The party arrives on the treeline next to the beach and they see massive frost giant longboat, the Hvalspyd, which sounds like frost-giant-language for the sound you make when you sneeze.
They debate on what to do with the boat. Destroy the boat? Sink the boat? Salvage the boat? Try to drive the boat?
"Let's sail it back to Port Nyanzaru and sell it!" Zanzibar argues, rubbing his boomer hands together snidely.
"Who is gonna buy it!?" Valour says, pointing at the 250 foot longboat. “It’s meant for frost giants!”
Zanzibar takes two spyglasses and holds them up to his face like a set of binoculars. He sees that the boat deck has two frost giants perusing around on it like the loneliest Carnival cruise ever.
Zanzibar notices that they’re not wearing their armor, and they’re sweating like an ice cube in that Nelly song… well shit none of the players are going to get that reference—the song is “Hot in Here.” See, it's a joke about the specific lyrics, "It's getting hot in here / So take off all your clothes." And the frost giants being an ice cube... well, not Ice Cube...
You know what's a really good way to get off the topic of rap history?
Zanzibar recites the Ordning, which is a key element in make believe culture of giants in a fantasy tabletop gaming universe. The Ordning is an ancient set of laws that sas the giants are in a certain caste system, the order from most favorite to absolute dogshit being: storm giants, cloud giants, fire giants, frost giants, stone giants, then hill giants. Frost giants are like lower middle class, so they live paycheck to paycheck in giant culture.
Zanzibar deduces that there are more giants mulling around the Chultan jungle since only a couple of giants are on the ship, and more than two giants are needed to pilot a ship.
"These guys are the Minions guarding the ship! Let's attack!" Valour says.
The party then goes over their possible options, which may or may not include the following:
Take a window out of Zanzibar’s robe of useful items and slap it on the bottom of the ship, then break the window to let water in.
Cast firebreathing on Zanzibar’s owl and let it burn the sails
Cast waterwalk on the party and charging across the ocean.
Painting themselves with the marvelous pigments obtained from the grung so that they look like waves and just walking out there to the place. By the way, Zanzibar just now cast identify on the paint after four goddamned sessions of carrying them around so they finally know what the paint does.
Turning into animals.
🌱 casts water walk on the party, as well as on Minion IV. He then uses the marvelous pigments to make Zanzibar’s owl look like a seagull since it would make much more sense for a seagull to breathe fire than an owl. Zanzibar gets mad that his pigments are being used since he thinks he can come up with a con job where he paints some gold into existence like Rumpelstiltskin.
🌱 wildshapes into a horse, and Zanzibar hops on him.
"Do you mind if I ride you?" Zanzibar says.
"Nay..." 🌱 makes a joke.
Azaka also hops on 🌱, while Xandala and Valour get on Minion IV.
They get ready to charge across the ocean and take the frost giants by surprise as a cavalry of invaders plus Dur-Dur-Dur in a mass of rampaging anger—one massive vanguard to buy Xandala’s father more time in the sweltering jungle but WAIT WAIT WAIT!
WAIT!
HOLD UP!
They just now see that there’s a cave underneath them on the beach that none of them realized was there, so time out on the Osgiliath charge—don’t start singing yet, Billy Boyd!
Zanzibar decides to see into the cave through the eyes of his seagull/owl, and hooooly shit there are TWO MORE FROST GIANTS IN THE CAVE RIGHT BENEATH THEM JUST HANGING OUT!
The seagull spits fire out all over the frost giants, freaking them the hell out, but not as much as the weretiger that charges in afterwards once Xandala casts feather fall on everyone, letting folks float down to the ground and beat the shit out of the frost giants. Xandala fire lasers out of her circlet of blasting, and Zanzibar hides behind her.
🌱 drops down and reverses shape into a wood elf, then casts moonbeam at the frost giants.
A frost giant freaks out and slams its axe into the little firebreathing seagull, obliterating it into a mass of feathers. He then marches up to Azaka and slams her in the face with his axe, but her face doesn’t split open due to the weretiger thing, so now the frost giant is super freaked out.
