The Great Trial Frostbite by Christian Zeuch (@czeuch1)

Content Warning

Some events described in this adventure could cause stress to certain readers, or players, these things include: loss of agency, mental manipulation through magic, affected mental health, and references to slavery.

This truly is the ultimate nightmare winter cruise...without a ship or paddle.

A winter wonderland of ice and pain filled with new monsters, challenges and some seriously awesome thrills and spills. Whether you're looking for an awesome one shot, continuing The Great Trial series or augmenting and/ or adding to your Icewind Dale experience with the coming of Rime of the Frost Maide, The Great Trial Frostbite has something for everyone.

Running This Adventure

The history of the previous Grand Trial and Aenor Gleenwith’s creations and machinations are wonderfully described bringing all up to date and setting a chilling and foreboding tone for what lays ahead. With the information provided, given more context in the adventure hooks below, The Great Trial Frostbite can easily be run as part of an ongoing campaign, as a one shot, or as a continuation of The Great Trial.

Adventure Hooks

A trio of hooks are provided. In the first the party met with Frost Giant under the effects of Aenor’s mind magic. The big, forgetful is an unwitting courier for the Wizard and their clearly trapped mind games. Whether the party know it or not they are walking into a trap and are likely to be subdued by the powerful Wizard, only to wake up on his bizarre creation without arms, armour or items. This hook is an augmented version of an encounter from Zeuch’s previous phenomenal release, the jam-packed Encounters In Icewind Dale (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/325154/Encounters-in-Icewind-Dale?affiliate_id=1507682). The second seamlessly connects the third dungeon floor/ demiplane from The Great Trial (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/304957/The-Great-Trial?affiliate_id=1507682), making the two modules play out as if a single long adventure. Finally, the third hook sets this module up as a one shot with Aenor sticking to his usual modus operandi, hiring the adventurers for a bogus quest and capturing them when they least expect it.

Chapter 1 The Frostbite Gauntlet

The Frostbite Gauntlet is a frigid demiplane of Aenor’s creations with cheerfully freezing and inclement weather, travelling and wilderness hazards laid out clearly, along with a truly beautiful hexmap. I mean a seriously gorgeous map of this demiplane with all locations indicated in style. Not content with a snow globe demiplane of freezing torture alone, Aenor’s wicked brilliance and artifice have managed to arcanely rig it so “the plane has multiple one way passages and portals that can take creatures from the Cocytus, Stygia, Feywild and the Plane of Ice into the Gauntlet to act as challenges for the trial-runners.” This truly is the ultimate nightmare winter cruise...without a ship or paddle.

If the weather isn’t bad enough the travel agents are Deathwings Air comprised of “Death, an alias Aenor gave to an undead he created: a skeletal knight who rides Wings, an undead ice wyvern. Together they’re called Death wings. His role in this gauntlet is to harass the participants of the trial from time to time” and stop them reaching the exit to this gelid place, miles above at the summit of The Unreachable. However, if Death can be overcome Wings could be a great means to the top. The pair are tied to seven sources scattered about the demiplane and the wintry wonderlands it borders linked to specific and thematically appropriate abilities relating to each location, which can be discovered with a clever addition (or rather subtraction) to a Perception Check.

Locations

All cold and unwelcoming though they all are, there is an exciting variety of locations The Frostbite Gauntlet.

The Tree of Bad Omen is where the characters awake “left only with [their] clothes, forging a cold [they] have never quite felt before” with a creepy tree with a Magic Mouth that cordially welcomes them to the Frostbite Gauntlet.

The Tall Guardian is a huge Skeleton a la Dark Souls whose sole purpose is to attempt to keep the players from their belongings, trapped in large blocks of ice. You know, because if you haven’t work it out yet Aenor isn’t very nice.

The Unending Ice is a lie, but it does go far enough before ending “in pure void” and has “pretty much unbreakable” ice.

The Plane of Ice Portal is a glowing blue hole in an iceberg the size of a mountain just spewing extreme cold and frosty elementals. Here the heroes face the quintessential ice golem, the biggest, baddest ice elemental in the playground to rob Death if icy powers and earn the respect of all the other ice elementals in your year.

