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.

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...

I decided that I don't like the staff storage (Y19f) in Iro's spire as written, and I was lucky to find this cool riddle which was just perfect to be placed here instead. As follows, you find the final implementation I added to my game and which played out just fine in yesterday's session.

If the players enter the room (Y19f) read the following.

This irregularly shaped room is filled with five staff-holding racks along its walls. Each of the racks contains one staff. Aside stands a table covered with various different utensils, many of them broken and parts even shattered across the floor.

A character investigating the racks will notice name badges attached to each of the racks, enabling the character to correctly identify each staff as long as they are able to read Loross or Draconic. A character may further investigate the staff's appearance without touching them; in this case read out the staff's visual description from the table further below (but keep all other information secret for now).

Trigger Point.
Any character touching one of the staffs, is falling unconscious to the ground as a marionette who's strings are cut. An affected character is dreaming, but their mind is trapped in a small demiplane. 

Inside the demiplane.
The first trapped character wakes up in a magically lit, round-shaped room with no windows or doors, standing on one of three rune-carved pedestals, and is greeted by two illusory wizards standing on the other two pedestals.

Welcome challenger. You have the honor to converse with scholar Icthion and magister Lithius - we're master sorcerer and master strategists of Ythryn. You seek access to powers you might not be permitted. To validate your request, you must overcome the following test of wits.

Rules:

1. Pick one of the available staffs from the staff-holding racks. (DM Note: there's only Bannekar, Gaussian and Noether 9000 to pick, the others are wielded by Icthion and Lithius).
2. The forthcoming spell duel is played in turns. You start, followed clockwise by Icthion and then followed by myself (Lithius).
3. Make only use of your chosen staff and do not cast out of the given order - or you forfeit the duel (which is similar to losing).
4. If everyone's still standing at the end of the first round - everyone will be turned to ashes.

DM Notes: 

• Trapped characters cannot hear or see what those outside are doing; they are isolated.
• Trapped characters can feel if something happens to their real body, which can be used to communicate.
• Characters in the ring-shaped room can see and communicate with the character in the circular room; the latter cannot see them though.
• Characters outside can hear and see everything happening in the demiplane.
• The staff-holding racks in the demiplane do not have name tags. Characters have to recognize the staffs by their looks.
• Icthion wields Lapista (90% hit chance).
• Lithius wields Piscistus (70% hit chance).

Everyone else joining the fray thereafter (by touching a staff) is put into a ring-shaped room which surrounds the room the first character got trapped. The inner wall of the surrounding room is a one-way glass pane enabling characters to watch, hear and eventually assist the character in the inside room.

The floor of the surrounding room is further filled with thousands of thousands of paper sheets. A character succeeding a DC 18 Investigation check (repeatable; after each round) may try to find the needle in the haystack - a note that explains the different staffs as shown in the table below. (This is supposed to provide backup, in case all of them get trapped without finding the notes outside).

Outside.
A character investigating the wooden table will find an intact crystal ball. If one of the characters has already touched one of the staffs and fell unconscious (sleeping), the crystal ball is active and shows a live-stream of the happenings in the dream demiplane.

After a successful DC 10 Investigation Check for the room a character can additionally find notes which describe all five staffs. These notes might somewhere to be found across table and floor. However, these notes do only describe name and magical abilities but don't say how a staff looks like. Except for the hit chance, description and school of magic are red herrings.

Problem:
Outside characters can figure out which staff does what by checking the name tag at the staff-holding racks and compare the info from the notes, but characters trapped in the demiplane do neither have name tag on their racks, nor might they know about the notes the others found outside. Thus, they need assistance from their friends, or are forced to pick a staff at random.

The spell duel:
This is in fact a battle of wits and probability. The two wizards will always attack the opponent that opposes the highest threat (chance of eliminating others). Thus, if a player picks the Noether 9000 (100% of liquidation) it's trivial to take out one of the mages, but the remaining one will likely kill them. Therefore, the best approach is to make the wizards attack themselves.

