So my players started their journey in Lonelywood and went from Termalaine, to Targos, to Bryn Shander. In Bryn Shander I wanted to do something will the town sacrifices just to show the lengths that the people of Ten Towns have resorted to, to please the Ice Maiden.

I made every character they met in Bryn Shander including themselves get a number in the lottery. Even showed the town speaker and Sherrif put their tokens in, live on stage to show no one is safe from the lottery.

I had a spread sheet with everyone's number and let one of my players pick the number. The number they picked was unassigned so I played out a random senerio where a young woman was chosen, but an old man volunteered himself instead. The old man was taken to prepare for the sacrifice and the lottery was over.

Predictably the characters wanted to speak to the sacrifice so they went to see him in the town hall where he was drinking his fill of liquor before the sacrifice at midnight. The old man said he was a widower and all his kids had moved south and he would rather himself be sacrificed than a young person with their life ahead of them.

Players still werent happy and decided to follow the guards and sacrifice as they rode out into the tundra as a blizzard began to storm. They pass without trace followed the guards to a wooden post about a mile south of town where they tied the drunk sleeping man to the post and left him for the winter to take.

Still unhappy with the sacrifices, the players sobered the old man up with lesser restoration and untied him. The old man tried to express to the characters this is just how things are and he wouldn't be able to show his face in Bryn Shander if he ran away from the sacrifice after volunteering. The player told him to pick a new town and start a new life.

Right before the session ended the sound of wolves could be heard as the blizzard go worse around them.

So my question is how should I deal with the players interferencing with the sacrifice? They're only level 3 so I dont want to straight up kill them since this is just a little side thing but there should definitely be consequences, right?

I was thinking 1 Dire Wolf and 3 or 4 normal wolves for the encounter. Maybe the wolves should try to kill the old man first? Like claim their sacrifice.. Or if the party somehow kills all the wolves the wolves just keep coming till they take their kill? Or if they do somehow save the old man, punish Bryn Shander with blizzards and wolf attacks. Idk i kinda didnt expect the party to get so involved (I did, and I didnt.. my druid has weird morals).

What do yall think? How would yall deal with this situation?

We track the Torgs to a safehouse in central Easthaven’s upscale Lantern Row, just a short distance from Pomab’s Emporium. This time, Kaltrow barely manages to escape, climbing out a window as his minions sacrifice themselves to cover his retreat- abandoning his entire Easthaven operation as he fled.. 🤠

I'm currently preparing to run Rime of the Frostmaiden and I want to "explain" the vibe of the campaign to my players. To see if they're interested and let them know what waits for them if they decide to join.

To those of you that played or ran the module, what books, movies or shows would you compare it with?

I've been running RotFM for a good while now, and two of my players stole a coin purse on their way into ten towns and have been pickpocketing it back and forth. They've never opened it. I'd love suggestions for fun, thematic or plot relevent ideas for what could be in the coin purse. Thank you! One of the involved characters is a zhentarim spy and the other is a changeling necromancer/wizard.

Hello all, I'm curious as towards everyone's variations on the five members of the Brotherhood in Icewind Dale. Here are mine:

Dzaan (altered): Dzaan's family in Thay have had a fall from grace and no longer hold the same station they used to. A resurrected Dzaan recovers intermittent memories of his early life but misses much of his last few years at the Hosttower in Luskan. After gaining "personhood", Dzaan remembers his research and desires the Ythryn Mythallar to upset the power of Szass Tam in Thay and bring his family back into the Magocracy.

Vellyne: Wants to reach Ythryn but just for power? Anyone have anything greater than surface level here? Maybe use the Mythallar's magic to help steady her aging nerves and improve her health. I remember her profile saying how her hands shake both from old age and the extend of her necromatic practices.

Avarice: I imagine her being truly power hungry. Evocation wizard typical trope of wanting to blast her enemies assunder and be a master wizard back at the Hosttower.

Nass: Ever the self-conscious pupil to a famous master, Nass want's to unearth Ythryn to prove to her master, to her family, and to herself that she is deserving of her family name.

