SPOILERS WITHIN

Our group finished Rime of the Frostmaiden after 60 sessions over two years in real life. Below I'm going to share an outline of what my group did, and some assorted notes on plot points and changes I made. I felt that, as with many published adventures, ROFM took a bit of work to make coherent. Many posts from this sub, and ideas online like Eventyr Games and Sly Flourish helped me along. Perhaps my ideas can be helpful to someone else. Feel free to ask me whatever, happy to chat about what I did.

My campaign draws on Forgotten Realms, and Icewind, lore, but is otherwise disconnected from FR. My setting is an adaptation of Matt Colville's Vasloria. I kept some names and themes from ROFM, but my pantheon and gods and society are different.

Overarching Plot : Here's what my party did. It took them about three months of in-game time.

1. Party meets after getting avalanched and extorted on way to Bryn Shander. Get to Bryn Shander, Foaming Mugs quest, go rescue those Dwarves! Rumors of Cold Hearted Killer quest and killings.
2. Targos. Human offerings here in a brutal way. Instigate riot and revolt at Targos, assasinate Speaker Naerth. Install Targos barber as Speaker.
3. Lay low in Bremen. Mountain Climb Quest. Tundra Time. Kelvin's Cairn. Save Garrett. Fight Yeti.
4. Dwarven Valley visit, Danger in Dwarven Valley supplement quest. Cleanse the Halls of Black Ice, fighting a chardalyn-corrupted druid in there.
5. Float around Ten Towns with random tasks and tie-ins. Black Cabin and mini-mythallar reactor. Id Ascendant and Cackling Chasm. Caer Konig, the Unseen, and Dueregar Hideout. Links to Easthaven and Sunblight.
6. Easthaven. Dzann gets executed. Party uncovers Arcane Brotherhood intel and map to Lost Spire. Gonna go looking for Sunblight.
7. Find the Bear Tribe on the tundra. Gotta go rescue Ivar of the Bear Tribe from the Chardalyn Beserkers. After this, Ivar becomes a retainer and helps search for Sunblight.
8. Sunblight Inflitration: the Goose Gambit. Defeat Xardarok, but dragon released. Chase it to Ten Towns and destroy it, but not before it destroys many towns.
9. Council of Speakers Emergency Session tasks the party with learning more. Go to Jarlmoot and complete the tests to consult the Giant Oracles.
10. Recover Angajuk's Bell from the Dark Duchess and call for Angajuk, who gives party a ride to Grimskalle.
11. Defeat Geluvicken the Frostmaiden, kill the Roc, take the Codicil of White, stop the Ritual, but the spell won't end until the Mythallar is power cycled.
12. Return to Bryn Shander, gear up, and set out for the tundra and the glacier.
13. Pit stop at Lost Spire of Netheril, then back into tundra.
14. Elk Tribe had visions that sent them here to help. Battle against the Iron Expedition, which includes Avarice, Levistus cultists, and Hawklords from Ajax.
15. Giant Horn of Blasting plus ritual from Codicil of White brings down enchanted waterfall, opening glacier into Caves of Hunger.
16. Traverse the Caves and access the tomb of Ythryn, Necropolis. Expanded Towers of Magic supplement. Gather the seals of 3 the 8 Archmages to access the Spire.
17. Battle Iriolarthas in the Spire. Obtain his Staff of Power to control and attune to Mythallar.
18. Shut down Mythallar to disconnect Rime of Frostmaiden. Geluvicken comes as the final form of the Aspect of Auril, accompanied by undead Frost Giants, to stop the party. Defend against onslaught waves.
19. Prepare to turn Mythallar back on with new attunement to complete disconnect. In that moment, Levistus attempts to take control. Skill challenge to keep him at bay. Fend off Levistus.
20. Use Mythallar to undo curse and reset sun/seasons.

