I just recieved my copy of Revenge of the Giants. I like it and I would love to run it in the Forgotten Realms. 2 years ago, I ran a Against the Giants campaign loosely based on the GDQ series in Cormyr but that does not seem to be a good setting for this adventure at all.
If you do not own the adventure, the story is summarized here: www.wizards.com/dnd/files/excerpts/excer...
The biggest problem is the Lost City of Argent. A forgotten city keeping watch over the Plains of Chaos to prevent the primordials from returning seems rather difficult to introduce in the realms.
I would run it with a new group of characters starting out at level 11. The adventure needs some more side treks, especially some where the characters might meet other humans, interact with more than just the City of Argent and its 2 residents. So, there is plenty of room for development.
I just do not see how to do that. Has anyone put any thoughts into this? Where would you put the adventure? I personaly do not think Pyranoth is a very exciting enemy, do you think Bazim Gorag would be a good replacement?
I got mine last night, and have only looked through it briefly, but I have a couple ideas for running this in the Realms.
1) Argent could be from Returned Abeir, placed into Faerun, perhaps sitting in the Spine of the World mountains? The Endless Ice north of the Spinecould replace the Plains of Chaos... maybe since the Spellplague, the arctic area could be an unstable conduit to the Elemental Chaos?
2) An out of the way place, such as Damara or Narfell could hold the lost city of Argent, and the Plains of Chaos could be transposed into Faerun from Returned Abeir. Argent was founded long ago at the urging of a prophecy. When the supposed "Plains of Chaos" failed to appear after a thousand years, the city fell into ruin. The humans who built it were not patient enough - the Spellplague brought the Plains of Chaos with them, and now Argent has its lone defender in need of heroes. The mountains in the area offer habitats for the earth, frost and fire giants, etc.
3) I'm also thinking about ditching the Primordial angle altogether. Instead, an infernal warlock is raising an army, and has allied with the giants, tricking them into thinking they're bringing a great primordial back to power, but really they're just gathering strength for the warlock's patron (such as Asmodeus). The warlock is using the giants to bolster his own dreams of conquest. I don't know if that would work, though, in the context of the adventure - or how much heavy-duty modification would be required.
Great idea's. I picked it up yesterday also(along with DMG2 and Galaxy at War).
I was thinking about having the Empire of Nerath be The Kingdom of Man, or another Kingdom that rose and fell during the first 1,000 years of Dale Recokoning.
Looks like I need to pull A Grand History of the Realms out...
I got mine last night, and have only looked through it briefly, but I have a couple ideas for running this in the Realms.
1) Argent could be from Returned Abeir, placed into Faerun, perhaps sitting in the Spine of the World mountains? The Endless Ice north of the Spinecould replace the Plains of Chaos... maybe since the Spellplague, the arctic area could be an unstable conduit to the Elemental Chaos?
2) An out of the way place, such as Damara or Narfell could hold the lost city of Argent, and the Plains of Chaos could be transposed into Faerun from Returned Abeir. Argent was founded long ago at the urging of a prophecy. When the supposed "Plains of Chaos" failed to appear after a thousand years, the city fell into ruin. The humans who built it were not patient enough - the Spellplague brought the Plains of Chaos with them, and now Argent has its lone defender in need of heroes. The mountains in the area offer habitats for the earth, frost and fire giants, etc.
3) I'm also thinking about ditching the Primordial angle altogether. Instead, an infernal warlock is raising an army, and has allied with the giants, tricking them into thinking they're bringing a great primordial back to power, but really they're just gathering strength for the warlock's patron (such as Asmodeus). The warlock is using the giants to bolster his own dreams of conquest. I don't know if that would work, though, in the context of the adventure - or how much heavy-duty modification would be required.
The Spine of the World and Damara were the two locations that came to my mind as well. I love the idea of the prophecy not occurring. Maybe the waiting defenders were an order of Helm. The god is gone for over a century. His city is mostly abandoned.
If you want to involve devils, have a look at Dungeon 140 and the adventure Heart of Hellfire Mountain if you can. There is a Princess of the Fire Giants corrupted by Mephistopheles (Who fits "rogue" Frost and Fire Giants just fine, controlling the frigid 8th layer of hell and providing the secrets of Hellfire) in there. You would loose the Dawn War aspect though.
