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Rime of the Frostmaiden is a Dungeons & Dragons module set in the Icewind Dale region of Faerûn around 1489 DR.

The story is DMed by Aaron Brown and hosted on Discord.

Party[]

  • Falidus (Peter) – Half-Drow Soulknife Rogue with some Fey ancestry; very headstrong, passionate about the people he cares about; very dexterous and tries his best, but things don't always work out.
  • Lucine (Cassie) – Satyr Bard; likes to have a good time, do satyry things, engage in general debauchery and overindulge.
  • Armamore (John) – High-Elf Cleric; thinks he's better than everyone else, and will forget how to do things he's done dozens of times.
  • Dharwyn (Anthony) – Changeling Oathbreaker Paladin; raised at the Temple of Asterion in the Nether Mountains, struggles with the patience tenet of the Oath he took.
  • Vellum (Zerineam) – Fairy Bard, Associate of the Speaker of Bryn Shander.

Summary[]

Session ½ (06/15/2022)[]

A call has come for adventurers to travel north beyond the Spine of the World to provide aid to Ten Towns, and various mage orders have answered the call, along with the party of Falidus, Lucine, Armamore, and Dharwyn.

Day One[]

After traveling up Ten Trail and stopping briefly in the city of Bryn Shander, a trade city that acts as the capital of Ten Towns, the party learned that more practical knowledge of the region’s predicament could be gained in Targos, and continued on to the northwest with little trouble, awkwardly encountering guards before gaining entry through the wooden wall of the town. On the way to the Three Flags Sailing tavern, the party was approached by a large grey dog wearing a torn harness that Falidus, Armarmore, and Dharwyn decidedly did not notice; following Lucine's instincts, the party allowed the animal to lead them to a two-story residence in town.

There they met Keegan Velryn, owner of the dog named Boy, who was expecting his husband Garrett to be returning from an expedition. The party was invited in, and learned that Garrett had been hired by a party of three adventurers about three days prior to take them up the nearby mountain of Kelvin’s Cairn, and that the group had set out for the town of Caer-Konig to hire more sled-dogs for the journey. Keegan examines Boy, and discovers dried and frozen blood on one of his hind legs that is not the dog’s, and implores the party to find Garrett, offering to secure them lodging at The Luskan Arms tavern during their stay in Targos.

He makes tea for the party, which Dharwyn determines is not poisoned, and explains that Targos and all of Ten Towns have suffered under a perpetual winter for the last nine months since the arrival of the Frostmaiden, Auril, and that none of the Towns’ desperate attempts, even including offering living sacrifices, have appeased her; he explains further that northern Goliath tribes are rumored to have attempted unsuccessfully to mollify her, and that Duergar have begun using the Frostmaiden’s blizzard as an opportunity to raid the Towns, with one being captured several weeks prior in Lonelywood and summarily executed in Bryn Shander. The party agrees to search for Garrett, and Keegan leads them to The Luskan Arms, an old establishment that has more recently fallen into disrepair; they meet Owenn, and learn that the Town Speaker Naerth is currently the only patron of the tavern. Keegan agrees to discuss his opinions of Naerth with the party the next morning, after they return to retrieve Boy, who should be able to lead them to the last place the dog knew Garrett to be.

Lucine promptly takes all four keys and selects her favorite room, while the rest of the party chooses among the rest; Dharwyn finds a small mirror in one of the rooms, and while checking to see if it’s silver, becomes convinced that the reflection is a magically-generated picture of himself. He proceeds to retrieve a room key from Lucine and choose a different room, struggling to operate the door until Falidus indicates that the key is upside-down; Dharwyn insists that he was raised in a temple with stone archways, claiming that he didn’t see a door with a lock until he was 27-years-old. Dharwyn then accidentally locks the door from the outside, struggles to open it, unlocks it and heads inside, covering the mirror in his own room with a blanket.

Day Two[]

The next morning, the party wakes for breakfast, and they learn that The Luskan Arms has been in Owenn's family for 200 years, having been built by his ancestors with timber from the city of Luskan below the Spine of the World; Lucine pockets the spare jerky, and Dharwyn finishes the spare coffee. The party then returns to Keegan’s residence to his relief and briefly discuss Naerth, who Keegan indicates has a tendency “to know things”; Keegan then hands over Boy to Falidus, who casts Psychic Whispers in order to create a four-hour telepathic bond with both the dog and Lucine, who gives Boy some of her jerky.

