D&D General Cold based adventures?

[Shades of Eternity]

The harsh temperatures got me thinking.

What is the best cold based adventure of any edition (or failing that any dnd adjacent adventure.

What locations in any world would be suitable for writing such an adventure?

what should we keep in mind in writing such an adventure?

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Rime of the Frostmaiden is pretty high up there.

 

[thullgrim]

The Reign of Winter Adventure Path for Pathfinder 1e comes to mind. Eternal Winter drives the plot to some extent, and particularly in the first adventure, winter weather and cold environmental effects are prevalent.

In the Jade Regent AP, there an adventure that requires the adventures cross the roof of the world, a cold, arctic environment. It feature the (somewhat obligatory) white dragon, as well as a tribe of yeti's and other cold based monsters. The adventure wants the group to manage a caravan in the crossing, so logistics, and weather are pretty important there as well.

 

[Burnside]

Best one I've DMed is Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, which can also be cannibalized for short, modular adventures very easily.

@M.T. Black has a good one called Bastion of the Frost Lord: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/217132/Bastion-of-the-Frost-Lord--Adventure

 

[Zardnaar]

Rime play better than it reads? Kinda disappointed in my copy.

Generally I've found various Dungeon magazines adventures to be the best ones. Been reading a few and RotFM for a Norse game.

 

[the Jester]

Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl is a classic. If you actually follow the guidance vis-a-vis fire magic, you'll have pools of icy water, clouds of steam, and other various complications that are very evocative of the environment. Also, it takes place literally on and inside a glacier.

 

[Burnside]

Rime play better than it reads? Kinda disappointed in my copy.

The overarching plot of Rime needs a DM to fix it so that it doesn't feel disjointed; those repairs are pretty easy to make (but definitely needed). Also, the dragon attack in Chapter 4 is a mess from a design standpoint (but again, easy to fix).

However, the ground-level detail work in Rime in terms of adventure sites, characters, and ideas is outstanding, as so are the art and maps.

 

[Zardnaar]

The overarching plot of Rime needs a DM to fix it so that it doesn't feel disjointed; those repairs are pretty easy to make (but definitely needed). Also, the dragon attack in Chapter 4 is a mess from a design standpoint (but again, easy to fix).

However, the ground-level detail work in Rime in terms of adventure sites, characters, and ideas is outstanding, as so are the art and maps.

It looks really pretty yes. I was reading it few days ago and was thinking yeah na.

I've run some from quests of doom but there's only a few in those books maybe two.

Whole campaign not sure about. Goliath or sonething similar trnds to make it easy mode do things like remorhaz and fire giants/lava end up being used.

Eternal winter doesn't tend to make much sense.

 

[Burnside]

It looks really pretty yes. I was reading it few days ago and was thinking yeah na.

I've run some from quests of doom but there's only a few in those books maybe two.

Whole campaign not sure about. Goliath or sonething similar trnds to make it easy mode do things like remorhaz and fire giants/lava end up being used.

Eternal winter doesn't tend to make much sense.

The eternal winter as written is ridiculous, and I always lower the timeframe to 6 months at the start of the adventure, not 2 years. 2 years and everyone is dead already.

Remorhaz are in it.

Its strength isn't the survival/travel elements, which none of the official 5E adventures do well except arguably Tomb of Annihilation. Its strength is modular site-based adventures and short, interesting dungeon crawls (not really the travel & space between those locations).

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I'm a big fan of running the plot of Icewind Dale 1 game as a tabletop experience. As always, my campaigns fizzle out after a time, but I got pretty good mileage out of that one.

There's also Legacy of the Crystal Shard (D&D Next), which is pretty good.

There's a chapter of Rise of Tiamat which send the party on an arctic exploration to find a magic item on a drifting glacier. You can mix it with the northermost parts of SKT to have a good setting to explore.