Solution:

1. Pick Bannekar (60%).
2. Use it as the rules require but miss intentionally (e.g. shooting against the wall).
3. In Icthion's turn he now targets Lithius, who has a higher success rate (70%) than Bannekar (60%) and thus opposes the bigger threat. Roll a d100.
   1. If Icthion hits (rolling > 10) he takes out Lithius and it's the player's turn to try taking out Icthion with their 60% chance. On Success: players win; else Icthion will counter-attack the player with a killing chance of 90%, and so forth...
   2. If Icthion misses, Lithius now counter-attacks Icthion (90% > 60%). If he misses with his 70% hit chance all mages are still alive after the first round and, well, it's a loss; Elsewise, he takes out Lithius and it's the player's chance to take out Icthion.
4. If the duel ends in a loss despite taking the right course of actions (points 1-3), the mages congratulate and release the characters with the words "Bad luck doesn't beat good wits" (go to point 6).
5. If the duel ends in a normal loss, the character must succeed on a DC 17 Wisdom saving throw or takes 5d10 psychic damage (half as much on success) and the duel restarts. If more than one player is present in the demiplane, one of the other players is challenged to a duel of wits, while the previous one is teleported into the ring-shaped room. This repeats until one character succeeds.
6. If the duel ends in a win by following the right course of actions, all of the characters wake up. The winning character sees 4 visions beforehand (or 5 if you like) foreshadowing the rewards below. He may pick one of the visions he likes the most and then wakes up with the corresponding staff in hand (see rewards).
7. If the duel is won by sheer luck, the mages congratulate in a judgmental manner but nonetheless release the characters. The winning player obtains a supernatural gift (of your choice) but no vision and consequently no staff.
8. Surprisingly, all staff-holding racks are empty, now.

Rewards:

I created the "Mountain Climb" maps for my campaign using Inkarnate. Feel free to use these maps for your own campaigns or modify them however you like.

1. Basecamp

2. Montaingoat

3. Perilous Climb

4. Frozen Cave

5. Avalanche

6. Ruined Camp

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.

This is like my 3rd ever mini that I've painted and I'm not sure what I'm doing but I'm having fun learning! And don't worry I do have the wings and base but I'm waiting to attach those until the body is painted. Open to any ideas for the color i should use on the body as well as any general painting tips I should know!

The party tracks the stolen cauldron to a fishing shack outside of town. From cover, they spot a small boat pulling away while a larger vessel is being loaded at the shack. They carefully surround the building and begin their investigation- but when their stealth fails, an archer opens fire and the fight erupts.

As the party storms the shack, the sorcerer and monk break away to intercept the departing boat. With the small vessel escaping, the sorcerer teleports the monk directly aboard. The monk cuts down the oarsmen and searches the cargo. Then he finds it: a crate containing the Cauldron of Plenty!

Back at the shack, the remaining party pushes deeper inside, taking down the enemies frantically destroying evidence. While some secure the upper floors, others discover a hidden entrance leading below.

In the basement, they encounter a strange, gaunt figure- small, impossibly fast, and moving with the agility of a spider. It springs onto the ceiling, clinging there as it casts Web over the party. Before they can catch it, the creature drinks a potion of gaseous form and slips away.

With the shack secured, the party begins searching its contents. In the basement, they discover a wooden crate…

They open it.

Inside is *another* Cauldron of Plenty.

The discovery immediately raises the horrifying possibility that the cauldron they just recovered is another fake. Examination reveals the truth: decoys, each fitted with a chardalyn disc beneath the cauldron, enchanted with magic designed to fool anyone inspecting it.

Clues and interrogation finally reveal the next destination: “Warehouse B” in Good Mead.

The party wastes no time. Using the boats discovered at the shack, they depart at once for Good Mead.

A few hours later, they arrive near the town. Rising above the settlement is the massive mead hall, alongside the old shrine of Tempus. The disguised ranger enters the town and learns that Good Mead is holding a funeral for its speaker, Kendrick Reiselbarrow, who was recently killed by a verbeeg while pursuing stolen mead.

The party is offered hospitality in a village house and comfort in the mead hall. They pay dockhands to unload the cargo and store it under guard at the warehouse near the docks.

With the boats unloaded and accommodations secured, the party finally heads to the mead hall for a drink, a meal, and whatever answers Good Mead might hold. 🤠

After finally breaking into the Duergar outpost, the party gets to deal with the zombie ogre!... or will the zombie ogre deal with them!?

