Pathfinder Revisited – Rise of the Runelords Part Four: Fortress of the Stone Giants

Having liberated Fort Rannic and disrupted the Ogre foundries at Hook Mountain, the heroes of Sandpoint venture onto the Storval Plateau to defeat a host of giants gathering at the fortress of Janderhoff. But before they can take the fight to Mokmurian, a new threat rises on the Lost Coast.

Fortress of the Stone giants is part four of the Rise of the Runelords campaign, and marks the finale of the campaigns midlevel section. It follows up on plot threads introduced in the Hook Mountain Massacre, and marks players first direct confrontation with the forces of Runelord Karzoug (with a brief appearance by the Runelord himself).

The Plot

The adventure opens with an assault on the town of Sandpoint by a band stone giants accompanied by a dragon. In the chaos of the attack the giants begin abducting townsfolk, while their leader excavates the grounds of the Lost Light, making off with large stones and a number of NPCs. After driving the giants off the heroes can interrogate a captured giant, discovering that this warband was sent by the giant mage Mokmurian, who has mastered the magic of the “old masters”. This is the same giant lord who dispatched Barl Breakbones to Hook Mountain to draft the Kreegs into his army. Mokmurian has gathered a host of giants at Jorgenfist, and dispatched warbands to gather Thassilonian artifacts from across Varisia.

In order to rescue the abducted NPCs, players must pursue the fleeing giants back to their fortress. The journey across Varisia culminates in assault on the Storval Stair, an ancient Thassilonian landmark that serves as a gateway to the highland homeland of Varisia’s giants. This is the heroes first encounter with Mokmurian’s forces, clashing with Hill Giant warriors set to guard the stair. Beyond the stair the party enters the plateau, reaching Mokmurian’s fortress at Jorgenfist. This fortress has grown up around the ruins of an ancient Thassilonian monastery, and is surrounded by the camps of Mokmurian’s host, which the party must navigate before entering the fortress itself. As the party explores these camps they discover that Mokmurian’s forces are not as united as they seem and can make contact with potential allies against the giant mage, including disaffected clan elders and (if it survived the assault on Sandpoint) an ill used red dragon.

Jorgenfist and the dungeons below it are filled with both Mokmurian’s forces and relics of the ruin’s Thassilonian past. In addition to stone giants, hill giants, ogres, and their oversized animal companions, the heroes must contend with a mummified Thassilonian monk, lamia, and young dragons. Navigating the above and below ground portions of the fortress will eventually lead the players to Mokmurians sanctum; an ancient Thassilonian library. This library is contains not only Thassilonian relics but a variety of powerful monsters, the worst of which is an elemental known as a forgefiend. The players also discover a Runeslave Cauldron, an ancient artifact used by Mokmurian to transform any who object to his rule into mindless shells. The library itself is a collection of knowledge from ancient Thassilon, which the players can use to discover more about the threats they have faced thus far, and to get an idea of the nightmare that Mokmurian has awakened.

Finally, deep within the library complex, the players confront Mokmurian himself. In the climax of their battle with the stone giant wizard, he is passed by the Runelord Karzoug, who taunts the players, revealing that the killings of those marked with the Sihedron Rune has empowered him, allowing him to awake from his millennia of slumber. Since Mokmurian marked his forces with this rune this is a sacrifice the party is now complicit in, and while Mokmurian’s army swiftly scatters after his dearth there is a far greater threat waking in Varisia.

What Works

The giant attack on Sandpoint is in many ways a larger version of the goblin attack that started players on this path in the first place. That similarity allows a strong feeling of progression. Not only are the heroes once again defending Sandpoint they are doing so against tougher enemies and across a larger area. This assault also features the first dragon of the campaign (or at least the first that isn’t part of a random encounter table), an defeating or driving Longtooth off is sure to be feel satisfying.

Jorgenfist itself is a really interesting dungeon. It’s really well Jaquaysed, with multiple routes to get into the complex, as well as multiple routes through it. Players are incentivized to take advantage of this, since the routes they would need to take to free the captured townsfolk are different than the routes to to the library, and entering the library might require that the party return to the surface to get the key from the monastery. Likewise players have multiple options for handling the camp outside Jorgenfist, with opportunities to make allies and take advantage of divisions within Mokmurian’s host. A straight up fight in the camps is probably the worst possible option as it could swiftly spiral out of control.

May of the Jorgenfist encounters are interesting in their own right, my favorite being the Black Monk. An abandoned ancient monastery is already a flavorful an interesting location, but add a floating mummified monk that the party needs to defeat? That’s pure sword and sorcery goodness. I like Mokmurian a lot as an antagonist as well, and kind of wish we’d gotten to see more of him in this campaign. A wizard is already a really fascinating subversion of what is expected from a stone giant lord, and I enjoy the ways that his backstory are tied into Thassilon’s.

As with many of the Thasilonian ruins encountered encountered through ther campaign the library below Jorgenfist does a lot to communicate the skill of the Thassilonians, while also giving players one of their first opportunities to directly learn about the fallen empire. The library is an enormously helpful resource, made more so by specific rules on how it can enhance knowledge checks. Also, I don’t don’t know if it’s just the art, but I find the clockwork librarian construct really charming, and could see players really getting attached to it.

The Karzoug reveal is a great twist, and a fantastic introduction to the character, giving players a real feeling for the Runelords scheming nature and casual cruelty. While the players will have heard his name and tangled with some of his minions, the revelation that their fights against his servants have only empowered him is a classic villain reveal, and can help to further hook the players into opposing him.

What Doesn’t

As much as I like the giants raid on Sandpoint, it makes the assumption that players will head back to Sandpoint after defeating Barl Breakbones. The big flaw in this is that after their attack on Hook Mountain the players already know that a giant army is massing near Jorgenfist, and in my opinion its pretty likely that they’d focus on the closer threat rather than returning all he way to the Lost Coast. The writers of the adventure anticipate that this might happen and encourage GMs to either have an urgent message summon the players back to the lost coast so that they’re there for the raid or to have players take the roles of important NPCs in Sandpoint. This last option is the most interesting and least railroady, but it also robs the attack of its ability to be an echo of the players first adventure. Its a tough situation, because the raid helps to communicate that there are further secrets beneath Sandpoint and gives players a strong motivation to make for Jorgenfist as quickly as they can to free captured friends, but it can also disrupt the pacing of the campaign and in my opinion adding the townsfolk to the mix is unnecessary since the players already know there is an army massing at Jorgenfist.

While there’s some information on the camps around Jorgenfist and clear opportunities for the players to create and take advantage of division in the army in order to get into the dungeon, I would have appreciated this area being fleshed out more. As it is the camps are mostly a sketch for GMs to fill in as needed, but that lack of information makes a diplomatic route to entering Jorgenfist less attractive. Similarly Edda the Wise is clearly a great resource for turning Mokmurian’s host against him, but there is very little information on how to use her best. Even just a sidebar would have been appreciated, and this situation is especially frustrating because there is some guidance on how best to recruit Longtooth. This also undercuts an opportunity to show how Mokmurian (and more importantly Karzoug) is twisting the Stone Giants to his purpose, which would add some interesting depth to the situation.

Conclusion

Fortress of the Stone Giants is overall a strong dungeon crawl and advances the campaigns plot in an interesting way. It also marks a transition where players will increasingly be taking the fight to Karzoug, rather than responding to or stumbling onto plots started by the Runelord ort his servants. Apart for some potential pacing and motivation issues I enjoyed reading it, and its strong start to the high level portions of the campaign.