As D&D Live 2020 took to the digital stage, one of the big reveals from this year’s event was the announcement of a chilling new adventure, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden.
Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frosmaiden will take adventurers to the frozen reaches of northern Faerun, where they will confront the Frostmaiden, Auril, the evil goddess of winter, snow and steel.
During the D&D Live announcement, Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford revealed that Rime of the Frostmaiden will be a horror adventure, something we haven’t seen since the Curse of Strahd. The story builds heavily on the themes of isolation, winter and secrecy and will make the most of player paranoia.
Beneath the unyielding night sky, you stand before a towering glacier and recite an ancient rhyme, causing a crack to form in the great wall of ice. Beyond this yawning fissure, the Caves of Hunger await. And past this icy dungeon is a secret so old and terrifying that few dare speak of it. The mad wizards of the Arcane Brotherhood long to possess that which the god of winter’s wrath has so coldly preserved—as do you! What fantastic secrets and treasures are entombed in the sunless heart of the glacier, and what will their discovery mean for the denizens of Icewind Dale? Can you save Ten-Towns from the Frostmaiden’s everlasting night?
Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden is a tale of dark terror that revisits the forlorn, flickering candlelights of civilization known as Ten-Towns and sheds light on the many bone-chilling locations that surround these frontier settlements.
With a new location comes the need for new monsters and encounters and Rime of the Frostmaiden has the most of any adventure book, with 50 new stat-blocks. While we’re not sure what these may be yet, from the book’s artwork it looks like there could be a frost variant of the Owlbear.
Perkins and Crawford have done a number of interviews with Todd Kenrick, over at D&D Beyond, delving into some of the new mechanics featured in the book, however have kept stum on a lot of the details such as possible new archetypes and races.
If you missed the live announcement from D&D Live, you can get it on catch-up below.
Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden is released on September 15 however, it is available for pre-order on D&D Beyond now. When you pre-order you also gain immediate access to a new set of digital dice and 6 new character backdrops.