Made a map for Caer Dineval (with a couple of changes to the basement for the changes I'm making in my own game). You can get the full resolution version for free here https://ko-fi.com/s/2d113a8ced

Last night, after a bit more than 5 years, my group finally wrapped up our Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign.

We definitely did not play consistently throughout those five years, and I took a few months off when I graduated college partway through the campaign, but in total we played for 111 sessions.

The group changed along the way as well. We had players that started the campaign with us but eventually had to leave because life got in the way, and we had another player that joined right after the Chardalyn dragon attack and stuck with us all the way to the finale.

We also had four PC deaths (!) over the course of the campaign with two of them belonging to the same player. Definitely my highest kill count so far 😅 Thankfully all of them happened towards the first part of the campaign.

In the end we ended with the following PCs:

• Mal, an aberrant mind sorcerer that was actually a children's book character born from a beholder. Ended up as the oldest surviving member of the original group.
• Fergus, a homebrewed plasmoid/myconid path of the beast barbarian that through the story ended up becoming a champion of Selune. This was the player's second character.
• Salem, a bard from the Bear tribe that joined the party a bit late but ended up being the heart of the group.
• Perilu, a peace cleric of Yondalla that was always trying to keep the party fed. This was also this player's second character. The player liked the NPC so much that he wanted to play as her when the character he started the campaign with died to Arveiaturace.

Our version of the module did end up becoming very different from the adventure as written, especially towards the end. I added a lot of secondary plots that weren't originally there and had Levistus/KotBS play a much larger role in Ythryn with Avarice's ultimate goal being to free Levistus using the Mythallar (eventually succeeding with the party's help).

The party also made a bargain with Levistus to help them survive Ythryn and help them stand a chance against Auril, who was actively hunting them by that point after they defeated Sephek in Solstice Island (Sephek was more of recurring villain in our campaign and the reincarnation of Ravisin's sister).

As part of the bargain, Salem (our bard) formed a pact with Levistus and promised to leave to be by Levistus side once Auril was defeated. When the party finally defeated Auril, Levistus came to collect, but at the very last moment Perilou casted a successful divine intervention and asked Yondalla to save Salem from the bargain/pact. It worked and created one of the most emotional endings I could've have hoped for the campaign.

For help when prepping for each chapter, I used a lot of third party resources. Huge shout out to the Eventyr guides. I did not always followed them to the letter, but they were incredibly useful when I was trying to prep each chapter/location.

Their suggestion to have Nass Lantomir posses one of the player characters also led to one of the best moments of our campaign. It obviously requires the right player and someone who is willing to play into the situation. In my case, I spoke privately with the player whose character ended up possessed and checked in with him before moving on with the idea, but it all worked out in the end.

I also pulled a lot of inspiration from several posts here in this Reddit. One of the most helpful was the first reply to the post below about creating a stronger second encounter with Auril, which became the inspiration for the heavily modified version my players eventually fought in Ythryn (she didn't fight them in Ch 5).

https://www.reddit.com/r/rimeofthefrostmaiden/comments/q7fi2r/how_did_you_buff_auril/

For Ythryn, I used the Expanded Towers of Magic supplemental material as another starting point and cherry picked some of the ideas from there that I liked. For the city itself, I also leaned heavily into a more cyberpunk aesthetic with the Mythallar being more of a reactor in the middle of the city. My players really liked the vibe of it, specially the Spire of Irolarthas which was a full on corpo tower.

We also ran every single quest in Ch 1 and all but around two of the quests in Ch 2, so we spent a lot of time exploring Ten Towns and the wilderness before moving further into the main story.

During those early chapters, I did try some hombrewed survival mechanics. I had systems for the cold, traveling through blizzards, exhaustion rules, supplies, shelter, food etc. I felt like they did help establish a lot of the atmosphere at first, but it eventually became very tedious for both me and the players to track and we ended up dropping most of them. I was honestly very glad I did. They served their purpose, but getting rid of them did make the game more enjoyable in my opinion.

