire giants in the room. Though victorious, the party was now visible, wounded, and low on spells. It turns out that fighting fire giants just isn't easy. The party realized they needed to retreat back to their cave to heal up.

Remember that tapestry that Luapan missed earlier? The guard behind it had a large ballista that shoots six spears at a time (it reminds me of something from the Slingshot Channel on YouTube - check it out sometime). He set the ballista up in the hallway in front of entrance, ready to fire on the exiting party. Behind him were two of the ettin guards. On the other end of the hallway were the other two ettins, ready to finish off the party after they took the ballista damage. Six spears flew down the hallway at five party members. Several took damage, though not a lot. Then the ettins moved in. Again, the superior armor class of the party members made it difficult for the ettins to do any serious damage, and the party quickly finished them off before the fire giant at the end of the hallway could reload the ballista. Sarril then cast Boccob's Rolling Thunder down the hallway, stunning the fire giant and one of the ettins and destroying the ballista. After that, the party was able to quickly move down the hall, kill the enemies and escape.

Another two days of rest and restoring spells and back they went. This time, Sarril cast Passwall to the left of the doors, opening up a tunnel into the guard room. Inside was a guard who spent the first round engaging the party, before realizing he needed to sound the alarm. Reaching for the alarm in round two, he was killed before he could do it. Sarril cast Invisibility 10' Radius again to make the visible party members invisible again, and they decided to head straight to the large hallway with the columns.

This hallway turned out to be the throne room, and as they approached the throne, they heard a loud laughing coming from King Snurr, who was very much aware of their approach. King Snurr Ironbelly was sitting on his throne, flanked by two large hellhounds. To his side was a drow elf female and behind him were two fire giant guards. In front of him stood Jarl Grugnir and his four elite frost giant guards, who clearly had escaped to here after their previous fight.

King Snurr told the party he would show them mercy if they dropped their weapons and groveled at his feet. But these are the Bad Ass Motherfuckers, and they grovel to no one. Sarril answered by reading a scroll of Chain Lightning, which ripped through all of the giants and the drow (whose magic resistance protected her from the effects - in hindsight, I think the spell should have ended when it hit the magic resistance, but I let it keep going). The fight was now on.

The frost giants were definitely struggling to be at their full potential in the stifling heat. That helped the party quite a bit, as did the prayer that Luapan put up. The drow responded with Faerie Fire, effectively negating the invisibility and allowing the giants to target the party with throwing hammers. Cadwin, realizing from his previous encounter with the fire giant guards that he can bounce lightning bolts off of these stone walls, cast Protection from Lightning on himself, then fired an 11 die lightning bolt through the jarl and two other giants, bouncing it off the wall and back at him through the same giants again. It was a devastating move that reduced the enemy's numbers greatly. Dalron and Pontus were able to make short work of the remaining giants. At one point, the hellhounds attacked, but the fire protection spells the party had on them negated their breath weapons and effectively neutralized that threat.

Neither King Snurr nor his drow advisor took any aggressive actions. Realizing the fight was not going their way, they began to make a retreat through a secret door behind the throne. The drow cast a spell causing 14 giant spiders to appear and surround the party, allowing her and the king to make their escape.

And here is where we had to end the session, mid-battle. The frost giant and fire giant guards were all dispatched, and the party now has to fight their way through a hoard of giant spiders. It is late morning on the 9th Day of Patchwall, CY 580.

1st Day of Patchwall, CY 580 - Finishing the Glacial Rift

We had a nice extended session today to finish the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl. It was an exciting day filled with joy and more tragedy. It is unclear if there were any true "winners" today.

We left off with Jarl Grugnir and his consort, Lady Amgroth, flanked by four elite Frost Giant guards and two huge winter wolves, confronting the party. Jarl Grugnir addressed the party, demanding information about what they were doing. Dalron answered, stating that they were here to stop the raids on the human lands and if the Jarl agreed to do that, they won't have to kill him (I'm paraphrasing a bit). The Jarl, feeling he had the upper-hand in this situation, laughed, then told the party that they were only alive because he is allowing them to live to explain themselves. The fact is that both the Jarl and the party were stalling for time. While Dalron was speaking, Bukro, the drow assassin, was hiding behind Dalron, Luapan and Cadwin, drinking a potion of invisibility. While the Jarl did not see the potion drinking, one of the elite guards to his right noticed it, and reached for a throwing hammer he had at his hip. This triggered an initiative for everyone and the fight began.

Bukro won the initiative and managed to go invisible before the hammer throw. Lady Amgroth pulled out a scroll, but had a late initiative and didn't start to read it yet. The party recognized that magic scrolls are bad and immediately focused all of their attention on her. Dalron threw four daggers at her, nearly, but not quite killing her. Sarril followed up with a Boccob's Rolling Thunder that stunned two of the guards (though not before they threw hammers with devastating effect at Dalron) and knocked the lady unconscious - just one segment before she read her scroll. An invisible Bukro tried to move into position to backstab one of the giants, but was set upon by both winter wolves who sniffed him out and gave away his position. The Jarl immediately attacked Dalron and the other two guards threw hammers at Luapan. They mostly missed, but at least one connected for a lot of damage (they threw two hammers per round, for 5d4+8 damage per hit). Cadwin, who had held his action up until this point, realized the party wasn't likely to survive to the end of the second round, and cast an Obscurement spell over the entire area, which reduced visibility for the party and giants alike to just 3 feet. His goal, which succeeded, was to eliminate ranged weapons from the fight.

