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.

Adapting G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl By Gary Gygax For Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyberborea 1st Edition

"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."


And so begins one of the classic modules of the 'G' series; this module will test the mettle of any group of adventurers foolish enough to cross into the lands of the Frost Giants. Welcome to the lands of the Jarl Grugnur & his warriors, an eight page tournament module romp of  frost giants & ogres that has claimed its fair share of my PC's over the years. Written by Gary Gygax while he was creating the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide. According to the article in Dungeon Master's Guild;" Otherwise, "Glacial Rift" has the same origin as its predecessor, "Steading". It was part of TSR's first series of adventures and one of its major sources was the "heroic adventuring" of The Incomplete Enchanter (1941) by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp. It was run as part of a tournament at Origins '78, then the adventure went on sale immediately following that round of play — on the evening of Saturday, July 15th." And this is where I part ways with official canon because this module is one of my favorites of all times because it always reminded me of Robert Howard's The Frost Giant's Daughter. There's an alien pulpy weird quality to this adventure that places the frost giants front & center.



Since I'm going to be talking about running it with Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea I'm going to be leaning more towards the Robert Howard & Norse mythological end of this module. The frost giants of this module are most certainly the children of Ymir, visitors  from Niflheim & Jötunheim.G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl centers around two adventure locations;"the bulk of this adventure takes place in two locations: an upper area consisting of caves and the rift floor, and a lower area consisting of natural caverns. In the upper area there are ice caves, barracks, and a dome of ice."  This is a land of yeti, frost giants, ogres, and winter wolves and the dangerous remorhaz. This isn't a light weight adventure but a tournament adventure that many PC's of mine have died at the hands of some very experienced Dungeon Masters.

This module takes many of the standard D&D ideas and turns them on their heads; the adventure takes place right after the 'Steading of the Hill Giant Chief' module after the party have been transported to the glacial rift via the magic chain. The other option is that the party of adventurers  have been hired by nobles to destroy the frost giants. Either way, a safe, hidden cave is easily found for a base of operations. If we're going to run this adventure with AS&SH, the other worldly aspect of the frost giants are going to be turned up to 'eleven'. Because the frost giants are in fact the spawn of Ymir as are their slaves the maggot like Dwarves this is right in keeping with Norse mythology. According to Wiki;"Norse mythology provides different mythical origins for the beings, as recorded in the Poetic Edda (compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources) and the Prose Edda (written by Snorri Sturluson in the 13th century). The Poetic Edda poem Völuspá details that the dwarfs were the product of the primordial blood of the being Brimir and the bones of Bláinn (generally considered to be different names for the primordial being Ymir). The Prose Edda, however, describes dwarfs as beings similar to maggots that festered in the flesh of Ymir before being gifted with reason by the gods." The frost giants are invaders from another world who have been raiding and plundering Hyperborea for thousands of years. This same practices & treatement of the Dwarves in AS&SH is also shared by the fire giants.

Two dwarfs as depicted in a 19th-century edition of the Poetic Edda poem Völuspá (1895) by Lorenz Frølich.

This also means that the frost giants depicted in G2 might be the lead in for an invasion for from another world & the various classic era monsters featured in the classic module might be invasive species to Hyperborea. This other worldly agenda is something that we see in the weird tales of Robert Howard, because the adventure is a high level affair could this be because the PC's are mixing in the affairs of the gods unintentionally? In a word yes because Hyperborea is a world in which the gods walk the streets of cities & in the backwater areas of the world legends stride the fields.

The clangor of the swords had died away, the shouting of the slaughter was hushed; silence lay on the red-stained snow. The bleak pale sun that glittered so blindingly from the ice-fields and the snow-covered plains struck sheens of silver from rent corselet and broken blade, where the dead lay as they had fallen. The nerveless hand yet gripped the broken hilt; helmeted heads back-drawn in the death-throes, tilted red beards and golden beards grimly upward, as if in last invocation to Ymir the frost-giant, god of a warrior-race.."
Robert Howard's The Frost Giant's Daughter.


The entire module smacks of the Seventies sword & sorcery vibe with lots of monsters, treasure, excitement and worse waiting within the lair of the frost giants. But what does this have to AS&SH? It basically means that this takes the affairs with G2 go from simple dungeon crawl to epic level Hyperborean mythology. I think so because messing in the machinations of giants leads into dallying with the gods in my book. Adventuring in the affairs of giants is going to lead the PC's into the realm of Svartálfaheimr. There is also an unspoken link between Drow & the Dwarves of Norse mythology which could have some vary dire consequences for adventurers upon Hyperborea;"The Poetic Edda and Prose Edda contain over 100 dwarf names, while the Prose Edda gives the four dwarfs Norðri, Suðri, Austri and Vestri (Old Norse 'North, South, East, and West') a cosmological role: they hold up the sky.^[1] In addition, scholars have noted that the Svartálfar (Old Norse 'black elves') appear to be the same beings as dwarfs, given that both are described in the Prose Edda as the denizens of Svartálfaheimr"  Rather then a simple high level dungeon crawl is there a Weird Tales mythological cosmic explanation for the events of the 'G' series Against the Giants? Underborea holds far more danger then anyone realizes as Ymir's cult is alive, well, and plotting to bring the giant's father to the world of men. 



