Twitter: @dmdcpodcast
E-mail: dmdiscoursepodcast@gmail.com
Twitter: @dmdcpodcast
E-mail: dmdiscoursepodcast@gmail.com
When Mishann traveled to the far northern region of Icewind Dale, she had thought many a poor tale would become before her. Trouble was known throughout the realm but she had envisioned herself bringing the light of Amaunator, the Morninglord, to this dreary realm, a bastion of respite for weary travelers and residents of Ten Towns. Perhaps even her spirit could inspire others to see the sun regain its rightful place in the open sky over the frozen north. Not this day, it would seem. On her office table were an approximately two hundred and thirty pieces of gold, counted among in various coinage and gems, a pair of used snowshoes, and what could generously be referred to as a poem. The paladin, John, sincerely volunteered it as payment.
“This then,” Mishann said, “is all you have?” The adventurers had been here near a tenday, but all strangers to the region save one. It may have been too much to hope for them to bring enough payment.
Jorora, the drow who came to the temple’s doorstep days ago after being separated in a blizzard from her friends, simply nodded. “There hasn’t been all that much good loot in hag caves.” She looked out of the office towards the sanctum, to the body set atop the Altar of the Morninglord. “And we didn’t have time to look around the Caer for anything valuable. Things got out of hand pretty quickly.”
John sat up from his chair. “I’ll say! A quick fight turned upside down - it’s a small miracle any of us made it out of there. Please, Mishann, if you could simply find it in your heart to bring back out friend I’d-” He stopped as Jorora raised a hand.
“You’d be doing us a favor, and out of your own pocket, we know - but maybe we can find some way down the road to pay you back?”
Mishann smiled, grim, and placed the small treasure into a sack too large for it all. “We can worry bout that later. Let us see about speaking to the Morninglord and bringing your friend back.”
Outside the weather had abated. A dim glow hung over the town of Bryn Shander, a small comfort as Tivesk checked the dogsled. Their, and at this point they had begun to call him, ‘captive’, the innkeeper’s son Huarwar, had given to a fitful rest after some spellwork. It was no small effort keeping him quiet, but at least the hounds didn’t mind the cargo. Tivesk turned over their shoulder towards Micah. “Figure they’re almost done in there?”
The cleric had, more than usual, been quiet since they arrived back in Bryn Shander. Micah simply shrugged. “Who knows.”
“Well I’ll be happy to get this one back to Bremen, the sooner the better.” Tivesk clutched at their chest, and leaned over. “I’m going to go in and see what’s taking them.” It was a difficult task to breathe and walk forward into the temple.
Micah had not noticed. Inside her cloak she palmed one of the amulets recovered from Caer-Dineval. Whether under her own bidding or another’s, she could not be rid of the sensation that it spoke to her; dark whispers, all the sweeter for the grandeur promised for her loyalty. Forsake her god for another. Nothing in all Faerun made more sense in this quiet moment in the fading gleam of the streetlamps.
—
The death of a player character can be a turning point for a campaign. Perhaps the death was satisfying, a conclusion of the character’s arc that would leave its intended mark on the table - one that will be recalled down the road as a worthy sacrifice or the natural progression of consequences. I’ve had both occur at the table, but what happened the other night in the Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign was not the one I’ve been talking about here. It was abrupt, unexpected, and threw the party’s plans to the sidelines so that they could resolve their current problem: how do we get the bard back?
Resurrection isn’t even something that happens in my homebrew since I tend to keep the access to magic on the lower end of the spectrum. Clerics aren’t rare or anything, it’s just that there are only a handful walking around the world at a given time that would even have the ability to bring someone back from the dead. I like how it ramps up tension, that there’s almost no opportunity for a player’s character to be revived if they walk into a trap or grossly overestimate their abilities - otherwise it can just be a quick trip to the city temple, and a hefty sum of gold to revive a previously dead party member.
In the Forgotten Realms, this shit happens all the time. PCs die out in the magical wilderness all the time, adventurers with big dreams in their heads of striking it rich. And eventually, some of them won’t make it back from those trips, or if they do it’ll be their cold body dragged along by their companions. Go see whoever it is that gives praise to Chauntea or Ilmater or whoever your resident divine power is, slide them some shiny rocks, and boom you’re back up and don’t have to worry about making a new character sheet. It’s fair to say you should give the players an idea of what their odds of coming back from the other side are in your campaign, at least so that if they do die from what feels like out of nowhere, they won’t feel doubly blindsided when you tell them that their friends better start making funeral arrangements.
