I love the concept of Rime of the Frostmaiden, though it will require a lot of work to expose my player to it. I intend to crank the grittiness up to 11 -- there is no way the Ten Towns are doing so well under the situation they are described, which is two years without sun. Think of the Tambora volcano explosion, magnified and amplified. Also, I'll have to do a lot of work to integrate it to my campaign.
But this isn't the topic of the Story Hour. Inspired by the recent discussion saying that the game should treat "monster races" as people, like kobold, orcs and so on... I am seeing this campaign as an opportunity to have people behaving as monsters. Especially the PC. This is obviously a little tongue in cheek.
So here is my walkthrough, of course full of spoiler, on how to be the biggest jerk and still complete the campaign as intended.
1. Starting the campaign, the Ten-Towns
Characters are expected to grow in power and reputation. Since the campaign use milestone level, they need to complete 5 quests to reach level 4. Conveniently, when they are level 4, they receive a hero's welcome everywhere, so our objectives align.
Quest 1 : The Cold-Hearted Killers
The original title refers to a guy who is blessed by Aurile and doing her will. While the decent people of the Ten Town do lotteries to determine which of their inhabitants are sacrificed to Aurile, some try to avoid this grisly fate by removing their name from the lottery by bribing officials. Sephek Kaltro, the killer, tracks those draft evaders and kill them.
The character are approached as such, by a retired bounty hunter, that tells that she thinks he might be responsible of the death of people who wanted to evade being sacrificed. He asks the party to track that person and kill him. He doesn't want the PCs to bring Sephek to the legitimate authorities of the Ten-Towns for justice, he wants the PCs to kill Sephek and bring back his head. The quest is half-failed if they do otherwise, including bringing back Sephek to justice.
I suggest doing this quest as intended. No need to gather proof, just track the guy, bribe a local to get his travelling plans, and ambush him in the snow. Kill him and bring his head back. At no point the characters are expected to do anything about the lotteries. After all, they are law-abiding citizen and the speakers of the towns have ordered the sacrifice.
1 count of murder for money of a random person, and probably the persons travelling with him. Bonus point if you don't ask him to confess his guilt before killing him: it isn't required to fulfill the quest.
Quest 2 : The Chwingas.
A scholar wants to study chwingas, a local strange and little known life form. He tasks the characters to bring back a sample alive.
Seems innocuous. But Chwingas are intelligent. They are 14 INT, much higher than your average human. They are also cute: when the character encounter them, they are playing tea party, pretending to cook a dish and eat it like humans do. They use little pinecones as pretend food. That's so charming. Let's enslave one. Sure, the scholar pays a little more for bringing back a willing sample, but an unconscious one will do, too.
1 count of assault, 1 count of slavery, several count of murders -- there is a strong chance the other Chwingas will not stay motionless while their comrade is taken by the humans for their dire experiments, they might retaliate with their most powerful weapons available. They are known to thow snowballs at invaders.
Once we have enslaved sentient being and murdering random people (who happened to be killers but we may never know and frankly we don't care), it's time to focus on doing 3 quests out of the 10 available in the Ten-Town.
I suggest we focus on three specific ones.
1. Bremen, the Lake Monster
A druid of Auril awakened a plesiosaur in the lake, and told him he'd stay intelligent as long as he attacks fishermen. The characters are tasked to take notes on this prehistoric monster by a local scholar.
While it is possible to solve the quest peacefully, there is absolutely zero hint that the plesiosaur is awakened. So unless your characters are usually talking to random beasts, the most probable outcome is combat. It allows from a prolonger encounter and note-making, concluding the quest. As written, it doesn't require to make the plesiosaur stop the attacks, just meeting him, observe, and take notes. Let's the Bremen people starve as Auril intend for them.
2. Brin Shander, the Foaming Mug
A group of dwarves were attacked by a yeti when they travelled aboard an ice sled. They want the PCs to recover the sled. Unfortunately, when the PCs arrive on site, a group of scavenging goblins is busy looting the sled. I propose we deal with this situation in the usual adventurer fashion: let's kill all the goblins. It's possible to befriend them, but a well placed burning hand will do the job as well. They are goblinperson, yet they die. It successfully conclude the quest.
3. Caer-Dineval, the Black Sword
The current Speaker (mayor) is currently taken in custody by a group of fanatic cultists of Levistus. While the PCs probably will never know, the mayor is a wretched person that will feast in his keep if freed and refuse to help refugees later. But the PCs will never know. It's much easier to see that the followers of Levistus are very helpful, offer protection and shelter and food to the characters, and accept them as allies. No need to undertake any "quest".
4. Easthaven
The character arrives just in time to witness the burning of a wizard. Characters will buy popcorn and witness the live entertainment (well, less live for the wizard) that is freely offered by the town Speaker. Let's leave immediately afterwards.
5. Targos, the Moutain Climb
The character are tasked to find a missing hiker in the mountain. Investigating and retrace his path, they discover several persons from his expedition are missing. Following their tracks up, they meet a female yeti protecting her young tyke.Yetis have a language, intelligence, and one of the character in the party (through the Littlest Yeti secret) has been raised by yetis and they are often naturally fond of him. It's an opportunity to take the child yeti... hostage! It is actually mentionned in the adventure that taking the tyke hostage will help make the male adult back-off in a later encounter.
