u/CamaradaMaulet1909

Massive spoilers for Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden and the Mistborn trilogy.

I'm currently running Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden with a fairly big change to the story behind the campaign. Most of the adventure is still recognisable: Ten-Towns, the Everlasting Rime, the duergar, Sunblight, the chardalyn dragon, Auril, Solstice, the Caves of Hunger and Ythryn are all still there. I've mainly changed how those things connect to each other.

The idea is heavily inspired by Mistborn, especially the Lord Ruler/Well of Ascension/Ruin twist. I wanted Auril to spend most of the campaign looking like the obvious villain, while the players slowly discover that there was another reason behind what she's doing. She isn't secretly good, though. She's still willing to condemn Icewind Dale to eternal winter and kill anyone who gets in her way. The difference is that she knows something the players don't.

A thousand years before the campaign, Auril was part of an adventuring party with four other people: Kael, a wizard; Thane, a barbarian; Maelis, a cleric; and Lyss, a rogue. They came to Icewind Dale because something strange was happening there, and eventually discovered that it wasn't a magical phenomenon but the work of Vecna.

Long before Netheril, an ancient civilisation called the Weavers created a network of obelisks capable of manipulating or rewriting parts of history. Vecna eventually learned how they worked and used that knowledge against the Weavers, effectively erasing their civilisation from history. Much later, he turned his attention to Icewind Dale.

Auril and her companions confronted him, but the fight went badly. Her companions died one by one, and Auril eventually managed to use one of the obelisks to imprison Vecna. She doesn't fully understand what the obelisk is or who created it. She only knows that Vecna is trapped because of it and that interfering with it could release him.

So she stayed and guarded the prison for a thousand years.

The reason the Everlasting Rime begins now is that Vecna has finally managed to exert a small amount of influence outside his prison. He can't possess people or control them directly, but he can plant ideas through dreams, visions and whispers. People start becoming interested in Netheril and rumours about something buried beneath the Reghed Glacier, and Auril realises that sooner or later someone is going to reach the obelisk.

Her solution is to freeze Icewind Dale and make the entire region effectively uninhabitable. From her perspective, sacrificing the Dale is preferable to risking Vecna's release. The sacrifices in Ten-Towns are separate from this; Auril doesn't demand them and doesn't really care about them. They're simply something desperate people do because they think they can appease her.

The players don't know any of this. For most of the campaign, Auril is simply the villain. They should have every reason to want to defeat her, and they aren't wrong to do so. The twist is that after killing her, they discover that they haven't actually solved the underlying problem.

I've been building towards this with fragments of a diary written a thousand years ago by one of the adventurers who originally confronted Vecna. The fragments are found out of chronological order, and the writer isn't identified. Early on, the players only learn that a group of adventurers came to Icewind Dale because they were investigating something with a will of its own. Over time they learn the names Kael, Thane, Maelis and Lyss, but not the identity of the fifth member. The final fragment is only found after the players interact with the obelisk.

At the same time, they find a pendant that belonged to Lyss, revealing that Auril was the person who wrote the diary. The idea is that this should recontextualise most of what they've seen throughout the campaign without turning Auril into a misunderstood hero.

I've also connected the duergar plot to this. In my version, I'm replacing Asmodeus with Vecna. The Netherese discovered the obelisk long after the Weavers disappeared and built Ythryn around it. They experimented with the strange material associated with it and eventually created chardalyn. It's not the same material, but it's connected closely enough that Vecna can exert a small amount of influence through it.

Xardorok doesn't know Vecna exists. He hears whispers through the chardalyn and assumes they're coming from a goddess. He believes he's being guided towards something powerful beneath the glacier, which he thinks is the source of Auril's power. In reality, Vecna is manipulating him because his actions help push people towards Ythryn. Vecna doesn't particularly want Xardorok to reach the obelisk himself; he'd much rather the PCs eventually get there and release it.

I'm keeping Chapter 2 relatively sandboxy, although I'm using some locations to introduce Netheril, chardalyn, the duergar and Auril's reputation, and others to develop the PCs and their backstories. I'm also removing the time travel from Ythryn because it doesn't really fit with the new ending. Iriolarthas is still there, but he's been in magical stasis since the fall of the city and wakes up when the players disturb him.

The campaign ends with the players reaching the obelisk and facing essentially the same choice Auril faced a thousand years earlier: they can release its power, ending the Everlasting Rime but freeing Vecna, or someone can take on Auril's role as guardian and keep Vecna imprisoned while the winter continues. Only after they make contact with the obelisk do they get the final diary fragment and understand what Auril was actually trying to do.

I'm mostly looking for feedback from people who have actually run Rime of the Frostmaiden. Does this seem compatible with the structure and lore of the adventure, or are there things in the original campaign that I've overlooked which would make these changes difficult to pull off? Does the Auril/Vecna connection work for you? Does tying chardalyn and Xardorok to Vecna feel coherent, or does that stretch things too far?

I'm also curious about the ending. Do you think the choice between releasing Vecna and continuing the Rime feels like an interesting dilemma, or would one option be obviously preferable to the other for most groups?

My main concern is whether this twist would actually work at the table.

