AN ADVENTURER’S CHRONICLE: Against the Stone Giant Clans Sessions 7 & 8
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.
Previous Installments
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TINAE’S JOURNAL—A NEW BEGINNING
Session 7 — 3 April 2026
After we finished off the guards and their bear, Thokk scouted alone along the wider ledge branching from the guard post. He saw the ledge open ahead, and Melkor found multiple giant and bear tracks. When we checked the narrower path, it turned and led to a small cave that opened into a vast, dirt-filled chamber where enormous mushrooms grew. We saw giant footprints in the loam, along with the hacked-off stumps of some mushrooms. (Editor’s Note: The mushrooms are one of the giants’ staple foods.) The other end of the cave led to a tunnel with crude stairs descending into the depths. We followed them down past a landing and eventually reached the bottom, where the tunnel split into two directions. To the left, the tunnel led outside to sunlight. (Editor’s Note: This is the Wolverine Clan’s main entrance.)
Stone Giant Adventurer's Chronicle
The tunnel to the right led to flickering torchlight. Thokk sneaked up and looked into a side cave, spotting a pair of stone giant guards. Unfortunately, one of them spotted Thokk as well. Thokk retreated to the party and told us to be ready. I had been chanting to improve the party’s combat prowess. (Editor’s Note: Chanting is one of the bard’s powers.) The first to emerge from the cave was an enormous wolverine, which Melkor immediately attacked and wounded. (Editor’s Note: This is a giant wolverine.) Fighto attacked one of the giants, and Azley cast a ray of enfeeblement to no effect. (Editor’s Note: That is, the giant made its saving throw to negate the spell’s effect.) The badly wounded giant wolverine turned and sprayed musk at everyone except Fighto, who was now in front of it. Everyone dodged the spray except Azley, who was blinded and weakened by the musk’s stench. Melkor finished the wolverine while I successfully cast reduce on the unwounded giant, who failed his saving throw and was shrunk to about 9 inches tall. Fighto slew the full-sized wounded giant, leaving only the shrunken one. Fighto and Melkor wounded the tiny giant before Melkor scooped it up in his hand. After some discussion, Melkor hurled it against the wall, and Fighto stabbed it to death with his sword.
After looting the bodies, we moved on. Scouting ahead, Thokk found a large cave with four giants seated at a table, drinking. He reported back to us, and just as I finished inspiring the party with a song, a troop of five ogres stumbled upon us. (Editor’s Note: A random encounter.) Lucian cast his staff onto the floor, and it became a giant constrictor that wrapped around one ogre and squeezed it. (Editor’s Note: This was a staff of the serpent.) We managed to kill all the ogres just as the giants heard our battle, spotted Thokk, and bellowed for help. The two groups rushed toward each other and met at a curve in the tunnel. I was slammed by a boulder that disrupted the magic missile spell I was casting. Azley cast cone of cold, frosting three of the four giants. Fighto and Melkor attacked the two front giants, wounding them. Azley’s hailstorm spell finished two off. (Editor’s Note: This was the hailstorm effect of an ice storm spell.) Fighto and Melkor then slew the remaining two.
Vrask flew outside in hawk form to reconnoiter the valley from above. He saw numerous caves and trails leading to them. He flew into a cave with no trails leading to it, then returned and asked Thokk to scout it. Thokk and Vrask scouted the cave and found it a suitable place to hole up, rest, and recover. While Thokk and Vrask were scouting the cave, the rest of the party in the giant complex heard a gasp, then footsteps in the tunnel outside their cave. A female giant looked into the cave and spotted the bloody mess, but Melkor slew her before she could react. Thokk and Vrask returned and reported, and we moved to the empty cave. We completed two periods of rest, prayer, and spell study to regain our full power.
When we returned to the giants’ caves, we encountered two ogres out front by the wooden statues. (Editor’s Note: That is, outside the Wolverine Clan’s main entrance.) We killed them, and Thokk scouted the cave. The table had been overturned to form a barrier, and a five-foot-high wall of boulders had been stacked behind it to block the entrance. He saw several giants inside. We decided to leave the giants alone and investigate another cave we had spotted earlier, farther down the valley.
