Session Preface:
Your body shivers in the dim lit frozen chamber built not for your insignificant frame, but more like your companion Harshnag, who kneels down and still rises above you across the room. After days following his massive footsteps through snow, warding off ice spider ambushes - to say nothing of the yetis and young white dragon from three days ago - the challenges of the last few days have brought you here. Standing in this magnificent and long buried under snow and ice temple to an ancient giant god, Annam, the All-Father.
Amongst the grandeur and sheer magnitude of even the most mundane items around you - sconces the size of tree trunks, statues the size of monoliths, doors the size of entire taverns, it is all too easy to let the weight of how little you belong here sink in. And yet you are fortified for you know if not you, who would take the mantle? The great factions of the Sword Coast are spread far too thin. The Lord's Alliance defend their own city-states, hoping for the best beyond their walls. The Emerald Enclave, determined though they are, cannot extend their reach beyond the posts they already serve. The Zhentarim serve none but themselves. And the Harpers, well, too little is known of their work to guess as to why they have not made their contributions to the giant problem known.
These thoughts and more swirl through your mind, Hawk, as Harshnag's growling voice reverberating through the hall breaks the frozen silence.
"This rune, this rune I know." he mutters to himself.
As his words melt away your drifting thoughts, you once again take a good hard look around the room, searching for the next clue in this already strange beyond belief journey.
"Young Emmyth, you're literate, right?" Harshnag interrupts once more. "Come look upon this and tell me what you make of it."
"This symbol on the bottom right. This is the "ise" rune. It is the guarded and powerful rune of the frost giants. I cannot read the others, but knowing they match the number of my distant brothers and sisters, perhaps you can read them or discern their purpose here on this archway?"
Session Summary
The party explores the central chamber of the Eye of the All-Father, examining the various statues, the archway, and the weapons each giant holds as an offering to Annam. Noticing the Frost Giant's empty hands and how the sigil on the magical archway seems to respond to Harshnag's proximity, the party sets out to explore for the missing weapon of Thrym.
After starting to explore a series of bed chambers for visiting giants, Hawk sets off a magical trap in which a massive boulder barrels down the sloped hallway towards him and his companions. Miraculously compressing himself into the crevice between the boulder and the sealed off walls behind him, Hawk managed to avoid the trap and warn the others in time so that only Harshnag couldn't get far enough out of harms way.
While the trap reset via a stone giant statue pushing the boulder back into place, the heroes discovered a series of caves created by earth tremors and ice spiders. After clearing out the infestation, Thaust discovered Noori, the missing Great Worm tribe barbarian wrapped in spider silk and carried her back to the shaman they had previously spared in the initial encounter. After a final interrogation, the two Uthgardt were allowed to leave.
The party then explored the upstairs quarters in which Harshnag discovered a shard of the ise rune in an otherwise unremarkable giant's sack. Noticing the inherent magical properties of this stone, Thaust took the item for further examination.
Following this encounter, the party makes their way into the massive dining hall of the giants where they are ambushed by a remorhaz, a massive centipede-like creature native to icy temperatures capable of biting and swallowing entire heroes in one fell swoop. The creature made such an attempt against Thaust, only preventing from enjoying its meal by the combined efforts of Hawk, Emmyth, and Harshnag defeating the creature before it could consume their firbolg friend.
After the chaos of battle, Harshnag observed the missing battle axe and the party returned to the central chamber to find their way to the Oracle of Annam.
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