Dur-Dur-Dur lands and swings Durminator, activating its acid powers and slicing the hell out of the frost giant. The frost giant retaliates, striking Dur-Dur-Dur twice with his own axe and carving out massive chunks of HP from the barbarian.
Minion IV gallops down and charges at the closest giant, trampling her down and knocking her on her frosty booty. Valour then leaps off the back of the horse and lands on the giant's belly, using a wrathful smite to beat the shit out of the frost giant and scare her. Valour then crits on his next attack and rolls snake eyes on his damage rolls.
"What the heck is that!?" Dur-Dur-Dur shouts at Valour who is literally on top of the giant when he critically hits.
Xandala lobs a fireball to the back of the cave and hits the two giants, torching them.
Zanzibar magic missiles the frost giant on the ground, killing her right out. “All me!” he shouts, waving his mage hands in the air like he just don’t care.
🌱 chill touches the remaining frost giant and misses, then casts a level 1 healing word at Dur-Dur-Dur since the orc has been talking to the frost giant’s axe for a while. "Hey... um... get better!" he shouts.
Dur-Dur-Dur steps up and beats the giant twice with his axe, and the frost giant swings back twice—both are dropping hit points like crazy.
"Hey guys I'm feeling a little woozy over here!" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
Valour steps in, chops up the giant with Shatterspike, then casts sanctuary on Dur-Dur-Dur.
Azaka and Xandala claw and throw fire, chipping away from the frost giant’s HP but not as cool as the others because they’re NPC’s and the players will get mad if they outshine them.
Zanzibar throws a magic missile but can’t kill the frost giant, so he doesn’t wave his mage hands in the air because he just cares a little bit.
🌱 uses chill touch to make spores come out of nowhere, and the spores slap the giant across the face, which rips his face off his skull and makes him pretty dead when compared to living frost giants.
Enough XP is doled out to level up Valour and 🌱, but they ain’t about to take no 10:00 AM naps, so everyone loots the giants and finds some weird shit.
Zanzibar finds a rocking chair. 🌱 finds a mannequin. Valour finds a bag of dried mushrooms. Dur-Dur-Dur finds a bronze gong.
Zanzibar gives his rocking chair to Dur-Dur-Dur, who greatly appreciates the offering.
🌱 draws Morels on the mannequin with his marvelous pigments, making him look like his twice dead zombie friend. He then cuts the dead giant's hands off to use for animate dead later because… you know… let’s just be weird like that!
Out on the boat, the frost giants start drawing up their anchor since their beach outpost just got murdered by a bunch of foes, and they are not cool with hanging around any longer!
The party debates running up and engaging the giants or letting them wander off like punks.
"We came here to sink a giant boat!" Zanzibar declares.
Valour touches Dur-Dur-Dur with lay on hands for 20, keeping 5 remaining. He then casts channel divinity on his weapon.
Then they charge!
Two frost giants start grabbing up cannonballs from the deck of the ship while another frost giant steers the ship, getting it ready to sail southward. One of the frost giants lobs a large cannonball across the water, and it splashes between Zanzibar and Xandala.
🌱 advances, hiding behind a rock after seeing the cannonball almost obliterate Zanzibar and Xandala.
Valour charges forth with his horse and casts shield of faith on himself, but Minion IV is the one who suffers as a frost giant lobs a cannonball and obliterates the horse beneath Valour, causing him to land flat-footed on the waves.
By now the frost giants look very confused as the party is currently running on the ocean’s surface.
Xandala closes in and manages to land a fireball on the nose of the ship, spreading flames along the front and giving the frost giants something to worry about!
Zanzibar runs up and hides.
A frost giant lobs a cannonball at Xandala, slamming it into her and taking out half her HP. Rage courses through her as she starts counting her remaining spell slots and begins plotting other strategic points on the ship that a fireball would suit.
By now the boat is revving up to retreat as the pilot frost giant sets sail, trying to put some distance between himself and the party.
Valour charges forth with Azaka, and the weretiger receives a cannonball straight to the face, but because lycanthropes are very picky with their damage, she feels nothing and keeps going.
Dur-Dur-Dur is so mad by now that he harpoons the boat like Moby Dick if Moby Dick were Captain Ahab and the Pequod were Moby Dick and the ocean were the Pequod. That simile makes no sense no matter how I try to rewrite it!