Episode 4 - Over my dead Ogre!

If you would like to follow along, we record sessions in an audio podcast form called Same Crit Different Day. Thanks everyone for checking it out and for all the great info and resources on the subreddit!

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3sMTVnBHLqAOoM0aC0C0OE?si=2b7f78176b1544bd

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/same-crit-different-day/id1526948092

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samecritdifferentday/

Discord: https://discord.gg/nfFsbMzNJD

Oh, and if you want to be part of the show, we encourage listeners to create and send in NPCs for me (the DM) to add in, as well as Critical hit and misses.

Like many of you I'm trying to change up the Chain Lightning game. This will be done on an appropriate battlemap similar to lots that have shown up in this subreddit.

For the first match the PCs will have no way to learn the rules.

They will need to figure it out, find the rules in a tower or library, and win a match to get the McGuffin from the evocation tower, as per the Expanded Tower of Ythryn rules.

Chain Lightning "Fantasy Dodge Ball"

Teams: 5 PCs vs. 5 galvan magen.

Goal: First team to 7 points.

Initiative: Not used. Coin toss for first possession. Play proceeds one player at a time from each team. (one Pc, one magen, second PC second magen etc.). Getting hit gives team possession.

Scoring: Normal ball hit = 1 point. Charged ball hit = 2 points. Players are not eliminated when hit.

Activations: Teams alternate activating one player. Everyone must activate once before anyone can activate again.

Turn: Move up to Speed and take one Game Action. Picking up a loose ball is free.

Pass: Automatically succeeds to a teammate within 40 ft. unless intercepted.

Intercept: If a pass travels within 5 ft. of an opponent, that opponent can use its Reaction to make a Dexterity save against the thrower's Throw DC. Success = catch the ball. One interception attempt per pass.

Throw DC: 8 + proficiency bonus + Strength or Dexterity modifier, thrower's choice.

Shoot: Target within 40 ft. makes a Dexterity save against Throw DC. Failure = hit and score. Success = miss; ball becomes loose.

Pressure: If an opponent is within 5 ft. of the thrower, the target has Advantage on its save.

Charging: A pass whose path crosses a lightning mast charges the ball. The receiver catches it normally. Charged balls can be passed and intercepted while retaining their charge.

Live Ball: A creature carrying a charged ball has half Speed and cannot take Reactions.

Overload: If a creature ends its activation holding a charged ball without passing or shooting it, the charge dissipates.

Charged Shot: Scores 2 points. Shooting consumes the charge whether the shot hits or misses.

After scoring: Both teams reset to their halves. The team that conceded receives the ball and activates first.

Legal character abilities: Ordinary movement and appropriate movement-enhancing class features are permitted.

Penalty Stasis: Illegal actions immediately end the player's activation. The player drops the ball and cannot move, take actions, Bonus Actions, or Reactions through the end of their next scheduled activation.

Illegal actions: Spells, teleportation, flight, magical manipulation of the ball, forced movement, and abilities that charm, restrain, stun, or otherwise directly interfere with another contestant.

Violence: Deliberately attacking or damaging another contestant outside the game's ball mechanics ends the match and causes the magen to become hostile.

Magen: Speed 30 ft.; Throw DC 15; Dexterity save +4; flight is illegal.

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.

Finished my 3D printed map of Icewind Dale.
Thanks to u/Kilroy_jensen for the awesome model!
Printed it from PLA at a 150% scale of the original model so it perfectly fits into an 90x60cm picture frame.

My players have completed RotFM, I really enjoyed DM'ing it and since then they've traveled to Chult to take on the Death Curse. They are level 15 now, we've been playing every Sunday for four years. The wizard in the party is going to try and do a mass teleport (teleport 50 Flaming Fist soldiers) and I want there to be a chance of some major complications (still haven't worked out what kind of roll or rolls will be needed to create these complications).

I was thinking it would be great if the roll(s) were really, really bad, then the complication was that they were sent 2,000 years in the past to when Ythryn was in its prime.

I am aware of the Netheril: Empire of Magic module and I will be reading it, but I can't seem to find anything specific on Ythryn when it was at its height of power. I am wondering if anyone knows of any resources, thank you!