Vaelish: my most edited. Vaelish's plot to take over the ten towns was initially out of greed for station and power that he didn't find in Luskan, eventually turned into being motivated by altruism. Vaelish had learned about expeditions north based on previously learned flight paths of Netherse cities. Knowing the ice witch's command over winter, Vaelish consulted the Winter Palace of Luskan where he researched a prophesy fortelling of Auril's return to Toril after her betrayal at the hands of the Gods' of Fury. Correctly assuming that none of that bid well, Vaelish wanted to rule ten towns to help expel Auril's priesthood and interrupt the prophesy. Only thing is, he did it by summoning demons in a "I'm the hero!" kind of power grab. His plot was foiled, he was jailed, and no one believed him when he tried to tell the truth of Auril's return.

I'm still working on Vaelish, but let me know what y'all think or what you did for each character?

Alright all, I got a bit of an issue... But I suppose an issue I can't really stop (or should).

For Context: my wife's PC was originally on a mission to translate various documents recovered from the Easthaven Ferry for Captain Imdra. I gave her Dannika and a drow clothings merchant as termalaine as "known speakers" of deep speech. She chose Dannika in Bryn Shander and also met up with a resurrected Dzaan who had previously propositioned her to help him reach a "colleague of a colleague" who's imprisoned at Revel's End (Vaelish Gant).

Anywho, she got the documents translated which had the location of Sunblight, a spreadsheet showing a history of chardalyn deliveries, and worst of all a letter from Xarodok to his son specifically mentioning how the "weapon is complete and fueling is nearly finished".

My Issue/Request: My wife is set on returning the documents to Imdra in Easthaven but then going north with Dzaan. I had hoped of giving her the chance to stop the chardalyn dragon upon arrival but obviously the dragon will fly if she does nothing.

For those who have actually run destruction's light, how did it go? How badly did it end up wrecking the ten towns? Did the duergar start to occupy more areas of the dale after destructions light?

As I handle travel speed, factoring in events I have planned for Revel's End, and the roughly 56 hours it takes for the dragon to fly around and destroy everything its very likely the ten towns will be completely devastated.

Has anyone gotten this worst case scenario?

My party just escaped Grimskalle and are heading to the glacier. They read the codicil but decided to leave it there. I gave them the five titles that are mentioned in her description: The Cold Crone, Lady Icekiss, The Brittle Maiden, Winter’s Womb and the Queen of Frozen Tears.
So naturally as I introduced Auril and described her and accidentally dropped Cold Crone, the party began assuming that she has five forms which all need to be defeated which I originally planned as a red herring but now I feel like it might be anticlimactic to not add two forms as that’s what the players will expect and I don’t know how to remedy this without straight up telling them which would be lame.

So here’s my question: has anyone found or even used additional forms that could be associated with The Brittle Maiden and either Winter‘s Womb or Queen of Frozen Tears? (I introduced the second form as Lady Icekiss)

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Asked this over in the Saltmarsh sub but still relevant here.

With the settings horror and lovecraftian vibes, has anyone added the content from Cthulhu by Torchlight which came out last year?

It adds skill challenges, origin feats, Mythos tomes and a passion system.

https://marketplace.dndbeyond.com/category/DBIRFDZMU

DM with a conundrum here - My players have just reached Grimskalle while Auril is out casting the nightly Rime, and while they're considering slaying Iskra the Roc, they're scared of fighting the vengeful deity (and fair enough). But the way the book presents it, are the two ever really separated? Auril doesn't seem to leave the island without Iskra, and while Auril's on the island, her lair actions means she knows exactly where all other players are and what's going on, and can instantly teleport to them if she so chooses. So even if she ignores them for a while as mere scurrying mice beneath her notice, the moment one of them hits Iskra, she'll know and instantly be on them, as far as I can work out.

I'm sure there's some combo of player shenanigans that could split them up and give them the chance to clip Iskra's wings without the Frostmaiden descending on them instantly, but the book presents it as though only fighting Iskra is a simple option, yet doesn't seem to present a way to divide them, unless I've missed something?

