Chapter 1: Ten-Towns

Like the famous drow Drizzt Do’Urden, many people who come to Ten-Towns are outcasts, fugitives, or pariahs in search of a place where they can be tolerated, if not accepted. Some came here determined to make their fortunes. Others come for the solitude, or to escape notice and stay out of the reach of the law of the southern cities. Today, four hundred years after the formation of Ten-Towns, most folk are here because they were born here, grew up here, and expect to die here. They’re fishers, loggers, miners, hunters, trappers, furriers, and traders accustomed to the harsh climate, the slow pace, and the isolation. Like the hardy lichens and determined reindeer of the tundra, residents endure and do what’s needed to survive.

Icewind Dale has few trees, so lumber is cut from the slopes of the Spine of the World or the depths of the Lonelywood Forest. Stone from the hills and valleys surrounding Kelvin’s Cairn supplements wood as a building material in Ten-Towns. Homes have sharply pitched roofs to prevent snow from accumulating on them.

The people of Ten-Towns wear layers of woolen clothing often topped off with fur cloaks. Under these heavy clothes and cloaks, one resident looks very much the same as another. Outdoors, it’s hard to tell the people of Ten-Towns apart—and easy for clever monsters to hide in their midst.

Running This Chapter

Getting off on the right foot is important. If you follow these steps, you should be all right:

• Before starting the adventure, read the rest of this section and the “area Ten-Towns Overview” that follows it. A description of each town appears later in this chapter, but you don’t need to commit all ten settlements to memory before running this part of the adventure.
• Determine the town in which the adventure begins (see “Starting Town” below) and read the description of that town.
• Once the players have their characters, backgrounds, and secrets sorted out, kick off the adventure by reading the boxed text in the “area Cold Open” section.
• Give the players a starting quest (either “area Cold-Hearted Killer” or “area Nature Spirits"), or use the quest that’s tied to the adventure’s starting town (as shown in the Starting Town table).
• Whenever the characters arrive at another town for the first time, review the nutshell description of that town and give the characters the quest tied to that settlement (as shown in the Starting Town table).

Starting Town

Choose one of the ten towns as the starting point for the adventure. It doesn’t matter which one, so pick your favorite or roll randomly using the Starting Town table. If you can’t decide and don’t want to leave it to chance, choose Bryn Shander; it’s the most cosmopolitan settlement in Icewind Dale, and it has all the amenities a fledgling party of adventurers could hope for.

Starting Town

Ten-Towns Quests

This chapter presents two starting quests ("area Cold-Hearted Killer” and “area Nature Spirits") that the characters can get at the start of the adventure, regardless of which town serves as their starting point. Every town has its own quest as well, as noted in the Starting Town table. Once you choose a starting quest, the other starting quests go unused. “Cold-Hearted Killer” has the potential for combat, while “Nature Spirits” presents a fun quest without the danger.

The quests in this chapter are designed to get the characters exploring Ten-Towns and the nearby wilderness, while quests that take them into the farthest reaches of Icewind Dale are saved for chapter 2. It’s up to the players whether to complete a particular quest or not; the adventure doesn’t assume that they’ll complete them all, but completing at least five of this chapter’s quests advances characters to 4th level (see “area Character Advancement” below).

Ten-Towns Rumors

If the characters complete a town’s quest and aren’t sure where to go next, inform the players that their characters have heard rumors of trouble in a neighboring town, then roll on the Ten-Towns Rumors table to determine what they’ve heard. Roll again if the characters have already completed the quest associated with that town.

Ten-Towns Rumors

Character Advancement

In this chapter, level advancement is handled as follows:

• The characters advance to 2nd level after completing their first quest in this chapter.
• They advance to 3rd level after completing three quests in this chapter and advance to 4th level after completing five quests in this chapter.

Once the characters reach 4th level, they no long gain levels by completing the quests in this chapter. Even so, completing more than the required number of quests can improve their standing in Ten-Towns (see “Reputation in Ten-Towns” below), and they still collect the other rewards for completing those quests.

Reputation in Ten-Towns

As the characters complete the quests in this chapter, their reputation in Ten-Towns begins to spread. For better or worse, they become known to the people of Ten-Towns—some of whom regard them as saviors, while others fear their boldness, envy their power, or covet the wealth they’ve amassed. Fame in Icewind Dale is always a double-edged sword.

The adventuring party’s reputation in Ten-Towns improves as the characters gain levels, with the following results:

• When the characters reach 3rd level, they begin to earn a healthy measure of respect from Ten-Towners who know of their exploits.
• When the characters reach 4th level, they are given a hero’s welcome in the towns they’ve helped but are given the cold shoulder in towns they’ve ignored. They also learn about new adventure opportunities outside Ten-Towns, as described in chapter 2.

