r/rimeofthefrostmaiden

Backstory: I'm preparing to run Rime of the Frostmaiden for the first time so I'm doing lots of homework to have it all make sense. One of the major loose ends seems to be linking Auril to Ythryn.

One of my favorite games of all time is Chrono Trigger and there are a ton of parallels between the Netherese empire and Zeal. There is also a time travel aspect in Rime, specifically in Ythryn. What caused the floating cities of Zeal to fall? Lavos caused Ythryn to fall and if crashing on the planet or expending eldritch energy caused Lavos to go into a slumber, wouldn't a mythallar's power be able to supress it? At least...for several millenia. All that chardalyn lying around makes me think that instead of demoic influence causing madness, maybe it's really Lavos's influence. He is an eldritch alien horror, after all.

Auril noticed a disturbance in her frosty abode, as if all life was being sapped from the environment. She determined the cause of this disturbance to be inside the Reghed glacier which was now actually melting! Her answer was to freeze the region, hopefully reversing the thaw and causing whatever was inside to go back to sleep.

Xardarok is still drawn to the surface with intent to collect chardalyn and build a dragon (basically a dragon engine - more Chrono Trigger parallels!). But instead of Deep Duerra being Asmodeus in disguise, it's Lavos! This ties the duergar into the other main conflicts much more. Lavos can only influence from afar, so it doesn't particularly care about building dragons or destroying Ten-Towns, but it's empowering Xardarok to slowly gain more control over him and his minions.

Auril will not be confronted in Ch. 5, I am taking an idea I saw that an agent of Auril, a frost giant druid, rides the Roc and casts the spell renewing The Endless Night. Auril herself will appear to the party earlier in the campaign, warning them of a greater threat than herself. While Auril is still an evil minor god, this could create a "lesser of two evils" scenario and make the party ally with her for a time (or not).

In Ythryn the party could still encounter the demi-lich, who was called Queen Zeal, and had tried to use Lavos's power for herself. She is the one who brought Lavos's shell to Ythryn after the fall, though doing so left her permanently drained of power. Despite her best efforts, she was unable to harness Lavos's power for herself and has been forced to endure being near its power and influence ever since. She has gone quite insane from this, though she is able to communicate telepathically to some extent. She would also gladly join a party in fighting Lavos.

The showdown with Lavos could involve Auril's assistance in fighting Lavos, who is not quite full power but still more than capable of waking up and causing a climactic fight at the end of the adventure, potentially transporting the party through time at the end of it! Lavos has a lot of power, even while slumbering. The next campaign becomes a time traveling adventure to stop Lavos from ending the world of Faerun!

If you read this post and had any furhter ideas for expanding this idea please share them.

Hi fellow Icewind Dale DMs

This will be my first ever campaign and I'm a bit nervous.

I'd like to let my group start in Bremen abd prepared exactly that place + Bryn Shander so far.

Is this enough to start and be able to keep ahead of the Players contentwise?

I'm pretty sure the answer will be: it depends. I'm planning to Play every other week for about 3 hours per Session online. I think I just need someone whi encourages me to actually start the thing.

Thanks for this sub and its contributors, I've been reading for months now and this is one of the better places the Internet has to offer.

If I want to run only three quests from each chapter, which ones should I choose, considering their importance to the plot and the fun factor?

Fellow DMs, I come to you with a predicament: My party's cleric chose the grave domain, and my party of mostly new players has proven to be a little death-prone (possibly owing to my running fewer, harder combats each day instead of more, easier encounters). I searched the campaign and discovered that if run as-written, access to revivify and later raise dead will be meaningless as there are no diamonds, of the required value or otherwise, in any of the module's many treasure drops. Where would you all suggest I place some, to let the necromancy cleric do his thing and give the party and extra life or two? My initial instinct is to convert some of the higher gold amounts (for example, maud's cauldron) into the equivalent in diamonds? Or maybe I should just have there be a jeweler in Bryn Shander & Targos and let the party exchange gold for diamond themselves?