Xandala and Zanzibar close in on the boat as it sails out of fireball distance.
A frost giant lobs a cannonball at 🌱 for 34 damage, which knocks him out of horse form, fully confusing the frost giants even more since the last horse they killed poofed out of existence while this one was like "Oh shit that cannonball got me I guess I'm a wood elf mushroom boy now!"
Azaka goes full sprint as the boat puts more distance between them, and 🌱 tries to chill touch a giant, but he can’t quite get a grip on him. A giant retaliates by lobbing a cannonball at Valour, but Zanzibar intervenes by using a portent, causing the giant to miss completely.
By this point, Dur-Dur-Dur has closed in enough to strike a giant with one of his javelins, and Xandala chucks a fireball onto the deck of the ship so that the pilot and his steering apparatus are fully hit. Flames surge across the wheel, and the driver has to abandon the area. Zanzibar follows suit and fireballs a frost giant near one of the ship’s mast, spreading more fire across the deck.
The frost giants aren’t fans of their ship being set on fire, so they set their priorities on the spellcasters. A giant finds Zanzibar and chucks a cannonball at the old man, but Zanizbar casts shield for the first time ever, and the cannonball smacks into an invisible wall of force that keeps Zanzibar from dropping to zero.
Azaka latches onto the side of the boat and claws her way up to the deck while 🌱 positions himself and casts healing word to give him some pep in his step.
Valour grabs hold of the side of the boat, but a frost giant looks down at him and smacks him in the face with a cannonball, which kind of hurts a lot!
Dur-Dur-Dur reaches the boat and chucks another javelin at a frost giant on the deck while Xandala rains another fireball on the frost giants, this time spending a higher level spell slot—which gets Zanzibar super suspicious!
Zanzibar joins the sorcerer by chucking another fireball onto the ship, then shielding himself as a frost giant tries to pelt him with another cannonball.
The frost giant who was driving the boat ends up dropping Valour with a well-placed cannonball, and Azaka wreaks vengeance by lunging at the giant and clawing him up.
🌱 casts healing word on Valour, bringing him back up. When Valour returns to consciousness, he’s had it up to here with these giants (imagine that "here" is, like, SUPER high up). He raises Shatterspike and slams it twice into the thick hull of the longboat, carving out a hole in it that lets ocean water spill in through the side. He tumbles into the lower deck to avoid any more balls in his face.
A frost giant tries hitting Dur-Dur-Dur with a cannonball, but he misses as Dur-Dur-Dur uses his ring of jumping to leap up and chop the frost giant with his fancy axe. Further back on the main deck, Xandala lands another juiced-up fireball on top of a frost giant and immolates him into a blackened corpse.
To give the frost giants more targets to worry about, 🌱 summons four chimpanzees on the boat who scream and hoot and smear doodoo everywhere, then dogpile one of the frost giants.
While monkey business commences on the upper deck, Valour takes Shatterspike and swings at the floor of the ship, breaking a massive hole in the keel that causes seawater to surge upward. He quickly peers around the lower decks, finding large barrels and crates full of hard tack and dried food, but then realizes there are around eighteen or so sleeping hammocks—at least thirteen frost giants remain somewhere in Chult! Also, there is a massive cage meant to hold some kind of predatory animal that the frost giants brought with them.
Well shit!
The frost giants obliterate some of the chimpanzees with their axes, poppin' 'panzees like roaches as the party peppers them with attacks. Zanzibar caves one of the frost giant skulls in with some magic missiles, shouting “ALL ME!” again and waving those mage hands in all kinds of victory.
The last frost giant tries to kill Dur-Dur-Dur, but the duo are evenly matched with how much damage they can deal and take. 🌱’s apes chimp-slap the shit out of the frost giant while it’s distracted by Dur-Dur-Dur, and Xandala juices up a fireball with a 5th-level spell slot, causing all kinds of bullshit calls to come from Zanzibar, who uses ray of frost on the last frost giant since he’s out of spell slots.
The ray of frost goes about as well as one would think!