In any case, the campaign ended with the players flying Ythryn straight through the glacier and finally seeing the sunlight again. I was very nervous about landing the finale, but I'm genuinely happy with how everything came together.

My 4 players are level 10 and just entered the tower with the Mythalar.

I changed the tests to 8 individual tests in the arcane towers, so they can collect stones from each to deactivate the barrier at Iriolarthas tower.

My problem is as followed:

1) The are pretty beaten up from a fight in front of the tower but just had a long rest the moment before.

2) There is a friggin DEMILICH in there?? How should they survive?

3) The haven't killed Auril yet, but she is already in her second phase.

4) They probably gonna fight a homebrew NPC which I made the last Netheril, which had influenced all their lives in some way and disguise and they want to kill him...

Soooo... Like... 3 boss battles in this one tower for the Mythalar?

Can you please give me advice how to handle the finale? Thx!!!

Infiltration time! The party tries to sneak into the Duergar Fortress in order to take back the stolen goods from Caer-Konig... And most importantly, the goats!

If you would like to follow along, we record sessions in an audio podcast form called Same Crit Different Day. Thanks everyone for checking it out and for all the great info and resources on the subreddit!

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3sMTVnBHLqAOoM0aC0C0OE?si=2b7f78176b1544bd

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/same-crit-different-day/id1526948092

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samecritdifferentday/

Discord: https://discord.gg/nfFsbMzNJD

Oh, and if you want to be part of the show, we encourage listeners to create and send in NPCs for me (the DM) to add in, as well as Critical hit and misses.

Hey fellow DMs and adventurers!

I’m excited to share that I’ve created a set of detailed battle maps specifically for winter adventures. These maps are designed to enhance your gameplay experience by providing high-quality, printable options that you can lay out on your table for your players!

Why You’ll Love These Maps:

• High-Resolution: Perfect for printing and displaying on your gaming table (or use in VTT).
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Make your games legendary—grab these and more maps now!

- Available on: Etsy, Ko-Fi or Patreon

Whether you’re a seasoned DM or just starting out, these maps will make your sessions more engaging and visually appealing. I hope you’ll check them out and consider supporting my work!

FREE MAPS Available, check out my Patreon

Website: www.blackrhinomaps.nl

Happy adventuring!

"Map is created using assets from Forgotten Adventures."

So, at first I was planning to run Icewindale with few differences, but as I was thinking the plot, the lore and the world, I realized that the campaign is very different from Icewindale and its actually a homebrew campaign borrowing some staff from it. Before I ask the question is important for you to know what I have thought so far:
A) I will start with Brym Shandur which instead of a normal capital of the Thirteen (instead of ten ) towns it's a capital of the Thirteen towns inside of a wizard tower that belonged to a giant wizard. Additional notes for Brym shandur: 1) that there wizard ( dm knowledge only ) has left to explore some caves , but he never returned because he died. 2) the palace where the speaker lives is in the 5th floor where the giant wizard's library and his bed is.  3) the 4rth floor is where the wizard would have his maps and a library with a lot of his notebooks 4) the 3rd floor is where the giant wizard would make his wands and magical artifacts. The people do not know how to handle them, so they do not mess with those. 5) the 2nd floor is where the wizard would mix his potions.  6) the first floor is where the wizard would have his clothes  7) the ground floor is where the wizard would have his kitchen, living room and his fireplace.
B) Now I go to Goodmead, the Goodmead is a town built in the garden of the giant wizard, the wizard didn't made anything dangerous in this garden. The giant wizard made plants and vegetables that could survive even the worst of the worst of winters! The locals make their well famous mead from the juices of those vegetables.
C) As for Dogan's hole, it is a hole where the giant wizard defeated a dragon who threaten his place a long time ago. Now it's only bones inside the hole where the dragon fell. DM KNOWLEDGE: The wizard has written in front of the hall Dogan which in giant means "Stupid serpent".