I am thinking of strengthening the Drows involvement in the plot, but I have yet to find out what exactly is their role in the adventure as written. I still have the great Dungeon adventure "The Harrowing" (I think it is in Dungeon 84) and I think I will try to bend the plot in a direction to allow me to use that as the grand finale. (There are a couple of levels left till epic tier, and I want to span all of the paragon tier with this campaign.) Entering the Demon Web Pits, fighting against Demons and Drow... I think my players would love that.
I am thinking the Tortured Lands north of The Citadel of the Raven and the Ruins of Zhentil Keep.
I just checked the write up at candlekeep (don't have my books at hand), that sounds like a great area for this module.
I'm thinking of using Akanul as the location.
Argent (crappy name, IMO, simply because it is so overused) could be a genasi city from Shyr. The imprisoned primordial could be Karshimis who was the primordial who ruled over the genasi of Shyr in Abeir.
Good stuff.
(snip some good stuff)
Very cool.
I like a lot of your ideas.
I'm still planning to use RotG in my Akanul campaign... without actually buying RotG. It sounds like yet another WotC adventure where I take out some ideas and encounters which I can probably glean from messageboard posts but where the whole is profoundly less than the sum of its parts and thus not worth buying.
I'll return to buying WotC adventure when they're written by either Rich Baker or Chris Perkins or they otherwise become good again.
I know what you mean. Actually I was quite suprised how much of RotG I could use wihtout changing it.
I think the newish adventure format kinda hides the cool aspects of an adventure. For example, looking at the summary of RotG it say you travel to the astral sea. Well, acually you are suposed to go to a pirate city, where a skill challenge allows you to find a Githyanki captain, who can take you to the Astral Sea via ship. This information (and much more) is 'hidden' in skill challenges and encounter description.
The fluff part of the adventures is much harder to get to, I startet reading all the skill challenges as well as the development and intro sections of the encounters and suddenly the adventure seemed a lot better.
The new format might be easier to use during play, but not for game prep and comversion into other worlds then the default setting, as it is easy to overlook important details.
Next tuesday, we will start the Monuments of the Ancients part of the campaign. (Just finished Halls of Echoing Screams), I am really looking forward to use Phlan and the Moonsea North 
Great ideas Obergnom! I'm also planning on running my group through Revenge of the Giants in the Forgotten Realms. Your ideas are an excellent start to getting things started. I hope you take the time to update this thread with suggestions and comments as your game progresses to let other DMs know how things are going.
Just for the benefit of others:
The "Monument of the Ancients" adventure is in Dungeon Magazine #170.
"Halls of Echoing Screams" is delve #14 from the Dungeon Delve book.
"The Harrowing" adventure is in Dungeon Magazine #84
Has anyone tried running it yet? I'm looking at running it soon and was reading through the E3-E7 encounters. There doesn't seem to be anywhere in there for an extended rest and several areas where one encounter can flow right into another (especially E6/E7). Just from reading this, it seems like it could be deadly. The players would be building level 12 characters to start the adventure, so maybe they'd be higher level than I think by the time they get here.
Anyone have any experience actually running through this?
I am still in the prelude as mentioned above. I expect the players not to run through the Hill Giant Fortress in one sitting. Maybe they try, but I guess that would not be a good idea.
Some updates out of my campaign:
Halls of Echoing Screams is not that good. I changed monster levels and all, but it is just full of PC controlling conditions. My players wanted to enjoy their newly build 11th level characters, and that did not work out.
Mindflayer Infiltrators are exceptionaly boring. I would recomend replacing them and only use the Mastermind.
The characters followed Phlans plea for help and travelled from Voonlar to Phlan by ship (The ship was send by the Lord Protector). While on the ship they were attacked by elementals. (A windfiend, two windstrikers and a couple of shardstorms). The Windfiends face was the face of the Vaeguld shaman that is involed an the later parts of the campaign. They do not know that jet, of course.
This encounter was great fun. My players liked fighting on a ship, lots of skill checks and I added a combat skill challenge to allow the charaters to regain controll of the ship. Best part: I gave the Windfiend the Updraft Power of a Tempest Whisp... characters hanging in the air while the ship moves below them and their comarades trying to regain controll of the ship...
Up next: The Lord Protector and fighting against the Vaeguld.