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!)

 

[Parmandur]

Can’t say I agree with that at all. A few years back, I ran a homebrew episodic campaign. I kicked it off with the “Trouble in Red Larch” intro adventure from PotA. Later I ran Neverlight Grove from OotA as a trippy Halloween episode. I also used the fire cult base and dungeon from PotA as a different episode. I used the Amber Temple from CoS. And so on. All with minimal effort to cut and paste. No issues with making no sense decontextualised.

Yeah, precisely. The various chapters are going through have differing quality, but pretty much across the board they are relatively simple to remove from their original context.

These books really are not tight "Adventure Paths" any more than GDQ or other old school examples I've seen.

 

[Eltab]

I just realized - they'll probably include Drizzt's 5e stat block in this...

Run For Cover !

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah. I'm that piece of trash that will buy any 5e book for D&D published by WotC, as well as some 3rd party content (Tome of Beasts, etc.)
I have every 5e book published by WotC besides Rise of Tiamat.

I own mist if it but stopped buying everything when I felt the quality dropped and the adventures were becoming very hit or miss.

Not salty about it I don't think it's possible to consistently write great adventures. Paizo couldn't do it and I think they're better at it than WotC.

 

[Emirikol Prime]

Super excited to see this storyline and setting continued and revisited.

 

[ddaley]

I own mist if it but stopped buying everything when I felt the quality dropped and the adventures were becoming very hit or miss.

Not salty about it I don't think it's possible to consistently write great adventures. Paizo couldn't do it and I think they're better at it than WotC.

I am not sure Paizo has come up with an inspiring adventure for StarFinder yet. I have been looking for an excuse to try that.

 

[ddaley]

Super excited to see this storyline and setting continued and revisited.

There will be some long faces if this isn't the next book

 

[Zardnaar]

I am not sure Paizo has come up with an inspiring adventure for StarFinder yet. I have been looking for an excuse to try that.

IDK Starfinder doesn't appeal.

Dungeon had a few great adventures under their tenure and several of the APs are really good or individual sections are.

 

[ddaley]

IDK Starfinder doesn't appeal.

Dungeon had a few great adventures under their tenure and several of the APs are really good or individual sections are.

I haven't played through any of the Paizo adventure paths for Pathfinder yet... though I do own some and have read parts of them. They do seem to be good. I wouldn't mind seeing some of them converted to 5e. I would definitely buy those.

 

[Zardnaar]

I haven't played through any of the Paizo adventure paths for Pathfinder yet... though I do own some and have read parts of them. They do seem to be good. I wouldn't mind seeing some of them converted to 5e. I would definitely buy those.

Depends on the AP.

They had more hits in say a 5 year period than 5Es in a similar timeframe.

I think it's also a problem with longer adventures. What makes LMoP so good is it finished at level 5.

Imagine trying to make LMoP 3 or 4 times over out to level 15/20.

There isn't really a formula for great adventures. WotC/Paizo is about the closest they've come as the meh adventures tend towards average not god awful.

 

[Joseph Nardo]

Just so everyone knows....this IS in fact the next book!!!!!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Awesome! Hoping it is accompanied by a setting book.

The two Icewind Dale CRPGs are two of my favorites.

 

[Parmandur]

Just so everyone knows....this IS in fact the next book!!!!!

I doubt not, but...source?

 

[ddaley]

Awesome! Hoping it is accompanied by a setting book.

The two Icewind Dale CRPGs are two of my favorites.

I would be surprised if there wasn't setting information. There is quite a bit of setting info in Legacy of the Crystal Shard that they could reuse.

 

[Emirikol Prime]

There will be some long faces if this isn't the next book

Unfazed. I’m sure it is.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

You can get Legacy of the Crystal Shard on the DMsGuild

I wish I had run this and gotten a copy of the physical release.

I ran it. It's quite good. I foolishly sold my copy after running it, and I regret it. I would have liked to have run it again with a new group. I'm glad that this new book will almost definitely reuse the stuff from this the way that Decent into Avernus reused the Baldur's Gate stuff from Murder at Baldur's Gate. Gives me a chance to get that content again in print form.

 

[vpuigdoller]

I ran it. It's quite good. I foolishly sold my copy after running it, and I regret it. I would have liked to have run it again with a new group. I'm glad that this new book will almost definitely reuse the stuff from this the way that Decent into Avernus reused the Baldur's Gate stuff from Murder at Baldur's Gate. Gives me a chance to get that content again in print form.

I think Murder in Baldur’s Gate is on Print on demand on dmsguild, not sure about Legacy of the Crystal Shard. I still have both and I agree they are very good. As you say probably they going to reuse a good chunk of t gazetteer in Rime of the Frostmaiden..

 

[R_J_K75]

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.

Im with you on this. I miss them too. The 250+ page adventure model holds little interest for me. Sure there will be a lore and monster section so the adventure might only be 150 pages but still too long for my liking. This the first adventure that Im probably not going to buy but depending on the previews but might change my mind. I can appreciate the slow product schedule, but not every product has to be the same. A little diversity would be nice, as an example a product like the 2E Magister or Pages From the Mages.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I just realized - they'll probably include Drizzt's 5e stat block in this...

So long as I can kill him and steal his stuff.

I don't think he is still living in Icewind Dale C1491 DR. Which is probably a good thing, or there would be nothing left for the PCs to do with a 20th level Marty Sue knocking around.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I am not sure Paizo has come up with an inspiring adventure for StarFinder yet. I have been looking for an excuse to try that.

Starfinder has been a general disappointment. WEG Star Wars D6 did the genre better 30 years ago.

 

[Hurin88]

Now, that, to me, looks very much like the sort of thing you're wishing for: a single story thread covering a few levels. It could very easily have been bound as an adventure for levels 1-4 or so. To me, it seems like it's the same sort of material, just packaged differently. These adventures took our group 4-5 sessions to play through.

That does sound pretty good.

I wish I could buy that adventure as a softcover book with 64 pages and a pull out map for $19.99. But maybe that's just because I'm old

Thanks for the tip though. I will take a look at those adventures.