The announcement of a collected edition and kinda sequel to Rise of the Runelords had me flipping back through my copies of the original series and an idea popped into my head.
Hook Mountain Massacre has always seemed entirely out of left field because it sent the PCs so far way from where they started and then shuffled them back to Sandpoint again for the start of Fortress.
What if, instead of roping them back to Sandpoint, the PCs followed up on clues available at the end of Hook Mountain and tracked the stone giant and his arms deal back to Jorgenfist directly? I mean, it's right there (relatively speaking) next to Hook Mountain and Ft. Rannik.
So the PCs come across this fotress of stone giants surrounded by a gathering army, infiltrate their way in, and defeat the badguy inside. As he's defeated, though, Mokmurian (or maybe even Karzoug himself?) laughs at the PCs because he knows they're already too late. He already has a unit of giants marching on Sandpoint. Now they have to race back to where they started to stave of the assault described in the first chapter of the book.
Heck, you could even have part of the attack lead directly to the collapsing of the ground which leads to the Scribbler's lair in Sins of the Saviors.
Some thoughts:
* Would defending their hometown be satisfying enough that it wouldn't be anticlimactic to do it *after* defeating the leader of the giants?
* I guess by then the PCs would be level 12 instead of the level 10 the siege of Sandpoint assumes. Advice?
* When would the PCs get a chance to research in the library at Jorgenfist to learn some of the plot background to figure out what's going on? Do they even need to?
* High-level PCs can move pretty quickly when they want to, but can I assume they'll be able to get back to Sandpoint ahead of the giants who have already left?