5e: Giant craving for a midnight snack

From: Fulhoff of Clan Balderk
To: Helja and Adrik of Clan Balderk

Mother & Father,

Chronicling the Battle of Goldenfields has taken longer than the fighting did…

We were feeling incredibly sure of ourselves as a wave of goblins appeared at the treeline. Swinging my hammer, I sent a bolt of lightning through their ranks, the flash and crack of which clearly demoralized them. My perhaps overpowered assault was followed up by a barrage of ranged attacks that cut through the goblin ranks… which then revealed the ogres and bugbears driving them forward. I called upon another lightning bolt, as did the resident wizard Naxine, lining up our shots to cause the maximum amount of damage. The trees based at the bugbears who hacked ineffectively at them, and a few more goblins took pot shots before running away.



By this point my ears were ringing, and I could barely see for the spots in my eyes, so much of the next few seconds was lost to me, but I did see one ogre fall (felt it too) and watched the other run. And that’s when we heard the bell tolling from the abbey.

The locals fighting with us took off toward the ringing, and we were steps behind. I chugged down a healing potion on the way, still smarting from the bugbear’s javelin. As we neared the abbey, we heard more sounds of combat, but coming from the nearby wall. Shifting direction we arrived to find a pair of hill giants standing on the wall, along with some ogres and bugbears scrambling up the inside. I blasted one, and then Journey cast the spell of the battle! She summoned a (small) Sleet Storm that instantly slowed the giants and ogres, even causing them to slip and fall! Unfortunately none fell off the wall… but it kept them from running and hiding.

This battle was even more chaotic than the last, as the sleet storm heavily obscured what exactly was going on on the wall. Thankfully giants are fairly sizable targets, even prone, and so we were able to pepper them with attack after attack. The few guards still around were mostly useless, terrorized at the slaughter they’d suffered through, but Kevin… Kevin stood his ground atop the wall blasted by a sleet storm, face to face with a giant! It was his simple guardsman’s blade that killed the first giant. His mettle was tested that night, and in his chest beats a heart of iron.



The other giant named Glob, cold, wet, injured, and demoralized by the death of his friend begged for mercy. We granted it. Taking him from the wall, we questioned him. Apparently the whole raid was set up by Gua, the matriarch of his tribe who demanded food and loot. The goblins lead them to Goldenfields, and the bugbears are the brains of the operation designed the raid... and not only took food, but also hostages. Women and children. And that was on top of the casualties they cause in their raid...