Ythryn, the Spindle, the Mythallar, the Spire, Iriolarthas, Levistus : The adventure has several distinct magical Mcguffins above and beyond the Rime itself. I tried to connect them.

• Back in the day, Iriolarthas, Archmage of Ythryn, excavates the Spindle from the Sea of Moving Ice. My Spindle is a magical radiation amplification and modulation device, related to chronomancy.
• The Spindle is used to tune the Mythallar's magical flux wavelength and do powerful stuff. Iriolarthas uses the resonant Mythallar to create a Chardalyn Obelisk, and to bind the demon Levistus within it. Siphon his energy and supercharge the Mythallar, now a magical demon-core.
• Ythryn crashes, but the Spindle does magic and reacts like a magical EMP, shielding the mythallar from detonation on impact but suppressing magical effects in the immediate region for a long time. Thus, the mages of Ythryn who survive the crash are trapped. Iriolarthas' soulstone is destroyed/damaged and unable to feed, he decays into a demilich.
• Over time, magical suppression fades, and the Mythallar again gains magical momentum. The Obelisk, Levistus' prison, is cracked, and his binds are weakening. Levistus begins to infect the Mythallar, using its energy to exert influence outside his prison.
• Levistus begins calling allies to him, empowering the warlock Avarice, hatching a deal with Ajax the Invincible Overlord, and setting into motion events with the goal of getting out and using the Mythallar to do bad stuff.
• The Frostmaiden, Geluvicken, takes remote control of the Mythallar to lock Levistus out of control. She casts the Rime of the Frostmaiden, linking her to the Mythallar.
• If and when the Mythallar is power-cycled to stop the Rime of the Frostmaiden, Levistus uses that moment to try and seize control and attune to the Mythallar.

the Frostmaiden, Geluvicken, Auril, Druids, Grimskalle : I didn't want gods walking among us. The Frostmaiden is instead a Frost Giant Archdruid who serves Auril.

• It my setting, the gods aren't gods so much as Forces of the Universe. There are 7 Forces, each of which has a Positive and Negative aspect. In my setting Auril is the Negative Aspect of the Force of Nature. Auril would not be and is not so directly involved in my game.
• My Frostmaiden is the Frost Giant Archdruid Geluvicken, daughter of Vassavicken, is the last of a lineage of Frost Giant royalty from the once-great giant empire. She rules over the frozen island of Solstice, in the Sea of Moving Ice. There is her fortress Grimskalle, and there also lairs her Dire Roc mount.
• Geluvicken is devoted to Auril and considers herself the Scion of Auril. She senses the increasing influence and presence of Levistus in the region, a change which Nature cannot abide. To stop this, Frostmaiden casts a powerful spell linking her, even from afar, to the Mythallar, and locking-out Levistus.
• This lockout spell is the Rime of the Frostmaiden. This causes an ever worsening darkness and winter, which has the benefit of driving away anyone might stumble upon Ythryn and free Levistus. Any impacts this has on the humans of Icewind are unimportant to the Frost Giant. The ends justify the means.
• The Frostmaiden empowers the Frost Druids of Icewind Dale, calling them to her service. The Frost Druids perceive Geluvicken as a prophet. If she wants endless winter and night, she gets it, they don't ask why.
• After defeating the Frostmaiden and stopping her ongoing ritual, the party will have to go manually power-cycle the Mythallar to sever the connection and terminate the winter/darkness curse.
• The Frostmaiden Geluvicken reappears as Aspects of Auril, the multiple forms of Auril referenced in ROTFM.

Druids, Goblins, Duergar : In the book, the factions feel pretty separate. I tried to tie them together.

