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 final part of an 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
5. Shelter from the Storm
6. Trek to Ten-Towns
7. Chaos in Kelvin’s Cairn
8. Jarlaxle’s Reversal

The Final Delivery

This is the sixth and final delivery that the Luskar Deliverers will undertake in this series. This unusual request was from Vanifer, former leader of the Cult of the Eternal Flame, one of the elemental cults players may have defeated in Princes of the Apocalypse. In this non-canon appearance, Vanifer survived her ordeal in the Dessarin Valley and disbanded the cult after their defeat at the hands of adventurers. Back in Luskan, she gave the characters Tinderstrike, a legendary dagger capable of summoning Imix, a Prince of Elemental Evil, to the Material Plane.

She plans to cast this evil dagger into the Reghed Glacier, so that its power is never again used to call the Prince of Evil Fire into the world. She gave it to the Luskar Deliverers because she feared that its evil power would overwhelm her better judgment. Now, the Deliverers travel to the designated point on the glacier to meet her and bring this saga to an end.

After this adventure is over, it’s easy for the characters to transition straight into playing Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. However, they may want to continue playing as members of the Luskar Deliverers instead! You can create a whole campaign based on this concept! Where else in Faerûn could the Luskar Deliverers be called to make a dangerous delivery? The High Forest? The Anauroch desert? What monsters of increasing power could threaten them in their perilous parcel quest?

Journey to the Reghed Glacier

The characters start this adventure in Ten-Towns. Bryn Shander is a large town that they know NPCs in, making it a reasonable place for the characters to rest and recuperate. They can spend the first part of this session preparing for the journey or relaxing with NPCs that they met in the sixth encounter in this series.

Vanifer’s parcel contains a simple map from Bryn Shander to a camp Vanifer has made on the Reghed Glacier. The map indicates a fissure in the glacier that Vanifer plans to cast the dagger into.

Once they’re ready to get moving, the trek from Bryn Shander to the Reghed Glacier takes about three days of travel through snowy wastes of Icewind Dale. The land is dangerous, but it hasn’t yet fallen under the evil influence of Auril the Frostmaiden, so there are no monster encounters. If you do want to add encounters to drain the characters’ strength before the upcoming encounter on the glacier, consider rolling on the low-level Arctic Encounters table from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything.

Social Encounter: Vanifer’s Repetenance

This encounter is suitable for a party of 3rd-level characters.

This encounter begins when the characters reach Vanifer’s camp atop the Reghed Glacier. In this encounter, the characters must overpower the evil will of Tinderstrike so that Vanifer can cast it into the Reghed Glacier and dull its fiery power. This encounter will be more difficult if any of the characters used Tinderstrike during their adventures, because the dagger will try to exert its evil influence over anyone who has ever attuned to it.

Read or paraphrase the following to set the scene:

You trudge up an icy slope, face covered against the frigid wind and flurries of snow. You crest the slope, and spy a crimson flag fluttering at the top of the next rise, with a thin trail of smoke curling into the sky behind it. You clamber up the hill and reach the flag. Sitting before a fire near the flag is a red-skinned tiefling with shining black hair. She looks up at you with her glowing golden eyes and stands.

“You have come,” she says solemnly. “Thank you for undertaking this journey. It is… so terribly cold here.” She glances over her shoulder at a vast crevasse in the glacial ice some fifty feet away. “I am ready to put an end to this sad saga and move on. Have you brought it? The dagger, Tinderstrike?”

Vanifer is cold, dour, and morose. She is usually high-spirited and quick to make sarcastic jokes, but Icewind Dale has not been kind to her. If the characters ask Vanifer about her reasons for casting Tinderstrike into the ice, she explains several details about her past and her mission:

• “With this dagger, I once nearly summoned an elemental prince who could have reduced the Sword Coast to ash. I can’t undo the pain I’ve caused, but I can make sure this evil weapon is never used again.”
• “Tinderstrike can’t be destroyed by any means I know. Here, at least, it will be impossible for any mortal to reach.”
• “After this… I’ll try to start a new life. Do some good, or at least try not to cause any more pain. Fire can do more than harm alone.”

When the characters are done speaking with her, Vanifer turns towards the fissure in the ice. “May I ask you for one more favor, Deliverers? Tinderstrike’s power over the mind is great. I am not certain I can cast it aside so easily.”

