Soon after the adventurers arrive in Goldenfields to deliver a message, the farming settlement comes under attack from a large host of hill giants and their minions with bizarre siege engines. The heroes join together with a ragtag band of unlikely allies who stand against the invasion.
Player Characters: Adrik, Gregory, Kane, Mister Mo, Sister Mary, Strong Palm Ian, Tarancha
1.
Tarancha and Oren stood outside the gates and surveyed the army that approached the walls of Goldenfields. Altogether, they counted half a dozen hill giants, a dozen ogres, a dozen bugbears, and sixty goblins. Of the ogres, half of them carried large unwieldy contraptions on their backs resembling crude trebuchets.
Tarancha was dismayed to see that the walls of Goldenfields were unmanned and the watchtowers were dark and empty. Where were the town guards in the people’s hour of need?
A hand touched Tarancha’s shoulder. It was Strong Palm Ian. He had come from Harvesthome Abbey with the other adventurers and a small group of local townspeople. They were the only ones to heed Tarancha and Oren’s call to arms. The rest of the townspeople and all of the town guards had been pulled back from the outer walls of Goldenfields by the cowardly Abbot and the Captain of the guards to defend the abbey.
From the abbey and the nearby fields came Zi Liang, an acolyte from Kara-tur; Shalvus Martholio, a local sheperd; and Leaferlas, an awakened tree and caretaker of the fields. From Northfurrow’s End came Miros Xelbrin the innkeeper and Naxene Drathkala, a member of the Order of Magists and Protectors. Together with the halfling singer Oren Yogilvy and the party of adventurers, this small band of defenders were all that stood between Goldenfields and the army of the hill giants.
Namyr the drow rogue was nowhere to be seen, but from out of the shadows, the kobold rogue Mister Mo appeared! He brought dark tidings with him. Mister Mo kept up correspondence with patrons of his traps and inventions. One such patron, a mysterious benefactor named Klauth who resided in Icewind Dale, had sent him a letter which revealed that the great upheaval among giantkind may have something to do with the machinations of a blue dragon named Iymrith. Klauth also promised Mister Mo a reward as a token of his gratitude for his insightful letters.
“I offer you a gift that will expedite your travels to the north so that you might solve the riddles of our day. Make no mistake, we are living in a time of great upheaval, and the rumblings in the north are an omen of greater events to come.
Consider this my way of repaying you for your efforts by pointing you in the right direction.”
The heroes wondered what his gift might be, but they had little time to worry about that now. They had an army of goblins and giants to deal with.
While the heroes had mustered their small group of defenders, the giants had divided their army into two parts. The hill giants and half the ogres remained outside the walls with half of the goblins. The remainder of the army, which included the a dozen bugbears, 30 goblins, and half a dozen ogres, had scaled the unmanned walls and were already in the fields. These invaders had divided into three smaller gangs and were spreading out across the settlement.
The heroes saw a few of the monsters in the nearby wheat fields. The two tall ogres and four heavily armed bugbears were easy to spot. But their smaller goblins lackeys were nowhere to be seen. The monsters were scouring the fields for food supplies to loot and ransack.
“Guh… scary… must bring food…” the ogres grumbled.
The heroes wondered what Guh might mean, whether it was a word or perhaps the name of the monsters’ lair. Whatever it was, something had clearly frightened these ogres enough to bring them all the way here in search of food.
Zi Liang shook her head and clucked her tongue.
“Those foolish oafs are searching the fields in vain. The food supplies are stored in chambers along the outer walls of Goldenfields. If it is food they are seeking, then they are looking in the wrong place.”
Yet the danger could not be ignored. If Goldenfields was plundered of its food stores, it would bring a food crisis to Waterdeep and the surrounding communities which all relied on Goldenfields for its harvests. Without shipments of food, the people of the region would starve when winter came.
The defenders of Goldenfields could not let that happen.
2.
Mister Mo began to lay traps in field, creating a no man’s land of ball bearings, bear traps, and caltrops. Then the fearsome orc Tarancha and the tall awakened tree named Leaferlas stood just behind the traps and taunted their enemies.
The ogres and bugbears took the bait and rushed headlong into traps. They slipped on the ball bearings, got stuck in the bear traps, and pierced their feet on the caltrops before finally reaching the heroes’ front line. Tarancha and Leaferlas stood before them and held their foes at bay. Their companions stood with them, and with their combined might they defeated the invaders.