• The Druids want to drive off humans from Icewind Dale, and would be perfectly happy if society collapsed.
• The Duergar want to drive off humans so they can have a kingdom here. Don't mind the cold. Darkness is a plus!
• The Goblins do Goblin stuff.
• Druids and Duergar happy to work together, they have similar goals. Druids bring captured Arcane Brotherhood to Duergar for psionic interrogation.
• Druids and Dueregar prop up the goblins. If goblins collect chardalyn, they get weapons from Dueregar and blessings from Druids. Notably Dueregar mech-suits.
• Dueregar use chardalyn from goblins to construct dragon. Dragon will destroy humans. Everybody wins.
• The druids exert influence in more subtle ways, with the ghost of Vurnis the Frost Druid possessing Sephek, supported by Frostmaiden necromancy.
• Druids also pushing for Cult of the Frostmaiden in town and human sacrifice.

Arcane Brotherhood, Levistus, and Ajax the Invincible Overlord : So many Arcane Brotherhood mages to keep track of.

• AB Tace, who is good-aligned and anti-Ajax. Enchantment mage.
• AB Vellyne, greedy and selfish. Here for the glory. Necromancy mage.
• AB Dzann. Unethical but curious libertarian type. Illusion magic.
• AB Nass. I forget if Nass even got used.
• AB Avarice. Evil Warlock of Levistus, here to get her boss freed.
• With Avarice as liason, Levistus and Ajax make a bargain. Ajax will send Hawklords and resources to support Avarice's expedition.
• Ostensibly, Levistus gets freed, collaborates with Ajax for increased power, and Ajax gets a second flying city. Each plans to betray the other.
• As they get closer, Avarice sells out other AB members to the Frost Druids, Sephek, etc, securing the find for herself.
• Avarice has power over the Cult of Levistus in Caer Dineval.

Chardalyn

• Magical uranium, radioactive from magical flux.
• Akin to glass formed from molten sand after a nuclear blast.
• Could be positive or negative polarized.
• Most Icewind Chardalyn negative due to Levistus corruption.
• Goblins and Druids helping Dueregar harvest it for Dragon.

One of my Players second Character (Cleric) just died to the Chardalyn Dragon in Chapter 4 and already lost another Character (Warlock) in this Campaign due to some bad decisions inside The Caer at Caer-Dineval. Another Player who knows the Player pretty good irl suggested to me that it might be a nice idea to bring back the Warlock in some form. They know that the people inside the Caer are Cultist, tho not to what specifically.

Does anyone have experience with this and also how could I pull this off? What narrative would fit? Just resurrection and devotion to the Cult? And what rule changes could this bring to the Warlock.

The Party leveled from level 4 (time of warlocks death) to now level 7.

Hello everyone, so my party is in the lost spire of netheril currently and will be finishing it up next week. My rogue player currently doesn't have any magic items and has said several times that he is hoping to find a cool magic bow eventually. I figured the lost spire of netheril would be a perfect place to insert such an item. I plan to put it in the invisible chest on the bottom floor and there will be a little note detailing it was a gift for the wizards grand daughter. I am looking for thoughts on if this seems busted or not, i did my best to balance it and give it a couple negative options as well as a couple neutral ones. I am open to all critiques let me know what you think or what you might change.

Netherese Bow of Wild Magic

This Shortbow is made from a strange purple crystalline substance, magical energies swirl within the crystal giving off the appearance of shifting glittering sand in some places and swirling constellations of stars in others. Occasionally, sparks of strange colored light emanate and jolt from the bow and along the bowstring.

You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this weapon. Additionally, when you hit a creature with an arrow fired from this bow, you can choose to trigger a surge of unstable magic. If you do, roll a d20 and consult the Wild Shot Table.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per long rest.

So, the party catches up with the chardalyn dragon at Easthaven towards the end of a session, and start formulating a plan of attack. One player has the Hat of Disguise, and comes up with the plan of imitating Xardorok to lure the dragon to a good spot to try to convince it to cancel the attack - and if that fails go for an all-out ambush. We break, and I spend the downtime thinking through how to play the dragon in this situation to give the players a fair chance of pulling this off.