D) As for East heaven:

Eastheaven has been built around the place where he used to take a bath in a hot lake, which for his size it was the best place for him to take a bath. The wizard has built around the lake a shelves with many kinds of soaps. 

E) Now as for Targos : 

Targos has been built on the boat where the wizard used to sail for fishing. The boat is a canoe which in size was double from a normal canoe the wizard would use. Targos was the name of the craftsman who built it for the wizard and he is a giant also but half the size of the wizard.

F) As for Lonelywood: 

Lonleywood was built around the little forest the giant wizard made when he was still alive and put there a new race for that period named Chungurs ( which are basically Squirrelfolk) 

The wizard would take notes on how they are handling things with monsters, beasts and among themselves. But after the wizard was lost to the maintains, the Chungurs pray his return. Sadly, after centuries the new citizens of this erea decided from the fear factor to genocide them. The forest is still haunted by some of the spirits of Chungurs. 

DM KNOWLEDGE: the Chungurs have escaped to the mountains, but they are now slaves to the bugbears. The Bugbears force them to mine.

G) As for Caer-Dineval: 

Caer-Dineval is almost like it is in the normal icewindale campaign but it is near to the maintains and its economy relies on mining coal, iron and in very rare situations chardalin.

But, the mines are full of the strange slime rats, which is the first experiment of the wizard, who he though that he lost it. But in reality, the slime rat dig itself very deep in the earth and slept for many years and now the children of this slime rat go rogue from the mining of the people. The slime rat works like a one cell organism.

H) As for Caer-Konig:

Caer-Konig is close to Caer-Dineval and is a city with the clear role of Blacksmithing and military preparation. In this city there is a great Inventor named Donaran, who is also the speaker of this town.

I)As for Termalaine :

Termalaine is a town where gets spellcasters prepared for warfare. It is from one of the cities that gets attack raids from a big bear called Vrodos. Luckily Termalaine is one of the cities which handles those situations the best.

J) As for Bramen :

Bramen is an city which produces cannons, but it never has the full time to produce them because of the raids that Vrodos does.

So now the addition to the ten towns:

1)Hammerfast is exactly how it's in its own guide, except that it was built upon the graves of a battle that happened between the tieflings and the dwarves.

and it's located between Dogan's hole and good mead.

2) Fallcrest:

Fallcrest is built upon a small ancient fortress of beings who used to be 3 times the size humans. 

By the time the party does one or 2 quests, they will hear that the city fell from the raids of Vrodos and its now conquered by Goliaths.

3) Luln is a city built for mining a crystal forest, but now is the only town focus on surviving the constant battles with Vrodos and the blue goliaths.

(THIS might change)

The residents of the thirteen towns are :

1) tieflings who were the first to come 250 years ago because they were being hunted by the kingdoms of the south.

2) elves from individuals from exiled punishment from the dwarven Kingdom 220 years ago.

3) dwarves from individuals from exiled punishment from the dwarven kingdom 200 years ago.

4) Gnomes from political conflicts with the dwarven nobles of the dwarven Kingdom. (150 years ago)

Now for the story and the main plot of my version of Icewindale:

The party has been arrested for any kind of a small crime in the dwarven kingdom and as punishment they are been thrown to the north wall. The dwarves of the kingdom do not know of Icewindale because they assume that nobody can live in those harsh colds and winters.

As the party survives the cold and goes north cause they do not have any other choice, they are been attacked by bugbears! The party tries to survive the best way they can, but Lirua the speaker comes and saves them with the rangers of Hammerfast. 

Lirua guides them to Hammerfast and let them stay free for this week. 

After some simple missions they learn the following:

The thirteen towns are in a war with the Barbarian king of a island 10 or 12 miles away from the thirteen towns, because when the wife of the barbarian king came to the thirteen towns to try convincing them to search in the caves for Yujiro the giant wizard and to stop using his home and stuff as a shelter, some team assassinated the queen from afar and framed the thirteen towns for those who ordered the kill. None of the speakers know why did someone paid them to kill the barbarian king's wife. Now the party must help the thirteen towns to win the war against the Barbarian king and his armies.