The Cave of Stygia is a big ole rocky orifice to Hell’s freezer that holds a big ole crystal of Death’s power and a real chill devil nifty new icy spear, effective tactics, and a whole heap of devils who don’t seem to respect the Queensbury Rules as much as the elementals.

The Shattered Soul is a jolly forest of crystals that put pay to the notion, if at first you don’t succeed in linking your demiplane to the Feywild, just kill an Archfey and use their soul to make a chill-ass crystal forest and give your Death Knight innate spellcasting.

The “Frozen Mountain is around three miles tall and can be seen from anywhere on the island, largely due to The Unreachable atop it, shining its brilliant, blue light across the whole island.”

The Unreachable is 16,000 feet of eponymous ridiculousness with a one-way portal out of this freezer.

The Raging Wind is immense tornado radiating out from a portal to the Elemental Plane of Air that blows around with a fancy emerald magic item in its’ eye. A skill challenge with a variety of options and a pounding for failing and flailing in the mighty air currents is all that stands between the party and a new shiny and cure death of his freezing wind.

The Cocytus Rift is a Pandemonius tear through which demon caper and a through which gargantuan oozy demon came through and made its home on Aenor’s couch in return for helping explode in icy death throes. I’m loving the variety in these challenges and creatures, and I’m having a real tough time trying to decide which I would rather, fight a gargantuan demon blob or have the king boss explode in icy death...

Winter’s Eye is a spiky, frozen crater bored by an ice beholder called “Ithoch” (although it would be more fitting to be called Ithcold) who is actually actively scheming against Aenor and wants out. Their three-tiered home contains an enslaved frost giant, Oklog, and their winter wolf, some treasures and some really interesting sources of roleplay and parlay. It’s possible to remove the source of Death’s power from Ithoch without killing them, making them an ally (at least in the meantime, but they could become a very interesting part of the party), while Oklog can also be persuaded to help against their master, possibly made easier by the reservations their Winter Wolf has about the ice beholder.

Random Encounters

This chapter works on rolling for a random encounter per hex traversed, further broken down by type with subsequent tables for devils, demons, ice elementals and other encounters. All save the demons contain a number of the cool new creatures featured in the appendix. This section makes a fantastic reference for adding more interesting encounters and creatures to any icy or Icewind Dale games.

Special Events

Three special events can play out at any time, including choosing whether or not to help a demon getting ganged up on by a group of demons, a nalfeshnee, called Ba'teth, who can become a little piggy-demon-cherub ally of the party while “waits for a good opportunity to make a meal out of them when they’re at their weakest”, a bored imp who will chat to the party with a healthy mix of lies and truth with a table of examples, before getting bored, and an ill-fated or lucky (depending on your perspective) silver dragonborn sorcerer, Naaxith Valzys, who has been stuck he for a while, which has taken its toll, though they are still handy with a spell and can add some much needed arcane support to parties finding themselves left out in the cold.

Chapter 2 Escaping Icingdeath

Once Deathswings and The Unreachable have been surmounted the party find themselves in a bizarre dungeon designed “to have the party flee from the dungeon while Icingdeath chases the party relentlessly”, which could be taken as a kind gesture of getting them nice and warm after that chilly demiplane, but that really is the only upside of having Ingeloakastimizilian, an ancient undead dragon gnashing at your heels as you Benny Hill through dungeon corridors to the sound of Yakety Sax played on a haunted hurdy-gurdy. Oh, and the Returned dragon has real-time tracking in their lair.

But “Aenor tries to be fair in his challenges. Knowing that the participants will go through this part right after the gauntlet, he didn’t add many traps in this dungeon.” There are some highly amusing invisible ice walls and the classic and, I believe, legally necessary falling stalactites.

