After over three years of playing our Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign, we finally ended it yesterday with an epilogue episode, rounding the whole thing out to 67 Sessions - and as is custom, it's time for the End of Campaign discussion post!

I've segmented the post into some subsections, so you can jump to whatever part you find interesting - it's a very long post after all!

The Players

My campaign started with six players and ended with four due to various real-life situations. Over the campaign, we had eight player characters:

"Uld" (Real Name Geduld Geddarm), Gnome Wizard: Uld was the unofficial leader of the team, and a secret spy agent for the Harpers. Started out as a straight-forward good dude, but as the stakes got raised and Vellynne got involved, he became more extreme and direct; though without fully losing his heart. Him and Vellynne had a powerful rivalry that ended in begrudging respect on both sides.
Prince Tjommi Gunvaldsson, Half-Orc Barbarian: A big, strong guy with a love for ale and magic, and a hatred for water. Though outwardly simple, Tjommi was the heart of the party and an MVP in the last sessions, destroying both the Staff of Power AND hiding Iriolarthas' spellbook, so both Wizards couldn't claim them. Is the son of Gunvald Halraggson born to an Orcish Chieftain through a diplomatic agreement, which is why Ulkora the shaman hadn't caused his death at birth as well.
Myra, Human Ranger, Ranger/Druid, then Druid and Nuniq, Polar Bear: A wilderness survivalist who's never known anything other than the tundra and her polar bear. Naturally curious and hella suspicious, Myra saw secrets and hidden information anywhere. We began calling Insight Checks "Myra Checks". Had amnesia after falling into the Caves of Hunger as a child, and learned that she were raised by Oyaminartok.
Xantcha, Doppelganger Cleric: The party Cleric, who took the image of the first person to show her kindness, the real Xantcha, after she died. Was truly blessed by Lathander, who saw her true colors behind the disguise. A real button-pusher but ultimately an MVP when it came to braving Ythryn and its horrors.

Other characters included:

Fjella, Goliath Fighter: Originally a human Tentowner who died while attempting to flee the Rime with her family, and was Reincarnated as a Goliath, while her family remained dead. The player left the campaign due to real life stuff, but her character and the implications around her rebirth stayed in the campaign until the very end.
Aurelius, Human Rogue: Xantcha's player's original character. Was a writer-in-exile after writing an exposée on Devil-worshipping nobles down south, but a run-in with the White Lady in Easthaven aged him fourty years. The player felt uncomfortable with this, and left the character, who stayed a support NPC from then on. Aurelius canonically wrote the campaign as a book called "The Rime of the Frostmaiden" as a partially fictional novel in our version of the setting.
Orak, Hexblood Druid: A Frost Druid who broke from the other Auril-aligned Druids and became a Wildfire Druid. His existence alone made the most changes to the book, requiring extensive changes to Ravisin, to Geluvicken (more on her later) and much more. Found out that he had been changed by a ritual from an artifact but died soon after. The player shifted to a new character, abandoned that character then returned as a almost-Wood-Woad-Orak, before leaving the campaign by turning into their child self through the use of a different artifact. It's a long story.
Sadidda Ibbylan, Drow Rogue/Wizard: A Drow agent of a Menzobarranzen House aligned with the Sunblight clan, and Orak's player's replacement character for Chapter 3 and 4. He quickly got tired of him, and asked to return to Orak once Chapter 4 had ended, which I agreed to. Only really interesting fact about him was that he rolled like dog; had a Session titled "The Humbling of one Sadidda Ibbylan" for a reason.

Major Changes I Made

Overall, I think I ran the book pretty close to how it's supposed to. I was looking forward to seeing the campaign work as it was written, and only changed or added things I thought would improve the original writing, not to add complexity or higher stakes.

Major changes include:

Auril wasn't on Solstice, and her statblock was made quite a bit more powerful. I really wanted a proper, climactic end, and I didn't feel like Chapter 5 put me up to that. The players confronted her only in Ythryn, in a battle that took us almost 5,5 hours to complete.
Instead of Auril, a Chosen of Auril named Archdruid Geluvicken acted as custodian of Grimskalle, and her main agent in the Dale. Geluvicken was originally taken from Eventyr Games' supplements, but I changed her so much she is barely the same character now. She was the leader of the Frost Druids, running them as a terrorist group and working to make them into magical soldiers with an artifact called the Bloodbriar Needle, which could turn them into powerful Hexblood (which she herself, Orak and Ravisin were). This wasn't put into motion by the Goddess herself; it was Geluvicken acting on her own.
I introduced Vellynne as an NPC as early as Session 4, though she only really got important at Chapter 4 like normal.
I upended the travel-time in the tundra. One hour on snowsled before one hour's rest? That's silly; I changed the travel times and speeds to better represent the real world.