As the defenders mopped up the fleeing goblins, they remembered that this was only one of several gangs that had infiltrated Goldenfields. Behind them, they heard the sound of breaking glass coming from the town, and the urgent cries of animals in the nearby pens. While the heroes were fighting one of the gangs in the field, the other two gangs had moved past them and were now looting the town and the animal pens.
Time was not on their side. The heroes decided to make a risky move and split their party into two groups. Kane, Gregory, Sister Mary, Leaferlas, and Miros went to defend the town. The others, led by Tarancha, went to the animal pens.
2.
Kane’s group found the monsters looting the homes and shops of the townspeople. Unable to abide by their heinous acts, Kane leaped into action. With a mighty cry, he ran to the center of the town square and drew out the monsters.
The ogres and bugbears emerged from the nearby buildings. Taking up the tiefling’s challenge, they surrounded him and began to pummel him with their greatclubs and morning stars. But Kane had a fiery surprise in store for them. With a fiendish incantation, he conjured a great ball of fire that exploded at his feet. When the smoke had cleared, Kane lied unconscious on the ground, his energy spent. The ogres and bugbears still stood but were badly wounded.
Gregory, Leaferlas, Miros and Sister Mary leaped out from hiding and joined the fray. With their combined strength, they defeated the monsters that had been weakened by Kane’s fiery spell. The heroes rejoiced, but their celebration was short lived. For they realized that the goblins that had been with the bugbears had fled and were nowhere to be seen.
Meanwhile at the animal pens, Tarancha’s party silently crept among the barns and stables. One by one, the heroes quietly dispatched the goblins that were looting the pens. Things were going according to their plan until one of the goblins raised an alarm. A moment later, ogres and bugbears began to emerge from the nearby buildings.
A fierce skirmish ensued in which the heroes were victorious, but their success was not without loss. During the fight, the halfling singer Oren Yogilvy, who bravely faced the ogres with nothing but a small dagger, was crushed by an ogre’s greatclub. Adrik wept at the loss of his old friend, but there was no time to mourn. Although the roving band had been defeated, a few of the bugbears had escaped and rejoined the horde beyond the walls.
While the heroes were catching their breath, they heard cries coming from the direction of Harvesthome Abbey. A hail of spiky objects had fallen upon the abbey, crashing against the roof and shattering the stained glass windows along the walls. On closer inspection, the heroes realized that the objects were in fact goblins wearing spiked helms.
This was the purpose of the large contraptions that the ogres outside the walls were carrying. They were hurling goblins over the walls as deadly projectiles. Although these goblins did not survive their flight, they succeeded in striking terror into the hearts of the townspeople who sought refuge in the abbey. Another such volley would surely cause the townspeople to panic and attempt to flee, resulting in a dangerous stampede.
The heroes could not let that happen! Once more, the party split up to face the threat outside and tend to the frightened people of Goldenfields. Tarancha led a group of her companions beyond the walls while Sister Mary and Kane led a smaller team to the abbey to keep the people calm.
5.
Outside Harvesthome Abbey, Kane spotted a pair of hill giants trying to peer through an unbroken stained glass window. Growing frustrated by their inability to see through the colored glass, the giants looked ready to break the window. Kane stepped before them and addressed them in a firm voice, trying to deceive them and cow them at the same time.
“You there! Your horde has been defeated and is in rout. Surrender now or face the wrath of Krampus!”
The giants looked upon the tiefling in his fiendish might. Believing Kane’s words, the giants threw up their beefy hands and surrendered on the spot. Kane offered to release them so they could return to their lair, but the giants protested.
They had been sent to Goldenfields to bring back food for their chieftain and wife Guh, an enormous hill giant who had conquered all the husbands of her tribe. These two giants did not wish to return to Guh empty handed. Kane suggested that they befriend the townspeople of Goldenfields instead.
While Kane dealt with the giants outside, Sister Mary and the others entered the abbey. They were startled to see it packed to the walls with people. The entire population of Goldenfields had taken refuge in Harvesthome, including more than two hundred town guards who had been called to defend the abbey from attack. In truth, the Captain of the guard was an amicable but lazy man who had not prepared for a possible attack upon the town, and the Abbot was a cowardly priest who wanted to keep himself safe. Together, they had fortified the abbey with the whole strength of Goldenfield’s defenses, leaving the rest of the settlement to fall prey to the invading horde.
Sister Mary spoke first to the Captain and then the Abbot, trying to convince them to allow the town guard to face the giant horde in the field.
