The Storm King’s Thunder campaign is a huge high level campaign that was added to the popular Dungeons and Dragons MMO, Neverwinter. It adds a huge amount of content to the game in the form of three new adventure zones, new equipment, mounts, and more!
Storm King’s Thunder calls heroes to Icewind Dale to solve a deadly mystery and recover an ancient artifact of immense power: the famed ring of winter. The ring has been seized by the fierce frost giant Jarl Storvald, who is attempting to control its powers and use it to freeze the oceans, blanketing the world with snow and ice. Orcs, goblins, barbarians, trolls, and other monsters are gathering in the north, ready to pledge fealty to Jarl Storvald should he succeed. This of course is causing havoc in the northern settlements of Ten-Towns.
Players must be level 70 to start the Storm King’s Thunder campaign. Once leveled, talk to Sargeant Knox in Protector’s Enclave and complete the quest “Festival of Bryn Shander.” This quest will get you headed in towards Bryn Shander and give clues as to what is happening in this campaign. Follow the quest line. Once you complete all off the normal quests you will be able to start doing the Daily and Weekly repeatable quests in Bryn Shander.
Alright, now that you have an overview of it all, let’s get into the nitty-gritty!
New Ostorian Relic System
This is the core system players will use to progress through Storm King’s Thunder campaign. It is the currency of the campaign and will be used to advance your campaign goals, upgrade the new set of armor, and empower the armor from this campaign.
Players will need to collect Voninblod with Ostorian Relics. They can also get Voninblod through encounters and each of the quests gives you a little. But to really cash in on the Voninblod players will need to find, collect, and turn in piles of Ostorian Relics.
Learn how to farm them fast and efficiently in my guide:
New Items in Storm King’s Thunder
There are a lot of new items in this expansion for Neverwinter. As weelas new potions, tools to find relics, and lots of ingredients for the new relic items.
Many of these are in place to help combat Everfrost Damage, a new and additional damage players will take whenever they are in any of the new adventure areas. Whenever players are damaged in the new areas, they will also take Everfrost Damage. So, if they take 2000 points normal damage they will also take 2000 points in Everfrost Damage. To combat this, the new gear as well as some potions and other items allow players to resist this damage. Most of the new items come with some level of protection. So it is a good idea to get them ASAP.
Frostborn Items
The first and easiest bit of new gear comes as Forstborn equipment. Players can buy this new gear from the Tarmalune Trade Bar Vendor. To gain Tarmalune Trade Bars, open up Enchanted Lockboxes. This is a great way to get a leg up in Storm King’s Thunder.
- Foot Slot Equipment costs 65 Tarmalune Bar
- Armor Slot Equipment costs 80 Tarmalune Bars
Heads Slot equipment can also be bought through the Zen store. These come with the new Remorhaz companion that is available. This is definitely worth picking up. This set can be purchased for 2500 zen. Find it under the Companions section.
This Frostborn gear is definitely the fastest way to get Everfrost resist up. Players will need a 28% resistance to get into the new Skirmish, Fangbreaker Island.
Stormking’s Thunder Relic Gear
The the most powerful gear in the game at the time of Stormking’s Thunder release is the relic armor and weapons. Relic gear is found in the skirmish Fangbraker Island. The relic weapons are collected at the end of the first quest series in the adventuring area, Sea of Moving Ice.
Getting the relic items is only the first step. They are not even usable when players first get them. Instead, players need to collect a myriad of materials and ingredients to repair them so they can be equipped. Players will be able to keep themselves busy for quite some time collecting these materials.
The main sources of these are;
- Daily Quests in the Sea of Moving Ice
- Reclaimed Runes
- Fishing in the Sea of Moving Ice for
- Rare Fish Reagents
- Heroic Encounters
- Dragon Turtle Moult (Sea of Moving Ice)
- Frozenfar Mistletoe, Evermelt Springwater (Sea of Moving Ice)
- Lanolin (Cold Run, Lonelywood, Bryn Shander)
- Permafrost Shard (Cold Run)
- Map in a Bottle Buried Treasure
- Rare Fish Reagents
- Dragon Turtle Moult
- Ostorian Resin
- Epic Crafting (Materials Gained from Guild Reagent Farming)
- Mana Plaster (Artificing)
- Enchanted Loam (Artificing)
Most of these reagents can be purchased but players will need to save up! They are not cheap.
Empowering Storm King’s Thunder Gear
Players will need to empower all of their new items with Voninblod. It is the same mechanic as Icewind Dale. The items you get will slowly degrade as you use them. Voninblod will be have to be added to each item to keep it at its most powerful tier.
Players will need tons of Voninblod to keep their gear in tip top shape.
Learn the tips and tricks to farming Voninblod in my guide:
Playing through Storm King’s Thunder
A call goes out to all of the heroes of Icewind Dale to help recover the ancient and powerful artifact, the Ring of Winter.