Feelings on Each Chapter

Chapter 1 and 2

We started with the Chwinga mission, which they accidentally solved in Session 1, but after that, it was off to the races. With a little nudging, I had my players bopping from Bryn Shander to Good Mead, then Dougan's Hole and Easthaven, completing each quest there while getting to know each other. By accident they forced me to play the "Chardalyn figurehead"-version of the town hall caper, which is what caused Aurelius to grow old. It was also after this that they met Vellynne. By the end, the party had dealt with the Caer and travelled up Kelvin's Cairn as well.

Overall, every mission is fantastic - they're small, pacey and self-contained. I was excited for each one of them, and every one was fun - even the trek up Kelvin's Cairn, which is still a meme to us to this day.

The flip-side is that this Chapter and Chapter 2 are hella unstructured. Perhaps by design, every quest, town and location feels very distant from one another, both physically but also as a story. I wanted to slowly string together something like a story which could eventually culminate in Chapter 7, but everything was so disjointed, it often felt like I was inventing a story for a setting guide rather than an adventure.

It was fun, but overall I think I could've used some way of tying locations together - if nothing else, with optional hints, clues and threads one could put at each location to lead to the next one. For example, perhaps two options for the The Mead Must Flow quest could be to:

... have a letter written in Giant somewhere in the cave that explains how the Sunblight Duergar from the Outpost would pay for any mead the Verbeeg steals, or
... have a frightened, awakened mountain goat by her freedom and life by explaining that Ravisin set the Verbeeg up to raiding Good Maid, and that she can be found near Lonelywood.

Too often I felt like I had to have an NPC come and tell the players where to go, and what to do - but in general, I loved my time in and around the Ten-Towns!

Chapter 3 and 4

I was surprised to love the Duergar subplot. At first, I feared that the outside problem of Underdark conquerors would take the players' attention too far away from the main "endless winter"-plot - which it still does, but we'll get to that.

My players had swerved around all the good clues as to the existence of the Duergar so I had to give the mission to them directly. I also had a new character, Sadidda, Orak's new character as a help - his personal story was deeply intertwined with the whole Sunblight plot.

I made the common changes - the Chardalyn Dragon only left Sunblight once the players were inside the fortress, and by then I'd given them enough information that they knew about the Dragon and Xardarok's plans. They had also met Vellynne several times, so it was less startling for them to meet her. I also had her cast Sending to contact them while they were in the fortress. More on that in a bit.

By the end of Chapter 4, Dougan's Hole, Good Mead and about a third of Easthaven was destroyed. The Dragon had been destroyed over Easthaven with the Horn of Blasting from the Jarlmoot in a battle my players still enthusiastically talk about to this day. The death-toll numbered only in a few hundreds - Vellynne having Sending meant that they could warn the towns, who mostly evacuated before the Dragon got there.

Overall, what I think this plot does will is that it is extremely tangible. The threat from the Duergar is easy to understand, and the danger that the Dragon poses makes it easy for the players to set their own plans in motion.

This relative simplicity means that it felt like the game of DnD could do what it does best - enable players in heroic actions and clever thinking! It's easy to understand the cost of failure, and besides the slightly strange Underdark statblocks, the enemies are wonderful - nothing is quite as cool as a vast army of grunts to make a villain feel like a villain!

On a more negative note, we all discussed that we felt like the Dragon battle was the highlight of the Campaign. Since this is the last time any threat will affect the Tentowns directly, everything in later chapters felt more like afterthoughts to them.

I will also say that the "Big Threat" towards the Towns being the Duergar and not a massive Druid attack felt like the story swerved hard away from Auril and the Rime. It wasn't as bad as I feared it could've been, but it still felt like a out-of-context problem.

Chapter 5

I kept telling my players that "the sandbox will become more linear as we go", which is what happenes in this Chapter. My players went with Angajuk to Solstice, where they puttered around the island before entering Grimskalle.

Here I made a larger change; Auril wasn't on Solstice, but her Chosen, the Archdruid Geluvicken, a Frost Giant, was - but to not force a battle immediately, and because Orak's player had gotten Orak back again through some artefact shenanigans, she was basically playing a very distant, hateful host who assumed the party would break under the weight of the Tests.

The Tests went well, but I did feel like it was difficult to give them the narrative weight they really required. I think the book assumes the players will bring that, but mine were just mostly confused. One Test did go well, as Tjommi ended up killing his own father, Gunvald Halraggson, in the Test of Cruelty (or so he thought at the time).