We went to the other cave and found odd, widely spaced footprints with hook-like impressions. I had just theorized about a giant beetle when an enormous one with massive mandibles appeared and struck a dramatic pose. (Editor’s Note: A nest of giant stag beetles lives in this cave.) Vrask said the beetle didn’t eat meat but was highly territorial and would fight to the death. We chose to back away and give it a wide berth.
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Session 8 — 10 April 2026
We continued moving south along the valley wall. Thokk used his eyes of the eagle to spot several caves on the opposite wall. (Editor’s Note: The eyes of the eagle are a pair of magical lenses that function like high-powered binoculars.) Farther down our side of the valley, we found a cave entrance 20 feet high, 8 feet wide, and 300 feet up the slope. Outside it, we found human-like footprints with long front claws and a double back claw. Using his ring, Thokk became invisible and checked inside. He saw broken weapons, packs, and other equipment scattered about. We decided to bypass this cave and return to it later, once we’d dealt with the giants.
The giant caves we had bypassed were calling to us, so we went back to check them out. As we approached the lower of the twin caves, I deciphered the giantish runes outside the cave entrance: “The Basilisk Clan Welcomes You.” Ominous. (Editor’s Note: Unbeknownst to the players, this cave is the main entrance to the Basilisk Clan’s cave system.)
Still invisible, Thokk went in first, spotting flickering torchlight deeper in the cave. Farther in, the tunnel opened into a wide chamber where four stone giant guards sat at a large table, drinking ale and playing knucklebones. We plotted our actions and then moved in. I cast an ineffective reduce spell on one, and Vrask lit them up with faerie fire. Azley hit them all with a cone of cold, frosting them. Melkor, Fighto, and Lucian rushed to attack. Fighto quickly took down his giant, and both Melkor and Lucian were hit, with Lucian taking a grievous wound. One giant fled down the nearest corridor. I reduced the giant who had hit Lucian, and Fighto quickly dispatched him.
After we heard giantish voices down the passage, Thokk followed the fleeing giant. He discovered six giants at an intersection, all armed with boulders and waiting for us. Melkor went down the passage and hurled two javelins of piercing at the giant who had fled. Azley had laid a grease spell on the floor at the entrance to the cave. Just as Melkor and Thokk returned, a group of four male giants appeared outside the cave and hurled boulders at us, laying Azley low. Vrask cast faerie fire on them, and Lucian took Azley’s wand of wonder and used it on the group outside, summoning six large black tentacles that attacked all four and trapped and constricted two of them. (Editor’s Note: The wand conjured an Evard’s black tentacles spell.) The other two giants rushed in, as did the remaining five from the tunnel. I cast mirror image on myself. The first two giants out of the corridor slipped and fell in the patch of grease, and the others stopped in the corridor. I took advantage of the moment to cast a lightning bolt down the line, wounding all of them. Melkor killed one of the four giants, and Thokk delivered a flurry of stabs to the giant at the front of the group, killing him.
We managed to whittle down the giants. One of the giants ran past me and returned with a couple of well-armed, bejeweled female giants, a male giant, and two ogres. (Editor’s Note: The two females are the Basilisk Clan’s co-chieftains.) I dug deep into my memory to conjure another lightning bolt down the tunnel at the reinforcements, destroying many of the lead giantess’s possessions and killing an ogre at the rear of the group. (Editor’s Note: The bolt destroyed the giantess’s jewelry and ring of fire resistance.) The fight dragged on, with the reinforcements bringing in a pair of cave bears that mauled Fighto badly. Vrask cast hold animal on the bears, and one succumbed to the spell. With all the giants and ogres slain, save one female ogre who fled, we finished off the bears. After looting the bodies, we ventured down the left tunnel to find what looked like a lounge cave. We came upon the female ogre who had fled. She told us there was a door in the cave above this one. We found a valuable hoard in the lair. (Editor’s Note: These were the co-chieftains’ quarters, where they kept their treasure.)
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