My players find themselves at the moment in front of the door for the 3rd trial of Auril down in the dungeon in Grimskalle. Auril is not at the moment in the fortress, but the group found some frost druids in front of an altar in the middle of the dungeon, chanting some kind of song to worship the Frostmaiden. They have also made an enemy out of Vellynne, who is on her way to Grimskalle, trying to find the Codicil before them. Due to shenanigans and my group not having the best of luck, they will probably end up passing the last test with some levels of exhaustion and not at their fullest. I am wondering what will happen whenever they find the Codicil and take it.

The book does not really go much into this, but how does Auril react to it being taken? If she's at the island, I'd guess she appears as a bunch of snow coalescing in the middle of the dungeon level and confronts the players (and, in our case, the frost druids too). My group would probably try to fight her, but there's a 99% chance of it resulting in a TPK, which would be a bummer given that we're doing a little trip this weekend for these next couple of sessions.

This is where I would have two questions: 1. how would the PCs escape the fortress? I mean, I have never done a chase with any kind of urgency, but it seems rather easy for the Frostmaiden at her lair, given that she can basically appear wherever she wants. Also, she has a giant bird at her disposal. My group convinced Gant to wait on a boat for them in exchange for a diamond, so her's still there at the harbour. How could PCs avoid getting trapped or how have you people run chases or this kind of encounters before?

Second question has to do more with the mechanics of the control weather spell. I believe my PCs believe that they can end the Rime only with whatever is written in the Codicil. They haven't paid much attention to the fact that there's a city with millennia-old magic underneath a glacier –magic that would be needed to end such a spell– and I am afraid I don't know how to make this clear for the players without telling them outright that they need to go down there to end the spell. They do have Professor Skant in their possession, so I think that would be my go-to, but I sill don't have clear how or when would be the right moment to do so.

Would love to know how this part of the adventure went on your campaigns and would appreciate any kind of ideas!

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. 😄

It's a city. I know my players. They will want to just hit each tower as fast as they can and ignore the rest.

I don't want to let them look at the whole map and say "I'm going there!” pointing to the next Tower. I want to simulate looking through a city. On the other hand, they are towers so should be reasonably visible from afar.

Anyway, I haven't used a map like this before and just want to know how you did it or are planning to do it. I mean mechanically. Did you show them the whole map, show them part of it and fog the rest? Or just use theatre of the mind to describe the surroundings? Or what?

Thanks!

Hey there everyone, like the title suggests i am trying to find a live play/stream of RotFM i watched many years ago and cant seem to find now. All i can remember is they were using a bit of Acquisitions Incoroporated and there was a wizard called Milo who sucked at magic and was hated by the arcane brotherhood.

Myra, Xantcha, Tjommi and Uld - If you read this, get out!

I'm just about one(!) session from ending the campaign of three years - and I have this sneaking suspicion that one of my players might try and throw the Spindle into the Mythallar.

To provide just a but of context, my players will have to contend with the fact that Auril is jury-casting a ritual that binds her Everlasting Rime to the Ythryn Mythallar, a constant font of magical power. This will probably cause the sun to dissappear from the whole of the Far North forever. This will happen during the last battle at the Mythallar, while the party fights her and her minions.

Now, I have this absolutely Red-Button-obsessed player, who made it clear that they'll steal the Spindle and put into their Bag of Holding if they get the option. At first, I thought that either wouldn't work, or would destroy the magic that holds the bag together - but hey, who am I to stop my player's fun?

In essence, the final battle has a whole host of possible outcomes - A simple defeat of Auril, they die but stop the ritual, they hurry out to the Obelisk and activate it... Aaand my Red-Button player could attempt to stop the whole thing by throwing the Bag with the Spindle at the Mythallar.

I want that outcome to be decisive, even overpoweringly so. Here's a few thoughts:

• The Mythallar explodes, creating a chain reaction that blows up the whole city. The players get to make a Dexterity Saving Throw (DC 22) or take the Mythallar's 20d10 + 70 radiant damage. This likely also obliterates Auril - either per the rules or because I rule that she just dies.
• The Mythallar explodes, but only doing relatively minor damage - and blasts everyone and everything far into the air. The players will then have to try and save each other in the air and survive debris before they land, almost certainly dying immediately.
• The Mythallar explodes, inadvertantly activating the Obelisk, which sends the city and everyone else back in time.