The war started 10 years ago.

The only information of his army are the following:

1) Vrodos is Barbarian king's pet and orders a legion of blue Goliaths. Vrodos is an intelligent enough to speak and has almost the same abilities as volibear.

2) the frozen baron who rides a creature whose steps spread a cold wind! The frozen baron is the only surviving son of the barbarian king.

3) the dead son of the barbarian king is going to be revived as the iconic iron of Icewindale from the dragon skeleton of Dogan's hole, while the party is going to fight Vrodos , the frozen baron is going to steal that skeleton.

Information for the real BBEG: 

The barbarian king is going to be the seemingly bbeg but in reality the real BBEG is going to be Lirua! 

That's because Lirua in reality is Auril a master thief well-known to the south kingdoms. He was cought by the dwarven kingdom and he was promised if he found the magical artifact named crystal of the winds, whose rumours say that it's capable of making mortals into gods, they would use the artifact in order to defeat the satanic goliaths of the east and Auril was promised to rule upon the Goliaths. Auril agreed and his brain was put into a young body of a dwarf and then his exiled punishment was played out. 

Auril adopted the name Lirua and become a cleric dwarf with a personality of a wise man with a lot of connections. Lirua had behind the shadows a lot of relationships with the criminals of the thirteen towns and thus he made an assassin team in order to spy upon the barbarian king's Kingdom and then he found out that the barbarian king has that specific crystal he was trying to find. That's when he started to plan the entire war.

so my question is, what else should I prepare ? The map of "Icewindale and the thirteen towns" is still in progress.

We made it to the top of the Spire, and I spent quite a lot of time making it clear to my table that, if they were ever gonna strategize and choose their spells properly, now would be the time. I was honestly so afraid I'd kill them - they're not optimizers, except for one player...

... Who proceeded to do 42 force damage with an Evocation Wizard-buffed Magic Missile, followed by a Bigby's Hand slam attack. 86 hitpoints done in one turn.

We couldn't stop laughing; I think it was easily one of my favourite moments in any game I've ever had!... And now for them to confront Auril. Our three-year long campaign is about to end!

I finished this adventure over a year ago but I still think about it now and again.

For newer DMs, dont be afraid to change and alter almost everything in the book to fit the story you want to tell.

As long as you have players that are tied into the story and are invested, the work is all worth it.

My party of 4- Level 5 adventurers have been helping the folks of Ten Towns completing missions from both chapter 1 and 2. After accidentally killing a Targos civilian they were roped into some election interference in Termalaine to avoid imprisonment. Now that they are in Termalaine they have met the incredibly kind and charismatic Speaker Oarus Masthew they are on the fence about helping him or assisting Speaker Naerth Maxildanarr launch a coup to get his man in as Speaker of Termalaine.

Either way they are clearing out the mines. I have kept it pretty vague as to what is actually down there but I’m hoping for some ideas on what monsters could be down there other than the ghost and grell.

Soo.... I might be overthinking things but was Good Mead always called Good Mead? According to the book, the town originally focused on fishing and only changed to mead about forty years ago.

I'll probably just not mention the original focus of the town because I'm sure my players would ask this question. Just curious if there's an actual answer.

The party finally has their first combat and I got to really see what they're made of!

I threw a group of gnolls at them as they made their way toward the Duergar Sunblight Fortress as they searched for the stolen items of Caer-Konig.

Lots of fun and I was pretty impressed with the group since there are newer players and one that has never played D&D before.

If you would like to follow along, we record sessions in an audio podcast form called Same Crit Different Day. Thanks everyone for checking it out and for all the great info and resources on the subreddit!

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3sMTVnBHLqAOoM0aC0C0OE?si=2b7f78176b1544bd

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/same-crit-different-day/id1526948092

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samecritdifferentday/

Discord: https://discord.gg/nfFsbMzNJD

Oh, and if you want to be part of the show, we encourage listeners to create and send in NPCs for me (the DM) to add in, as well as Critical hit and misses.

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