A good adventure. Part 1: Enjoy the sidebar on the People of Hartsvale. Gives the DM a chance to be the one-up-me-guy. As a DM make sure the players get the info from the SEER and Uli. Would also put a time limit to get mission done. Also stress that the Ise Festing location in not currently known, but Blot know location. Part 2: Traveling through cold mountains. As with any of these set-ups wish they would include a blurb on Rangers and favorite terrain. Encounter 1: As previous reviews, enjoy Ice Spire Ogres. But this encounter felt weak. Since this adventure doesn't press the player to complete the mission, making them use more character resources would improve this. Random Encounters: These are nice options, some better than others. A few of these encounters provide a map which can be a good thing.
Random 1: Good chance to roleplay and/or combat is standard. Random 2: Liked this combat. One of my players turned the zombies so excellent for them. The use of terrain is fun (falling humor), but using zombies (bad DEX) makes it weaker encounter. Random 3: Terrain encounters are good. Random 4: Ouch. This can cause some pain. Awesome use of terrain and creatures. Good note to use Survival checks in secret. Random 5. Good encounter nothing special. Random 5: Secret Mission for Harpers. This might be the worst of the randoms. No map and weaker creature for mission level. This is a perfect spot for longresting, some players were happy to remove exhaustion. Part 3: The optional way to locate Ise Festing was okay. Since they are not on a time schedule being late is not a big deal.
The encounter itself was fun when I DM'ed it. The party had numbers but was under recommended level and had very little experience against spell casters. The adjusting the encounter does not take into effect that you cannot get a very strong party (adventure suggested levels is 5 - 10th levels). Depending on the party, this encounter can be a tad weak. As stated above, a good adventure. Adding a blurb on time to complete would make it more challenging and changes the whole dynamic.