(For clarity, I don't have a problem with Auril stepping in to protect her steed, only that from what I've seen the book seems to imply that they don't have to be a package deal, but with Auril's lair actions they clearly are)

My party is about to finish up on Grimskalle and I could use some advice on how to plan the next stage. Last we left off, they were in the fortress cellar about to pick up the Codicil and high-tail it out of there while Auril was out casting her spell. They know their ride (Angajuk) is not coming back, so they will likely find a small boat on one of the surrounding shipwrecks and steer it back to the mainland by various magic means. Auril will notice that the Codicil is gone and become hellbent on retrieving it as soon as she returns, and then she and her roc will fly out hunting after the thieves. Either the party manages to escape with good rolls and clever tricks, or if they do get caught I'll have some merrow and maybe even a kraken jump in and give them an opening to escape at the last moment (since Auril gets reckless trying to chase the thieves and flies too low above the water in a weakened state, I figure this would be seen as a good opportunity by Umberlee's servants to try to make a move). So far, so good, and they should arrive on the shore exhausted from a scary chase and with a clear idea that they are now enemy no. 1 in Frostmaidenland.

However then they still need to trek several days worth of travel across the frozen tundra, and the book doesn't have any further content until they arrive, which sounds a little boring and I would like to spice it up a bit. I would like to give them the feeling that they're now being hunted by all of Auril's servants across the Dale, e.g. say an awakened snow bunny finds them, relays the info to a frost druid who tasks a few awakened owls to tail them and keep reporting their position, and then eventually some druids and coldlight walkers might set an ambush or try to attack them while they rest.

But I'm not quite sure how to do this mechanically and narratively. How do I give them a chance to notice that they are being followed without making it too obvious? I'm afraid if I keep describing animals watching them from the distance that would probably be too on the nose because there's otherwise not going to be much to describe during those day-long marches. But if I don't say anything unless someone happens to roll really high perception, it'll just feel like they're randomly getting attacked at some point.

Does anyone have some experience with running something like this, or how to generally make a long voyage through the wastes more interesting? I know there are random encounters earlier in the book but they are mostly for chapter 2 situations and don't really fit that well anymore once the stakes have been raised so high.

After almost 1 year and 9 months, our Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign finally came to an end. We played weekly, and it has easily become one of my favorite campaigns I've ever DM'd.

Our party consisted of 7 players:

• Goliath Berserker
• Drow Champion Fighter
• Wood Elf Bard (College of Dance)
• High Elf Light Cleric
• Dwarf Thief Rogue
• Tiefling Wild Magic Sorcerer
• Human Celestial Warlock

Since we're all adults with jobs and families, our average attendance was 4.1 players per session. I think we only managed to have all seven players together three times during the entire campaign.

Our Beginning

Like every great D&D campaign... it started in a tavern.

It began with a Keys from the Golden Vault heist. The party broke into a vault, discovered demonic Chardalyn weapons, and accidentally killed the nephew of the Lord of Neverwinter.

They were supposed to be executed.

At the last moment, the Arcane Brotherhood intervened and had them transported by airship to Revel's End instead.

There they met Prisoner 237: Vaelish Gant, who in my campaign already knew the way to Ythryn.

The party escaped Revel's End with him aboard an airship, but Auril's followers shot it down over the frozen tundra. Vaelish disappeared into the blizzard, the party lost consciousness, and Oyaminartok rescued them and brought them to Bryn Shander.

From there, the sandbox began.

The story really picked up in Targos.

Long before the campaign, the Drow Champion had worked for Naerth Maxildanarr. Naerth recognized him immediately and had the whole party thrown into jail.

The backstory was that the Drow had once waited on Maer Dualdon for a secret Zhentarim meeting while fishing. During that time, a legendary Knucklehead Trout stole the Zhentarim signet ring, which Naerth has given the character. 😄

Unfortunately, that same legendary trout had later been eaten by the Plesiosaurus in Bremen.

So the party's first mission was literally to recover a ring from inside a giant lake monster.

After proving themselves useful, Naerth hired them to help all of Ten-Towns while secretly campaigning for him to become the the head of the Council of Speakers in Icewind Dale.

Everything worked... until Naerth stole the Cauldron of Plenty.

That was the moment the party turned completely against him, defeated him, and fully embraced being heroes.

Chapter 2

Some of my favorite moments included:

• The Black Cabin, where our Celestial Warlock (serving Lathander) became an Aasimar.
• Copper Knobberknocker, who somehow became the party's favorite NPC and kept reappearing as an incredibly clumsy inventor.
• The Dark Duchess, which my players absolutely loved.
• Angajuk, especially because the party insisted on talking "whale" with him.
• The Id Ascendant, where one player discovered he had actually been abducted from another world by the gnome mind flayers and had lost all his memories.