1 count of kidnapping, 1 count of murder.
6. Termalaine, the Beautiful Mine
In this quest, the task is to free the mine from the kobold that invade it. The easiest resolution is to kill the real monster, a grell, and move the kobold in town, where they find menial jobs. Also, it brings back an evil ghost in town, who formerly possessed a kobold and who will possess more important people, but who cares? It's easier than actually dealing with the ghost and doesn't diminish the reward.
Now that we have reached the appropriate level, we're contacted by a Speaker who want us to assault a fortress where duergars are planning an onslaught on the Ten Towns. He doesn't give any reward. Why should we bother? But let's go.
When we arrive near the fortress, a mechanic dragon takes to the sky and goes on a rampage to devastate the Ten Town. Partnering with a necromancer we just met, we can go to the last destination of the dragon, which means letting the Ten Towns be utterly sacked. The dragon will flee but we don't need to kill it or actually completing the attack on the fortress -- the questgiver is probably dead. We just need to infict 30 HP to the chardalyn dragon -- our ally has a magic missile wand, it should be enough. If she's wounded, she'll inflict a vampiric touch on a random passer-by, confirming we were wise to cooperate ith her.
After all, the authorities are agreeing with human sacrifice, they should seize the opportunity to chant "Au-rile, Au-rile, Au-rile..." to win points with the goddess as it considerably expedite the process they started. Even during the peak middle age population boost in Europe, where condition were much better than Icewind Dale's, the population growth was 0.25% a year. They are removing on their own 1% of the population each year. They are doomed even if their sacrifices do prevent Auril's Winter to affect them much.
With our new necromancer ally, we travel to Auril's tower. It involves summoning a giant awakened sperm whale for travel (which must be paid by fishing an octopus), and the NPC knows about it, so we don't have to learn its existence by any other means!
Then we climb the stair, bypassing most of the section about Auril, to the top of the tower, where we kill a CR11 Roc. That's quite difficult (for a party at level 7 with an helper NPC) and leave. For some reason, the curse will be lifted and the next day the sun rises and the 2-years winter comes to an end, Icewind Dales will be saved, despite having lost most of its inhabitants (except 300) and the character having been complete jerks. The reason is the Goddess Auril needs a proper mount to cast her spell of Everlasting Winter over the Dale, and she pouts when the mount is illed.
As an added bonus, on the trip back, tell Angajuck the awakened whale that you'll summon her next time to go on a whale oil fishing expedition. And we can tell our necromancer ally that we no longer have any incentive to help her any longer.
That's what being heroes entails!
But this isn't the topic of the Story Hour. Inspired by the recent discussion saying that the game should treat "monster races" as people, like kobold, orcs and so on... I am seeing this campaign as an opportunity to have people behaving as monsters. Especially the PC. This is obviously a little tongue in cheek.
So here is my walkthrough, of course full of spoiler, on how to be the biggest jerk and still complete the campaign as intended.
1. Starting the campaign, the Ten-Towns
Characters are expected to grow in power and reputation. Since the campaign use milestone level, they need to complete 5 quests to reach level 4. Conveniently, when they are level 4, they receive a hero's welcome everywhere, so our objectives align.
Quest 1 : The Cold-Hearted Killers
The original title refers to a guy who is blessed by Aurile and doing her will. While the decent people of the Ten Town do lotteries to determine which of their inhabitants are sacrificed to Aurile, some try to avoid this grisly fate by removing their name from the lottery by bribing officials. Sephek Kaltro, the killer, tracks those draft evaders and kill them.
The character are approached as such, by a retired bounty hunter, that tells that she thinks he might be responsible of the death of people who wanted to evade being sacrificed. He asks the party to track that person and kill him. He doesn't want the PCs to bring Sephek to the legitimate authorities of the Ten-Towns for justice, he wants the PCs to kill Sephek and bring back his head. The quest is half-failed if they do otherwise, including bringing back Sephek to justice.
I suggest doing this quest as intended. No need to gather proof, just track the guy, bribe a local to get his travelling plans, and ambush him in the snow. Kill him and bring his head back. At no point the characters are expected to do anything about the lotteries. After all, they are law-abiding citizen and the speakers of the towns have ordered the sacrifice.
1 count of murder for money of a random person, and probably the persons travelling with him. Bonus point if you don't ask him to confess his guilt before killing him: it isn't required to fulfill the quest.
Quest 2 : The Chwingas.
A scholar wants to study chwingas, a local strange and little known life form. He tasks the characters to bring back a sample alive.
Seems innocuous. But Chwingas are intelligent. They are 14 INT, much higher than your average human. They are also cute: when the character encounter them, they are playing tea party, pretending to cook a dish and eat it like humans do. They use little pinecones as pretend food. That's so charming. Let's enslave one. Sure, the scholar pays a little more for bringing back a willing sample, but an unconscious one will do, too.