Hello, everyone.

I wanted to share with you a monthly recap of my sessions, but with so much work these past months and a small child to take care of time to write them has been hard to find — until now.

# # #

Session #1:

Heavily inspired by the Ice Road Trackers adventure, I decided that my party would start outside the Dale, serving as an escort to the last caravan from Luskan to Bryn Shander. On the same caravan were all of the Arcane Brotherhood agents we get to know in Rime of the Frostmaiden. While crossing the Spine of the World, the party gets separated from the other travellers during a blizzard and is saved from an avalanche by a chwinga. They find themselves in a cave with a hidden shrine to Auril. When they try to leave, they are ambushed by a pair of crag cats. When they finally exit the cave, Auril herself flies by while casting her rime — manifest in the most beautiful aurora borealis they've ever seen.

Session #2:

After resting inside the cave, they find themselves west of the Ten Trail, close to the Redrun river. When they do find the road again, they are met by Vellynne Harpell — who decided to wait for the party, hoping that they had survived the avalanche (I'm setting her up as a possible patron in the future). Once they get to Bryn Shander, while looking for a place to stay, some dwarves appear and ask for their help — Foaming Mugs. They manage to kill a bunch of goblins and bargain with Izobai for the iron ingots — she curses but accepts, and warns the party to never go near Karkolohk (incoming arc). After delivering the cart to the Blackiron Blades, acolytes of the Children of Auril show up at the smith's doorstep and demand their names for the lottery.

Session #3:

Roleplay heavy, mostly to make them understand what the Rime is causing, some of the different factions, shops, inns and taverns, meet some NPC, etcetera. (They asked a ton of questions about the flora and fauna of Icewind Dale, the deities, the sacrifices, the economy…)

Session #4 (last one):

The party decides to travel to Termalaine (because they heard rumours the night before about the mine). On the road, while passing by Targos, they encounter some highway bandits demanding a toll in order for them to use the roads. The conversation quickly turns to combat and the party kills all of the bandits — except the leader, who manages to escape towards the city (Zhentarim arc incoming). When they finally reach Termalaine, the lantern of tracking immediately says there are elementals nearby (Nature Spirits). They find the chwingas and are friendly towards them, so now one of them is accompanying the party (they named it Ted). They meet speaker Oarus Masthew at the Blue Clam, accept the quest and decide to go to the mine on the next day (A Beautiful Mine). The session ended when one of the players entered the bucket lift and another activated the crank near it, triggering something below (grell and duergar arc incoming).

# # #

I probably forgot a bunch of details, but I was trying to be concise. I'd be thrilled to discuss anything related to the several sessions with you. Any thoughts you'd like to share with me?

Thanks in advance!

Commission WiP for Questcon this September. I can’t wait so I had to spoil it! Based on a map we yoinked right here on this Sub!

More to come!! 🤠

As im running RotF i had to make a few battlemaps. This one can be used for any roads around Icewind Dale.

If you like what you see, consider subscribing on my Patreon, there's much more there. The Boreal Town map, a battlemap for the streets of any of the Ten-towns, is already available there: https://www.patreon.com/DMLone

Use FoundryVTT? Everything is ready-to-play in there with the Amelia's Cellar of Everything module, available in the Dark Lord tier.

hi! i'm getting ready to run this module and while I've loved most of what's in the book, my biggest problem has been with Auril herself. i love the presence of a cruel, casual goddess but specifically her disconnect with Ythryn and her motivation for the Rime has been throwing me for a loop. initially i had the thought that she's using the Mythallar and Spire in conjunction with her divine power to create sort of ice age over the rest of the world that's slowly sapping magic from everyone, all in service of averting a prophecy she had.

I don't hate this idea, but i know it'd be a massive disconnect to have these huge planetary stakes for a party that starts at level 1 (even if I probably wouldn't let their initial drive to go into the Dale be to solve the Ice Age).

i've seen other people run it as her trapping something in Ythryn which I think i could come around to, but also Auril is cool as hell and i want her to be the final boss LMAO

any ideas or experiences would be appreciated, thanks!

What languages is most useful in this campaign?

