Auril

An icy wind swept from the north like a war chariot, bearing upon it the goddess Auril. In her wake came winter storms that made the worst of Aerdrie's attacks seem like gentle zephyrs. Where Auril passed, the trees shivered, and their leaves turned hard and curled inward as if seeking the warmth that lingered within the wood. -Evermeet: Island of Elves The goddess Auril is the evil deity of cold and winter, and she is counted among the Gods of Fury alongside Talos (god of destructive storms), Umberlee (god of oceans and sea winds), and Malar (god of the savage hunt). Cruel, jealous, and fickle, she thrives on fear, not worship, causing frosts to kill crops and blizzards to assault travelers when she feels her due has not been paid. Auril grants her favor in response to prayers only capriciously. Even those who earn it are not spared the bitter cold of Auril's breath - only allowed to endure it. More often, the cruel goddess will seem to grant a traveler's prayer with clear skies and mild weather, only to reveal her true nature with a sudden storm that assaults the traveler far from any shelter. Though her fury often abates as quickly as it is roused, those who provoke the Frostmaiden's ire seldom survive it. Auril's symbol is a white snowflake on a gray diamond (a heraldic lozenge) with a white border. Followers Legacy of the Crystal Shard - Campaign Guide The Frostmaiden Auril has few priests and fewer temples. Some druids pay their respects to her on Midwinter Night, and isolated cults spring up from time to time, mostly in cold, remote regions much like Icewind Dale. A handful of temples scattered around the North offer places for the common folk to offer sacrifices, in the hope of appeasing her and staving off her wrath. These shrines are only occasionally visited by Auril's wandering priests, usually females who have survived an encounter with extreme cold through the Frostmaiden's fickle favor. The idea of a cleric - a character who receives Auril's divine energy in pursuit of her goals - is almost entirely foreign to the faith. From time to time, however, a supplicant who seeks to wield the force of the winter storm to smite foes is granted a shard of Auril's might. The Frostmaiden's only condition is that such a cleric use her ability openly, so that all can see Auril's wrath and fear it properly. Among the Reghed tribes, the people of the Great Glacier to the east, and a few other hardy, savage folk, shamans of Auril sometimes arise to direct a tribe's worship away from its ancestral deities and toward the Frostmaiden. These shamans teach that the way to endure winter's fury is to inflict it upon others, raiding and pillaging to take the supplies they need to survive the winter. Offering sacrifices to Auril is socially acceptable - even expected - in places where the threat of winter's fury is very grave. Devoting oneself to the Frostmaiden's service is not. Auril is known as a cruel goddess who loves to inspire fear, and those who would devote themselves to such a deity can hardly be thought to have the well-being of the community in mind. Such people do exist, of course, and sometimes they manage to assemble groups of likeminded individuals into cults that meet in secret to offer praise and sacrifice to Auril. Sometimes a cleric gathers such people together by displaying the Frostmaiden's power; these clerics are often revered as something akin to saints by their followers. Most of the time, though, it is simply the fevered vision of a lunatic devotee that inspires others to join the cult. Practice Legacy of the Crystal Shard - Campaign Guide The Frostmaiden Auril's commandments to her followers are simple: "Let in the cold, that it may chase away the false security of warmth. Embrace the cold, that you may feel my presence. Spread the cold, that others may know and fear my power. Do not kill creatures of the cold except in great need, for I embrace them as my own. Slay others as you will, for my chill breath spares neither king nor beggar, and those who do not know the dangers of the cold can still perish by it." After autumn's first frost, farmers take a portion of their stored crops and scatter it in the north wind to stave off Auril's wrath. Those who are about to set off on a journey into cold lands sometimes scatter gold or silver coins in deep snow or icy streams. Hunters on the tundra offer the blood of their prey to Auril, spilling it onto the ice or snow and letting it freeze. The most crazed and evil of her worshipers sacrifice humans to her wrath - sometimes under the guise of punishing a criminal by exposure to the elements. Followers of the Frostmaiden observe three holy times each year. The Coming Storm and the Last Storm are the celebrations of the beginning and the end of winter, respectively. Midwinter Night is the most sacred time for Auril's faithful. Goals Legacy of the Crystal Shard - Campaign Guide The Frostmaiden Along with Malar and Umberlee, Auril serves Talos, the god of nature's destructive aspect, and in a way the goddess represents a part of his portfolio - the deadly wrath of winter. She has always resented this subordinate position and believes that Talos has trespassed on her worship for too long, stealing her followers