D&D 5E WotC Confirms Horror-themed Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden

During WotC's Comic Relief charity-supporting livestream this evening, presenters Anna Prosser...

During WotC's Comic Relief charity-supporting livestream this evening, presenters Anna Prosser and Mica Burton confirmed that the September D&D adventure is, indeed, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden.

The adventure has a regular and limited edition cover.

The presenters say this is the first time anybody has heard the title(?), and that this was the first time they'd seen the cover.

Chris Perkins says its a horror adventure, with these of isolation and secrecy. Levels 1-12.

SOME SECRETS ARE WORTH DYING FOR
Feel the cold touch of death in this adventure for the world’s greatest roleplaying game.

In Icewind Dale, adventure is a dish best served cold.

Beneath the unyielding night sky, you stand before a towering glacier and recite an ancient rhyme, causing a crack to form in the great wall of ice. Beyond this yawning fissure, the Caves of Hunger await. And past this icy dungeon is a secret so old and terrifying that few dare speak of it. The mad wizards of the Arcane Brotherhood long to possess that which the god of winter’s wrath has so coldly preserved—as do you! What fantastic secrets and treasures are entombed in the sunless heart of the glacier, and what will their discovery mean for the denizens of Icewind Dale? Can you save Ten-Towns from the Frostmaiden’s everlasting night?

Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden is a tale of dark terror that revisits the forlorn, flickering candlelights of civilization known as Ten-Towns and sheds light on the many bone-chilling locations that surround these frontier settlements.


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The deity antagonist, Auril, is a god who Perkins says is a lot like Hella from the Thor: Ragnarok movie. In this book, the Frostmaiden has multiple stat blocks depending on the form she takes. The book has over 50 stat blocks.

The book has lots of quests, each of which is a mini adventure. Or play through them all as an epic horror story emerges. A campaign, or slice it up.

The environment itself is a villain -- blizzards, avalanches, survival, limited food, fishing for Knucklehead Trout.

There's a number of sports and games for the characters to play. A "Goliath sport" for example.

320 pages, poster map, for levels 1-12.

For the 10 minutes or so before the stream launched, the "Coming Soon' page featured the cover art (which was leaked by D&D Beyond last week).

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Frankly. All Wizards books should be 320 pages. Reprints should be. Further print runs should be. Books that cost a damn lot. Should be worthwhile.
 

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Urriak Uruk

Gaming is fun, and fun is for everyone
And when I looked to see who was who, since I did not watch any of this, after all this talk of inclusivity and changing thoughts on race, I actually cringed when I saw, of the 10 participants, the villain was played by the person most visibly a Person of Color.

I mean, there is another black person and a person in drag, so I don't think it's a huge deal.
 

BB Shockwave

Explorer
Nice!
The bottom one looks like the Crag Cat, and the one above we know is the Tomb Tapper... but what could be that first one? Looks like a Korred, maybe? But we already have one of those from a prior set.

Hopefully there might be shoggoths in the Icewall! If they're using At the Mountains of Madness as inspiration, it'll also give me an excuse to use the amazing Sandy Petersens' Cthulhu Mythos for 5e :)
There is a character (who looks like some mangy Werewolf or Jackalwere) called Tekeli-li among the Gale Force 9 minis, so who knows! Maybe!
 





Parmandur

Book-Friend
New Dragon+ issue just dropped, including some juicy details on the Adventure, some of them huge:

- Auril has a Theros style Mythic stat block, or rather three stat blocks that activate as they are defeated subsequently
  • Auril was not originally the focal enemy, but it moved that way through development
  • The sun has been darkened in Icewind Dale, so plants are dead and there is a Dueregar attempting to establish a surface kingdom using the remnants of the Crystal Shard
  • one of the central elements of the book is a Lost City buried in the ice from the Netherese Empire, loaded with kewl magic loot
  • And this is HUGE, apparently, this Adventure explains and ties together the Obelisks that have appeared throughout all of the Sword Coast Adventure books
 
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Those all sound pretty darn cool. I'll be curious about the one part left below behind the spoilers tag. I found a reference to a mysterious <spoiler> being studied by Vecna in the Plane of Dust or similar obscure realm in an old Planescape sourcebook, but that's probably a reach. Guess I'll finally find out.

New Dragon+ issue just dropped, including some juicy details on the Adventure, some of them huge:

  • And this is HUGE, apparently, this Adventure explains and ties together the Obelisks that have appeared throughout all of the Sword Coast Adventure books
 

Parmandur

Book-Friend
Those all sound pretty darn cool. I'll be curious about the one part left below behind the spoilers tag. I found a reference to a mysterious <spoiler> being studied by Vecna in the Plane of Dust or similar obscure realm in an old Planescape sourcebook, but that's probably a reach. Guess I'll finally find out.

Yeah, this article with Perkins talking was pretty exciting.
 

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