The first order of business is to get the quest Festival of Bryn Shander from Sergeant Knox. This will start you on the journey heading to Bryn Shander and the events surrounding Storm King’s Thunder.
It’s important to know that this is the toughest area of the game when it was released. You may struggle with it more than a little to begin with. A high gear score and boons are desired to survive in these unforgiving areas. A gear score of at least 2500 and half the boons in the game is a rough guess on who should and shouldn’t be here. Don’t be one of those players begging for help for the little stuff. If you can’t handle it come back later after you have geared up some and have a few more boons to keep you fighting.
Quest Routine in Storm King’s Thunder
In each of the zones players will be able to get a variety of quests.
Do Three Daily Quests Quest – Defending the Dale
This quest players need to complete 3 regular Daily Quests from the areas unlocked. Weekly or optional quests do not count towards the three.
- XP
- Coin
- 9 Bryn Shander Reputation
- 3 Secrets of Ostoria
- 4 Ten-Towns Supply
Regular Daily Quests Rewards
Each of the adventure areas will have three different quests available each day. These cycle every few days through a dozen different quests.
- XP
- Coin
- 50 Voninblod
- 2 Ten-Towns Supplies
Weekly Rewards
Once a week the Weekly adventure area quest can be completed. These are small instanced dungeons. Groups often form for these as they can be a little more difficult than the normal quests.
- XP
- Coin
- 4 Bryn Shander Reputation
- 50 Voninblod
- 16 Ten Town Supplies
- 6 Secrets of Ostoria
Optional Daily Quests
In each of these adventure zones you will find that there are a handful of optional quests to complete. Some you get after killing a named wandering boss in the area. You must turn in proof of the kill. Or collect extra items. Either way, it is a little more XP and Voninblod you can earn while you quest. Just don’t go out of your way to get or complete these as they have minor rewards.
- XP
- Coin
- 50 Voninblod
Bryn Shander Adventure Area
This is the first adventure area in this set. The early quests do a great job of introducing players to the mechanics and the challenges of these areas. They also get you started with hunting relics and looking for gear.
Go through all of the quests until you are required to complete a Heroic Encounter right outside of Bryn Shander’s gate. That is the last of the “entrance” quests to this area.
From there you will have one Daily quest to complete three Daily quests. There is also a Weekly quest that is reset every Sunday.
Players will need to collect many of the rewards to advance the campaign. Advancing the campaign will grant you access to the other two adventure areas, Lonelywood and Coldrun. It’s best to get through the access stuff as soon as possible so players can pick the easiest quests to complete the “Compelete 3 Quests” Daily Quest. Bryn Shander Reputation and Secrets of Ostorian come from this particular quest. Many of each will be needed to advance the campaign.
Once the “entrance” quests are completed, players will zone into the market place in Bryn Shandor. Here they will find the quest givers, Ostorian Relic turn in, and a crate of replacement trowels when needed. There is also a campaign vendor and a regular vendor for selling loot or buying supplies.
Lonelywood
Loneylwood is the second adventure zone in this campaign. Players do not get immediate access. Instead, players need to collect certain things from the campaign to unlock it.
Lonelywood can be unlocked in 5 days if players complete all of the possible quests in Brynn Shander. Look to the Campaign Tracker for specific details. Players should make sure they have enough to unlock the next area prior to purchasing boons, campaign store discounts, or additional enchantments.
Lonelywood is a forested area that is ultimately set up similar to Bryn Shander. Here there are the same types of quests and they follow the same format. However, once you have access to Lonelywood players can start cherry picking the quests they want to do only trying to complete the “Do 3 Daily Quest” quest. Players will have access to 6 Daily Quests but will only need to complete 3 for reputation. However, if Ten Town supplies are needed do the other quests as well to stock up on these.
Cold Run
Cold Run is the last of the three adventure zones that come with the main Storm King’s Thunder campaign. Players also have to earn access to this area. Access can be gained with about 10 more days of completing the quests in both Lonelywood and Bryn Shander.
Cold Run is set up in the same manner as Bryn Shander and Lonelywood. Getting access to this allows players to really just do the quests they want since there will be 9 available Daily quests but only 3 needed for Defending the Dale. The rest can be done to earn extra Ten Town Supplies or just for XP.
The most important part of Cold Run is that the Heroic Encounters here drop all of the important ingredients needed to upgrade relic gear. Some of these reagents can be gathered from Bryn Shander and Lonelywood but they all drop here. So when you decide to farm Heroic Encounters make sure you do it in Cold Run!
Fangbreaker Island
This is the skirmish that is added with the Storm King’s Thunder campaign. It is a tough skirmish that requires a gear score of 3200 as well as at least 25% Everfrost resistance. Players will need to manually calculate their resistance. Keep in mind that potions and food stack with gear bonuses.
That is all I will mention about Fangbreaker as it deserves its own guide.
All in all, Storm King’s Thunder is a great new campaign with lots of areas to explore, plenty of quests to keep you busy, and new gear to look forward too.
Storm King’s Thunder Campaign Gallery
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