Ten-Towns Overview

Ten-Towns didn’t spring up overnight. It started from humble beginnings four centuries ago. Immigrants from all over Faerûn came here in search of escape or adventure and built a modest trade post atop the hill where Bryn Shander now stands. One by one, settlements sprung up on the shores of Maer Dualdon, Lac Dinneshere, and Redwaters. The ever-present threat of orcs and other monsters compelled the poorly defended lakeside towns to turn Bryn Shander from a modest hilltop trading post into a walled town capable of defending all Ten-Towners if and when the worst comes.

Most of the towns contain trace evidence of the immigrant cultures that birthed them. This evidence is carved into houses, statues, and other fixtures. For example, the dinosaur carvings on the older buildings of Good Mead remind folk that many of its original settlers were Chultan.

Residents of Ten-Towns tend to remain indoors when they’re not working, since it’s so frightfully cold outside, which gives each settlement a deathly quiet aspect. Most people who venture outdoors are bundled up in so much cold weather clothing as to be barely recognizable, and they don’t stand around long enough for the cold wind to get the better of them.

Auril’s winter spell has caused the population of Ten-Towns to dwindle and has heightened rivalries that have simmered for years, turning neighboring towns against one another as competition for resources becomes increasingly intense. The alliance of Ten-Towns won’t hold if the mounting tribalism continues to threaten the common good.

Life Off the Lakes

Most of the ten towns except Bryn Shander are built on the shores of three big lakes. The largest population of knucklehead trout is in Maer Dualdon, the deepest of the lakes. Redwaters, the shallowest lake, almost completely freezes in winter, making the fishing there difficult. Lac Dinneshere catches the worst of the winds blowing off the Reghed Glacier to the east and thus has the roughest waters. Small thermal vents at the bottom of these lakes keep them from freezing completely, even in the coldest winters.

Ten-Towns fishing boats are simple affairs. The smallest are rowboats and single-masted skiffs that require careful handling to avoid capsizing. Larger, twin-masted cogs and keelboats with single decks handle the wind and waves better. These ships fly the flags of their towns and provide fish for the whole community, not for any individual fisher.

When thick ice covers the lakes, many fishers stay to the shelters of their homes and hearths, but the most dedicated or desperate cut holes in the ice and dangle their lines down in hopes of tempting hungry trout.

Fuel Sources

The folk of Ten-Towns don’t have a lot of options when it comes to keeping warm. People from Good Mead, Lonelywood, and Termalaine burn wood salvaged from nearby forests to heat their houses. In the other towns of Icewind Dale, wood is too precious a commodity to burn, so whale oil is used in lamps and small stoves around which townsfolk huddle for warmth.

Ten-Towners buy their whale oil from whalers who live on the shores of the Sea of Moving Ice. Whaling is thus a lucrative (if inherently dangerous) business in Icewind Dale.

Winter Survival Gear

Any item listed in the equipment chapter of the Player’s Handbook can be bought in Ten-Towns, including fishing tackle and sleds. The larger the town, the more likely it is to have the item.

The Winter Survival Gear table provides costs for cold weather clothing, crampons, and snowshoes, which can be added to the list of things that characters can buy in Ten-Towns.

Winter Survival Gear

Cold Weather Clothing

This outfit consists of a heavy fur coat or cloak over layers of wool clothing, as well as a fur-lined hat or hood, goggles, and fur-lined leather boots and gloves.

As long as cold weather clothing remains dry, its wearer automatically succeeds on saving throws against the effects of extreme cold (see “area Extreme Cold").

Crampons

A crampon is a metal plate with spikes that is strapped to the sole of a boot. A creature wearing crampons can’t fall prone while moving across slippery ice.

Snowshoes

Snowshoes reduce the likelihood of their wearer getting stuck in the deep snow.

Getting Around Ten-Towns

Most Ten-Towners travel from town to town on foot. Those who need to transport more goods than they can carry use wooden sleds pulled by dogs or domesticated axe beaks as pack animals. Such things can be bought and sold in every Ten-Towns settlement.

Dogsleds

An empty sled costs 20 gp, weighs 300 pounds, and has room at the back for one driver. A sled dog (use the wolf stat block in appendix A of the Monster Manual) costs 50 gp and can pull 360 pounds.

Sled dogs must take a short rest after pulling a sled for 1 hour; otherwise, they gain one level of exhaustion.

Axe Beaks

An axe beak’s splayed toes allow it to run across snow, and it can carry as much weight as a mule. A domesticated axe beak can be purchased in Ten-Towns for 50 gp. See appendix A of the Monster Manual for the axe beak’s stat block.

Magic in Ten-Towns

Characters hoping to procure powerful magic items or the services of a high-level spellcaster in Ten-Towns are out of luck. At best, they might be able to find common magic items for sale, or a friendly druid, priest, or mage who can cast spells on their behalf. For every hundred people in a town, there’s one such individual living among them.

