AD&D: Halls of the Fire Giant King at Last!

Well, it's been a long time since I posted anything...I apologize. We've been doing a lot of gaming and rule-testing so I've been very busy. That and the fact that my computer died a while back and I had to upgrade to a new version of Word and Windows.

My party finished the frost giants in G2, slaying the Jarl and allowing his wife to escape with much of the loot from the dragon horde. All were teleported to the fire giant lair. When the party attempted to follow her, they realized they were in way over their heads. So they grabbed what they could from the treasure pile at their feet and retreated from the entrance to the fire giant halls. After that, they agonized over how they were going to get all their treasures back to their base of operations in Quasqueton. We spent the last 5 months or so recovering treasure, henchmen, and training those that made levels at the conclusion of G2. I allowed the players free reign on what to do next and a lot of planning and complaining ensued. They complained about not being able to recover every bit of treasure. They kept coming up with ideas and shooting each other down, thus nothing was accomplished for a long while. In the meantime, the druid gained new followers (2nd level druids) which I made up to be as uniquely unusual as the player character druid. The magic-user took on an apprentice (henchman) to train and have carry some of her myriad magic-items. The thief henchman of the druid reached 9th level (with x4 backstab). Once all that was taken care of, they were asked once more how they were going to proceed.

Well, they all came up with different plans! During their brief stint in the fire giant realm, the druid did an aerial reconnaissance of the terrain, looking for a safe place to make their forward base (by now they were convinced that a safe base existed at all three locations). I presented them with a choice of 3 locations: a crater formed by a pyroclast blown out of the nearby volcano. The crater allowed 360 degrees view of their surroundings and the leaning center hunk of lava rock provided shade and some shelter, but the place was too exposed for their liking. (This didn't stop them from using it as a place to stash their loot until they could return, though.) The other location was a lava tube about a mile south of the giant lair. However, I mentioned the fact that gases seemed to be present in the area (a fact later established by a commune with nature spell). The final location was a fissure about 3 miles to the west, formed from the faulting of the land due to volcanic tumescence. The fault cut through old dwarven ruins located at the bottom of the fissure and also bisected a hot mineral spring which could provide a water source. So the party decided to make this their base.

At this point the party split in half - the ranger, the cleric, the human fighter henchmen, and the dwarf fighter henchman - took 4 mules into the mountains east of Quasqueton seeking the Darokin Pass into Rockhome to seek the assistance of the dwarves in their mission against the giants. The other group - the druid, the magic-user, and the remaining henchmen and followers - took off in the druid's new flaming chariot spell to the safe base to set things up and await the others. The "Rockhome Quartet" took a very long time to make the journey, underestimating the number of encounters, the travel speed, and even their reception among the dwarves. They did encounter a number of wolves and worgs in the western portion of the pass, but not much else otherwise. They managed to push on into Rockhome and to Lake Stahl. From here they took a barge to Stahl city and spoke there with the council of guilds. The Guildmaster of the city played the various clans against each other and in the end the party found themselves accompanied by 2 companies of dwarves, each led by a sergeant, with a healer and guide to get them there safely.

Still, it took the party about 2 months of journeying to cross the distance, including the distance from Stahl into the western mountains to Muspelheim, home of the fire giants. They ran into trouble with some shadows, then a will-o-the-wisp, but eventually made it to the outskirts of the volcanic lands. Once there they encountered a patrol of giants, trolls, and hell hounds, but the druid merely transmuted rock to mud and they all sank rapidly to their deaths....

 Once the party was all together once more, they spent even more time investigating and traveling, since they now moved at halfling speed over lava rock. It would take all day to get to the fire giants even though they were but 3 miles distant. This would leave little time for a return trip to their safe base. So they opted to make the northern crater a stopover camp, and from there entering the lair.

They were unphased by the enormous doors at the entrance and handily took out the door guard and an ettin who heard the horn blast. They moved into the great hall and took down the second ettin without any difficulty. Then they spotted the king on his throne to the east and his giant guards. However, the fire giants were already mobilizing for an attack and I started tracking their movements. As the party started to attack the king and his guards, more giants approached from the northwest corridor and the northern corridor. Separated into three smaller groups, with the spellcasters trapped in the center, the party started a battle that would last two more sessions before ending with the king fleeing through a secret door and all his guards and hell hounds slain. The druid had cast a wall of thorns spell across the north corridor to prevent more combatants from entering as they guarded the northwest corridor and started looking for secret doors. They found none and I kept hinting that sooner or later they would be discovered. They were almost out of spells and had barely entered the place!

After finding a group of giant guards waiting in the southern corridor (alerted by the king who had snuck off to his bedchamber), they hastily erected some walls of ice and beat feet out of the hall altogether. Given that the giants slain were probably worth enough XP for the ranger to make a level, they decided to come back fresh on spells and hit points and try again.

We'll be playing more this coming weekend after I calculate XP. No player character has leveled in the past year; the ranger will be the first of the PCs to actually make a level since the druid made 12th back in June 2017. Heck, it's been several years since the magic-user made 11th level.... They may be surprised to see what the giants have concocted in their absence!