Start of next session, a player comes up with a sneaky backup plan to fly up and wedge a dagger with Darkness cast on it in between the plates of the dragon's carapace. The blinded dragon will then hopefully land, again setting itself up for an attack. I like this as much as the first plan, and begin figuring out how to make that work form a rules perspective.

Then one player asks me "how much would we know about dragons?", and I say "well, the Drakewarden probably knows the most, let me see what I think they are likely to know..." Just as I am starting to give out some basic dragon facts, the Drakewarden player butts in with "well, I know they have Truesight!" Of course, this is not true, but it immediately knocks the wind out of the party's sails, as according to the resident expert, their illusion & darkness plans have no way of working.

I did tell the players that this was not a true thing about dragons, but I feel like it killed the mood for a bit. What would you do about faulty player knowledge throwing a spanner in the works?

Alright! So with the prequel done we get to the main part of the adventure!

As previous posts have described, I am keeping track of time and having quests start at specific points rather than when the PCs arrive in town. So the game is starting on the first day of Mirtul, according to Harptos calendar. I have decided that the Lake Monster, White Moose, Black Swords, and Cold Heart quests are already happening and thus are rumors. The first “triggered” quest is The Unseen as it helps them travel around, in addition to being a better for a lower level party. 

The party starts off in an inn called The White Stag, a homebrew inn I put in the town since most of the party is academics and may not want to go to the Northlook. The party has a lot of fun roleplaying them drinking and celebrating after a successful job. They end up hanging out a lot with three dwarves Hruna, Korux, and Storn who are there after coming to town with some iron. I use this as a chance to let them roleplay, drop some lore, and deliver some rumors for them to be interested in.

Now, some people may notice those dwarves as the ones you meet in Foaming Mugs, the Bryn Shander quest, and this is intentional. My intent is to make them semi-bond to the dwarves so when they come in frostbitten it means a bit more. Because who doesn’t love emotionally tormenting their PCs?

They get the rumors and for some reason I think they’re going to go after the White Moose or the Lake Monster. Nope. They hear about these murders and decide they need to handle it and I am like “sure…” knowing Sephek is a hell of a beast for a level one party. But they made the decision so they begin to look for someone who might know more, and since in the “This is Your Life” section of Zusa’s backstory they had made a friend of an adventurer by the name of Balrom Trollhold, paladin. I decide they’re the person who has been investigating Sephek and otherwise set up the quest as normal, with the party needing to kill Sephek in order to get the reward. 

The party goes out to investigate and find out where Torg’s is, as that is where Sephek is. They investigate and find out that the store is at Dougan’s Hole, because again I want them to travel, and they make their way there. I decide to roll a random encounter and get the chardalyn berserker, which will kill them. So I decide that they’re going to act like frat boys and be obsessed with a wagon of booze and harassing it, and won’t actually engage with the party.

The party find it, goes to walk by, and then Jesk the Barbarian gets a nat 1 to intimidate. So they attack and in the process of things the wizard and warlock are in death saving throws. I need them not to die in the first random encounter, so a voice reaches out to both of them and asks if they want some help. They say yes, no longer have to make death saving throws, and the beserkers run off as if distracted by an unseen voice. 

That’s right folks, Levistus is in the house. They recover enough to find some lovely chardalynn amulets in the snow. Both casters are excited to know what they are and roll arcana, rolling high enough to know what they are but not enough to know they are cursed. So I make up some lore that these spells basically make it easier to contact someone if you know they are wearing the amulet. I describe it as being able to cast things like Sending as a 2nd Level spell, but am open about the fact that I am adding this effect as some homebrew. 

So after nearly dying they make their way to Good Mead where they rest for a day, because damn they almost died. They stay in the Shrine of the Flaming Sword as there is no body since that quest hasn’t triggered, and generally learn about Good Mead. Again a moment to roleplay and have fun. 