Luckily, being Faerunian natives, the Rimebreakers were able to find someone they knew who could help them out - the priest leading the Temple of Amaunator in Bryn Shander, Mishann. Mishann had already met the party as the lead in for Jorora’s player joining after the first session, so they were on familiar enough terms to see about getting her to resurrect Tessa. However, this being only the start of their adventure, there was something that as bold operators in the frozen north they were sorely in need of: money. They took a look between all their sheets and were able to figure they had about some three hundred odd gold pieces between them. Given that we had just started, I offered them a devil’s bargain: all of their gold, every last bit of it, in exchange for the return of Tessa the aasimar bard. They took it, as a group of do-gooders likely would for one of their companions, but that led to dealing with the other problem: they were broke as hell.
Remember how I mentioned at the end of their adventure in Easthaven, that they could have an alternative reward for the loot that they took from the cave? One of the players then asked, “Hey - didn’t the mayor of Easthaven, what’s his name, say that he was interested in taking that hag cauldron we found off our hands? Do you think he’d give us some gold for it if we headed back there?” Of course he’d be interested! But I didn’t need to respond with the same enthusiasm that I was feeling. There were a lot of neat things about the Easthaven follow-up adventure I was keen on running, and while I definitely didn’t plan for them to head back so soon to address their monetary dilemma, I wasn’t against them returning to exchange the Cauldron of Plenty.
We’ll come back to that - first, the party needed to head to Bremen to drop off Huarwar, the surprisingly belligerent son of that town’s innkeeper. The party, from interacting with him, began to piece together exactly what was going on with the Knights of Black Swords - the cult to Levistus taking up residence in Caer-Dineval. They put his personality down to brainwashing, which was not entirely far off from the truth. His mother, Cora Mulphoon, seemed to also complement that story after seeing her son in that state. It seemed plausible, at least, but they were left without any idea of what to do for the poor lad, and instead had to hope that an answer would come to them in time.
Of course, as per the privilege of our station behind the screen we get to know that is an almost hopeless situation that young Huarwar has gotten himself into. These amulets that all the cultists wear are all corrupted by Levistus; spells can detect this corruption simply enough. At dawn, the possessor of an amulet rolls a d6 for each amulet. On 1 one, they make a DC10 Charisma Saving Throw or immediately become lawful evil. It doesn’t help that Jorah, the cleric, picked up one of these amulets off the cultists and kept it on her person since returning from the Caer. I had the player make rolls in secret, whenever the twenty-four hours would pass requiring them to see if they succumbed to the effect of the chardalyn piece within the amulet. On the second day, while in Bryn Shander, they did. The book also mentions that such an effect can be broken by a curse, but after 9 days nothing short of a wish spell or divine intervention can reverse it’s effect. Out here in the frozen north, Jorah’s player’s options were limited - but thankfully, they were a good sport about it, and intrigued about roleplaying the sudden alignment shift. The party was keyed into that something had happened to their cleric, but wasn’t sure entirely what. We’ll follow up with Jorah’s new worldview issues another time. I’ll just say that, if the players are keen on experiencing a sudden change to their characters, I say go for it - see what you can do to shake up the stability they’ve been experiencing so far with their development.
The party was also given two more adventuring sites to visit in the future, once they finished their detour to Easthaven and returned to Caer-Dineval. In Bremen, they ran into a researcher looking into the mysterious creature of the lake. Without going into the details of it, this quest has the players scouring the lake for signs of this creature - so even before getting to interact with it, there’s a little minigame involving them trying to find the thing in the first place. Once they do, there’s a number of options of how they can interact with it, which in turn can lead the PCs to other parts of Ten Towns. In Bryn Shander, they learned of the Black Cabin from Copper Knobberknocker, a rock gnome taking up residence in the House of the Morninglord alongside Mishann. He hadn’t heard from a friend of his in a while, Macreadus, who was working on a device to end the Frostmaiden’s eternal winter - he’d appreciate it if they could pop in and see how he’s doing. I do adore how, in keeping with the idea of the sandbox, there’s so many opportunities for you to clue your players in to the happenings of Icewind Dale. It gives that impression of the world being alive, events happening around them and so static a place that just waits for them to walk into the map. Whether you’re progressing things without them being present, or offering them new avenues of exploration, it helps to include details such as this to aid in your campaign’s believability.
