Over the past few weeks, the adventurers have recovered all the giant relics from the Uthgardt spirit mounds. This probably took us a week or two longer than I wanted, because it delays the story and a few of the mounds aren’t that interesting.

In a lot of ways, this is like recovering the puzzle cubes from Omu in Tomb of Annihilation. Each spirit mound provides a short quest that shouldn’t take more than an hour to resolve.

It is not, in fact, necessary to recover all the relics. However, most players will do so. Give players a dungeon level or a set of quests, and they’ll want to explore everything and complete them all. That’s human nature. In Tomb, you can adjust the length of the section to your tastes because other people can recover the cubes. In Storm King’s Thunder, there isn’t that release valve. The solution? Pay attention to your players, and if they seem to be getting bored, suggest they may have enough relics to appease the Oracle.

We did them all. That’s over. Hooray!

The play of this section works a lot better if the characters have access to the airship of the Dragon Cultists; either piloted by the cultists or the characters. You get to avoid a lot of tedious wilderness travel that way. In fact, even without the airship, I’d drop most of the random wilderness encounters and instead get the characters to their destination without interference.

For the spirit mounds that don’t have interesting encounters, you can supplement the material with wandering giants and barbarians. It’s baffling that most of the spirit mounds don’t seem to have barbarians around, but most barbarians wouldn’t be a threat for these level characters.

The Oracle bookends the spirit mounds. The Oracles’ dungeon is straightforward; it’s the interactions with Harshnag that provide most of the interest. I find it a lot easier to role-play a character who appears several times rather than just once, and when the character has interesting things to say. That, Harshnag does.

Harshnag gives you another chance to prove that not all giants are evil. For a while, the adventurers gain an ally. I found it amusing to play Harshnag as not quite understanding human culture. He’s familiar with it, sure, but he sees it from a giant’s point of view. can lead to wonderful misunderstandings. I do enjoy providing humour in the game.

Notes on individual locations in this section:

Beorunna’s Well. My favourite of the spirit mounds. The terrain is intriguing, and the combat was very entertaining. I had the manticore fly around in the darkness attacking the illuminated PCs, while the barbarians crept closer.

Flint Rock. The suggested encounter isn’t interesting, but the length of time needed to excavate the relic allows for random encounters in the meantime. I chose for some giants to arrive!

Grandfather Tree. Using the airship bypassed the barbarians. My players negotiated with the dryads. No combat! Hooray!

Great Worm Cavern. My second-favourite mound. The icy floor makes combat very difficult. The couatl provides interesting role-playing opportunities, and you should definitely use the remorhaz to attack the PCs. The barbarians in the suggested encounter are fairly uninteresting for this level of PCs.

Morghur’s Mound. Nice surprise encounter with animated skeletons! Strangely, my party – despite having bludgeoning weapons – didn’t use them. Skeletons are typically vulnerable to mauls!

One Stone. Nice call-back to Princes of the Apocalypse. I had the bulette attack from below the PCs with surprise rather than arrive a distance away.

Raven Rock. Very boring suggested encounters, though the location is interesting. I replaced them with more giants.

Shining White. Keeping the griffons separated helps protect them from fireball spells. The curse is a nice touch.

Stone Stand. The first ghost is interesting. The second can be a surprise. The third and the fourth are boring. Do you roll initiative each time? If not, the PCs just ready actions and wait for the next to arrive. This encounter would be more interesting with a Blue Bear shaman explaining to the party the mound was cursed, and asking for their aid.