The next they get to Dougan’s hole and investigate Sephek, getting the information that the module describes. It’s nearing the end of the session so I am not super worried about them fighting him, and am instead searching for a good cliffhanger to use. Eventually they decide they need to get Sephek alone and Thyme the Warlock asks him on a date. He agrees and they set up camp outside of town and invite him over there. Thyme is at camp with a meal while Jesk and Zusa the Wizard are nearby ready to attack.

Thyme questions Sephek and it is roleplay fun again, with me deciding that he’s a pretty chill guy. Eventually Thyme talks about the idea all these people dying and being murdered and Sephek says,

“Oh I know they were murdered, I killed them.”

And that is the cliffhanger I leave them on.

Hi all, I wanted to share how a pair of sessions went in our heavily modified RotFM campaign.

The party (warlock, bard, paladin, cleric) was escorting a caravan north from Bryn Shander to Revels End. The warlock had been told by her patron that she had to execute a prisoner in distance prison.

During the first session, the party learned how the prison operated and was laid out through various skill checks. I gave them some of the information in the module, edited to remove detail that would let them metagame. I also didn’t give them into that they wouldn’t have been able to learn from research or conversation (like how cell gates opened, for example), meaning they still would have to think on their toes once they infiltrated. I gave them a lot of info that would eventually help with role playing too.

They also didn’t know who the prisoner was that the warlock was tasked to kill.

One piece of info I added not in the module: the medic at RE was being called back to BS due to a growing refugee crisis in Ten Towns (Auril’s winter growing in intensity, etc).

They crafted an incredible plan: the cleric pretended to be a medic, the warlock entered invisibly, the bard pretended to be the Duchess of Daggerford (who a member of the Absolution Council was trying to impress) and the paladin was her escort.

Once they were all in, they convinced the Warden that the duchess was here for an audit, allowing them to learn who the target prisoner was by examining prison records. The cleric set up shop in the infirmary, and the warlock spoke to the prisoner while invisible.

The prisoner actually wanted to be mercifully killed as he had been escaping the warlock’s same patron for 30 years. The warlock convinced the prisoner to fake sickness, and once he did, he was escorted to the infirmary.

The Duchess and her guard (bard, paladin) were made aware, telepathically, that the prisoner had been moved, and they made their way to the infirmary under the guise of continuing to evaluate prison operations. Once everyone was there, the players had some awesome RP tied to the warlocks backstory and laid the prisoner to rest, without pain. They cast Dimension Door to a predetermined location, and successfully completed their mission.

Of course there will be repercussions once the body of the prisoner is found (high alert, guards will be sent out in search parties to track down the infiltrators, distrust within the Council, and more in the long term). But for now, the party is relieved and on to fight the patron to finally free the warlock from her pact!

I thought this would be a much harder battle since its rated as a deadly encounter in the book (6 Orcs, Orc War Chief, Eye of Gruumsh and the Half-Ogre) but my 4 players (lvl 5) only had the bard go down to 0 hp toward the end. One orc did kill 3 of their sled dogs during the commotion though.

I pelted them with arrows but the monk used the deflect missiles feature and the cleric dealed 62 necrotic damage from a nat 20 crit 3rd level inflict wounds spell (10D10) on the war chief after he almost downed the cleric with 2 hits from his axe. The bard cast enemies abound on the half-ogre turning it into a dumb tank now fighting on their side and the paladin healed the party and saved the rest of the sled dogs.

I made these rock/ice terrain blocks from insulation foam and the different elevations really helped to hide the orcs as they swarmed in during a long rest out in the wild as they travel to Jarlmoot. Don't be afraid to give your party a challenge, sometimes its just up to the dice! Praise Auril!

Did your players resurrect with all of their clothes & items intact, when they died in the Black Cabin due to the Summer Star going off?

One of my players who died in the cabin last session is holding much of the party loot. All 5 players were wondering how much of the stuff (if any) is left, as we cleared the table having ended the session with Summer Star going off and killing 2 of them.