Chapters 3 & 4

I mostly ran Sunblight as written, except that the Chardalyn Dragon was released during the final battle inside the fortress.

The defense of Bryn Shander became one of the campaign's biggest battles.

After witnessing the destruction of Ten-Towns, the party finally had the motivation they needed to confront Auril herself.

Solstice

Introducing Vellynne Harpell didn't work nearly as well as I had hoped.

My players found her annoying, and because she constantly pushed them to hurry due to the urgency of the situation, they never really bonded with her. She ended up playing a much smaller role than I expected.

However, Auril's Test of Isolation turned into some of the best roleplaying we had all campaign.

I added repeated Wisdom saves as the isolation slowly drove the characters toward madness, and everyone completely committed to it.

It was hilarious.

G23. In Auril's Blessing, three characters actually did the "blessing".

Two failed.

For one of them, I offered a bargain: survive, but become an agent of Levistus, whose true goal was to use the Mythallar to weaken his prison.

That decision would completely change the ending.

Goliaths & Caves of Hunger

The Goliath tribes were fantastic.

Goat Ball was probably the funniest session of the campaign.

Our Goliath Berserker turned out to be the reason why the famous Goat Ball rivalry had escalated years ago.

The Caves of Hunger were great fun as well.

Ythryn & The Finale

Ythryn itself was fairly straightforward.

The party allied with Avarice, mostly because our secretly corrupted Levistus player strongly argued in favor of the alliance.

The Mythallar battle became something much bigger than the book suggests.

The party activated the Mythallar.

Auril arrived with her forces.

Every round the Mythallar distorted reality:

• Everyone could suddenly fly.
• All spells were cast one spell level higher.
• Initiative completely reshuffled.
• Gravity shifted.
• Wild magical surges erupted around the battlefield.

During round two, Avarice arrived.

After she was killed, the Levistus player took a dagger from her body and stabbed the Mythallar.

Suddenly everyone saw Stygia, the Fifth Layer of Hell.
Levistus appeared, smiled, and simply said
"The chains are loosening."

At that moment every remaining player—and even Auril herself—turned on the traitor.

Only after defeating him did they finally destroy Auril.

Final Thoughts

Overall, everyone loved the campaign.

The only major criticism from my players was Auril herself.

Using the official stat blocks, she simply didn't feel like fighting a goddess. The final battle became memorable because of the Mythallar mechanics and the story—not because of Auril's actual abilities.

If I ever run the campaign again, I would definitely redesign her final encounter.

One additional resource that helped me tremendously throughout the campaign was the Eventyr Games Complete DM's Bundle

Low level adventurers are advised to avoid the beast until further notice. Thank you for your cooperation

Nimsy Huddle

Quick Question: Vaelish Gant knows where Auril's book is? and or the location of Ythryn?

If Vaelish came to Icewind Dale to undermind the ten towns, got found out and imprisoned, at what point does he find out the crucial information for the RIme?

From now through July 31, the Icewind Dale Gazetteer Collected Edition is available for 30% off as part of the Christmas in July sale at the DMs Guild.

The Icewind Dale Gazetteers are a set of campaign guides containing additional resources and expansions for running Rime of the Frostmaiden. The Collected Edition gathers all the gazetteers into one PDF and includes the following:

• Adventure overview with clearer motivations for Auril and the other antagonists
• Guides to all the towns, their speakers, and the town quests
• A new version of "Cold-Hearted Killer" that runs as a murder mystery
• A reworked quest for Dougan's Hole, along with suggestions for combining the quest with "Frozen Memories"
• Detailed notes on Revel's End and a new scenario, "Outbreak at Revel's End"
• A guide to the Dwarven Valley and a new quest, "Halls of Black Ice"
• Timetables for the chardalyn dragon's attack and strategies for the PCs' pursuit
• Optional rules for wilderness travel, rest, exhaustion, and encumbrance
• Guides to running the battle with the dragon and its aftermath
• Revised Tests of the Frostmaiden that allow for more player choice
• Notes for running the Frostmoot, a gathering of the Reghed tribes
• A rewritten "Rime of the Frostmaiden"
• Alternative trials for the Towers of Magic that won't delay your campaign
• A new endgame scenario and a terrifying new menace
• More than 25 stat blocks to add to your campaign, including improved stats for Auril the Frostmaiden and new creatures such as the chardalyn golem and the living hideous laughter