and overshadowing her with his own displays of destruction. Now, as the Sundering begins, Auril thinks the time has come to establish her position independent of Talos and the other Gods of Fury. She believes (as do most other gods) that the Sundering will end with a new ordering of the pantheon, and thus she strives to claim dominance over winter storms, in opposition to Talos. The Frostmaiden unleashes all the fury she can muster on the northern lands of Faerun, from Icewind Dale to Sossal in the east, hoping to secure the worship and fear of the populace. Along with brutal weather, she sends the beasts of the tundra to harry the Reghed tribes and the people of Ten-Towns, reminding them that flimsy walls offer no protection from the dark and cold of winter. Like many other deities, Auril has a mortal agent - a Chosen - to enact her will in Icewind Dale, energize her faithful, and drive fear into the hearts of her foes. For this task, Auril has selected a young barbarian girl named Hedrun from the northernmost wastes of Iceland Dale. Her people, the Elk Tribe, have grown too sure of their ability to secure a livelihood from the desolate tundra, forgetting that they survive to see each spring only with Auril's blessing. Hedrun's first task is to make them remember. Along with setting a stern example for the Reghed tribes, Hedrun has been charged with recovering the scattered remnants of the Cryshal-Tirith and forging them anew. Auril believes that their latent enchantments, predating the Spellplague, constitute a vast reserve of magical energy that her Chosen can use to augment the power of the goddess. Perhaps she can even lock Icewind Dale in perpetual winter - an unequivocal demonstration of the potency of the Frostmaiden. Servants of Auril Legacy of the Crystal Shard - Campaign Guide The Frostmaiden Auril's harsh measures are having the desired effect, at least to some extent. With Hedrun as her agent in Icewind Dale, she has secured new followers among the Reghed tribes and the Ten-Towners alike. The shaman of the Tribe of the Bear, Bjami Tengervaald, has called on his tribe to follow Auril exclusively and has established a makeshift temple in Evermelt, inside the old lair of Icingdeath. They view the ice-encrusted skeleton of the dragon as an manifestation of the Frostmaiden's blessing and offer sacrifices of beasts, monsters, and human foes in the waterfall cavern, where the spray from the falls quickly encases the offerings in ice. Auril has also anointed a priest among the Ten-Towners, a native of Bremen named Davrick Fain. Though he has no temple or organized congregation, he travels around Ten-Towns, announcing Auril's wrath and calling on the townsfolk to offer sacrifices and petitions to the Frostmaiden. Davrick Fain Priest of Auril After the first great storm of winter, the people of Ten-Towns gave a larger share of their harvest to Auril than ever before, and the cold streams and rivers of the region are littered with copper and silver coins they offered to appease her. What's more, a handful of Ten-Towners have decided that Auril is a god worth their devotion. Davrick Fain, a merchant in Bremen, wandered out into the tundra in hopes of receiving Auril's blessing and survived after experiencing what he calls "her embrace." After returning to Bremen, he proclaimed himself a priest of the Frostmaiden and began calling loudly on his neighbors to join him in her service. His travels around Ten-Towns, buying goods for his store, offer him a chance to spread his message throughout Icewind Dale, and his preaching has accounted for an increase in sacrifices to Auril. He has attracted other devotees to her service, forming tiny, secret cells of worshipers in each of the ten towns. Davrick Fain and his message seemed harmless enough at first, but then travelers started turning up dead, drowned in icy streams or staked to the ground to die of exposure - sacrifices to appease the Frostmaiden. Davrick was never present when the murders were committed, so no culprit could be identified. Nevertheless, many people in Ten-Towns are beginning to look askance at the self-proclaimed priest, suspecting that his devotion to Auril is dangerous to their communities. Others whisper that it's better for strangers to die at winter's hand than for Auril's wrath to obliterate Ten-Towns entirely. Aside from his cult activities, Davrick Fain operates a resale shop in Bremen called Nine Knuckles. His work takes him to all of the lake towns, where he buys scrimshaw and local products to take back to his shop and sell to unwary travelers and traders who do not realize they're paying an exorbitant markup. (In Bremen, "a regular Nine Knuckles customer" is local parlance for a rube or an easy mark.) Word has begun to reach Davrick that some of the Reghed tribes have taken up Auril's service, and he has heard rumors of a woman that some say is the Frostmaiden herself - a witch who commands the snows and the beasts of the tundra, and who cannot be harmed by mortal weapons. These tales have captured Davrick's imagination, and he firmly believes that the witch who lives on the Sea of Moving Ice is Auril, calling all true believers to her side before she scours the dale with her freezing breath. Davrick