“Should not the defenders of Goldenfields meet the enemy beyond the walls? They can do little good to remain here altogether in cramped quarters while the monsters pillage your good fields. If the fields and harvests are lost, how will your people survive the coming winter? You must send your army beyond the walls to protect Goldenfields!”
6.
Once more, Tarancha stood beyond the battlements and surveyed the army arrayed outside the town walls. The forces that had escaped from the skirmishes in the town and animals pens had rejoined the horde. Now, there were four hill giants, six ogres with siege weapons, four bugbears, and twenty two goblins.
The goblins that had survived the expedition into Goldenfields returned only to be given spiked helms and find themselves being loaded onto the siege weapons on the backs of the ogres. These goblins were not pleased, and their dissatisfaction quickly spread to the remaining goblins.
The heroes attempted to use the goblins’ low morale to their advantage. Tarancha charged in front of them and let out a terrific battle cry. At the same time, Naxene the mage leaped onto the field and invoked a powerful incantation of lightning. A blast of electricity was released from her fingertips, shocking the line of ogres and damaging their siege weaponry. By Naxene’s calculations, the combination of Tarancha’s intimidating presence and her own formidable magic should have been enough to scare away the invading horde.
The goblins, hearing the ferocious roar of the orc barbarian and seeing the attack upon the siege engines, fled from the field. But the bugbears were not so easily frightened. They held their ground and were ready to scale the walls. The ogres, angered by the attack, retaliated against Naxene. The mage soon found herself surrounded by the ogres. Her companions looked on helplessly as the foolhardy mage met a gruesome death at the hands of the ogres who beat her with their greatclubs.
The hill giants, frustrated and enraged, gathered the remainder of their army and began to charge toward the town. Tarancha, unwilling to risk the lives of her men, stood alone against the onslaught of giants, ogres and bugbears. Bravely she swung her greataxe, cleaving at the giants even as they surrounded her on all sides and began to pummel her into the earth.
Within moments, Tarancha laid in a pool of her own blood upon the field, clinging to her last ounce of strength but unwilling to surrender. Yet with the giants approaching the town and Tarancha nearly defeated, all hope seemed lost.
Then came the loud cry of a mighty horn from within the walls of the town. The army of Goldenfields was on the march! Sister Mary and her friends led a force of over a hundred town guards who came forth from Harvesthome Abbey. As their footsteps thundered over the earth, the few remaining bugbears and ogres panicked and scattered in a retreat.
The hill giants were dismayed when they saw that their army had been routed. They were also terribly hungry after all that effort of marching to the town and laying siege to it. Having no army to lead and seeing no possibility of conquering Goldenfields, the giants grunted and began to walk away toward the hills in search of something more easily edible.
The defenders of Goldenfields emerged victorious! Yet with the loss of Oren Yogilvy and Naxene Drathkala, it was a costly victory. The heroes mourned the loss of their brave companions whose heroic sacrifice had saved Goldenfields from plunder.
7.
As the light of the dawn rose over the horizon, a shadow passed over Goldenfields. High in the sky, the heroes saw what appeared to be a ship floating among the clouds by means of an enormous red balloon. As the airship descended upon the field, men and women in black leather armor alighted from it. The heroes prepared to defend themselves again a new threat. But much to their surprise, the newcomers hailed the heroes and brought tidings from Klauth, Mister Mo’s patron in Icewind Dale.
“We come to you on behalf of Klauth, a great lord of the North! Klauth offers you this vessel and our services as a gift, so that you may cross the vast expanses while avoiding the many perils of the land below. A great upheaval is upon us, and our master commands you forge ahead and face your destiny!”
It was then that Sister Mary recalled a vision she had had before setting out on her journey. In the vision, she had seen seven white bird flying across the sea. They were flying against a terrible wind toward a storm in the middle of the ocean. Sister Mary had wondered why these birds were heading toward danger. Now, as she looked upon the airship, she realized that the birds symbolized herself and her six companions. She turned to the others and spoke with a voice guided by destiny.
“Fate has brought us together to fly toward unknown perils. From this day forth, we shall be called the Albatross Company!”
Adventure Name
Storm King’s Thunder
Chapter 2. Rumblings
Session #3
Rewards
4 Achievement Points
4 Treasure Points
10 Downtime Days
1 Renown
Level-Up Gold
Level gained: 2nd-4th – 75 gp
Level gained: 5th-10th – 150 gp