I guess it´s time for a sump post. Fasten your seatbelts and make yourself a hot cup of tea. It´s gonna be a long read.
So I intend to visit a RPG convention in a couple of months which lasts over a three day period. As I have completed the Icewind Dale video game a few weeks ago the first thought was to run a couple scenarios in a customized Icewind Dale setting to provide new content for people who might have read the latest gaming material about this region. For reference and inspiration I read three books to get a couple of ideas for the RPG event:
1. Netheril -Empire of Magic- [Arcane Age] from 1996.
2. Forgotten Realms Setting from 2001.
3. Icewind Dale - rime of the Frostmaiden from 2020.
The first book features the magocracy of the human nation of Netheril several thousand years before the setting of today. The emphasis of this book is to show the struggles of those frontier settlements as various barbaric humanoid races such as orcs and goblins plague civilization. As a consequence you will find many incidents of violent conflict and even annihilation when an overly aggressive goblin tribe gets wiped out for raiding the town of a former human trading partner for petty reasons.
The second book is written in the same style. There are many varied civilized human nations who had serious issues with this or that group. In a nutshell it was presented in a serious way though sadly it had very little content of the Icewind Dale region but all the other nations provided a unimaginable amount of adventure hooks which you could use with slight modification anywhere else too.
And now we come to the third book which directly describes the Icewind Dale. Oh boy, this will be rough. First the good aspects of this book. It has lots of art in it and when it focusses on the environment it is top-notch. You really believe that you are in a gloomy, arctic wasteland where the cold is your constant companion. Another boon is the multitude of cavern/dungeon layouts you receive with this book. So if you loathe to come up with your own design just photocopy them and populate the interior with your own ideas. The third good thing about this product is the book binding. It´s solid and sturdy and not so weak like the GURPS books which I have purchased in the 90s.
And now we have to speak about the bad stuff and there will be lots of it. When you have the book the first time in your hands you will have a good look at the cover and the rear will tell you what to expect as content. This product is advertised by having the "Frostmaiden" on the cover. This would be Auril which had been presented in the 90s to appear as a beautiful, Caucasian woman with fair hair. However in 2020 these "great jeans" can´t be shown off to sell a product anymore so instead her avatar form is now shown as an oversized owlbear. The book promises to contain a tale of dark terror and the introduction on the first pages says this work had been inspired by "The Thing". So naturally you would expect a horror environment but suffice to say there is no horror mechanic as well as no particular horrific encounters in this module. Furthermore there is no survival mechanic here either and this was a huge disappointment as walking around in an arctic wasteland should be taxing for the PCs. But nope, as long as you wear winter clothing you will be fine. And there are no incidents where the party gets lost and survival is at stake at some point or another.
Lets delve deeper into the overall tone of this module which will be expressed mainly by the tasks the PCs have to perform and the way characters and NPCs are presented. Instead of a tale of terror the first thing PCs might be doing is the quest about cute nature spirits which are a bit of an annoyance to the local folk. Later on we will have cute, diminutive monsters who have some serious problems and need some help. Yes, you read that right. The PCs are AIDING monsters instead of slaying them. From beginning to the end there are many encounters with awakened animals who can now speak. Are we having a RPG session here or a Hollywood musical with singing creatures? Then you will meet a murderous yeti family. Will you become a villain and slay the young yeti?
And now to the depiction and description of the NPCs in more detail. All of them lack dignity and professionalism. You would NEVER have encountered these people in older lore of the setting. We have an alcoholic sheriff who is constantly drunk on duty. Everybody is fine with it and he keeps his job. When the most awful incident in this module happens he has passed out drunk in the snow and misses all of the action and there are no consequences for his ineptitude. In the Alcatraz prison version of Icewind Dale (I am NOT kidding you!) there are three people in charge. The first one is a possessed woman who is abusing all of her staff on a daily basis. She never gets an exorcism organised despite the fact that she has TOLD her staff that she is in need of such help. Everybody is fine with a lunatic running the asylum. No consequences. Then there is another woman on this board of directors of the prison. She loathes her job and when it comes to discussions which of the inmates deserve to be freed she sabotages the meetings by ALWAYS voting in the worst way. The other directors have noticed this but there are of course no consequences. The last one is a male paladin who is just an overachiever and thus square-jawed and straight-laced. My bet is they have run out of energy to make him worse so he is just your run-of-the-mill lawful good character.