1 count of assault, 1 count of slavery, several count of murders -- there is a strong chance the other Chwingas will not stay motionless while their comrade is taken by the humans for their dire experiments, they might retaliate with their most powerful weapons available. They are known to thow snowballs at invaders.
Once we have enslaved sentient being and murdering random people (who happened to be killers but we may never know and frankly we don't care), it's time to focus on doing 3 quests out of the 10 available in the Ten-Town.
I suggest we focus on three specific ones.
1. Bremen, the Lake Monster
A druid of Auril awakened a plesiosaur in the lake, and told him he'd stay intelligent as long as he attacks fishermen. The characters are tasked to take notes on this prehistoric monster by a local scholar.
While it is possible to solve the quest peacefully, there is absolutely zero hint that the plesiosaur is awakened. So unless your characters are usually talking to random beasts, the most probable outcome is combat. It allows from a prolonger encounter and note-making, concluding the quest. As written, it doesn't require to make the plesiosaur stop the attacks, just meeting him, observe, and take notes. Let's the Bremen people starve as Auril intend for them.
2. Brin Shander, the Foaming Mug
A group of dwarves were attacked by a yeti when they travelled aboard an ice sled. They want the PCs to recover the sled. Unfortunately, when the PCs arrive on site, a group of scavenging goblins is busy looting the sled. I propose we deal with this situation in the usual adventurer fashion: let's kill all the goblins. It's possible to befriend them, but a well placed burning hand will do the job as well. They are goblinperson, yet they die. It successfully conclude the quest.
3. Caer-Dineval, the Black Sword
The current Speaker (mayor) is currently taken in custody by a group of fanatic cultists of Levistus. While the PCs probably will never know, the mayor is a wretched person that will feast in his keep if freed and refuse to help refugees later. But the PCs will never know. It's much easier to see that the followers of Levistus are very helpful, offer protection and shelter and food to the characters, and accept them as allies. No need to undertake any "quest".
4. Easthaven
The character arrives just in time to witness the burning of a wizard. Characters will buy popcorn and witness the live entertainment (well, less live for the wizard) that is freely offered by the town Speaker. Let's leave immediately afterwards.
5. Targos, the Moutain Climb
The character are tasked to find a missing hiker in the mountain. Investigating and retrace his path, they discover several persons from his expedition are missing. Following their tracks up, they meet a female yeti protecting her young tyke.Yetis have a language, intelligence, and one of the character in the party (through the Littlest Yeti secret) has been raised by yetis and they are often naturally fond of him. It's an opportunity to take the child yeti... hostage! It is actually mentionned in the adventure that taking the tyke hostage will help make the male adult back-off in a later encounter.
1 count of kidnapping, 1 count of murder.
6. Termalaine, the Beautiful Mine
In this quest, the task is to free the mine from the kobold that invade it. The easiest resolution is to kill the real monster, a grell, and move the kobold in town, where they find menial jobs. Also, it brings back an evil ghost in town, who formerly possessed a kobold and who will possess more important people, but who cares? It's easier than actually dealing with the ghost and doesn't diminish the reward.
Now that we have reached the appropriate level, we're contacted by a Speaker who want us to assault a fortress where duergars are planning an onslaught on the Ten Towns. He doesn't give any reward. Why should we bother? But let's go.
When we arrive near the fortress, a mechanic dragon takes to the sky and goes on a rampage to devastate the Ten Town. Partnering with a necromancer we just met, we can go to the last destination of the dragon, which means letting the Ten Towns be utterly sacked. The dragon will flee but we don't need to kill it or actually completing the attack on the fortress -- the questgiver is probably dead. We just need to infict 30 HP to the chardalyn dragon -- our ally has a magic missile wand, it should be enough. If she's wounded, she'll inflict a vampiric touch on a random passer-by, confirming we were wise to cooperate ith her.
After all, the authorities are agreeing with human sacrifice, they should seize the opportunity to chant "Au-rile, Au-rile, Au-rile..." to win points with the goddess as it considerably expedite the process they started. Even during the peak middle age population boost in Europe, where condition were much better than Icewind Dale's, the population growth was 0.25% a year. They are removing on their own 1% of the population each year. They are doomed even if their sacrifices do prevent Auril's Winter to affect them much.
With our new necromancer ally, we travel to Auril's tower. It involves summoning a giant awakened sperm whale for travel (which must be paid by fishing an octopus), and the NPC knows about it, so we don't have to learn its existence by any other means!
Then we climb the stair, bypassing most of the section about Auril, to the top of the tower, where we kill a CR11 Roc. That's quite difficult (for a party at level 7 with an helper NPC) and leave. For some reason, the curse will be lifted and the next day the sun rises and the 2-years winter comes to an end, Icewind Dales will be saved, despite having lost most of its inhabitants (except 300) and the character having been complete jerks. The reason is the Goddess Auril needs a proper mount to cast her spell of Everlasting Winter over the Dale, and she pouts when the mount is illed.
As an added bonus, on the trip back, tell Angajuck the awakened whale that you'll summon her next time to go on a whale oil fishing expedition. And we can tell our necromancer ally that we no longer have any incentive to help her any longer.
That's what being heroes entails!
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