Slaughter In G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King By Gary Gygax - Actual Play Event Commentary AS&SH 1st Edition Greyhawk Mashup

' Giants have been raiding the lands of men in large bands, with giants of different sorts in these marauding groups. Death and destruction have been laid heavily upon every place these monsters have visited. A party of the bravest and most powerful adventurers has been assembled and given the charge to punish the miscreant giants.'

So for the last two years my buddy Steve has been running an old school Greyhawk/ 1st edition AS&SH Hyperborea mash up game campaign. PC's from his AS&SH campaign ended up on Greyhawk & he stuck with the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg system. He's been running this game campaign on & off for months when he comes home to take care of his mom. There are eight or nine players & they had unfinished business in the in the Hellfurnaces of Greyhawk (Hex M5-138). They were deep in the adventure while I had talked to Steve about using Surtr (Old Norse "black"^[1] or "the swarthy one" as one of the main powers  the other being Ymir behind some of the events of the G series of modules. In Hyperborea the Ragnarök prophecies have come to pass with only Ullr having survived the events from Old Earth. 

We were talking about incorporating  the Svartálfar slaves of Snurre into the adventure & various details about treasure, artifacts, etc.   They assumed I was beefing up the adventure, nothing could be further from the truth. G3 is a tournament module & its one to be respected by players. There are one hundred and five fire giants, ninety gnolls, fifty two Drow, twenty two hell hounds, twelve fire beetles, ten were rats, six frost giants, four stone giants, & five hill giants.
So the party makes it to Snurre, the Fire Giant King, in room 3 of level 1 & get's completely and utterly mopped by the forces they find there. The dice turned against them, the monsters murdered them, & I got the blame. It was glorious to watch, two years worth of campaign play gone in combat & the dice were merciless on the players. Only the bard survived to gather the ashes of three of his companions in little leather pouches. This is going to turn into the a side quest because the players were seething and out for blood! Steve should get a good couple of months out of tonight's events.


The fire giants they're the fire Jotun who follow Surtr from Norse mythology and that means that their master is going to try to bring about the end of the gods once again. The bard overheard the fire giants speaking about Surtr's consort Sinmara  who was overseeing some of the events at the hall. 


The bard was able to escape with a ring of teleportation & the entire treasure that the party has gathered is now going to go towards resurrecting three of Steve's player's PC's. They are now bound and determined to to go back to the Hell furnaces and finish what they started!
Well I came away from tonight's glorious slaughter with a very healthy renewed respect for the G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King.