Magic items and magical services available in Ten-Towns are summarized below. If an item or spell is not covered here, assume there is no friendly NPC who can sell or cast it.

Common magic items cost 100 gp each where they’re available, except for common potions (such as Potion of Healing), which can be had for 50 gp.

A friendly spellcaster will charge 25 gp for a 1st-level spell, 50 gp for one that uses a 2nd-level spell slot, or 150 gp for one that uses a 3rd-level spell slot, plus the cost of any expensive material components.

Snowflake Ratings

This chapter uses a three-snowflake rating system to help you quickly differentiate the settlements of Ten-Towns. Each town is rated in terms of its friendliness, the services it offers, and its comfort. The more snowflakes, the better the rating.

Friendliness

Residents in a three-snowflake town are friendly and helpful, by and large. Conversely, a one-snowflake town is full of unhelpful, unfriendly folk. A two-snowflake town has both.

Services

A three-snowflake town is where characters are most likely to find the services they need. A two-snowflake town has a much narrower selection. Characters will have trouble getting any sort of service in a one-snowflake town.

Comfort

Characters can find decent food and drink, as well as warm beds, in a three-snowflake town. A two-snowflake town might have a small tavern plus an inn with drafty rooms to rent. A one-snowflake town might have a cold shed or attic where characters can crash for the night, and that’s about it.

Sacrifices to Auril

The desperate people of Ten-Towns, hoping to appease Auril so that summer can return to Icewind Dale, make sacrifices to the Frostmaiden on nights of the new moon. This is a new practice that started a little over a year ago, when it became clear that Auril was angry and summer would not be returning anytime soon. The town speakers (see the “Council of Speakers” sidebar) have unanimously agreed to honor these practices, which they consider necessary evils, but would end them in a heartbeat if Auril were to be appeased or dealt with in some other way.

The nature of the sacrifices varies from town to town, but usually takes one of three forms:

• Humanoid Bryn Shander, Easthaven, and Targos hold lotteries the afternoon before the new moon. The unlucky person whose name is drawn is sacrificed at nightfall. The ill-fated soul is stripped bare and either tied to a post or sent into the tundra to die. Accusations of rigged lotteries are common but usually not acted upon.
• Food Smaller towns that can’t afford to give up people give up their food instead. A day’s catch of knucklehead trout is strung up on wooden racks a mile outside town, to be claimed by yeti and other creatures that embody Auril’s wrath.
• Warmth Towns that can’t bring themselves to give up their people or their food forsake warmth for a night. No fires are lit between dusk and dawn, forcing locals to share body heat for warmth. Anyone who dares to light a fire is savagely beaten.

Council of Speakers

Each town is an independent settlement that elects a leader, or speaker, to represent its interests at meetings of the Council of Speakers, which are infrequent and take place at the Council Hall in Bryn Shander. These meetings are called to discuss matters of shared interest and to settle disputes between towns.

Cold Open

Before beginning the adventure, give your players a chance to decide how their characters wound up in Icewind Dale, what their relationships are to one another, and what circumstances brought them together. Once the players are ready to get under way, use the following boxed text to summarize the situation:

Icewind Dale has become trapped in a perpetual winter. Ferocious blizzards make the mountain pass through the Spine of the World exceedingly treacherous, and this land has not felt the warmth of the sun in over two years. In fact, the sun no longer appears above the mountains, not even in what should be the height of summer. In this frozen tundra, darkness and bitter cold reign as king and queen. Most dale residents blame Auril the Frostmaiden, the god of winter’s wrath. The shimmering aurora that weaves across the sky each night is said to be her doing—a potent spell that keeps the sun at bay.

Dalefolk live in a scattering of settlements known as Ten-Towns. The drop-off in caravans coming from the south and travel between settlements in this never-ending winter has left everyone feeling isolated. Although each town has resolved to appease the Frostmaiden with sacrifices of one kind or another, no respite from winter’s fury seems forthcoming. For adventurers such as yourselves, Ten-Towns is a place to test one’s mettle and, in the spirit of heroes who have come before, leave one’s mark on this frigid, blighted land.

Having set the stage, you can now describe the adventure’s starting town using the information presented later in this chapter, and the poster map includes a map of the starting town that you can share with the players. The characters would be aware of the town’s general layout and key features.

Icewind Dale Knowledge

Assume that your party of adventurers is familiar with Icewind Dale’s geography and landmarks, as shown on the poster map, as well as the names and locations of the settlements that comprise Ten-Towns. Characters from Icewind Dale know the following additional information, depending on where they grew up:

Ten-Towners

Characters who have spent some time in Ten-Towns know the names of important residents, such as the speaker of each town, as well as the information in each town’s nutshell description (as presented later in this chapter). They also know the names of the four tribes of Reghed nomads described in area appendix C.

