Two Heads, One Storm
Two Heads, One Storm
“Track the giant. Survive the storm. Decide which head deserves to die.”
— Hook · kill
“For three nights, blue lightning has struck the Briarbreak Hills, and every morning brings new reports of a two-headed giant attacking travelers. Warden Elira Voss offers the party 600 gold pieces to track the ettin, stop its raids, and kill it before it reaches the nearby village of Thornmere. She warns that the creature now bends the land around it in ways no ordinary monster could.”
— Hook · kill
The adventure begins in Thornmere's watchhouse during a violent but strangely localized storm. Blue light pulses through the windows, every metal object in the room hums, and Warden Elira Voss spreads a bloodstained map across the table. A frightened caravan guard, Mara Quill, identifies the latest attack site and describes seeing the ettin pause as if arguing with itself before fleeing uphill.
Warden Elira Voss
Warden Elira Voss approaches the party in the watchhouse after hearing of their reputation. She offers a formal bounty, access to the watch's supplies, and permission to claim any unusual magical remnants found in the hills, provided the party prevents the chaos from spreading.
Rumours
d5 · table- 01The ettin has two voices, and one of them sometimes begs travelers to run.
- 02A shepherd claims the monster was once smaller and had only one shadow.
- 03Blue lightning has been striking the same hill since before the first attack.
- 04The old survey station contains maps that do not match the current shape of the land.
- 05The village watch found a perfectly round footprint inside a locked storeroom.
If the party fails, the ettin reaches Thornmere during the next chaos pulse. Dozens may die, the village may be abandoned, and the Briarbreak Hills may become a permanent magical hazard. If the party succeeds without containing the source, the immediate threat ends but the instability continues to spread.
Background Lore
A decade ago, an arcane surveyor named Pell Vey detonated a buried shard of raw planar energy beneath the Briarbreak Hills. The blast vanished into the earth, but it awakened an ettin called Rusk-and-Rask and saturated both heads with unstable chaos magic. Since then, the creature has become increasingly violent and unpredictable, raiding caravans, warping the surrounding wilderness, and leaving behind pockets of impossible weather and distorted wildlife.
An ettin exposed to unstable magic is attacking travelers near Thornmere. The creature has become stronger, stranger, and more dangerous with every passing night, and the village watch cannot pursue it into the warped Briarbreak Hills. The party must track and kill the monster before another chaos pulse sends it into the settlement.