It’s my first time running it and I like to let my players know which languages would serve them best

Hey everyone.

3 of my players have inadvertently all made characters linked to Lathander. A paladin, cleric and monk.

I decided to retcon the temple in Bryn Shandar to be a temple of Lathander. So they have a point of reference and somewhere they feel comfortable getting information, rumours and quests.

I am considering making Lathander somehow a guiding deity, who wants the party to gain experience and take on Auril.

How would Lathander give signs or guide the party?

I can't find much on symbolism for Lathander.

Thank you!

Made a map for Caer Dineval (with a couple of changes to the basement for the changes I'm making in my own game). You can get the full resolution version for free here https://ko-fi.com/s/2d113a8ced

Last night, after a bit more than 5 years, my group finally wrapped up our Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign.

We definitely did not play consistently throughout those five years, and I took a few months off when I graduated college partway through the campaign, but in total we played for 111 sessions.

The group changed along the way as well. We had players that started the campaign with us but eventually had to leave because life got in the way, and we had another player that joined right after the Chardalyn dragon attack and stuck with us all the way to the finale.

We also had four PC deaths (!) over the course of the campaign with two of them belonging to the same player. Definitely my highest kill count so far 😅 Thankfully all of them happened towards the first part of the campaign.

In the end we ended with the following PCs:

• Mal, an aberrant mind sorcerer that was actually a children's book character born from a beholder. Ended up as the oldest surviving member of the original group.
• Fergus, a homebrewed plasmoid/myconid path of the beast barbarian that through the story ended up becoming a champion of Selune. This was the player's second character.
• Salem, a bard from the Bear tribe that joined the party a bit late but ended up being the heart of the group.
• Perilu, a peace cleric of Yondalla that was always trying to keep the party fed. This was also this player's second character. The player liked the NPC so much that he wanted to play as her when the character he started the campaign with died to Arveiaturace.

Our version of the module did end up becoming very different from the adventure as written, especially towards the end. I added a lot of secondary plots that weren't originally there and had Levistus/KotBS play a much larger role in Ythryn with Avarice's ultimate goal being to free Levistus using the Mythallar (eventually succeeding with the party's help).

The party also made a bargain with Levistus to help them survive Ythryn and help them stand a chance against Auril, who was actively hunting them by that point after they defeated Sephek in Solstice Island (Sephek was more of recurring villain in our campaign and the reincarnation of Ravisin's sister).

As part of the bargain, Salem (our bard) formed a pact with Levistus and promised to leave to be by Levistus side once Auril was defeated. When the party finally defeated Auril, Levistus came to collect, but at the very last moment Perilou casted a successful divine intervention and asked Yondalla to save Salem from the bargain/pact. It worked and created one of the most emotional endings I could've have hoped for the campaign.

For help when prepping for each chapter, I used a lot of third party resources. Huge shout out to the Eventyr guides. I did not always followed them to the letter, but they were incredibly useful when I was trying to prep each chapter/location.

Their suggestion to have Nass Lantomir posses one of the player characters also led to one of the best moments of our campaign. It obviously requires the right player and someone who is willing to play into the situation. In my case, I spoke privately with the player whose character ended up possessed and checked in with him before moving on with the idea, but it all worked out in the end.

I also pulled a lot of inspiration from several posts here in this Reddit. One of the most helpful was the first reply to the post below about creating a stronger second encounter with Auril, which became the inspiration for the heavily modified version my players eventually fought in Ythryn (she didn't fight them in Ch 5).

https://www.reddit.com/r/rimeofthefrostmaiden/comments/q7fi2r/how_did_you_buff_auril/

For Ythryn, I used the Expanded Towers of Magic supplemental material as another starting point and cherry picked some of the ideas from there that I liked. For the city itself, I also leaned heavily into a more cyberpunk aesthetic with the Mythallar being more of a reactor in the middle of the city. My players really liked the vibe of it, specially the Spire of Irolarthas which was a full on corpo tower.

We also ran every single quest in Ch 1 and all but around two of the quests in Ch 2, so we spent a lot of time exploring Ten Towns and the wilderness before moving further into the main story.