They still managed, and even managed well enough through a secret fifth Test I invented. See, I thought the campaign would race ahead from here on out, with little focus on characters, so I made a final test meant to torture them with their personal failures. It didn't go as well as I'd hoped, but the battle against Geluvicken afterwards was a real slobberknocker. I also had Auril remotely rip apart Solstice, which required some quick thinking to escape from my players.

I don't really know what to think of Chapter 5. Most of my thoughts end in a "Yeah alright", and no strong feelings either way. That in itself is pretty damning, since this is the point where Auril and her worship finally comes into stark focus, and it just feels... A bit "eh", maybe? I didn't find Grimskalle particularly interesting as a location, and there's very little lore there. The tests are very "show, don't tell", which is great, but the knowledge the players gain aren't used anywhere else.

I'm still happy enough with my Chapter 5, but this is the point where I began getting a feeling that me and my players weren't as engaged in the campaign as we had been.

Chapter 6

My players returned to the Dale through some Fey shenanigans to see that the Everlasting Rime had intensified - now the blizzards never end, as a punishment from Auril for having her lair in the Dale destroyed. My players gear up for a final trek, and journey to and through the Caves of Hunger.

And if I'm honest, I think the whole of the Caves are filler that one could feasibly skip. They are cool enough as an adventuring location, but that's not what we're doing at this point in a campaign - we're at the Point of No Return now, and puttering around a vast glacier cave, while neat as a concept, just slowed the campaign way down for us.

Nothing particularly memorable happened in the Caves; they fought Tekeli-li and defeated it, killed most of the other denizens in the caves and were thorough in their way through it. They had fun, but were also a bit confused as to what they needed to focus on here.

I do like the remnants of Ythryn a party finds here though; some foreshadowing of what to come.

Chapter 7

Ythryn; I had looked forward to getting here for a long time. It's such a strange place, and a very different vibe than almost all of the rest of the campaign. I had made changes so that the final confrontation with Auril would happen here, and was looking forward to Vellynne's relationship to the party getting some focus.

I came away from the last Chapter more dissappointed than happy. Ythryn is big and filled with locations - and almost none of them are that interesting. Don't get me wrong; a lot of the ideas in the Towers and other locations are cool - but I don't need more cool stuff at this point. I wanted something more focused and direct, which would enhance the final chapter.

Rather than use the rush of energy from destroying Solstice and leading that to a climactic final showdown, Chapter 7 felt like hitting the brakes. My players even began rushing through Ythryn to get it done faster and frequently forgot where they'd been and why they were here. That's just the death of a good ending.

On the other side, I love how many Red Buttons the Chapter gives the players. The option to turn back time, to summon the Tarrasque or call a comet - so cool, and so nice that they're not afraid of letting the players go absolutely ham at the end of the campaign, if they wish!

I also do love Ythryn conceptually - just not in play.

My party did do very well in playing into Ythryn's themes - my Wizard, Uld, got more and more shcemey (not helped by an Indefinite Madness) and the others were confronted with just how powerful a nation of wizards would be.

In the end, my party destroyed Iriolarthas in one turn (anyone who's frequented this sub might remember my post about it) and went below the Spire to confront Auril. I had ramped up the narrative tension as much as possible, and the players went in like they knew they would die - and we had an epic, 5,5 hour long battle against three slightly improved Auril statlines and two servants, a Bheur Hag and a Winter Eladrin! It was a tough and grueling fight, but my party won, and Auril sputtered out, knocking all but my Barbarian, Tjommi, out.

He took this opportunity to take the Staff of Power and break it, and he had stolen and hidden the Incantations of Iriolarthas previously as well. He wanted to ensure that his friends were never tempted by power in that way again!

In the epilogue, Uld and Vellynne came to an understanding; they returned to Ythryn with the party to take what they could from it, and then use the Scroll of the Comet to demolish it. Xantcha, my Doppelganger Cleric starts a covenant of people who attune to the Mythallar to keep it out of others' hands, and the rest go on to change the Dale in small and big ways - a fitting end to a long campaign!

My Thoughts

He isn't done yet?! Nope!

Some thoughts have bopped around in my head since the campaign ended, and I wanted to share them here - if nothing else, these are the things I think might be useful for a DM who's about to run this campaign.

As a heads up, this might sound pretty negative. It's not that I didn't have fun, it's that the campaign was a bit disappointing to me. I want to share those feelings with you, because that might help you start your campaign in a way that fits your table better.

"Kill Your Darlings"

There's the term in creative writing, "Kill your darlings", which means that you have to trim away those parts of your work that aren't contributing to telling the story - even if those parts are your favourite. This is a book that feels like it has never killed a darling in its life.