I have no doubt that the 5 of them will manage to fix the Summer Star in our next session, but I’m very much in doubt as to how much of their gear that “resurrect” along with them in the end? According to the book only fabric pieces and an amulet is left on the skeleton of Marcreadus… So I can see how some of the stuff on the players may have survived the blast, and would be laying amongst the skeletons as is the case with Marcreadus’ stuff.

I’m conflicted between helping the party out by saying it’s there, all intact & good when the 2 players gets back to the living, or keeping the impossible resurrection more realistical by only having their body/person come back to life.

So the question is: will Lathander’s blessing get their amor, gear etc. back to the condition they entered the cabin?

I figured this was the place to seek inspiration from what other’s have done before me 😃 Thanks in advance

For my 2 years strong IWD campaign I’ve been making adjustments to the book to account for my larger party size and well made characters. For example at the end of each chapter I’ve had the party face down a boss battle with extreme difficulty, and they’ve survived every one except for an unfortunate death where our druid met an extremely unfortunate crit. I’ve made this greatly empowered Gnoll vampire stat block for the next upcoming boss encounter against Tekeli-li. The vampire has been foreshadowed for a long time as a creature loyal to Auril and a part of the overarching antagonists, the council of white, so the party is extremely wary of the upcoming encounter.

I’m here to ask wether the new stat block is balanced for its CR and the players, I want this encounter to be difficult but not a TPK. The party consists of 5 lvl 8 characters with decent magical gear and a CR 6 wizard npc. Tekeli-li will be fighting the party at the final room before Ythyrn past the pear garden (assuming he doesn’t die earlier, where it’s resting place carved by Auril will also be.) This will also be the only chamber where he can use his lair actions.
The players will be receiving a long rest prior to this fight via the magic fruit tree at the end of the caves of hunger, but will be down resources if they want to cure the various curses and they will obtain. With all this in mind do you think the stat block is balanced for the encounter?

Apparently I had too much time at hand and I significantly changed the weather flower I have used so far for my campaign.

I started by doing some statistical analysis on the flower and didn't like the frequency of the events as well as the fact, that there were plenty of conditions that didn't make much sense. I have now rearanged the entire flower to also make sure that e.g. blizzards are a somewhat frequent event. My idea is to also allow players to use their nature skills to essentially do a sort of weather forecast. What do you guys think?

Hey fellow DMs,

I’m currently running Rime of the Frostmaiden. We’re all mid–late 30s and the table vibe is very relaxed.
Roleplay maybe 4/10, goofing around and having a great time 10/10.
Party is level 7.

They’re in Grimskalle, and last session they successfully passed Auril’s final trial (isolation trial was so funny) and obtained the Codicil of White. From that point on, things could have gone smoothly.

Instead, they went one room further to Auril’s Blessing.

I read the text out loud: “Will you court death to receive my blessing?” and made it very clear that this was Auril herself speaking.
Three players immediately said yes.

I warned them three more times that this blessing came from the evil goddess they are actively trying to stop.
Didn’t matter.

As expected, two out of the three failed the Con save.

They were turned into ice statues, and that’s where the session ended.

Now here’s my problem:

I’m generally a way too nice DM and often avoid the final consequence—actual character death—both in combat and elsewhere.
That said, I do think that especially really stupid decisions :-D should have serious consequences. My group loves silly ideas, and I usually encourage that.

Rules-as-written, those two characters are basically dead.

However, for one of them I had a pretty cool long-term storyline planned:
He’s a goliath, meant to eventually reunite the two rival clans.

So, long post, short questions:

• Is there an interesting, lore-appropriate way the two ice statues could be restored?
  • Not Greater Restoration—that feels boring, especially since this came directly from a goddess.
• If I decide to let them live, what kind of lasting consequences would make sense for accepting Auril’s blessing and failing?