Session 1 (06/29/2022)[]

Departing from Keegan’s house with Boy, the party heads out of Targos and along the road back toward Bryn Shander before turning northeast toward Termalaine, fighting against the winds blowing in from The Sea of Moving Ice to the northwest. Falidus uses his telepathic bond with Boy to examine the dog’s memories of the night that Garrett went missing: after reaching a base camp in the foothills of Kelvin’s Cairn, Garrett left Boy and five rented dogs with his sled at the camp and headed up the mountain with his clients, after which the sled became overturned and the dogs were trapped, but Boy managed to free himself and return to Targos, where he spotted Lucine, Falidus, Armamore, and Dharwyn. Lucine gives Boy some more bacon and uses her Mage Hand to scratch his ears while the party continues.

By midday, the group reaches a point at which a trail breaks off to the east of the road to Termalaine, and Dharwyn takes a moment to fill his flask with fresh snow before noticing a blizzard making its way down the mountain toward them. They press on along the trail, making surprisingly good time through the growing storm until they reach the Dwarven Valley, a fifteen-foot-deep ravine carved by a clan of dwarves that lived in Kelvin’s Cairn in order to provide a shelter against the wind. As the party moves into the ravine, Lucine is struck in the back of the leg by a javelin while dodging a second projectile. They spot five kobolds along the ledges above the trail and engage them in battle, summarily picking off the enemies one by one without taking any additional damage themselves.

As the blizzard dies down, the party spots Kelvin’s Cairn about a mile away and continues onward for another two hours, reaching the base of the mountain as night begins to fall. As they approach, Boy breaks free and rushes to an icy outcropping where they find two tents set up, a sled overturned nearby with five sled dogs still harnessed to it. Falidus and Dharwyn release the dogs while Lucine feeds them jerky, after which they immediately flee in the direction of Caer-Konig; the party investigates the tents, which were pitched within the last few days by Garrett and his clients, and discover that the overturned sled is still functional. Beneath it, they find two barrels, one empty and one mostly full of provisions

The party decides to rest for the night, and Dharwyn casts Sacred Flame to start a fire in the firepit, filling a kettle with snow to brew tea; using his Divine Sense, he is able to discern that there are no evil beings within sixty feet of the camp, after which Armamore attempts to Detect Magic, but senses no enchantments in the vicinity. The team settles in, and the night passes uneventfully: Lucine takes first shift and makes a snow Solar, Falidus takes second shift and spots an owl before adding a sword to Lucine’s snow Solar, Armamore takes third shift and spots a rabbit before adds wings to Lucine’s snow Solar, and Dharwyn takes fourth shift. He places his Greatsword into the fire to heat it and spends two hours staring into the flames, ruminating on the fact that he had killed a creature that was fleeing with its back to him; without paying much attention to what he's doing, he adds a pair of twisting devil horns to Lucine's snow Solar.

Day Three[]

As dawn should be breaking, he spots the tail end of a winged creature passing across the sky with a trail of night following behind it, covering over the sun as the rest of the party wakes for the day.

Session 2 (07/13/2022)[]

Lucine makes a second snow Solar before the party sets out from the basecamp to climb the mountain, spotting a group of mountain goats during their ascent before reaching a stone outcropping several hours later. Shortly after reaching the ledge, an avalanche breaks loose and tumbles along the pathway that the party had just ascended, and when it comes to rest, they spot a body in bloodstained winter gear among the snow. They revive the injured man, and discover that he is Garret Velryn, who explains that he and his clients were attacked by a yeti who carried the rest of their party further up the mountain.

The team is then attacked by a pair of Crag Cats, drawn by the scent of blood on Garret's clothes, and Lucine sustains a vicious attack that renders her unconscious; Dharwyn attempts to channel divinity in order to reflect the damage that Lucine's attacker inflicted on her back onto it, but he finds himself unable to do so, so Armamore channels his divinity instead to revive her and Dharwyn conjures a shield around her to provide additional defense. Dharwyn is then attacked, losing concentration on the shield protecting Lucine; he responds by summoning an infernal flame that destroys the creature. Falidus flanks the remaining Crag Cat and attacks it with a psionic dagger, rendering it unconscious before killing it.

The party takes a short rest in the outcropping to recover, healing Garret and arming him with a breastplate as they resolve to continue up the mountain and rescue any survivors. They complete a perilous climb that leaves Falidus exhausted, but eventually discover the mouth of a cavern with indications of a bloody struggle. After formulating an entrance strategy, the party proceeds into the mountain and discovers the skeletal remains of the goliath Mokingo Growling Bear, who had been a member of Garret's party; not long after, Lucine hears a scream from deeper inside the cave, and the party pushes on to find a pair of Yeti tormenting a halfling woman.