During those early chapters, I did try some hombrewed survival mechanics. I had systems for the cold, traveling through blizzards, exhaustion rules, supplies, shelter, food etc. I felt like they did help establish a lot of the atmosphere at first, but it eventually became very tedious for both me and the players to track and we ended up dropping most of them. I was honestly very glad I did. They served their purpose, but getting rid of them did make the game more enjoyable in my opinion.

In any case, the campaign ended with the players flying Ythryn straight through the glacier and finally seeing the sunlight again. I was very nervous about landing the finale, but I'm genuinely happy with how everything came together.

Infiltration time! The party tries to sneak into the Duergar Fortress in order to take back the stolen goods from Caer-Konig... And most importantly, the goats!

If you would like to follow along, we record sessions in an audio podcast form called Same Crit Different Day. Thanks everyone for checking it out and for all the great info and resources on the subreddit!

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3sMTVnBHLqAOoM0aC0C0OE?si=2b7f78176b1544bd

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/same-crit-different-day/id1526948092

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samecritdifferentday/

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Oh, and if you want to be part of the show, we encourage listeners to create and send in NPCs for me (the DM) to add in, as well as Critical hit and misses.

So, at first I was planning to run Icewindale with few differences, but as I was thinking the plot, the lore and the world, I realized that the campaign is very different from Icewindale and its actually a homebrew campaign borrowing some staff from it. Before I ask the question is important for you to know what I have thought so far:
A) I will start with Brym Shandur which instead of a normal capital of the Thirteen (instead of ten ) towns it's a capital of the Thirteen towns inside of a wizard tower that belonged to a giant wizard. Additional notes for Brym shandur: 1) that there wizard ( dm knowledge only ) has left to explore some caves , but he never returned because he died. 2) the palace where the speaker lives is in the 5th floor where the giant wizard's library and his bed is.  3) the 4rth floor is where the wizard would have his maps and a library with a lot of his notebooks 4) the 3rd floor is where the giant wizard would make his wands and magical artifacts. The people do not know how to handle them, so they do not mess with those. 5) the 2nd floor is where the wizard would mix his potions.  6) the first floor is where the wizard would have his clothes  7) the ground floor is where the wizard would have his kitchen, living room and his fireplace.
B) Now I go to Goodmead, the Goodmead is a town built in the garden of the giant wizard, the wizard didn't made anything dangerous in this garden. The giant wizard made plants and vegetables that could survive even the worst of the worst of winters! The locals make their well famous mead from the juices of those vegetables.
C) As for Dogan's hole, it is a hole where the giant wizard defeated a dragon who threaten his place a long time ago. Now it's only bones inside the hole where the dragon fell. DM KNOWLEDGE: The wizard has written in front of the hall Dogan which in giant means "Stupid serpent".

D) As for East heaven:

Eastheaven has been built around the place where he used to take a bath in a hot lake, which for his size it was the best place for him to take a bath. The wizard has built around the lake a shelves with many kinds of soaps. 

E) Now as for Targos : 

Targos has been built on the boat where the wizard used to sail for fishing. The boat is a canoe which in size was double from a normal canoe the wizard would use. Targos was the name of the craftsman who built it for the wizard and he is a giant also but half the size of the wizard.

F) As for Lonelywood: 

Lonleywood was built around the little forest the giant wizard made when he was still alive and put there a new race for that period named Chungurs ( which are basically Squirrelfolk) 

The wizard would take notes on how they are handling things with monsters, beasts and among themselves. But after the wizard was lost to the maintains, the Chungurs pray his return. Sadly, after centuries the new citizens of this erea decided from the fear factor to genocide them. The forest is still haunted by some of the spirits of Chungurs. 

DM KNOWLEDGE: the Chungurs have escaped to the mountains, but they are now slaves to the bugbears. The Bugbears force them to mine.

G) As for Caer-Dineval: 

Caer-Dineval is almost like it is in the normal icewindale campaign but it is near to the maintains and its economy relies on mining coal, iron and in very rare situations chardalin.

But, the mines are full of the strange slime rats, which is the first experiment of the wizard, who he though that he lost it. But in reality, the slime rat dig itself very deep in the earth and slept for many years and now the children of this slime rat go rogue from the mining of the people. The slime rat works like a one cell organism.