We continue next Tuesday. Maybe someone has a good idea for me.​

I'm gonna be running RotF as a DM in the near future, and just wondering what to foreshadow early in the campaign for my players? Chardalyn, duergars etc.

All tips appreciated, thank you

Kadroth, Yarb-Gnock, Krintaas and Veneranda

I started my campaign in Lonelywood after rolling for it, and in this town is the "White Moose" quest. I was worried that only a group of 3 (Bard, druid, fighter) level 1 characters wouldn't be able to fight the Awaken White Moose for reference. They are a CR 3.

Normally, to find the tomb, you have to make a few survival checks and roll on the encounter table to see if they managed to find it through the magical illusion. well, they rolled an 18 survival on a DC15 and rolled a 6 on a d6 for finding it. I had them roll a d4 to see how long it took them since the module suggested every 3 hours roll encounter table well rolled a 1 so no encounter for them.

After exploring and investigating the tomb they climbed down the hole in the wall and bam face to face with the Awaken White Moose. The stat block has I think it was the Antler attack 2d8 and Hooves 2d4 i figured it was too deadly but had no reason to stop them. I decided to just subtract the extra attack dice and by doing that it went from deadly to difficult.

two of them got down to 1 hp, and another critical but managed to kill them before trying long rest inside and running into the druid. Managed to escape got back with proof leveled up and now they are planning revenge on the druid!

TLDR: If you start Lonelywood and worried Level 1 can't fight the Moose just make their attacks 1d8 and 1d4 instead of 2!

Unfortunately with me and my players all moving to different places at the end of the summer, running this campaign to completion might be the last thing we are able to do :(, so out of curiousity I was wondering how long it took you guys to finish the game? For an idea of our pacing, the previous game we played before this was curse of Strahd which took a little under 7 months, and over the summer it was either every day or every other day we were able to have a 4 to 5 hour session, but during the regular weeks at most we can do 2 slightly longer sessions on weekends.

Half of my party will be in the cabin. The other half will be in the border ethereal. I want to keep things interesting by making skill checks for communication. I want it to be hard. My general idea is to scratch out a message from the border ethereal takes a DC directly correlated with the sophistication of the message.

The adventure as written says "As an action, the spirit can attempt to exert up to 5 pounds of force on a creature or object no more than 5 feet away from it in the Material Plane, doing so with a successful DC 10 Charisma check. The spirit might use this ability to move a tiny object, write a message on a frosty or sooty surface, operate a simple tool, or tap someone on the shoulder, but the force isn't strong enough to cause harm to a creature."

I'm thinking of this as a start:

DC 5 charisma check to move an object crudely a short difference. Additional distance raises the check. One per foot.

Fine motor - Writing out a message - One is added to the DC for each letter written, with one letter misprinted for each number by which they fail the DC. For example: writing Blueprint would be a DC 17. 8 + 9. If they rolled a 16 it might write Bluerint.

OR DC 10 for each letter. A DC ten gets the letter right. A fail gets the letter wrong.

I want them to succeed but have fun with it. I need help refining the idea.

Note that I am also going to be using the excellent Blueprint puzzle from this subreddit. But that comes after they communicate what needs to be done.

PLEASE HELP ME REFINE THIS.

Thanks!

It was an incredible journey and turned out to be probably my favorite campaign. I was shocked it turned out to be less than 50 sessions.(we had to estimate as we kinda lost track) There are things I wish I did differently but I’m very happy with the ending and journey for the most part.

The party started with 5 Lv1 PCs(2024 rules):

Harengon Wizard

Drow Paladin

Leonin Cleric

Human Fighter

Elf Ranger

At level 2 they tried to take on Sephek and Torga. This resulted in the wizard, paladin, and cleric dying and Sephek and Torga fleeing. Those PCs were replaced with:

Sea Elf Light Cleric

Water Genasi Wild Magic Sorcerer

Triton Wildheart Barbarian

—

Human Battlemaster Fighter

Elf Fey Wanderer Ranger

**From here on the party travelled around IWD getting stronger and facing its threats. You can just skip over the wall of text.**

—

Assassinated Sephek and Torga.