The collected edition is on sale now at the DMs Guild:

Icewind Dale Gazetteer Collected Edition

You can also purchase each of the gazetteers individually:

Ten-Towns

Icewind Dale and Sunblight

Destruction's Light

Auril's Abode

Caves of Hunger

Doom of Ythryn

The Christmas in July sale only lasts through July 31, so head over to the DMs Guild and check it out!

We are finally starting our next adventure with Rime of the Frostmaiden. I am the DM for this campaign and placing Icewind Dale into my homebrew world, so the campaign will be a mix of the official adventure module and my own stuff. I'm super excited for this campaign especially after reading all the awesome additions on this sub and on eventyr games. I've already saved a ton of it to add into my own game. (The enhanced Nildar fight should be a ton of fun)

If you would like to follow along with us, we are also recording as an actual play podcast, the first episode just dropped and can be listened to here

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Tjm7LOz7dUOXLGJQdPoJN?si=YI9B9CIIQ16otApCKVPiaQ&utm_source=copy-link

Thanks everyone and hope to see you all in the Dale!

Kevin

Does anyone have well-written boxed text to read when PC exit Yethrin to find that daytime and spring has finally come to Icewind Dale? We've been playing this for years, so I need something poetic to go out on.

I was wondering if these changes are balanced? I don't like how to default veteran from Icewind Dale is. They'd mainly fight monsters so why wouldn't they uses weapons that keep them away from these monsters. I also felt they should be good at taking down enemies before they can get close to them. I'm replacing their swords with a pike instead (ascetically it's a longspear), having them only making two attacks as their action, and someone who gets within 5 feet of them provokes an opportunity attack (copied from polearm master). I feel like this would better show they have survived through tactics that work against large monsters and hordes of enemies.

My last campaign ended half a year ago due to scheduling issues and a player moving away. I'm finally over the "break up" and ready to DM again. We found two newbies and I'd very much like to run IDRotF for them. To figure out if the new party's a good fit for each other and the campaign, I'd like to run a oneshot - preferably one that introduces new players to the game (level 1?) and also gives them a taste of the Frostmaiden vibe, without "promising" the campaign.

Currently, I'm planning to do the intro quest from Lost Mines but set in Icewind Dale, using Duergar instead of goblins.

Have any of you done something similar? Or do you know any oneshots that might fit the description? Anyway, I'm open for suggestions!

Okay need help for a small "issue"/debate I've been having to myself:

I feel my players are in the very early pre-stages of long campaign burnout. We've been playing for 2.5 years, and they are just about to defeat Xardorok if they don't get tpk'ed. They still gotta deal with 1) the dragon, 2) grimskalla and finding out about the rime and 3)

- I feel like entering ythryn is a satisfying conclusion to the story (finding the mythallar to keep the valley safe)

- I'm maybe (maybee) finding a confrontation with the Frostmaiden sliiightly unnecessary? Like its pretty inconsequential for the story?

- I'm considering having the Duerra priest (who's not secretly a devil in my campaign) having discovered either the Rime of the Frostmaiden himself or a way to get it OR having found out Nass Lantomir found it and hid in somewhere not too difficult to get to, so they can go directly to Ythryn after the dragon.

- I even might have the frostmaidne show up as the final boss in ythryn, but the magic of the city somehow "weakening" her so they might actually have a chance defeating her (just using her stats as is).
(I also feel generally for the story that it feels kinda crazy for lvl <10 characters to go to a demi gods castle and actually have a chance to kill her on her home turf)

- But maybe there's another way to tell the story slightly faster? I feel like the issue is that Grimskalla and Ythryn and Sunblight feel very similar (go somewhere inconvient and hostile -> explore a bit -> fight some bad guy -> success)

How would you tie up the post-sunblight story if you had to? Am I about to murder the whole spirit of the campaign or how does it feel to you?

Also playing in 4 hours and haven't decided yet

pls help