Icewind Dale
It really says something about the state of the world when ice devils hardly sound world-ending in comparison.
Howling winds scatter across a pure white landscape. They call out harsh promises of a gradual and freezing demise, where each step atop the layers of snow threatens to be a wandering soul’s last. Any vision is obscured by constant blizzards, the embodiment of Auril the Frostmaiden’s fury. After all, Icewind Dale is her ice-carved dream… and an isolating nightmare for the creatures trapped here.
Thanks to the Frostmaiden’s spell, the sun never rises over Icewind Dale. It chokes out all light and promise of warmth, warping the landscape under countless blizzards and unrelenting cold. The Sea of Moving Ice has frozen over, allowing the giants to significantly expand the fortress known as Svardborg.
Icewind Dale is so cold that portals to Stygia, the fifth layer of the Nine Hells, form naturally among the ice. Legions of ice devils under Asmodeus’s command have flocked through those portals to assist the duergar in claiming Icewind Dale as their own. Meanwhile, giant and duergar alike face white dragons emboldened by Tiamat’s return. Perhaps the best one can hope for in Icewind Dale is to be set on fire, so that at least one’s final moments will be warm ones.
Citizenry
The citizenry of Icewind Dale can be crudely sorted into two categories: frost giants and duergar, both taking all the precautions necessary to survive in the harshest conditions imaginable. The duergar returned underground, wary of digging too deep and connecting to the Underdark. They’ve become equally wary of caverns as they are the cold. Even Iceking Sunblight’s promises of leading the duergar in the name of their goddess have done little to change the unwavering pessimism. Doomsayers are becoming more frequent—and their arguments grow ever more convincing.
By contrast, the frost giant’s natural resistance to the cold acclimated them nicely, allowing them to continue business as usual. The frost giants’ alliance with Auril only further boosted their confidence that they deserve to sit at the top of the ordning. Frost giants from the far corners have started to venture into Icewind Dale, bolstering the giants’ already impressive numbers, but their diminishing food supplies present a crisis in the making.
Survival becomes ever more challenging thanks to the perpetual night and cold temperatures that make the frozen lair of the Nine Hells, Stygia, feel like a warm breeze. The majority of flora and fauna can no longer survive in the harsh winter. Most residents survive by consuming deep roots, hunting the thickest wooled beasts, or ice fishing.
Religion
The duergar believe their goddess of conquest, Deep Duerra, helped them escape the encroaching demonic hordes of the Underdark and claim Icewind Dale. They’ve been fooled, however: when they worship at their idols and shrines, their prayers don’t reach Deep Duerra, but the archdevil Asmodeus. The duergar are ignorant of the ranging broods of ice devils that assisted their rise every step of the way.
As for Auril the Frostmaiden, most of her followers either fled due to dwindling supplies or fell at the hands of the duergar. She’d nearly lost all her worshipers in the north before an unlikely ally emerged: the frost giants. Their search for the Ring of Winter proved futile, but Jarl Storvald became convinced the ring they call The Ice That Never Melts was simply a metaphor for the Frostmaiden. The giants readily accepted Auril as their matron goddess who shared their vision of covering the world in ice.
Noteworthy Information
Icewind Dale holds countless secrets and stories waiting to thaw out—as long as you can survive the looming duergar, devils, giants, and dragons.
Necropolis
Vecna slowly chips away at the ice hiding the fallen city of Ythryn. It’s only a matter of time before his minions uncover the secrets of the Empire of Netheril’s fall and claim Necropolis and the ancient artifacts within.
White Dragons
With Tiamat’s return, dragons blackened the skies under flapping wings. For the ancient white dragons, few territories look as tempting to claim as Icewind Dale. These near-daily invasions keep both the duergar and frost giants busy, but facing a dragon is a more appealing fate than withering in starvation.
Government
Icewind Dale now only exists as a string of settlements claimed by frost giants, duergar, or white dragons. The only remains of Ten Towns are picturesque frozen villages, icy snapshots of lives once lived. Both frost giants and duergar follow a strict hierarchy with a sole figure leading.
Jarl Storvald claimed his rightful place as mightiest of the frost giants. He instills confidence in the giants, ensuring they worship and make offerings to their new deity Auril, in hopes she brings forth the Age of Everlasting Ice. Occasionally, frost giants rise to question his rule, only to be crushed in contests of strength, endurance, and might. Beyond their new fortress-capital, Svardborg, frost giant lodges scour the wastes outside of the duergar’s claimed territory.
As for the duergar, they answer to Xardorok Sunblight, who declared himself Iceking when his Sunblight clan took in the grim duergar refugees of the Underdark. Asmodeus’ subtle influence has instilled a harsher hierarchy, where those who don’t prove their value are treated brutally before being discarded into the wastes.
Defences
Ice devils allied with the duergar skulk the frozen wastes, guarding against trespassers. Giants survey the landscapes from ice-carved hunting lodges. But no manmade defense is as dangerous as a land this inhospitable.
Industry & Trade
A mountain range called the Spine of the World cuts Icewind Dale off from the rest of the Sword Coast, making it hard for residents of Icewind Dale to import goods. Out of necessity, the frost giants have established a trade route with hill giants, in which the frost giants secure food in exchange for bone weaponry and trophies.
The duergar didn’t broker nearly as good a deal for their food sources: they trade chardalyn arms to Zariel’s Legion, unaware that Asmodeus steered his two vassal kingdoms into a tentative alliance.
Guilds and Factions
Two organizations compete within Icewind Dale: the giants loyal to Auril and the duergar under Xardorok Sunblight’s command. Both are locked in a cold war, hesitant to make the first act of aggression out of fear of retaliation.
History
In the Doomed Forgotten Realms, no one halted Auril’s nightly spells to keep Icewind Dale in a perpetual winter. What residents didn’t flee south eventually succumbed to the gelid conditions. Concurrently, the demonic horde that poured from the Abyss into the Underdark displaced countless underground cities of drow and duergar alike. Xardorox Sunblight emerged from the depths below the Spine of the World, vowing that it was Deep Duerra’s will for the duergar to claim Icewind Dale as their own. And so they claimed it, adapting from a life underground to one in the permanent night of the Frostmaiden’s domain. As Icewind Dale stands now, all of Ten Towns have been destroyed, reclaimed by duergar, or left full of humanoid ice sculptures as eerie
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