"You cannot escape me!" he roared. "Lead me into a trap and I'll pile the heads of your kinsmen at your feet! Hide from me and I'll tear apart the mountains to find you! I'll follow you to hell!"
Robert Howard's The Frost Giant's Daughter.

The cult of Ymir is alive, well, & quietly moving forward with alien agendas against the world of men. The AS&SH Referee's Guide clearly states that the Frost Giants were made in mockery of the Viking nations of Hyperborea. Ymir has an incredibly dangerous vision for the world of Hyperborea & his children, followers, minions, and many others are pushing that agenda. Trapped within the Borea winds Ymir's body has been crushed but his soul lives on trapped within a crippled nightmare of a body. Its mind continues to push its alien agenda ever forward.


Imir by Sokol_92 
So rather then simply being an eight page hack and slash old school adventure, G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl By Gary Gygax  is a mythological old school adventure that PC's will be luck to escape with their lives intact.

Commentary On Adapting G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief By Gary Gygax For The Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea 1st Edition Rpg

Yesterday before the preparation for Thanksgiving I tossed a few notes back & forth with Glen Hallstrom about The Against The Giants series of modules for '79 Dungeons & Dragons & adapting them to Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. "The player characters focus on battling hill giants, frost giants, and fire giants, three of the original evil giant types used in Dungeons & Dragons.
"So I took some time off last night & literally reread one of the first in this series of modules, G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief from the ground up back to front. This is a module packed with encounters, monsters, and some general Gygax old school weirdness. "

"The module begins with a prologue explaining that giants of different types have been raiding lands occupied by humans. Angered by this, the human rulers hire a group of adventurers (the player characters) to "punish the miscreant giants." The players' party is informed that they must defeat the giants, or have their heads placed on the chopping block. The human nobles equip the party with weapons and horses, along with a guide and a map that shows the location of the hill giants. The players are informed that the hill giants are led by Nosnra, a sly hill giant chieftain who loves to set up ambushes; there is an unknown force binding together different giant groups. The player characters are informed that they may keep any spoils they find, but must return at once if they determine what "sinister hand" is behind the alliance.

The bulk of the adventure takes place in two locations: the upper level fortress of the hill giants' lair, and the dungeon level beneath it.^[1] In the upper level there are halls, barracks and common rooms. These rooms house Chief Nosnra and other hill giants, ogres, and servants. The dungeon level consists of slave quarters, torture chambers, and caverns. These house troglodytes, bugbears, and carrion crawlers"

To actually use G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief  we need to go back to the Norse mythological roots of giants themselves to really get an old school pulpy feel to the adventure. According to Wiki;"
In Norse mythology, the Jotun (jötnar in Old Norse, a cognate with ettin) are often opposed to the gods. While often translated as "giants", most are described as being roughly human sized. Some are portrayed as huge, such as frost giants (hrímþursar), fire giants (eldjötnar), and mountain giants (bergrisar)." The hill giants are closer to the mountain giants (bergrisar) of Norse mythology which might mean deeper connections to the lands of Jötunheimr & Hyperborea. Mountain giants crossing over into the depths of space in their long ships to raid the lands of Hyperborea is a romantic notion but not the only option. I can also see them crossing through elemental Earth gates for dimensional raids through Underborea. The relationships between the giants & the gods of Hyperborea might indeed be a complex one. According to Wiki;"The Jötnar are a mythological race that live in Jötunheimr, one of the nine worlds of Norse cosmology. They were banished there by the Æsir who refused them entry to their world, Asgard. The Jötnar frequently interact with the Æsir, as well as the Vanir. They are usually in opposition to, or in competition with them, but also interact with them in a non-hostile manner. Some Jötnar even intermarry with the Æsir and Vanir, and many are named as parents or grandparents of Æsir such as Thor and Odin. This very complex relationship between these two comparable races develops most notably in the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda, ultimately making it difficult to distinguish them from the more familiar Norse gods."  This means that your going to get giant classed NPC's with the potential for very deep backgrounds that can be used for years for campaigns in AS&SH. I have a tendency to think of the mountain giants (bergrisar) as slight more advanced then the Formanians of AS&SH fame even though the two breeds of giants interbreed & raid one another.


Not only does that set up high level AS&SH parties for the rest of the Against the Giants series of adventures but possible later adventures upon Jötunheimr.

This is one of the roughest areas of the multiverse for adventuring & this Norse mythological take could be used to further the AS&SH origin of the Drow into the realms of the Svartálfar. 

Simply avoid the confusion over this also being the home of the Dwarves which in AS&SH are the worm children of Ymir or perhaps not in your version of Hyperborea. But back to the giants, the PC's are going pitched deep into enemy territory with the giants. Anyway you slice it the PC's are going to be combating and wading through mountains of enemies. All of this is going to lead deep into the dungeons under the fortress of  the mountain giants which touches the edges of Underborea.



Underborea is far more dangerous then the pedestrian and well known Underdark of Wizards of the Coast fame. Here are where the dregs of the gods hide out, demons from ancient & long gone universes still dwell, & humans are far more readily on the menu.
In other words G1 Steading of the Hill Giants is actually a set up for a high level entry to the edges of Underborea where death, treasure, and very dangerous pulpy adventures are just waiting around the corner in the form of  the  "D" series and Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits but that kids is another blog post entirely. The players are still going to have to deal with the horrors of the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl & Hall of the Fire Giant King. But those are blog entries for another time.