... Or something else? What do you think?

I witnessed a partial eclipse recently, and it gave me the idea - an eclipse (which never ends) seems like the perfect device for Auril's darkness spell.

That's all I've got so far, just dropping it here in case it inspires anyone else or anyone wants to help fill in the details.

So, this is kind of my fault and now I have no idea how to fix it.

My group is an elf Druid, a tiefling cleric and a drow ranger.

My group is in Chapter 1 of the adventure where they explore Ten Towns. They ended up in Lonleywood. The got the White Moose mission. Instead of hunting it, they decided they wanted to find the moose and warn it that hunters were coming.

It took time, but they found the Elven ruins. And like a fool, I let them talk to the moose because the druid can speak druidic. The moose basically revealed that it was awakened by the druid, who is in league with Auril and that's why it kills people, along with just not wanting people in the woods. To be clear the moose was *very* aggressive.

My players refused to attack the moose, ran and now have decided to not fight the moose and instead try to help the moose by killing the townspeople of Lonleywood.

I don't even know what to do beyond letting them all die when they try to fight an entire town. I forsee this is going to become a problem ANY time they are asked to kill an animal.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can get the party back on track without exercising a TPK?

UPDATE: It seems like I’m dealing with a frustrated player rather than a fully frustrated table.

So I had conversations with two other players other than the one who complained to me in messages. One player (sorcerer) was actively trying strategize in his head how to send up AoE attacks (he said he had a total of 5 fireballs ready to go, lol) but once everyone started scattering he just went along with the group.

The other player I spoke to was the paladin warlock who actually called for them to run in the first place. He told me he had a lot of fun in the chaos and the panicky run around was very on brand for the party (he’s not wrong). I asked his to provide a rousing “back-against-the-wall-Captain-America” speech at some point during the next session but it can’t sound like it came from me, and he agreed.

Last night, the party encountered Auril inside the glacier. I used a statblock from the subreddit rather than the book one and played her as a flying hit and run enemy rather than a “stay there and take it” enemy.

The fighter in the group can do 50 points of damage in a turn to her, the casters have spells like fly and call lightning, and the warlock/paladin’s familiar was able to stay up around her to call out where she was in the sky.

Thing is, the group flat-out panicked and tried to run, I kept telegraphing that she was faster than them by having her attack the lead edge of the party, but they weren’t taking the hint that they need to deal with her. The wizard finally trapped her in a wall of force, but that only lets them escape for so long. She’s going to chase them down.

Just venting a little because there was no discussion of tactics or what they should do, one player panicked and ran, which led to a lot of confusion for the group.

Now they’re entering the Spire and she’s about 5 minutes from escaping the wall of force and she’ll catch up in about 30 seconds after that.

Just needed to vent.

A suspenseful opening to the last act of my Rime:

In my Rime Of The Frostmaiden a player casted Disintegrate on the Spindle to try to prevent the party from turning into nothics during their upcoming long rest in Iriolerthas' Study. This obviously backfired spectacularly. Three party members stayed in the study while this was happening and are now trapped there because the magic door got EMP'd. Three other party members were present at the Spindle and are locked outside. The whole city's gone dark and Avarice and the cultists died from the skydock falling. The Mythallar is disabled. And of course the spellcasters are now drained of spell slots.

In your opinion, what happens now? Does Auril enter via the now-unlocked balcony and hunt the party? Does she send her minions in via the main entrance? Does the party who is locked the study? outside have any chance at survival at all? At least the party locked inside the study has a decent chance of just sleeping off the disaster as long as they don't turn into nothics...

Hi all! One of my players took the pirate cannibal secret, so the party is practically guaranteed to come across Arveiaturace in a few levels (we are level three now, but I am anticipating a trek to the shipwreck around level 5 or 6). I am unsure whether to adapt her to the 2024 ancient white dragon statblock. I have mostly adapted reprinted stackblocks, aside from the really stupid ones like duergar->spy, and my players have mostly taken 5.5 features.