Sea of Moving Ice

The sea west of Icewind Dale is a maze of shifting ice sheets and icebergs. A few frozen islands are inhabited by tribes of Ice Hunters, a group of humans the North- landers pushed toward the pole long ago. An armada of frost giant greatships under the command ofJarl Stor- vald hunts whales, walruses, and seals in these waters. The Sea of Moving Ice is also the domain of several white dragons, the largest and most powerful of which are two ancient white dragons named Arauthator and Arveiaturace. Each dragon makes its lair inside a hol- lowed-out iceberg. Arauthator’s iceberg, Oyaviggaton, has Northfolk barbarians living on it and is described in the adventure The Rise ofTiamat. Arveiaturace is known to hunt in Icewind Dale and might be encoun¬tered there (see the “Icewind Dale” section). Characters who explore the Sea of Moving Ice in win¬tertime are subject to extreme cold temperatures (see the “Wilderness Survival” section in chapter 5 of the Dungeon Mast Along the western edge of Icewind Dale is a great expanse of broken ice that extends hundreds of miles out to sea. Narrow runs of open water riddle the ice, allowing passage for seafarers brave (or daft) enough to try navigating this frozen sea. Here, free-floating icebergs mingle with ice-covered rocks and islets, and the difference between one and the other is seldom apparent until tested by a ship’s hull. The ice shifts constantly, opening new passages while closing others. Even the most seasoned captains can become undone when a broad waterway suddenly closes off and the jostling bergs grip their vessels like a vise. The numerous hulls of ruined ships trapped in the ice testify to the perils of sailing this sea. For all its desolation, the Sea of Moving Ice does have some inhabitants. Seals, walruses, and polar bears hunt across its surface and in the waters beneath. Schools of cod and char swim in the deep, and occasionally whales breach among the bergs. White dragons, too, live and hunt here, and creatures that cannot escape into the water find little refuge from the terrifying aerial predators. Even a few tribes of hunters live here, stalking seals and bears for food and fashioning their shelters from blocks of ice. The Reghed tribes of Icewind Dale are bound by an ancient taboo that prevents them from ventur¬ing out onto the Sea of Moving Ice, or “the floating land,” as they call it. Though shrouded in language of superstition, the edict is ultimately practical, for the risks of traveling on the ice far outweigh the potential rewards. The short-lived Tribe of the Seal, which emerged during the heyday of the tribes under Wul- fgar’s leadership, violated that edict, and the people of the tribes often point to that transgression as an explanation for why the tribe did not survive.