—
“I didn’t think we’d be back here so soon,” Tessa said, none the worse for her brush with death. “At least it’s more civilized than Caer-Dineval. Can actually find a place to rest and get decent food.”
Tivesk said, “To be fair we didn’t meet the folk of Caer-Dineval at their best.”
Jorora said, “Again - still one of the better welcomes I’ve received.” She turned to look at the dogsled behind them, and their new companion Alassar, who drove iit forward. They had replaced the innkeeper’s son with their Cauldron of Plenty, sequestered beneath a tarp but unmistakable in its shape. “Do you think Danneth would still be interested?”
“The speaker? Sure, I don’t see why not. Hard to find anything like this easily, even without,” Tivesk trailed off and circled an open palm above their head. “From what I heard he’s good people too - and not without means.”
Jorora laughed. “I can’t imagine any of the speakers are ‘without means’. I just hope that means he has deep enough pockets to pay for this. Wouldn’t mind a little bonus either, given the trouble we’ve been through.”
“It’s not like I was looking to die in some disgusting gatehouse!” Tessa said. “And maybe you would have haggled a little better with the priest? Gotten a better deal that didn’t leave us flat broke?”
“I was just talking about the caves, but if you want to turn this into being about you then we can.”
Tessa went silent, and then said, “No, that’s alright. Let’s just go see the speaker about the cauldron.”
They kept quiet until reaching the town hall, and were greeted by an eager clerk. “Right this way, she said, “I’m sure Speaker Danneth Waylen would be happy to make time for you.”
—
So the party had a couple leads to follow up on and a shift in alignment for one of the people in charge of keeping them up in a fight, but now they decided to head back to Easthaven, to meet with Speaker Danneth Waylen about selling the Cauldron of Plenty. What’s nice about this section, which the book refers to as the Town Hall Capers, is that it’s actually a twofer, which is something I completely forgot until I started working on this script - you get one adventure for the party selling the Cauldron to the Speaker, and another where the duergar in town (including Xadorok’s son), attempt to steal some pieces from the chardalyn ship figurehead in the backroom. You can run one, both, or neither at various points in the adventure - if the party stumbles onto whats’ happening in the Dale some other way, that’s great! Again this is a nice way to pad about the other elements of the story in various places so that, eventually, the party comes across the sinister undercurrent awaiting them in further chapters. Bonus fun fact: the ship’s figurehead can also be interacted with while they visit the Town Hall, separate from the quests. Also, turns out the White Lady ghost is real? And she’s haunting the hell out of this place. Neat!
The Rimebreakers strike a quick deal with Danneth, even getting enough of a persuasion roll to receive double the payment with some gemstones alongside the coins. It does require him to take some time to put together one thousand gold pieces, but given how things are going for them now the party was more than happy to wait. They were free to wait at the inn, but they made the wise decision to stay put at the town hall to keep an eye on their paycheck, so to speak. The speaker is more than amenable to this - he’s a good man, all things considered, and the party’s done right by Easthaven so far.
Turns out some of the other town speakers are not. Recall the creepy guy with the tiny dragon in the tavern of Targos? Speaker Maxildanarr? It’s revealed he’s part of the Zhentarim, a faction of mercenaries operating in the greater Faerun continent known for being Not Good People. They’ve got their own network of spies even up this far, and turns out that Prudence, the Easthaven town hall clerk, is one of their agents. She sends word to Targos about the Cauldron, and three thugs arrive posthaste to steal it from under Danneth Waylen’s nose. They get so far as walking down to the hold and getting into close quarters combat with the Rimebreakers, and after the fight at the gatehouse in Caer-Dineval feel sharp and ready to take down some low level criminals. They get the information out from one of the thugs, and while Danneth Waylen is surprised by Prudence’s betrayal, the cauldron is still in his possession, and he gladly exchanges payment with the party.
Not a bad night for them, all things considered - one player back from the dead, two new quest leads to follow up on, some juicy gossip about a prominent leader of Ten Towns, and their pockets a collective one thousand gold pieces heavier. For now, though, they have one place in mind to head next: it’s back to Caer-Dineval, to rid the town of the Knights of the Black Sword, and get payback for the other evening. And I think that’s where we’ll leave off for this episode.
Thanks for tuning into the DM Discourse as we continue towards the early end of our Rime of the Frostmaiden. If you liked the show, drop a review on wherever it is that you’re getting your podcasts from, or hit me up on Twitter @dmdcpodcast. Tell folks you think would be interested about this show - I want to know what y’all want to hear. In the meantime, love y’all, have a great week.