Zephira will tell us legends about the Giants' and Dragons' wars, so it seems they are natural enemies (no relation to the Heroes 3 game) and they fought endlessly, all types of giants against all types of dragons. One day, seeing that there are too many victims on both sides, both leaders decided that this will be better settled by a 1 vs 1 fight (a Duel if you like). So the Dragon Leader fights with the Giant Leader but no victor will emerge and they will call it a truce. But these are only legends, nobody knows what truly happened there.[1]
It seems that time passes faster when you have legends to hear so we reach the near about of our destination. Zephira will let us get out of the castle near Bryn Shander, we can see the town from here.
The weather is colder than what we are used to in the summer but nothing too scary for a bunch of adventurers like us (I think we passed our constitution saving trows or something).[2]
We reach the gate of the city just when the guards are about to close the city for the night but we get lucky that the sheriff's deputy spots us and keeps the gates opened for us a little longer. We thank the pretty dwarf lady with a braided beard (this is something only Groin finds appealing, but as I’m the writer…) and ask for a place to stay for the night.
As recommended by the deputy we head towards Kevin Fire Beard's tavern to warm up with a strong beverage. While the ladies: Tari, Szivem and Selene are going to make their beauty sleep the men need more warming so they drink and drink and drink.
Solid will find a bounty hunter knight from Neverwinter, Sir Boric[3], and makes friends with him getting a nice side quest for the party “Finding the Tic” aka Capusa in romanian.
After the men: Solid, Ren and Groin are warmer and drunker they try to “quietly” reach the sleeping rooms; of course making too much noise and waking up a MAD Sorceress named Selene who will blast us with some Magic Missile (we had like half an hour of making fun and role playing drunk people until she got mad and decided to stop the fun → party wrecker). All worth it in the end.
In the morning the tavern keeper announced us that we are no longer welcome in his fine establishment so we need to find a new place to sleep. Nothing to do with the show of magic missile from the night before NOP NOP NOP! But he is kind enough to tell us where we can find some warmer clothes to buy as we are not that well dressed for the harsh weather.
We buy some warmer clothes, Tari even spends more gc just to have a red foxy coat to match her hair :)[4]
We wandered the town and reached the Temple where we were greeted by some fine priests (Delvon and Sirac) that are happy to have company so we eat, drink and chat with them. They tell us that the problems they had in the area are with some Giants but they know nothing more and advise us to go see the town's “First Speaker” for more details.
We go to the city hall but it seems the First Speaker is otherwise occupied so some of us play a dice game with the guards, some win and some loose but all try to cheat, even the Paladin (not something a paladin would do but he's our friend and we love him broken[5] as he may be).
Finally we manage to talk with the “First Speaker” and she tells us that the giants did not engage lately but the town will pay 50gp for each giant head we deliver and she calls us in the morning to give us some details.
As we can no longer spend the night at Kevin’s tavern we go to the North Star tavern for the night, where Selene seems to find an old friend who will give her a memorable night (she somehow finds a way to whore herself every time she gets the chance, role play is excellent as we are to find out from her background).[6]
The next morning, Tari, the only one caring for the mission at this point, goes to the city hall and comes back with the info and the maps we need in order to find the establishments rampaged by giants in the past.
While we are about to go on the BIG mission we hear a voice from outside the city walls that shouts “Give us Arthus Simbar[7] or you will all die!!!”.
Following the guards we run towards the southern gate from where the voice is shouting while rocks are besieging the city.
At this point we all get an NPC to play with along with our main character.
Tari gets the First Speaker and she tries to negotiate with the Giants that besiege the town, but it seems the giants are in no mood for negotiations; anyway, given her NPC she can’t do much more with it.
Solid will get to play with the Knight he met at the tavern and this is one that can fight but he is mostly used for range attacks until close to the combat end.
Ren will get the sheriff and he will try to protect the First Speaker while he shoots from time to time at the enemies.[8]
Groin will get one of the priests from the temple and he tries to gather as many people inside the temple loosing his life in the process (maybe the NPC could be more useful alive in the future but the dice decided that he will find his end under a rock).
Selene will get a beggar woman that will try to help out a family to reach the temple, leaving some orphans at the end but saving some lives.[9]
Szivem will get the sheriffs deputy who runs cowardly instead of fighting (apparently DM’s fault that slipped the info that all living NPCs will give us some side quests at the end).[10]
All played their part, some more successful than others, but in the end only one NPC dies, the priest. So many many side quests for us. YEYYYYYYY!!! For the XP.[11]
While the NPCs are doing their jobs also the party fights side by side with the guards defending the town, the giants storming the city and their pets are defeated in the end leaving the southern gates ruined but the town will survive the siege.
With her last breath the leading giant curses us something about “Trim” at this point we don’t know this “Trim” maybe a god or something.[12]
The remaining giants retreat, GREAT VICTORY for all man kind!!![13]
[1] A reasonable remembrance of Annam All-Father ending the thousand year war with the dragons.
[2] You also rolled lucky on the random distance and direction to Bryn Shander, otherwise who knows what might have happened.
[3] Sir Baric
[4] The girls had indeed bought finer cloths. Groin, on the other hand, is a cheapskate, and bought a battered old shield.
[5] You have no idea.
[6] There is also a sex consequences table to roll on. This time, she got the itches.
[7] Artus Cimber
[8] And took control of the town militia, giving actually competent orders.
[9] Roll to see who gets hit... OK, that's the mother. Next turn: roll to see who gets hit. OK, that's the father. Well, this suddenly turned dark...
[10] Next time I will ignore what the campaign book suggests, I promise.
[11] Milestone. Whatever.
[12] It's not like you've met a friendly frost giant in the mean time who may explain what that is.
[13] Also dwarf, elf, half-elf and dragonborn kind.
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