At this point, things turned chaotic. A bit more fighting took place, with severe penalties as everyone had to guess where their opponents were. Then Sarril got hit with a devastating Cone of Cold spell from somewhere just below him (he was flying in the air at the time). Cadwin transformed into a giant eagle and made a dive attack at a retreating Jarl while Luapan decided to cast True Seeing on Dalron, to allow him to see through the obscurement and continue his devastating throwing dagger attacks. What he saw were 5 Ogre Magi closing in on the party. One was visible, having just cast Cone of Cold on Sarril, and the other five were still invisible, spreading out trying to find opponents. Dalron immediately began shouting "Ogre Magi! Bug out! Bug out!"

Cadwin grabbed Luapan and Sarril grabbed Dalron and they both flew straight up and away. Unfortunately, that left Bukro still on the ground, where the giants finished him off before the one remaining winter wolf (he managed to kill the first one) began ripping him to pieces. And just like that, in only three rounds, the fight was over. A single winter wolf was the only true casualty, as Lady Amgrath was seen being hauled away by two of the giants and they, presumably, had the means to heal her.

The remaining party retreated back to the secret cave hideout they previously waited in. They spent a entire three days healing and replenishing spells. Sarril fiddled around with a ring he had found earlier, and to everyone's surprise, a naked, but very much alive, Pontus appeared in the cave. The ring was a Ring of Three Wishes, and there were now two left. Pontus, very happy to be alive again, gave everyone a great big hug.

On the 4th Day of Patchwall, the party readied for a return to the glacial rift. The plan was similar to before. Using invisibility, flight, protection from cold and detect traps spells, they headed back to the rift. This time, they floated high above the rift and slowly spiraled down to the bottom to check things out. By all accounts, it was now deserted. The party checked all previously unexplored areas and, other than getting attacked by some ice toads, which the party was able to fly away from without breaking their invisibility, there was nothing interesting. They decided to explore one of the two large tunnels going south, which recombined and sloped downward, opening up into a very large cavern. The cavern was covered in carvings and tapestries depicting symbols and images of the frost giant clan and of Jarl Grugnir. A large boulder acted as a door covering a passageway to the west, while another boulder that was previously covering a passage to the east was moved aside. The party explored the passage to the east and found the lair of the two white dragons they had previously slain, along with an enormous pile of treasure.

A Detect Magic spell revealed there were magic items spread throughout the pile, but it would take hours to sort through it all. The party decided this was a good place to camp out and do just that, so Sarril cast Wall of Ice to cover the entrance, and the sorting began.

From a magic-item perspective, there turned out to be less than what everyone was hoping for. Some armor and potions, primarily. They grabbed as many valuable looking gems as they could, and left the coins where they were (there were well over 100,000 coins of all types - but no chests to put them in). They decided to spend the rest of the day and overnight here. In the morning, they replenished spells and continued their journey, using a Shrink spell to remove the boulder covering the west passage.

After exploring a number of empty passages - most of which appeared to be living chambers for frost giants and their guests, and finding most items of value having been taken, the party came to another boulder that Sarril used Shrink to remove. This room appeared to be a prison, and chained to the wall with massive manacles and chains, was a storm giantess. Once the party convinced her that they were not hostile and, in fact, were trying to hunt the Jarl and his remaining clan, the giantess offered to help. She introduced herself as Olgani, an ambassador from her own clan who was summoned by the jarl in order to solicit their aid in the attacks on human lands. When she refused, the jarl imprisoned her and has been using various means of torture ever since to persuade her to change her mind (ineffectively). Sarril was able to free her by casting Enlarge on her manacles, allowing her to slip out of them. Olgani offered to assist the party with the remainder of their search of the rift and defeat any remaining enemies they may find. Pontus decided he was in love with the 24 foot tall exotic woman, and spent the rest of the day trying to woo her (and, as unlikely as it may seem, actually made some progress on this front).

Continued searching revealed a room full of ogres that the party chose to ignore and a holding pen for four hungry polar bears that the party carefully released before running away (thinking the polar bears would likely find the ogres and the strongest would survive). The Jarl's great hall was completely abandoned, and the party left the jeweled throne alone. Searching north, they found a trophy room full of treasures from various conquests. Sarril determined that several of the items were magic and, upon collection of said items, and alarm was sounded. There was no one to respond to the alarm, and it was quickly silenced. Olgani was able to recover her personal armor and weapons here as well.

Further searching to the north of the Trophy Room revealed a concealed escape tunnel. Sarril had Detect Invisibility, Detect Magic and Detect Traps spells all operating together. Detect Traps was indicating a trapped object along a high shelf, completely invisible. Despite being obviously invisible, neither Sarril's Detect Magic nor his Detect Invisibility spells revealed the object. Whatever was hiding it was powerful magic indeed, and, possibly, the Jarl wasn't even aware of its existence. They decided to have Pontus open the trapped box, since he can generally just take anything a trap throws at him. The trap was a poison gas cloud that enveloped everyone within 30 ft. Save or die. Everyone but Cadwin made their save. Luckily for Cadwin, Luapan had a Slow Poison spell readied, which held the poison off long enough for Cadwin to cast his own Remove Poison spell, and avoid death. There's one more wish that Sarril doesn't have to spend.


Next, they found a hidden lever high off the ground. The party asked Olgani if she would pull it, and she did, which caused everyone in the immediate area to teleport away. They now found themselves in a hot, volcanic area. The smell of burning sulfur all around. Before them were a pair of massive iron doors. This must be the entrance the Hall of the Fire Giant King, and possibly where Jarl and the remaining frost giants escaped to.

It is the afternoon of the 4th Day of Patchwall, CY 580, and the party is wondering where they can find shelter to rest before they venture into the hall (hint: they don't call these the Hellfurnaces for no reason).