The Dagger is Cast

When a character tries to throw Tinderstrike into the icy crevasse (or otherwise destroy it or seal it away), they must make a successful DC 15 Charisma saving throw or be magically compelled to bring the dagger back to civilization—and to kill anyone that tries to stop them. If a creature has ever been attuned to Tinderstrike, it makes this save with disadvantage. A creature compelled in this way can only make attacks with Tinderstrike and can’t cast spells. This compulsion lasts the entire time the dagger is on their person, and they are stunned until the end of their next turn if the dagger is forcibly taken from them. A character can try to take Tinderstrike from another creature by succeeding on a Strength contest against them as an action.

At the start of each of their turns, a character compelled to kill by Tinderstrike can make a DC 20 Charisma saving throw. On a success, they are stunned the start of their next turn. Once they are no longer stunned, they are immune to the dagger’s evil influence for the next 24 hours.

On a failed save, they hear the low, crackling voice of Imix speak to them through the dagger. The Prince of Elemental Evil may say one of the following ominous phrases:

• “They are jealous of your power. They will destroy you to take your prize. Destroy them first.”
• “You wield a power beyond their feeble comprehension. Prove to them that they should bow before you.”
• “The warmth of flame will shield you from their cold hatred. They hate you. They will lie to you. Do not believe them.”

Vanifer starts this encounter by attempting to the throw the dagger into the ice herself. Because of the immense amount of time she once spent attuned to Tinderstrike, she automatically fails this saving throw and can’t use her Legendary Resistance feature to succeed. She attacks the characters, clearly not in her right mind, if they try to take it from her. As stated above, Vanifer can’t cast spells while compelled to attack the characters. Additionally, she makes her attacks with disadvantage, as her conscious mind struggles to throw off Imix's influence. 

This encounter ends when Tinderstrike is cast into the ice. Read or paraphrase the following:

The dagger ricochets off the icy walls of the fissure, clinking pathetically as it disappears from sight. Vanifer sighs as its tinny sounds fade away into the ambient noise of the polar wind. “Thank you,” she says weakly. “And… I’m sorry. May I accompany you back to Ten-Towns? I left my gold there, I can repay you when we’re back in safety.”

Conclusion: Flames before the Darkness

The journey back to Ten-Towns is freezing but unremarkable. Vanifer has a room at Kelvin’s Comfort, the same respectable inn that the characters visited on their first visit to Bryn Shander, and she pays them each the 10 gp postage they’re owed, and also gives them a memento for aiding her in freeing herself of Tinderstrike’s malign influence. This memento is a golden amulet in the shape of the symbol of the Cult of the Eternal Flame. She says that she has no desire to keep it any longer, but without the bad memories she associates with it, it is a useful magical trinket. A creature with an Intelligence of 5 or higher that wears this amulet can cast the produce flame cantrip at-will.

Up Next… Rime of the Frostmaiden!

This encounter concludes the Icewind Mail: Special Delivery series! Starting September 15th, you can continue the adventures in the frozen north of Faerûn with Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. Your players’ characters are probably 3rd or 4th level at the end of this encounter series, meaning that they’ll have “outleveled” about a quarter of the content in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. You have several solutions on how to make the most of what’s in the book. No matter which option you choose, you may need to account for a two-year time jump, since Auril's spell of eternal night has been woven across the sky for about two years by the time the adventure begins. This could send the characters back down south to Luskan where they run deliveries in the lands to the south for two years before returning to Icewind Dale, or they could live in Ten-Towns amidst the snow and darkness for two years, trying to survive. 

Rime of the Frostmaiden is a super-sized D&D adventure that starts at 1st level, but its adventures are almost completely modular, allowing you to add, remove, or insert new adventures to suit your players’ needs. If you want, you can simply skip the low-level adventures in Ten-Towns and have the characters start in chapter 2 of the book, as they venture out into the wastes of Icewind Dale. 

From a gameplay standpoint, this works perfectly. From a story standpoint, your players may miss out on learning vital foreshadowing about major events later on in the story if they skip over the small-scale adventures in Ten-Towns. Another option is to let the characters have a few easy encounters as out-of-town heroes, solving Ten-Towns’ problems with ease before venturing out into the wilds. They won’t gain much XP from these adventures, meaning they won’t be overleveled once they leave the safety of civilization. 

There is a third method that requires a little more work, but provides ample challenge for the characters, gives them all the story details they need, and keeps them from being overleveled later. Adjust the difficulty of the early adventures to match the characters’ level, using the D&D Beyond Encounter Builder. This tool lets you add or remove monsters to increase the difficulty of the early, low-level adventures in Ten-Towns, and clearly shows you how the difficulty of the encounter changes with regards to the size and power of your party, making it perfect for modifying existing encounters!

Then, to complete the trick, you reduce the XP granted by encounters to 25% their normal value (after increasing their power using the Encounter Builder), until you reach chapter 2 of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden.

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.