Game Planning: Rime of the Frostmaiden

[nerdorama]

Me: "Well, SWV is moving into the end of Season 3. I should wait a few months and then post interest for a cooldown campaign of D&D."
My untreated ADHD: "Fuck it, we ball."
Me: "But it will be at least another six mo--"
My untreated ADHD: "Fuck it, we ball."

RIME OF THE FROSTMAIDEN

 

Icewind Dale, the hardy tundra land at the northernmost point of the Forgotten Realms, has become trapped in a perpetual winter. Ferocious blizzards make the mountain passes through the Spine of the World exceedingly treacherous, and this land has not felt the warmth of the sun in over two years. In fact, the sun no longer appears above the mountains, not even in what should be the height of summer. In this frozen tundra, darkness and bitter cold reign as king and queen. Most Dale residents blame Auril the Frostmaiden, the god of winter's wrath. The shimmering aurora that weaves across the sky each night is said to be her doing - a potent spell that keeps the sun away.

Dalefolk live in a scattering of settlements known as Ten-Towns. The drop-off in caravans coming from the south and travel between settlements in this never-ending winter has left everyone feeling isolated, to say nothing of the specter of impending starvation, hypothermia, or worse. Although each town has resolve to appease the Frostmaiden with sacrifices of one kind or another, no respite from winter's fury seems forthcoming. For adventurers such as yourselves, Ten-Towns is a place to test one's mettle in their hour of need and, in the spirit of heroes who have come before, leave one's mark on this frigid, blighted land.
 

What is this?

It's Dungeons & Dragons. Yeah, they made the game from Stranger Things and Critical Role into a real thing.

Specifically, this is a module adventure for D&D 5th Edition that I'd like to run to keep GMing but give my brain a bit of a break from plagiarizing Star Wars making up a world and characters. I plan to run this game starting in October or so of this year and continuing to whenever we're done with it, and I'm looking for 4-6 players who want to get in some dashing Heroic Fantasy in the business's biggest campaign setting. Or at least a frozen self-contained snow globe at the top of its map.
 

We'll be running this campaign on roll20 dot net, using exclusively text (though I will make a dedicated discord channel for OOC communication. Eventually.)

This campaign will run from Level 1 to approximately level 11, using milestone leveling (i.e. levels for particular story accomplishments, not accumulating experience points). The overall feel of the game is a sandbox of helping mitigate the ongoing disaster in Icewind Dale, that eventually funnels into a final set of quests where the players deal with the root cause of the problems and the terrible secrets they're hiding.
 

Campaign tone:

 

Nobledark. The setting is in a desperate and potentially apocalyptic climate crisis brought on by the whim of an evil god. The players can and are meant to save who they can and resolve the problem, but there will be death and trauma along the way.

 

Campaign trigger warnings:

 

Survival horror elements, potentially graphic death due to cold/exposure/isolation, human sacrifice, homicide, mental illness, cosmic horror, paranoia, caves, monstrously huge ocean creatures, violence against (and by) wild animals.

 

Things the GM has already vetoed due to their own triggers: cannibalism, violence against domesticated animals. The sled dogs are immortal. Do not abuse this.

I take the TTRPG safety toolkit as a major guideline in running games with horror elements, and we'll be using green/yellow/red (O/N/X) cards during play.

 

Jokes to get out of your system now:

• Let it go
• Hey. You're finally awake
• Cold puns generally

What do I do with this post?

I am gathering interest at this point! That means comment here with:

-Your name
-A way to contact you (on plurk, probably)
-If you know what your availability will be like in October or so, let me know, but I'll accept an idefk here
-What kind of D&D character you would like to play (I'll put a comment below with character generation specifics for the overachievers, but I'm not interested in character sheets or life stories yet, just an elevator pitch concept)
-Favorite hot beverage to enjoy on a snowy winter evening

 

Comments

Character Guidelines for Overachievers

[nerdorama]

Character Creation:

Characters will be created at level 1 according to the rules in the Player's Handbook, using 27-point buy rather than random rolls. All official Wizards of the Coast-published content is available for this campaign (including the variant version of Human), but run web-exclusive content by me first. If you need any rulebooks for your character concept, just let me know.