Next on topic are two tribes of Goliaths. These are not to be confused with the indigenous barbarian tribes of previous publications but a new thing which has been poorly implemented. In a harsh setting where people wander though high snow and every unnecessary expenditure of energy might spell your doom these morons have the following habit when encountering folks on the road: They challenge them on the spot in a game of shrub-pulling. Winner gets bragging rights because fooling around like that is the same as if we would go outside to build a snowman. But there is more because they have also a national sport. These guys are on the juice and are therefore tall, brawny and brutish. So what could it be? Any ideas? It´s a version of...handball. Yep, no form of contact sport which would be fitting for them but something where nobody gets hurt.
And now I want to address the encounter system. Some of those encounters should not be available because the characters won´t be up to the challenge even at the end of the module. And with other encounters the writers of this mess have proposed asinine reasons to avoid bloodshed. Lets delve into some of these happy accidents with glee. First there is a group of orcs to be met. PCs who don´t want to have a fight are supposed to tell them that they are on a quest to slay the head of the Elven pantheon. No comment. Then there is an encounter with a frost giant on a mammoth. Again an encounter which only the highest level of players might survive. Early on or even in the middle it will be death of the entire party or at least the majority. How to fool this one? Tell him you are a band of dragon slayers. By the way frost giants are not stupid like ogres. They can tell apart a bunch of hardy adventures from people who have difficulty of handling a dozen orcs. Next we have the most awesome monster in all of D&D: An actual dragon! But nope, don´t get your hopes up. She can be encountered on two separate occasions but she is demented not to make her less dangerous but to keep the tone of this module of everyone being a jacka$$ so you don´t have to take her serious. So maybe the writers were right all along: A tale of terror for the players who have to suffer with these imbeciles. But fear not! There is still more to uncover.
Next up maybe the worst written NPC. It´s a survivor from a monster raid and he intends to free his comrades who have been captured by vile humanoids. At last a noble hero from ancient times you might think? Right? Right?! Nah, once he is in the monsters´ den he decides to help them out so he does eventually nothing when his comrades get finally eaten. The reasoning of the writers: He didn´t like his comrades to begin with. So why has he chosen to free them at first? Jesus!
Following this truly low point of the module will be the use of the "freak show" aspect used in this string of adventures. There has always been a clear distinction between civilized races (humans, dwarves, elves, gnomes, halflings, etc.) and monsters. The two rarely mesh well together. When a human village had the foolish idea to trade with goblins during the Netherese era the goblinoids butchered them a couple of months later because they were told that shoddily crafted goblin leather goods weren´t a great seller on the market. This module tries very hard to turn monsters into people. A few examples: The drunken sheriff was a draconian and a member of a lost adventuring party was a tiefling (human with hellish ancestors). Freaks like these would never survive a single day in Ten Towns as the populace would stone them to death. Even someone with a superb reputation would still be reviled as was the case with the famous character of Drizzt Do´Urden. And should the characters have difficulties with the dragon, which will be the case by the way, it is suggested that a verbeeg, who is a worshipper of human deity, comes to their aid. Nope, this wouldn´t occur either in a setting where writers would honour the lore.
The final aspect of this sump post shall be the Ten Towns themselves. These are frontier dwellings where hardy folks make a living mostly as loggers, miners and fishermen. People drawn to this harsh region of Faerun are either adventurers, fortune hunters and/or people who want to escape their past as living here is extremely difficult. This new module tries hard to sell the idea that each town in the Icewind Dale has been founded by a specific culture hailing elsewhere from Toril. Sorry, but this is plainly wrong. The most likely ancestors of all the populace of Ten Towns would be either survivors of the fallen Netheril empire who had a few cities in the vicinity and of course people directly Southern from the Spine of the World. So you won´t get an exodus of people from Calimshan, an arabic culture, to settle in an arctic environment like the writers inserted here. It just doesn´t work that way.
And we have reached the end of this sump post. I have already written down two adventure hooks for the upcoming RPG event. Players who expect clown NPCs and an arctic which feels like a walk in a park will have a rude awakening. That´s all folks!