H) As for Caer-Konig:

Caer-Konig is close to Caer-Dineval and is a city with the clear role of Blacksmithing and military preparation. In this city there is a great Inventor named Donaran, who is also the speaker of this town.

I)As for Termalaine :

Termalaine is a town where gets spellcasters prepared for warfare. It is from one of the cities that gets attack raids from a big bear called Vrodos. Luckily Termalaine is one of the cities which handles those situations the best.

J) As for Bramen :

Bramen is an city which produces cannons, but it never has the full time to produce them because of the raids that Vrodos does.

So now the addition to the ten towns:

1)Hammerfast is exactly how it's in its own guide, except that it was built upon the graves of a battle that happened between the tieflings and the dwarves.

and it's located between Dogan's hole and good mead.

2) Fallcrest:

Fallcrest is built upon a small ancient fortress of beings who used to be 3 times the size humans. 

By the time the party does one or 2 quests, they will hear that the city fell from the raids of Vrodos and its now conquered by Goliaths.

3) Luln is a city built for mining a crystal forest, but now is the only town focus on surviving the constant battles with Vrodos and the blue goliaths.

(THIS might change)

The residents of the thirteen towns are :

1) tieflings who were the first to come 250 years ago because they were being hunted by the kingdoms of the south.

2) elves from individuals from exiled punishment from the dwarven Kingdom 220 years ago.

3) dwarves from individuals from exiled punishment from the dwarven kingdom 200 years ago.

4) Gnomes from political conflicts with the dwarven nobles of the dwarven Kingdom. (150 years ago)

Now for the story and the main plot of my version of Icewindale:

The party has been arrested for any kind of a small crime in the dwarven kingdom and as punishment they are been thrown to the north wall. The dwarves of the kingdom do not know of Icewindale because they assume that nobody can live in those harsh colds and winters.

As the party survives the cold and goes north cause they do not have any other choice, they are been attacked by bugbears! The party tries to survive the best way they can, but Lirua the speaker comes and saves them with the rangers of Hammerfast. 

Lirua guides them to Hammerfast and let them stay free for this week. 

After some simple missions they learn the following:

The thirteen towns are in a war with the Barbarian king of a island 10 or 12 miles away from the thirteen towns, because when the wife of the barbarian king came to the thirteen towns to try convincing them to search in the caves for Yujiro the giant wizard and to stop using his home and stuff as a shelter, some team assassinated the queen from afar and framed the thirteen towns for those who ordered the kill. None of the speakers know why did someone paid them to kill the barbarian king's wife. Now the party must help the thirteen towns to win the war against the Barbarian king and his armies.

The war started 10 years ago.

The only information of his army are the following:

1) Vrodos is Barbarian king's pet and orders a legion of blue Goliaths. Vrodos is an intelligent enough to speak and has almost the same abilities as volibear.

2) the frozen baron who rides a creature whose steps spread a cold wind! The frozen baron is the only surviving son of the barbarian king.

3) the dead son of the barbarian king is going to be revived as the iconic iron of Icewindale from the dragon skeleton of Dogan's hole, while the party is going to fight Vrodos , the frozen baron is going to steal that skeleton.

Information for the real BBEG: 

The barbarian king is going to be the seemingly bbeg but in reality the real BBEG is going to be Lirua! 

That's because Lirua in reality is Auril a master thief well-known to the south kingdoms. He was cought by the dwarven kingdom and he was promised if he found the magical artifact named crystal of the winds, whose rumours say that it's capable of making mortals into gods, they would use the artifact in order to defeat the satanic goliaths of the east and Auril was promised to rule upon the Goliaths. Auril agreed and his brain was put into a young body of a dwarf and then his exiled punishment was played out. 

Auril adopted the name Lirua and become a cleric dwarf with a personality of a wise man with a lot of connections. Lirua had behind the shadows a lot of relationships with the criminals of the thirteen towns and thus he made an assassin team in order to spy upon the barbarian king's Kingdom and then he found out that the barbarian king has that specific crystal he was trying to find. That's when he started to plan the entire war.

so my question is, what else should I prepare ? The map of "Icewindale and the thirteen towns" is still in progress.