AN ADVENTURER’S CHRONICLE: Against the Stone Giant Clans Sessions 3 & 4

The continuing saga of the battle against marauding hordes of stone giants from an adventurer's journal.

By R. Nelson Bailey

Introduction

Welcome to the campaign journal chronicling the battle against the stone giant clans of Flóndisheim. This adventure became the DUNGEON DELVE module DDS5 Valley of the Stone Giant Clans. The journal features the main characters from my weekly Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) group, who began their careers a few years ago as 1st-level characters. This journal recounts their continuing saga.

After years of hard adventuring, the party retired to their homes to rest for a year. Their respite ended when a contingent of dwarves arrived, seeking help against stone giant raiders. This prompted the party's next adventure, detailed herein.

The campaign uses First Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules, naturally modified with a few house rules. Most of the characters have reached “name level”—roughly 9th or 10th level. The party consists of the following characters:

• Thokk, 10th-level half-orc thief (player: Rob)

• Azley, 9th-level human magic-user (player: Andrew)

• Melkor, 9th-level human ranger (player: John)

• Vrask, 8th-level half-elf druid (player: Stormie)

• Fighto, 8th-level half-elf fighter (player: Tim)

• Lucian, 9th-level human cleric (player: Greg)

• Tinae, 9th-level half-elf bard (player: Dan)

(Editor’s Note: Bards in this campaign are more akin to those in Second Edition AD&D than to those in First Edition.)

The party’s exploits are chronicled in the journal of the bard Tinae. Her player, Dan, writes the journal during gameplay to recall the previous week’s events and to provide a reference for the players. He has kept a weekly journal for the game for over 10 years. Keep in mind that this is not a full accounting of the adventurer’s experience, merely their highlights. Much has been abridged or omitted.

So read on. Hear of the exploits—both triumphant and tragic. As the journal is written from the player’s perspective, I, the editor, will periodically interject to clarify the situation for you, the reader.

Read the first installment here.

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TINAE’S JOURNAL—A NEW BEGINNING

Session 3 — 27 February 2026

Thokk climbed down from the ledge and investigated the thrones. Hanging on either side of the thrones were gigantic war horns and huge kettle drums. Lucian had the brilliant idea of wedging rocks into the throats of the horns and cutting small slits in the drum skins to hamper signaling. We continued down the passage until it opened into a large cave with a natural column and a fire pit. Around the fire pit were several giant tables with benches. Large skins bearing giantish designs adorned the walls. Next to the fire pit was an enormous pile of fur, which was actually a sleeping cave bear, a pet of the stone giants. As Thokk tried to back out of the cave without waking the animal, he nearly knocked a giant ivory cup off a ledge but managed to catch it. We chose to proceed down another tunnel rather than risk attracting more giants by fighting the beast. Stone Giant Adventurer's Chronicle

Scouting ahead, Thokk found an enormous cave filled with more than twenty stone giants—males, females, and young. He backed away from the living quarters and warned us, and we chose another avenue to explore. It led us to a cave decorated with giantish runes and carvings of galeb duhr, xorn, crystal scorpions (Editor’s Note: The crystal scorpions were crysmals.), and other creatures. I deciphered the runes to read “Garden of Shiny Rocks.” We continued downward and reached the bottom, where a scintillating light glowed ahead. As we moved forward, we saw titanic, milky-white crystals illuminated by lichens on the walls. As we entered and followed the stone giant tracks, a pile of rocks coalesced into an earth elemental or something similar. The 16-foot-tall humanoid creature lunged at Melkor, its stony fist glancing off the ranger’s shield. It then backed up and struck me, but despite the pain and impact, I shook it off. Azley magically slowed the creature, and Vrask cast faerie fire on it. Unfortunately, the creature’s blow ruined my magic missile spell. Vrask joined the fight, striking it with his spear, while Melkor and Fighto chipped away at it, wearing it down. Fighto took a mighty blow from the elemental, which provoked his ire to the point that he finally struck it down.

We then walked through the Crystal Garden, marveling at the forest-like nature of the crystal formations. We had just passed a cave opening within the crystal forest when we caught movement inside. A gigantic purple worm rushed out, open-mouthed, to eat us. Thokk missed with an arrow, but I struck it with one of my own. Vrask lit it up with faerie fire, and Azley cast a lightning bolt into its mouth. The warriors and Lucian hacked away at it. It swallowed Fighto whole and stung me with its venomous tail. Thankfully, the sting wasn’t serious enough to inject venom. I shot another arrow into it, and Azley finished it off with a flurry of magic missiles. The great worm reared up, then collapsed onto the cave floor, nearly crushing Melkor, Lucian, and Vrask. We managed to cut Fighto out just before he suffocated.

As we were cutting the worm open even further, four creatures of trilateral symmetry (Editor’s Note: These creatures were xorn.) rose from the ground and attacked Thokk, Azley, Melkor, and Fighto. One of them took a terrible bite out of Fighto. Vrask healed Fighto’s wounds. Melkor, Thokk, and I killed one as it tried to escape into the ground. Vrask assisted Fighto in his battle, and I joined the fight against the one that had disengaged from Melkor to attack Azley. We eventually killed all but one, and it got away by phasing into the ground.