Falidus stealths into the shadows of the cavern and Dharwyn Blesses himself, Lucine, and Armamore to prepare them for combat. Lucine casts Shatter on the Yeti and Dharwyn lands a Greatsword attack, after which Armamore casts Guiding Bolt and Falidus succeeds in delivering a devastating sneak attack with a pair of psionic daggers. Garret successfully attacks with his longbow, killing the larger Yeti, at which point Dharwyn casts Toll the Dead on the remaining Yeti and Armamore casts Poison Spray, killing it as well. The party learns from the halfling Perilou that the third member of their group, the tiefling wizard Astrix, died after falling into a fissure in the cavern while fighting the Yeti.

Dharwyn and Lucine spend half-an-hour harvesting the horns from the two Yeti before the party proceeds back down the mountain, reaching the basecamp at the foot of Kelvin's Cairn shortly after sundown. Garret reunites with Boy, and the expanded party camps for the night before heading uneventfully back through Dwarven Valley toward Targos the next morning.

Session 3 (07/20/2022)[]

Day Four[]

Delivering Garret and Boy back to their home, the party is treated to a home-cooked meal and several rounds of tea and mead, and they tell Keegan the story of how his husband delivered the killing blow to a Yeti with a single arrow, calling him Garret Yetisbane. Having lost the taste for adventure, Perilou pays Garret for the excursion up Kelvin's Cairn as well as giving the party 40 gold pieces for rescuing her, and leaves for Bryn Shander; Keegan also offers the party four of his own scrimshaw carvings in the shapes of a bear, a narwhal, a rabbit, and a knucklehead trout. Lucine claims the narwhal.

The party is soon visited by Vellum, a representative of the Speaker of Bryn Shander, who delivers a plea for any willing adventurers to help the city stand against the Duergar warlord Xardorok Sunblight, who has established a fortress in the mountains of the Spine of the World for the purpose of launching an assault on Ten-Towns; the Speaker is offering a reward of 500 gold pieces for the defeat of the Duergar. The party accepts the offer and returns with Vellum to the Luskan Arms, where Dharwyn gives the Yeti horns to Owenn for display above the bar. Armamore surreptitiously determines which rooms at the tavern are being used by Speaker Naerth, and the party settles in for the night.

Day Five[]

The next morning, Keegan returns the breastplate that Dharwyn had lent to Garret, which he now gives to Armamore. The party sets out with Vellum on two sleds and heads south along Ten Trail, past Bryn Shander toward the Spine of the World; they divert along a spur path at the foot of the mountains and proceed into a wooded area where they make camp for the night. Lucine's watch passes uneventfully, but Falidus's watch is interrupted when a Coldlight Walker attacks the party's encampment. Falidus and Lucine take heavy injuries and Dharwyn is temporarily blinded; Falidus retaliates with a flurry of psychic daggers, Lucine reacts with a Shatter spell, Armamore strikes the Walker with a Guiding Bolt, and Dharwyn delivers the killing blow by driving his Greatsword through the creature, pinning its corpse to the ground.

The party rests and recovers; Dharwyn's watch passes uneventfully as he places his blade in the fire again, and as dawn should be breaking, Armamore spots the tail end of a winged creature passing across the sky with a trail of night following behind it, covering over the sun as the rest of the party wakes for the day.

Session 4 (08/03/2022)[]

Day Six[]

The party pushes through a heavy snowfall as they continue into the mountains, finding their way to the base of the Sublight Fortress in the peaks of the Spine of the World. Falidus discovers a narrow staircase, and the group cautiously ascends to a massive set of double doors; Falidus tries and fails to pick the lock, after which Armamore casts Thaumaturgy to cover the sound of the Knock spell that Vellum uses to unlock the doors. The entrance opens to reveal a portcullis that soon opens on its own; Vellum casts Aid on the party, and they proceed into a small antechamber.

A watchguard quickly spots them and alerts his fellow soldiers, after which he is eliminated just as quickly by Falidus; Dharwyn then moves into an adjacent hallway followed by Lucine and Vellum, and the three are attacked by a platoon of eight Duergar who had previously been invisible, with Vellum being nearly knocked unconscious. Dharwyn successfully Commands one Duergar to surrender, and Vellum casts Faerie Fire to put the Duergar at disadvantage, after which Armamore confirms that the soldiers serve Xardorok Sunblight and Dharwyn heals Vellum, who successfully puts another Duergar to Sleep.

As the party battles against the platoon, Dharwyn Misty Steps to the far side of the platoon to flank them and channels divinity, unleashing his Dreadful Aspect to terrify the remaining Duergar into retreating, enabling the group to elimiate several of them as they attempt to flee. When only the soldier that Dharwyn had commanded to surrender remains alive, the Oathbreak makes an impossibly persuasive proposition: to betray his King and aid the party in order to save his own life.

Session 5 (08/17/2022)[]

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