In addition to normal character traits, every player character will also have a Secret picked from a list. I'll work with players in private on setting up appropriate ones for your characters (one of them involves amnesia, though, if anyone wants to join that microtrend).

Character Expectations:

1. All characters should ideally be from the Forgotten Realms setting. The game will take place entirely in Icewind Dale, and locals to that region will have more in-character information to start with, but anyone from the Forgotten Realms setting can find a reason to go there. By the same token, you don't need to know anything about the Forgotten Realms to play in this campaign. If it's in a D&D book, it exists in FR somewhere, and Icewind Dale is conveniently isolated from most of the rest of the setting except for people foolish enough to journey there. I can help with any and all plot hooks and background details.

2. I don't believe in restricting characters by alignment (I'm likely to ignore it entirely), but I do expect all player characters to be willing and able to work together as a team and help out the general populace, whether for glory, the gods, gold, or general altruism.

3. Playing an overt worshipper of Auril the Frostmaiden is discouraged. She's kinda the problem here.

4. The setting is an arctic tundra in the grip of supernatural winter, where food is scarce and snowstorms common. Having at least one character trained in the Survival skill and/or capable of magically providing food and shelter will make the game easier than not having one.

[lastnamepunkhead]

Name: Sven
Contact: svensational, naturally.
Availability: Up in the air. Thursdays aren't likely to be very conductive. Fridays get sketchier the later we get as 10:30 PM EST is Raid and will likely be for the forseeable future. Saturdays is raid AND Trails of Valor, so that's a No Way, Hoss. Sundays are free. Rest of the days of the week are negotiable at this stage.
Concept: Eldritch Knight Fighter, Fire Genasi, defected from nobility and is now serving some sort of nebulous Night's Watch like organization, likely up here in the North because he's been informed Some Shit is going down. How much of a Jon Snow pastiche he ends up being is largely irrelevant because I never watched GoT beyond like Season 1 and have forgotten half of what I watched anyway.
Favorite Winter Beverage: Hot chocolate with milk.

Badge

[dragomorph]

Contact: Dragomorph or Dragomorph#5118 on Discord
Availability: Deffo a question mark. HOPEFULLY I'll be employed by then so I can tell you.
D&D character type: you are spared my repeats because they're still in games A couple characters I need to flesh out:
- Kaye Osiris: Human adventurer rogue with a more practical view on life and a mischievous sense of humor
- Mokka Seeker: Lesbian Illusion-specializing Wizard Goblin
Favorite Winter Beverage: Tea when I get off my arse to do it

[velka]

who the fuck: Raven murkrows
when the fuck: unclear, likely to be tricky but we'll see what can be done
what the fuck: Fallen Aasimar Ranger who, okay, getting a little high concept for a second, bound herself to a dark spirit (possibly as flavor for the Swarmkeeper archetype? or just an NPC with no real gameplay effect. probably very sarcastic and evil-adjacent but required to obey her) specifically to piss off her angel guardian/patron god/whatever and become fallen because she is Refusing the Call of whatever big holy destiny she was saddled with as a child. A little dash of Aragorn, a fair amount of Howl and Calcifer.
drink the fuck(?): if you make hot chocolate with water you're a psychopath

bii

[biichan]

Contact: obiisama or bii#1849

Availability: Depends if it's a weekly or bi-weekly game, but Wednesdays will probably be good.

Character Concepts: Hoo boy I've got a couple and some of them might slightly be influenced by having run this for others and from being a fan of Drizzt books but it's fine.