More specifically:

1. Does the Vecna/Auril connection feel coherent, or does it feel too convoluted?
2. Would the players have enough information to understand the final twist without figuring it out too early?
3. Does replacing Asmodeus with Vecna in the Xardorok/chardalyn plot make sense?
4. Do you think the final choice is genuinely difficult, or is one option obviously better?
5. Is there anything in Rime of the Frostmaiden that you think this adaptation would accidentally break?

I'm particularly interested in feedback from people who have run the adventure, because I want to preserve as much of its structure as possible while changing the meaning of the central story.

Thanks!

Spoilers for Rime of the Frostmaiden, Vecna: Eve of Ruin and older Planescape material.

I'm currently running a heavily modified Rime of the Frostmaiden, which will eventually lead into a homebrew Planescape campaign.

I'm keeping most of the Icewind Dale sandbox, but I'm slowly connecting it to an older mystery involving the Spellweavers, the black obelisks found throughout 5e, Netheril and Ythryn. The players currently think Auril is the ultimate villain, but that's deliberately a false conclusion.

At the end of the campaign, I want the PCs to finally encounter Vecna. They refuse to serve him, he kills them, and then they wake up in the Mortuary in Sigil — as their old characters.

In my version of the setting, the Lady of Pain is the last surviving Spellweaver, after Vecna exterminated the others thousands of years ago. She isn't going to be their mentor or explain the plot to them. Sigil will simply become their new home base and a place from which they can travel throughout the planes.

The thing I really want to build the second campaign around is the black obelisks. I'm thinking of making them part of an ancient Spellweaver network capable of manipulating reality on a multiversal scale, which Vecna has spent millennia learning to use.

One idea I really like is that Vecna can't simply enter Sigil because of the Lady of Pain. Instead, he uses the obelisks to somehow bring Sigil to him — not necessarily by literally moving the city, but by manipulating reality until the distance between Sigil and his location stops working normally. The end goal would be to use Sigil and the obelisk network to reset reality.

What I'm struggling with is how to turn this into an actual campaign rather than a sequence of fetch quests.

I'd like the players to gradually discover how the obelisk network works and then decide for themselves how to interfere with it. They could sabotage it, manipulate it, use it against Vecna, protect parts of it, find lost Spellweaver knowledge, etc.

I'd also like their choices to matter mechanically: the better they deal with Vecna's plan, the weaker he is during the final confrontation.

I'm already familiar with Die, Vecna, Die! and I'm completely fine with reusing, adapting or stealing ideas from it. In fact, I'm deliberately not trying to preserve official lore. If something from Die, Vecna, Die! or older Planescape material fits this campaign better than my current ideas, I'm happy to use it.

So, for those of you who know Planescape/Sigil well: how would you use Sigil itself in a campaign like this?

I'm especially interested in older Planescape material, factions, adventures, weird Sigil lore, or anything else that could make the city feel like an important part of the story rather than just a convenient planar hub.

I'm mostly looking for cool ideas to steal and adapt. 😄

I'm currently running a heavily modified Rime of the Frostmaiden. I'm keeping most of the locations and the sandbox structure, but I'm slowly tying the campaign into a bigger mystery involving Netheril, Ythryn, chardalyn, the Spellweavers and the black obelisks that appear throughout 5e.

The players currently think Auril is behind the eternal winter and that she's trying to protect some ancient source of power beneath the glacier. That's meant to be a false conclusion. Eventually they'll discover that something much older is going on, leading to Vecna.

My plan is for the first campaign to end in Ythryn, with the PCs eventually confronting Vecna. They refuse to serve him, so Vecna kills the entire party.

Then the players wake up in the Mortuary in Sigil.

They slowly realise that they're actually playing their old characters, resurrected after Vecna killed them. Sigil becomes the base for the second campaign.

In my setting, the Lady of Pain is the last surviving Spellweaver. Vecna exterminated the Spellweavers thousands of years ago, and she survived. She's not going to be their mentor or explain everything to them; she simply has her own reasons for wanting Vecna stopped.

The big thing I want to build the second campaign around is the black obelisks. I love the idea that they're part of some ancient Spellweaver network capable of manipulating reality, and that Vecna has spent thousands of years learning how to use them.

What I really like is the idea that Vecna can't simply enter Sigil, so instead of finding a way into the city, he uses the obelisks to somehow bring Sigil to him — essentially manipulating reality until the distance between Sigil and himself stops meaning what it normally means. The ultimate goal would be to use this to reset/remake reality.

This is where I'm stuck.

I don't want the campaign to become "find obelisk A, fight something, find obelisk B, repeat". I'd rather the players gradually figure out what the obelisks actually do and then decide for themselves how to interfere with Vecna's plan.

Ideally, the things they accomplish during the campaign would affect the final fight. If they completely fail to understand what's happening, Vecna reaches the final confrontation at full power. If they figure out the obelisks and manage to sabotage or manipulate the network, the final fight becomes significantly easier.

I don't really care about sticking to official lore. I'm happy to steal from old editions, Planescape, other D&D adventures, video games, movies, books, whatever.

Has anyone done something similar, or have any ideas for how Vecna could use the obelisks to "bring Sigil to him", and how the players could fight back without turning the campaign into a series of fetch quests?

I'm mostly looking for cool ideas to steal. 😄