Are you prepared to journey to Icewind Dale, the frozen north of Faerûn? Times are strange, and countless rumors swirl around this cold and isolated land, like so many snowflakes in an endless blizzard. The next D&D adventure, announced at D&D Live 2020, is dark fantasy horror story titled Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. This encounter is the fifth part of an ongoing encounter series called “Icewind Mail: Special Delivery,” a non-canon dark comedy that leads into the official adventure. Well, sort of. It’s more like it tosses players in the general direction of the official adventure with some silly props and tells them to go have fun.

The previous encounters in this series are:

1. Loadin’ Up the Icebreaker
2. Frost and Fear in Fireshear
3. Ambush at Aurilssbarg
4. Evil on the Icy Sea

Social Encounter: Return to Fireshear

The characters begin this encounter by returning to the town of Fireshear, which they visited in part 2 of this series. This is where they bid farewell to the Icebreaker and their crew while the ship undergoes repairs after their frightful encounter with the undead giant shark in part 4 of this series. While in town, however, they may encounter some characters from the last time they were here: the duergar smith Griggle Duskloch and the community leader Kalannai Grayfur.

Read or paraphrase the following to begin this encounter; this text assumes that Griggle Duskloch and Kalannai Grayfur are both safe and sound in Fireshear after the events of the second encounter in this series. If that isn’t the case, you can modify it to suit the events of your campaign:

The Icebreaker, wounded after she was attacked in the icy seas of the Sword Coast North, has just arrived in Fireshear harbor. Captain Silvermane barks orders from the helm, commanding the vessel to be docked at a shipyard on the far side of the harbor. As you pull into the shipyard, you see a pair of familiar faces: the duergar Griggle Duskloch, a smith who accidentally unleashed a swarm of mephits in Fireshear a tenday ago, and Kalannai Grayfur, the human community leader who helped the people of Fireshear withstand the chaos. Both raise a hand to you in greeting as you walk down the gangplank.

These two working people of Fireshear wish to speak with the characters. In the past tenday, Griggle has confessed his involvement in the mephit crisis and apologized. Kalannai sentenced him to serve the community by donating several hours each day to create metal tools and materials to repair the damaged houses. Despite their initially hostile relationship, the two have commiserated over the dangers of living on the frontier and become sudden friends. Now, both Griggle and Kalannai are here to greet the characters, and to ask a favor of them.

“Hail, friends of Fireshear,” Kalannai says. “The people of this town are pleased to see your return. Or I am, at any rate.”

Kalannai and Griggle have a number of things to say to the characters, but she is also happy to simply talk.

• The characters are welcome to stay in Fireshear as long as they wish, and Kalannai will pay for their rooms at the Dancing Bear Lodge, a comfortable local inn, for up to a tenday.
• Griggle excitedly asks the characters to deliver a freshly smelted adamantine bar to the nearby town of Hundlestone, which is renowned for its master blacksmiths. He claims his bar is twice as easy to work with as typically forged adamantine, and wants to secure a trade deal in Hundelstone.
• He has a recipient in mind already, an old dwarf named Fallstaff Shorthelm, who has a reputation as a master adamantine craftsdwarf.
• He is willing to pay them 5 gp postage up front, and Kalannai promises a further 20 gp when they return to Fireshear from Icewind Dale.

If the characters choose not to accept this request, Kalannai and Griggle both look at them disappointedly. Kalannai offers to pay them double postage up-front, if that will convince them. Otherwise, she shrugs and says she’ll find a more amenable party of Deliverers next time they pass through.

Departing Fireshear

Once the characters leave Fireshear, the characters have bit of a journey ahead of them. Fortunately, Hundelstone is just about 50 miles north along the Ten Trail. This is the road they need to take to get to Ten-Towns anyway, making Hundelstone a convenient stop along the way. Their travel is uneventful—though you could choose to make their journey more dangerous by inserting some random encounters using the low-level Arctic Encounters table from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything.

This map of the Sword Coast North was created by Mike Schley for Legacy of the Crystal Shard, an adventure for 3.5e, 4th edition, and the D&D Next playtest. You can find high-res versions of this map and others for sale on his website.

Exploration Encounter: Shelter from the Storm

The characters’ trouble begins some ten miles away from Hundelstone, on a gray, overcast afternoon. Rangers with arctic terrain as their favored terrain, or anyone that succeeds on a DC 15 Wisdom (Survival) check identifies that the gray clouds covering the sky promise snow—and likely a storm.

Snowflakes begin to fall within the hour, and grow thicker and thicker in the next few hours of travel until it’s difficult for characters to see even thirty feet ahead of them through the torrent of snowfall. The characters need to hurry toward Hundelstone, but the Ten Trail is almost completely invisible beneath the snowfall.

At the start of each hour, one character in the party can make a DC 13 Wisdom (Survival) check. (Another character can help whoever is making the check, and spells like guidance can be used as well.) On a success, the characters find the road and continue along it for the next hour. On a failure, they wander, lost, and make no progress. At the end of every hour, each character must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or takes 1d10 cold damage from the ongoing snowfall.  