wants to prove that he is her most loyal servant, so he plots to deliver Ten-Towns straight into the hands of the Ice Witch. Davrick Fain is a man in his mid-thirties, with bright red hair that betrays his Reghed ancestry. He stands well over six feet tall, though he lacks the muscular build common among the tribes. No longer troubled by cold, he wears fine clothes imported from the south, with no cloak or fur linings. Hedrun Arnsfirth The Ice Witch, Chosen of Auril Image: Hedrun Arnsfirth Portrait A bright and strong-willed girl of the Elk Tribe, Hedrun was secretly blessed by Auril as a Chosen in anticipation of the Sundering. Although Hedrun is not immune to the cold, she was less affected by it and embraced the freezing death of winter as a bracing time of clarity and beauty. This alone made her seem queer to her tribe; then, as she grew older, strange events occurred in her presence. Hot food swiftly grew cold. Fires had to be built higher to keep them burning. She always felt as cold as death, so everyone avoided her touch - all except a young warrior of the tribe, the son of the shaman. Despite being constantly warned to stay away from Hedrun, he was instead drawn to her beauty and distant sadness. They began to talk secretly, sneaking away from the camp when they could to share their private thoughts. On one such intimate excursion, they kissed for the first - and last - time. The son of the shaman instantly froze to death, touched by his love's lips but killed by Auril's jealousy. The frightened and infuriated tribe banished Hedrun, stripping her of all protection and leaving her to die on the freezing tundra. But she did not die. Shedding tears that froze on her cheeks and shivering so much she could hardly walk, she wandered aimlessly, feeding on carrion and eating snow to slake her thirst. She asked Tempus why this fate was thrust upon her, but the god of warriors gave no answer. Similarly, she prayed to the great elk spirit, but it too was silent. On a particularly hard day, she gazed into a gray sky filled with whirling snow and screamed her question. "Because you are special," came a tinkling answer on the wind. "Because you are great and beautiful in a way they could not understand. Because you are powerful, and they fear that power." Over the next months, Auril's Chosen learned of the wondrous abilities she possessed and how she could use them to befriend the beasts of the cold when her fellow humans would not associate with her. Now she seeks revenge against her people, and Auril urges her in dreams to show the folk of Icewind Dale what winter really means. The Ice Witch is blessed with Auril's power. She freezes whatever she touches, and she can hurl icicles at distant foes. She can walk across water by freezing it with every step or turn the ground beneath her to slippery ice. She commands absolute obedience from the beasts of the tundra, and winter storms rise at her will. What's more, she can shape an image of herself out of ice and snow and imbue it with her consciousness, creating a duplicate that carries out her will (and Auril's) while her real body slumbers in an ice coffin in her remote tower. Thus, the people of the Reghed tribes believe that she cannot be harmed by weapons, for when the icy simulacrum is destroyed, it crumbles into snow, causing the real Hedrun no harm. A few days later, a new simulacrum appears. The Tower of the Ice Witch Legacy of the Crystal Shard - Campaign Guide The Frostmaiden Image: Black Ice Tower Map The Sea of Moving Ice is one of the most remote regions in all Faerun. Few people have ever laid eyes on this frozen realm, and fewer still have wandered its wastes and returned to tell the tale. Glaciers and ice floes slide and crash together, grinding to flinders most ships that dare to navigate its waters. Yet somehow, the Ice Witch has built a tower of black ice here, infused with the evil of the Crystal Shard. The tower stands over a hundred feet tall and resembles the prism shape of a quartz crystal, though it is black and mostly opaque. An open archway leads into the structure, in obedience to Auril's command that the winter wind be allowed entry into every building. The Witch's Sanctum: The top floor of the tower is sparsely furnished, with a slab of black ice for a bed, a table and stool formed of the same substance, and a small shrine to Auril flanked by smaller statues of the goddess. A few shelves adorned with tribute collected from raids on Ten-Towns and the Reghed tribes line another wall. Cold blue flames flicker atop the table and shrine. Temple of the Storm: The second floor is a large, open area with a ceiling 80 feet high, the chamber adorned only by six tall statues of Auril. A dais in the center of the room is decorated with the Frostmaiden's symbol. Directly above the dais, a hole in the ceiling offers access to the third floor by way of flight or levitation. Audience Hall: The ground floor of the tower is an audience hall with a throne opposite the archway. Here Hedrun receives the obeisance of the handful of Reghed barbarians and orcs from the Spine of the World that come to pay homage to her. The columns, throne, and stairs leading up to the next level are all shaped from ice and slick underfoot.