Don't get me wrong. I mean it when I say that every location in Chapter 1 and 2 are great. My issue is that, because the book is so filled with them, and they barely connect to one another, they end up feeling like filler that slows the book down and bloats it.

The book is ostensibly about the Frostmaiden and her curse, but we also have...

... a Zentharim scheme.
... a Duergar Invasion.
... a Goliath cold war.
... a competition between four dubious Wizards.
... a visit from outer space.
... a high-security prison.
... a Goblin fortress.
... an ancient Giant site of power.
... a brewing Reghed Nomad civil war.
... a strange material called Chardalyn.
... a cave filled with psychic phenomona, vampires and Drow.
... an ancient city, with its own subplots.

... And much more I'm sure I'm forgetting.

One of my players told me, that if the whole thing about Chardalyn turned out to not be important to the overarching plot, then they'd be really disappointed - and that's pretty much the case.

It's a general problem with WotC's books. For some reason, they think a good adventure just has to have "stuff" in it, and as much as possible. It's like the difference between an "all you can eat buffet" and properly cooked dinner to me.

Were I to run this campaign again, I would decide whether to use the "Duergar Menace" or the "Frost Druids" as the main villains to the Tentowns, and then pick a handful of the locations relevant to those plots to run, stringing them together with clues and connections.

Your mileage may vary of course; it just got to me by the time we got to the Caves of Hunger. Nothing we did there felt like it advanced the story. Instead, it felt like obstacles that were put in front of my players to keep them from moving forward.

Lack of Connections

I already wrote something like this above, but I really missed having the locations in the book be connected to one another in some way. They are in certain cases - e.g. the hunt for the lake monster you get in Bremen is technically connected to Ravisin, who you can find in the Lonelywood quest - but I'd have like there to be even more of it.

I felt like I was often telling my players where to go, first through Tentowner NPCs, and then through Vellynne. Very rarely did my players have to think for themselves and plan their own adventure. That would be difficult to be fair; the book isn't great at giving them options.

This extends to NPCs. I wish the relationship between NPCs in the Towns and between them were more clarified, so it would be easier for the players to connect with them and care for the Tentowns as a whole.

Which leads to...

The Tentowns

There's not much you can do about this one, since the lore makes it very clear that there's ten Tentowns... But maaan would I have loved it if the campaign was centered around three towns instead. Ten are just too many for the players to care about, and it means that they just dash right through the towns most of the time, rather than stay in them and get to know them.

Again, not really feasible, what with how the setting is, but it would've worked to the books benefit.

Detached Threats

This is minor, but I feel like it's worth mentioning - I really like how the early quests affect the Tentowns very directly. It makes to so that the early adventures feel very relevant and dire, since they can make or break a town's chance of survival. This culminates in the Chardalyn Dragon attack, which puts everything on the table. The players can loose it all, or save the Towns by their own actions!

As we get further into the book, the party has to go further and further away, and this means the the Tentowns become less important. Going to Solstice and to Ythryn are important for the survival of the Dale, but it feels less immediate. Ythryn especially feels so detached from the rest of the plot that its relevance to the Tentowns isn't clear to the players.

Again, not a major issue, but it's something I attempted to address in my campaign. I guess this is also why many DMs add some major scheme to the book that Auril or the other villains are trying to achieve - it at least makes it so Ythryn and Solstice has more relevance later in the book.

Final Thoughts

Left to my own devices, I think I'd talk about this book forever. I love it still - but in the way you love someone when you've experienced both their best and worst parts. It's a flawed book, but it's ambitious, interesting, fiercely dedicated to its themes; and I can really respect that!

I don't see myself returning to this book anytime soon. It's just too big - as I've grown older and more experienced, I've learned just how insane long campaigns really are. So many other systems run campaigns that run for 5-15 Sessions at most and are satisfying all the way, so running a 67 Session campaign like this feels like madness to me now.

I'm still happy we got through it, and happy to have played Rime of the Frostmaiden. It'll be in my mind for years to come.

My group is taking a break for now - and when we return, we're doing Wild Beyond the Witchlight, which I'm so excited by!

I would love to answer any questions you might have, give semi-useful advice and discuss the campaign with you all in the comments, so feel free to write!

r/rimeofthefrostmaiden

Making Reasonable travel

Three Year RotFM Campaign Done!

The Players

Major Changes I Made

Feelings on Each Chapter

My Thoughts

Final Thoughts

The two dragons

How to make Rime of the Frostmaiden more like a Western?

Cauldron of Plenty Capers and Complications

Naerth has fallen...

Naerth fight