The Hall of Jarl Hrungar

Above the clouds, in a hall hewn from blue ice, sits Jarl Hrungar, a frost giant as old as the mountain itself. He demands a toll from the valley below: cattle, gold, and once each winter a child. The valley bends or dies, and this year the villagers have hired you to put an end to it.

Hrungar is no dull beast. His hall is a world of frost, mead and old honor, where a good story, a won drinking game or a well-fought duel carries as much weight as a sharp sword. Whoever understands his laws can win without a single blow; whoever breaks them dies under the mockery of his court.

You climb through ice storms and past glacier crevasses, defeat or outwit his winter wolves and ice-terror thralls, and enter the hall as guests, hostages or challengers. Along the way you learn the secret that shames Jarl Hrungar: he once lost a duel he has never admitted to.

The twist: the jarl demands his toll not out of greed but to keep an old promise to a dead king, and the stolen child is that king's heir. The climax lets you choose: beat Hrungar in an honorable duel on his icy floor, unmask his false oath before his own court, or find a third path that saves both the child and the giant's honor, while the hall begins to crack around you.