“It opens its maw and unleashes a horrifying sound; a roar, halfblended with the sounds of a thousand dying screams”

I. Have. Chills!

The Yakety Sax really isn’t fair as Zeuch has worked hard to keep the chase thrilling and immediate using initiative, but with limited turn time (or the character spends their turn legging it) and some great advice for keeping the group’s discussion in character as the run for their lives and dither over directions. Can we take a moment to imagine and appreciate the sheer terror of a gargantuan undead dragon hounding you down corridors that should be too narrow for it, but nevertheless it is indomitably coming, while you slip and slide, smash through invisible walls and get impaled from above! This is truly one of the most exciting set pieces I've come across.

The narrative examples for describing different situations are fantastic and evocative! I give you, Looking Back:

“You see that huge mass of draconic bones clawing its way through the corridor with surprising great speed, its eyes glowing with a terrible fury.”

Finally, the out of the dungeon, the party are faced with the we’ve come to know and love? Loathe? Have nightmares about what his diary must look like, filled with Halaster/ Acererak slash fic? Well he’s there with his usual platitudes, apologies, Wishes, gold, magic items and whatnot, and the party find themselves in Icewind Dale, possibly feeling a version of when you step out of a steam room in the cold of night, but don’t feel cold, maybe. With a sense of true accomplishment and an 11th level, most definitely.

Don’t worry Aenor is in the appendix if the party feel the need to through down with CR 20 Wizard, after all they have been through...

The Appendix contains 17 creatures, almost entirely new, including the named characters of Aenor, Death, Wings and Icingdeath, as well as a cavalcade of new devils, demons and elementals, all with a wicked icy twist and perfect for any chilly setting or game.

The Appendix also contains the four original magic items from the dungeons, Death’s Scythe, a very rare longsword with life transferring abilities, Spear of Frost, Invigorating Stone (the shiny gem from the big wind), a very rare item that leaves one feeling more rested in the morning, and Wingklace, the legendary undead wyvern remote control.

This proves without doubt that Zeuch is master of creating a unique location and filling it with wonders, horrors and fascinating obstacles to overcome! From the stunningly gorgeous hexmap to the beautiful maps for each location contained within the body of the adventure, as well as the wonderful batch of additional maps for random encounters, which show they have quickly become an Inkarnate savant, to the awesomely intriguing places to visit, creatures to discover and defend against, characters and surprises that makes these far more than a simple dungeon or even a mere spectacular location. And then an inspired handbrake turn into a more traditional dungeon chase with a gargantuan undead dragon with the nous to know that with a few tricks, there’s no more need to overcomplicate it. The Great Trial Frostbite is a wonderful adventure within itself, as well as being a wondrous addition to The Great Trial and Aenor’s legend, which I truly hope to see further instalments of; it is a phenomenal whole, but it is also a spectacular toolkit with the ability to enhance your games for a long time to come. The additional monsters, location, characters and concepts have enough depth to live on to inspire and become included in further adventures. To incorporate both elements and pull it off with aplomb is seriously impressive. I’m so excited to see that they do next!

Zeuch is a true Master of the Dungeon!

And if you’re reading this just to see if this would work with and be an asset to your Rime of the Frost Maiden campaign or any icy, snowy good time, the answer is most assuredly and affirmatively yes! In the ways I described above, as an interlude, worked into the story or simply cannibalised for all its juicy bits. This has quality Icewind Dale potential. It’s literally where the adventure ends!

This truly is the ultimate nightmare winter cruise...without a ship or paddle.

My affiliate link: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/327309/The-Great-Trial-Frostbite?affiliate_id=1507682

Credits

Author Christian Zeuch (@czeuch1)

Editor Jack Weighill (@diveaveragejack)

Cover & Credits Illustrator Dean Spencer (@DeanSpencerArt)

Interior Art Art under CC0 license, Wizard of the Cost stock art and some Inkarnate scenes created by Christian Zeuch

Playtesters Diego Bitelo, Edegar Machado, Fabio Forell, Leonardo Dantas, Rômulo Sartori

Special Thanks GMBinder for the amazing layout tool

My affiliate link: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/327309/The-Great-Trial-Frostbite?affiliate_id=1507682