Once the party makes a total of three successful Wisdom (Survival) checks, they find a cabin on the outskirts of Hundelstone, and hear a loud roar, and the sounds of battle. Alternatively, they find their way here, half-frozen to death, after failing this check five times.

Combat Encounter: Battle amidst the Storm

Read or paraphrase the following to set the scene:

You emerge from the snowstorm into a wooded glade. You can faintly see a rustic cottage within this glade—but you can most definitely hear the sounds of bestial roars and battle cries. You can just barely see a huge man with a massive greatsword fending off a hulking, white-furred beast.

A neutral good human berserker named Alvan Shorthelm is battling a yeti about thirty feet away from the characters. This cottage is his, and he was forced out of it in the midst of this storm to defend it from yetis. One already lies dead, its red blood staining the snow around it, while the other fights on. Alvan is badly wounded (he has only 15 hit points remaining), and the other yeti is at full hit points. If the characters don’t intervene, he will surely die.

Failed Checks. If the characters reached this encounters after failing five Wisdom (Survival) checks, they’re probably in dire condition. You can make this encounter easier for them by having the yeti start combat with half its maximum hit points (25 hp), and remove its Chilling Gaze attack.

After Combat

Once the yeti is defeated, Alvan rushes the characters in—if he’s still conscious, at least. “This blizzard will kill you just as sure as the yetis if you stay out in it!” he shouts. His cabin is warm and surprisingly spacious, given its quaint appearance. He puts a brass kettle over his fire and offers them a cup of warm mead to take the bite away.

This man introduces himself as Alvan Shorthelm. He’s a giant of a man, a dark-skinned, tidily shaven, black-haired man with huge muscles standing just shy of six-and-a-half feet tall. If the characters recognize his name, he explains that he’s the adopted son of Falstaff and Grimelda Shorthelm, two master smiths who live in Hundelstone. He no longer lives with his dwarven parents, but he trains as an apprentice every day with his father or mother (depending on the day) in Hundelstone.

Alvan offers the characters warm furs and a place by the fire to wait out the night during the storm, and in the morning, he can take them to his parents.

Conclusion: After the Storm

When morning comes, Alvan travels with the characters northward for about an hour to Hundelstone. He’s happy to chat, but his interests are mostly in day-to-day survival—things like trapping, exploring, and wilderness medicine. His one true passion is blacksmithing, particularly the artistry that goes into making a truly exceptional tool or blade.

Hundelstone is a small town nestled up against the Spine of the World. Its homes are mostly small, one-story structures with steeply pitched rooves—save for the grand longhouse that belongs to the town’s elder. Most famous for its blacksmithing tradition, a shocking number of its buildings are forges and smithies, including the building that the characters are headed to.

Falstaff Shorthelm is working in his smithy, and greets the characters tersely as his adopted son introduces them. His eyes light up if they mention Griggle’s adamantine, and sets to work on it right away. If the characters still have the adamantine bars that Griggle possibly gave them as a reward in the second encounter in this series, he is happy to turn them into weapons or armor as a reward for helping his son fight off a yeti in the midst of a snowstorm.

• Crafting an adamantine shield takes 1 bar, a suit of medium armor takes 2 bars, and a suit of heavy armor takes 3 bars.
• A light weapon (or 10 pieces of ammunition) takes 1 bar, a one-handed melee weapon takes 2 bars, and a heavy weapon takes 3 bars.

The entire Shorthelm family works through the day on these adamantine tools, and presents them to the characters the next morning. The Shorthelms are kind and hospitable, and ask the characters about their adventures and their plans for future travels while they’re staying in town. Alvan warns the group that he’s heard strange tales coming out of Icewind Dale—rumors about eerie auroras and talk of eternal night blanketing the land. Falstaff thinks the latest rumors are just talk, and that folk say all sorts of strange things about Icewind Dale, but Alvan is convinced that there’s some truth to these tales, and warns the characters to be on their guard.

Are you excited for Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden? Looking forward to more chilly adventures over the sweltering summer? Let us know what you're looking forward to in the comments! 

Get ready for more icy adventures in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden by preordering the digital version on D&D Beyond, and get free preorder bonuses like the Glacial Digital Dice Set. 

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Did you like this encounter? Check out the encounters in the Encounter of the Week series. You can also pick up the adventures I've written on the DMs Guild, such as The Temple of Shattered Minds, a suspenseful eldritch mystery with a mind flayer villain. My most recent adventures are included in the bestselling Encounters in Theros, a collection of over 70 unique encounters created by the Guild Adepts, which can be used to enhance your campaign in Theros or in your Greek mythology-inspired campaign setting. Also check out the Platinum Bestseller Tactical Maps: Adventure Atlas, a collection of 88 unique encounters created by the Guild Adepts, which can be paired with the beautiful poster battlemaps in Tactical Maps Reincarnated.

James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, and the Critical Role Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, a member of the Guild Adepts, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and other RPG companies. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his fiancée Hannah and their animal companions Mei and Marzipan. You can find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.