Wounded and depleted of spells, we decided to rest in the purple worm’s cave. Melkor explored the worm tunnel leading from the cave and found it led to a natural passage marked by human-sized webbed footprints. The tunnel led to another intersection. (Editor’s Note: These deeper passages lead to the wilds of the Underdark, and the webbed footprints were made by a kuo-toa.)

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Session 4 — 6 March 2026

Once we had rested, we continued along the path we had been following. It led us through the “forest” of titanic white crystals. Melkor found tracks made by the three-legged creatures outside an alcove in the cave wall. (Editor’s Note: These were xorn.) Inside the alcove, Thokk noticed a viscous liquid oozing from three cracks at the base of the wall. The liquid looked like iridescent pink sea foam. Suddenly, more of the three-legged creatures attacked us from beneath our feet. I was badly mauled by bites before and after I created three mirror images of myself. One creature destroyed two of my images as I scrambled up a huge crystal. Fighto suffered several severe bites! Vrask transformed into a huge sabertoothed cat and shredded one of the tri-legs. Melkor destroyed a wounded creature as it tried to merge into the ground. Azley and I killed one with a combined barrage of nine magic missiles. Lucian killed the next-to-last one, and the remaining creature escaped by phasing into the ground.

We examined the pink foam oozing from the wall but couldn’t make sense of it. I dipped my finger into it and noticed it turned my finger ghostly. Figuring it was something akin to oil of etherealness, I filled three empty vials with it, gave two to Thokk, and kept one. Melkor filled his wineskin. Thokk and I then smeared the oil all over ourselves. Thokk removed all his clothes save his loincloth, while I merely took off my backpack. Once we had applied the oil, we found ourselves in a ghostly world. (Editor’s Note: That is, the Ethereal Plane.) Discovering we could move through solid rock, we descended into the ground to look for the creatures’ treasure. We had no luck searching beneath the floor and in the crystals. Meanwhile, Vrask, still in cat form, could now hear numerous sounds and detect numerous scents. He detected a strong reptilian odor, possibly from one of the red dragons we knew to be there. (Editor’s Note: There were no red dragons; their presence was a false rumor spread by one of the dwarven guides.)

We retraced our steps almost to the purple worm cave, then followed the first side corridor up a narrow set of stairs. At the top stood a large, circular copper door that seemed to radiate something, perhaps magic. I stuck my head through the door and saw a large stone table with twelve people seated around it. I went in to investigate and found that the people, a mix of humans and demi-humans of both sexes, were all frozen in attitudes of surprise and terror, as if petrified or frozen in place. I retreated, fearing whatever had done that to them might still be around. I reported what I saw to Thokk, and we continued on. (Editor’s Note: They were not to return to this place. Unknown to them, four earth genies—dao—reside here. One dao wears a necklace bearing a living basilisk eye that can petrify whoever looks at it. The people seated at the table were petrified adventurers.)

We followed a trail into a large cave where the crystal clusters thinned. We discovered it had two adjoining smaller caves. In the first cave, we saw a gigantic dragon lying on the ground. As Thokk and I backed away, the dragon’s head popped up, and it said it could see us. (Editor’s Note: Dragons can detect invisible creatures and objects, including ethereal ones.) It called us thieves and began moving toward us. Thokk and I turned and ran into the other adjacent side cave. Inside, we found a fortune in gems. In fact, the entire cave was an enormous geode. The dragon appeared behind us, saying this was its treasure. Thokk and I took a shortcut through a wall to get out. The dragon anticipated our move and watched us emerge from the wall. We backtracked, eventually evading it. As we passed the purple worm cave, we saw a ghostly earth elemental on the Ethereal Plane with us. We made it back to our companions and returned to our own plane just as the elemental was closing in to attack. Vrask, still in the form of a sharp-eared cat, had heard the dragon speak and confirmed our report. Deciding we weren’t in any shape to fight a dragon, we headed back toward the purple worm cave to rest.

As we approached, the galeb duhr confronted us, demanding that we hand over the oil of etherealness we had taken, which they called “milk of the earth.” Thokk handed over one vial, and I gave the galeb duhr mine. Melkor refused to yield his wineskin full of the oil. The galeb duhr turned the ground to mud, trapping several of us in the mire. (Editor’s Note: It used its innate transmute rock to mud ability.) Fighto and Melkor freed themselves and attacked the rock creature, while Vrask dispelled the boulders it summoned. (Editor’s Note: These were boulders the galeb duhr animated.) Fighto and Melkor fought the creature until Melkor delivered the killing blow. Azley, flying, secured my rope to a crystal so I could extract myself from the thick mud in which I was sinking. Once I was free, we headed down the path to rest in the purple worm cave.

More sessions to come each week...