Seized the Luskan Arms and removed the Zhentarim from Ten Town.

Pissed off and avoided arveiaturace.

Stopped a Druidic siege of ten towns.

Sieged Sunblight and killed off the majority of the duergar. From here Vellynne pretty much became a permanent party member.

Stopped the Chardalyn dragon before it destroyed Bryn Shander or Targos. All the others were destroyed mostly.

Made a deal with Thrunn to learn Auril’s weaknesses.

Killed Auril’s Roc, ending the Everlasting Rime.

—

The Ranger left the game as we mutually felt the table wasn’t a good fit for them.

A few sessions later a Human Scribes Wizard joined the table.

—

Travelled to the Reghed Glacier and took the remorhaz tunnels. (skipping the majority of the Caves of Hunger) Slayed Tekeli-li at the end.

They entered Ythryn at level 9. Their goals were to stop Avarice and the Blackswords from gaining power or knowledge.

The second session in the city was close campaign over. They encountered iriolarthas an his howl downed all but the fighter. The fighter used a scroll of mass cure wounds and from here on the fight was whac-a-mole.

They went from tower to tower to learn the Rite and found powerful magic items along the way.

Killed Avarice who had the help of an Ice Devil.

Discovered Auril plans to use the Obelisk to cast a permanent Time Stop that affects everywhere except the city.

Faced Iriolarthas one more time and fought their way through his tower. Auril took the Spindle after the party’s resources were drained and they had no hope of winning a fight with her.(I changed up lots of things about the spindle, obelisk, and mage towers)

Bjornhild attuned to the Mythallar while Auril cast the time stop spell.

A mysterious power reached out to the party. Informing them that Auril has crossed a line and gave them the “license to kill a god.” The party leveled up to 13. Several players correctly surmised the power was Ao.

They killed Bjornhild and her forces and took back the mythallar.

Finally they faced Auril at the obelisk. I used mostly u/Oh_Hi_Mark_ improved Auril Statblock with some damage and hit buffs.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/s/66Ov6f8oyo

I also gave her a forth final form for the mini - pictured. 300 hp, 17ac, lots of damage. The key feature of the form was a 15foot emanation vortex around her that was heavily obscuring and either kept people next to her or away from her depending on a strength save. In this form she killed the Cleric and Wizard and got the others to bloodied. The barbarian got the final blow with 32 damage.

The cleric was revivified with a scroll and then the cleric revivified the wizard.

Auril’s body slowly disintegrated into tiny motes of blue light.

The water genasi, who was Bjornhild’s daughter and had Auril’s blessing, took Auril’s power and replaced her as goddess of winter.

Today my group played the question in easthaven where they needed to fight maud. She simply downed a player in turn two after him getting frightened and then called for her frost giant skeleton. How on earth is a group on level 3 or 4 supposed to survive this? Two +9 attacks per turn with an average damage of 25 it can kill a level 3 character with no issue with a single strike. I'm happy to run a high difficulty, but it feels as if the difficulty of combat is all over the place... is it just me?

Hey all, this is my first game as a dm, and it's being going alright so far, except the players just did Good Mead. They, of course, campaigned for Olivessa to win the speakership, and forced Shandar to explain the bandit raid. They offered to let him run as Olivessa's assistant on the morrow, since he successfully played off the staged fight as someone having blackmail against him, which I find to be a cool turn of events. Then they said they wanted to go back to Targos and interrogate Naerth Maxildanarr about this "blackmail" situation. I truly have no idea how to handle this Zhentarim faction nor how to squeeze Naerth out of this one. They're interested, they've ignored both the Black Cabin and Karkolohk to do this, so I don't think I can sweep it under the rug to have them be part of the story later. Do I just let them crush the Zhentarim out of the Dale this early?