D&D 5E Is Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden the New D&D Adventure?

It looks likely that the upcoming D&D adventure is indeed an Icewind Dale based storyline called Rime of the Frostmaiden! I can't vouch for the veracity of this, but I was cc'd into a Tweet by Navy DM on Twitter who says they found it on Reddit.

Feel the cold touch of death in this adventure for the world's greatest role playing game.

UPDATE -- the awesome Geek Native ran the small cover screenshot through an image enhancing application, to create the larger image below.

There's a post here on Reddit which says "The DnD Beyond YouTube channel posted a trailer for a new book, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, then immediately deleted it." The post has been removed since. I found the above image posted by somebody called smightmight, who looks like they screen grabbed it from the video before it was removed.

The Frostmaiden is one of the names of Auril, an evil goddess in the Forgotten Realms. You can read more about her on the Forgotten Realms wiki.

Rime is ice which forms from water droplets on surfaces.

An Icewind Dale setting was the current favourite guess for the location of the new D&D adventure based on various hints from WotC, including this snowy owlbear t-shirt!

(thanks to Pixellance for pointing me at this!)

 

[darjr]

I miss the days when we also got small adventures, like 3-levels worth, rather than only massive adventure paths. Then I could assemble some of these smaller adventures (often customized so they fit my players' backgrounds), together with the mortar of my own original content, to make a really fun campaign. The small adventures took a bit of pressure off me making an entire campaign from scratch, but still allowed me to make my own adventure path.

Also, some of those short adventures were really tight and well constructed stories that could be told in a few sessions. We haven't had much like that from WotC in a long time.

The DMSGuild has a hearty supply of great adventures.

 

[Morrus]

The DMSGuild has a hearty supply of great adventures.

EN5ider has an equally awesome supply!

 

[SuperTD]

Or Sembia or anywhere but that particular corner of the world. We only got to leave it for Chult and even then the AP started on the sword coast lol.

While technically true that's obviously misleading. There's a single scene of exposition by an NPC telling to the campaign premise, before she teleports you to Chult. You don't even really have agency at that point, since if you refuse you don't get to play the game.

 

[Fenris447]

I miss the days when we also got small adventures, like 3-levels worth, rather than only massive adventure paths. Then I could assemble some of these smaller adventures (often customized so they fit my players' backgrounds), together with the mortar of my own original content, to make a really fun campaign. The small adventures took a bit of pressure off me making an entire campaign from scratch, but still allowed me to make my own adventure path.

Tales from the Yawning Portal, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, and the Essentials Kit all fit that bill. I can understand the desire for more, but it's not like WotC has been doing only huge adventures the last few years.

 

[darjr]

EN5ider has an equally awesome supply!

Yes! And fantastic one page adventures prefect for modding for a campaign.

 

[Von Ether]

The cover looks great! I wish FR fans a lot of fun with this book.

I have zero nostalgia for the setting or the video game so I'm not the core audience for this book (even though I've done RPGs for decades, the first time the name Icewind Dale stuck with me for more than 2 minutes was the Essentials Kit last year.)

Overall, this book is more of a maybe for me if I need some winterish flavored content. If I use the adventures, I'll figure out where to plop them in either Eberron or my homebrews.

 

[Reynard]

The DMSGuild has a hearty supply of great adventures.

Maybe, but you can't tell which ones are good because there is no editorial oversight. Editing is highly underrated by both game creators and consumers, and is probably the second most important aspect of the industry (after actual game design).

Does anyone know of a website or blog that keeps track of DMsGuild adventures and/or reviews them.

 

[Reynard]

Tales from the Yawning Portal, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, and the Essentials Kit all fit that bill. I can understand the desire for more, but it's not like WotC has been doing only huge adventures the last few years.

Just bring back Dungeon and the problem is solved.

Not that it will happen, but it's the right solution.

 

[Nebulous]

Does Icewind Dale count as the Sword Coast? Isnt it the Frozenfar? Most maps from 5e we have for the Coast doesnt show any locations for the Dale. IIRC, the setting was created expressly by Salvator for his books and wasnt even a part of FR before that.

Doesnt most of HotDQ and Descent (pre-Avernus) also focused on the Heartlands? Despite its name, not all that touches the Sea of Sword is part of the region named Sword Coast.

Technically you're probably right, I don't think it is officially the Sword Coast because of it's far north location

 

[Parmandur]

I don't see the problem? Virtually every 1-15 adventure path IS a collection of semi independent adventures, with multiple chapters that can be played as stand-alones. Seems like the best of both worlds, to me?

Yeah, the big Adventure books are very intentionally designed to facilitate this.