— Drow Eloquence Bard with a Faction Agent background, who normally works for Jarlaxle/Bregan D'aerthe back in Luskan. Might have traveled to Icewind with people from the Arcane Brotherhood?

— Way of the Drunken Master Monk, quite possibly a local? Might depend on which race I pick. If they're local, they're probably based in Bremen for Five Tavern Center reasons. If they're not local they might have a Criminal background and be up in Lonelywood. I've got a couple different ideas for this one, including one where they're a duergar and they left home because their entire family got hooked on chardalyn.

— Aberrant Mind sorcerer who got their psionics from mindflayer shenanigans. Probably Levistus tiefling or tabaxi, but we'll throw on a deep gnome option for consistency with the other two (using the new Mordenkainen rules in this case.) Or drow again but this time an Aevendrow from even further north up the Arctic circle, with a Far Traveler background.

Warm Drink of Choice: Hot apple cider

[incardine]

WHOMST: Incardine, NekoIncardine.
WHENST: To Be Finalized because I am in several things ATM, but biweekly Thursdays could be good, Fridays can work (I am in one thing then but as it's also text-based, it's a trivial juggle), Saturday can work (though later better), Sunday is a no-go.
WHATST: I'd probably need to work with you on a homebrew subclass or similar, but the darker iterations of one of my existing OCs could be good here.

Once, I was innocent and kind. I wanted to improve the lot of the world around me, and I was willing to go to any depth for it, or so I thought. Then, I found my opportunity, and I took it. I was an idiot.

Imagine the pain of your heart being pulled from your body. Of something being put in its place. Of that thing's magic flowing through your blood, changing you.

My body is cold. My heart is colder.

I can remember when being nice to people felt good.

I want my empathy back. I don't want to be a sociopath. I want to stop only seeing those around me as tools for my aimless ends.

Perhaps out here, a place that gets colder than even my body, I can find the solution. Or just become some famed 'hero' to make things easier on me.

(Human Warlock, Patron potentially malleable - the original idea assumes an Elemental pact from the Pathfinder 1st edition third-part class, Avowed.)

DRINKST: A nice tea is nice, but in high school I was taught to be into hot Tang, and that should be concerning.

[mementomoritz]

Name and Contact: Echo, available on plurk at EchoDoctor
Availability: Not Friday evenings, otherwise pretty open.
Character Concept: Undead half-elf. By which I mean, an undead who is half of a human stitched onto half of an elf. They're a fae pact warlock and they're having a real weird time! (Totally open to other character options if this would be too body-horror.)
Favorite Drink: Hot chocolate.

[pikabot]

Whomst Peter
Wheremst pikabot
Whenmst Tuesday, Friday and Saturday evenings from 10:30 EST onwards will almost certainly be out.
Whatmst I always wind up playing whatever the party needs, but I could bring back an old tabletop concept, of a half-elven sorceror who is an academic who is adventuring because all his grant applications fell through.
Drinkmst I like a good old-fashioned hot chocolate.

[fuyu]

Who: Lyssie
Where: songofkeys
When: may be vaguely unavailable Friday and Sunday nights Arizona time (i.e. MST but we don't change for Daylight Savings), otherwise I can probably make it work
What: I have a sweet sunshiney half-orc paladin I've only played in a oneshot before and who I would dearly love to play again; if that doesn't work out with whatever the party makeup ends up being, uhhh, I'll work on some backup concepts
Drink: good ol hot choccy

[matt_doyle]

Somehow I forgot to ever comment here despite drafting a character!

If that means all slots are taken up, I am 100% not asking for special treatment, but if there's room, I'd love to play.

Name: Matt
Best way to reach me: mattnificence on Discord
Availability: free every Monday evening, 3/4 Friday evenings, 1/2 of Sunday evenings, any time after 6PM CST. I will at some point in the next few months be free Thursdays, but IDK how soon. I'm also free Saturday afternoons before 7 PM CST.
Character: fire genasi hexblade/paladin