The frost giant shows Zanzibar how snowballs are meant to be thrown and chucks a cannonball at him, smacking him in his old man head, but then Azaka latches onto the frost giant with her claws and tears his face to shreds.
With the boat quickly sinking, Dur-Dur-Dur realizes that the sails of the ship are made from white dragon wings (ahem, white dur-dur-saur wings), so he hacks one of the sails down and flees.
Back on the beach, the party examines the loot they found from the frost giants, which includes a giant-sized shabby cloak of wool and two large, moldy loaves of bread. 🌱 is more than ecstatic to receive this loot!
Zanzibar finds a giant-sized smoking pipe made from a mammoth tusk, and Valour picks out a giant-sized skinning knife. Dur-Dur-Dur is as content as an orc can be, having looted a… giant door that may or may not be called a Dur-Dur-Dur Door. Oh, he also lops off the frost giant heads on the beach because he wants his inn to look weird as hell when he gets back to Port Nyanzaru.
The party decides to camp out in the frost giant cave for the night since they’re all going to hit level 6 and they want to sleep IMMEDIATELY!
Later that night, Dur-Dur-Dur is on watch, and he sees three Chultan women wearing white robes emerge on the beach, patrolling it with their torches out. The women see the frost giant footprints and signs of a skirmish, so they start checking it out…
… and get closer to the party’s camp.
Dur-Dur-Dur panics, so he chops the foot off of one of the dead frost giants (seriously this is like the third time the party has hacked off a piece of frost giant after it has been slain for some just plain weird shit), stabs a javelin into the stump of the foot, and uses it to stomp fake tracks into the sand like a Sasquatch impersonator.
Valour steps out and calls to the women while Dur-Dur-Dur is up to his antics.
The women are startled, but one of them steps forth. “Who are you?” she says.
"We killed the giants in these lands," Valour says. “Who are you?”
"We are the Sisterhood of the Pale Cloak. An adventuring party,” the lead woman says.
Valour invites them into their camp, finding out that they’re born in Port Nyanzaru but have been training for years to set out into the Chultan jungle for treasure and glory. While the party is conversing with the women, Xandala leans in to Dur-Dur-Dur and whispers, “Kill them NOW!”
None of the other players know that this has just happened.
"Hey have you seen my daddy?" Dur-Dur-Dur says to the leader as he steps up to her." He looks like me... and he made me this axe! Want to see it?"
"Um... sure!" the lead woman says.
Dur-Dur-Dur raises his axe in the air and brings it crashing down on the center of the woman’s face for a critical hit.
Everyone else in the cave is now screaming in absolute fear at what Dur-Dur-Dur is doing. He brings the Durminator around for another swipe and completely hacks the woman’s face in half.
The remaining women shriek in frenzy, and their illusory disguise fades away—they were actually a trio of monstrous sea hags the whole time!
The party goes straight into combat, but the frightful gaze of the sea hags cause Valour and Azaka to go off their game a bit. Valour manages to divine smite one of the hags, but the two sea hags use their death glare abilities on Valour and Azaka, instantly dropping them down to zero hit points as they collapse on the ground.
Xandala uses chromatic orb to blast the one sea hag to smithereens with a ball of lightning, then she firebolts another with a quickened cantrip. Zanzibar regained some of his spell slots during a short rest, so he upcasts magic missile and explodes the face of the remaining sea hag.
The fight is over—🌱 distributes goodberries among the dropped party members, and Azaka is freaking the hell out since hardly anything has been able to drop her to 0 hit points in one turn.
🌱 loots a battiri goblin mask with nine gemstones worth 10 gp each embedded in it. The mask is shaped like a sea horse, so he adds it to the collection of his other battiri goblin masks, now having a mask of an ant, monkey, and sea horse!
In order to weird the fuck out of their campsite and keep folks from messing with it, 🌱 puts the rocking chair looted from before outside on the beach with his zombie mannequin in it. He gives the mannequin a javelin, then places all three battiri masks on it so that it looks like some kind of weird jungle fetish totem.
Fuck me, they could have just stacked their ever-increasing pile frost giant body parts outside. That would keep me from sure as hell checking out the cave!
The party finally gets some sleep, and they hit level six without any other disturbances!
Comments