• Reghed Nomads Any characters raised among the Reghed nomads recognize members of their own tribe, as well as the names and reputations of prominent members of other tribes (see appendix C).

Mountain Goliaths

Goliaths who hail from the Spine of the World know of two rival goliath settlements in the mountains, Skytower Shelter and Wyrmdoom Crag (both described in chapter 2). A goliath character who hails from one of these settlements would be familiar with its inhabitants, as well as their longstanding feud with goliaths from the rival settlement.

• Valley Dwarves Shield dwarves and other characters who hail from the Dwarven Valley at the foot of Kelvin’s Cairn would know that this valley contains sprawling iron mines and cave complexes inhabited by shield dwarves of the Battlehammer clan and their allies.

Starting Quest: Cold-Hearted Killer

“Cold-Hearted Killer” is one of two quests designed to kick off the adventure. The characters can get this quest regardless of which town is the adventure’s starting point.

The characters receive this quest from Hlin Trollbane, a retired bounty hunter who has been stalking a serial killer ever since she found a connection between three murders and a small trading company called Torg’s. Hlin hires the characters to apprehend her suspect and dole out some cold, swift justice by quietly disposing of him if they believe he’s guilty. This quest is no murder mystery; it’s a hunt.

Getting the Quest

To begin this quest, read the following boxed text to the players:

Just another gruesome day in Ten-Towns: howling wind, bitter cold, foul tempers, and snowdrifts big enough to bury a herd of moose. But today the local tavern is abuzz with news about a series of recent killings. Before the murders, the only question on everyone’s mind was, “Will summer ever return to Icewind Dale?” Now the question is, “Will I be the killer’s next victim?” Nothing breeds fear and paranoia like a murderer with no face.

Three cold-blooded murders have been committed in the past month: a halfling trapper in Easthaven, a human shipbuilder in Targos, and, three days ago, a dwarf glassblower in Bryn Shander. Each victim was found with a dagger of ice through the heart.

What’s the connection? The drunken lot huddled in the tavern offers no credible ideas, but sitting apart from them is an elderly shield dwarf with a nasty scar across her nose who looks like she has something worth knowing. She’s been smoking her pipe and eyeing you ever since you walked in.

Hlin Trollbane, a neutral good shield dwarf, is a retired bounty hunter with finely honed survival instincts. She is an unarmored veteran who wields a battleaxe and handaxe instead of a longsword and shortsword. Plying her profession earned her a few too many enemies up and down the Sword Coast, which is why she wound up in Icewind Dale.

Out of boredom and a sense of moral decency, Hlin has taken it upon herself to investigate the recent murders because no one else—not even the Council of Speakers—can be bothered. Hlin is studying the characters closely, trying to decide if they’re worth her time. Ultimately, she takes the chance and draws them into conversation, asking them to help her take down her only suspect: a man named Sephek Kaltro. Here’s what she knows about Sephek and the victims:

“Sephek Kaltro works for a small traveling merchant company called Torg’s, owned and operated by a shady dwarf named Torrga Icevein. In other words, Sephek gets around. He’s charming. Makes friends easily. He’s also Torrga’s bodyguard, so I’m guessing he’s good with a blade.

“His victims come from the only three towns that sacrifice people to the Frostmaiden on nights of the new moon. This is what passes for civilized behavior in Icewind Dale. Maybe the victims found a way to keep their names out of the drawings and Sephek found out they were cheating, so he killed them. Maybe, just maybe, Sephek is doing the Frostmaiden’s work.

“I followed Torg’s for a tenday as it moved from town to town. Quite the devious little enterprise, but that’s not my concern. What struck me is how comfortable Sephek Kaltro looked in this weather. No coat, no scarf, no gloves. It was like the cold couldn’t touch him. Kiss of the Frostmaiden, indeed.

“I will pay you a hundred gold pieces to apprehend Sephek Kaltro, ascertain his guilt, and deal with him, preferably without involving the authorities. When the job is done, return to me to collect your money.”

For the benefit of characters who are new to Ten-Towns, Hlin can explain that certain settlements (Bryn Shander, Easthaven, and Targos) are making humanoid sacrifices to Auril, holding lotteries to determine who gets sacrificed on nights of the new moon (see “area Sacrifices to Auril").

If Hlin’s theory is true and Sephek Kaltro is killing Ten-Towners who cheat their way out of becoming sacrifices to Auril, it’s likely the Frostmaiden will use him to kill again. Hlin is too old and frail to apprehend Sephek herself, but she has more gold than she needs, so she hires the characters to do her work.

The challenge begins with finding Sephek Kaltro, since Torg’s moves around a lot. Hlin doesn’t know if Sephek is acting alone or has the support of Torrga Icevein, so she advises the characters to isolate Sephek and dispose of him quietly, if such action is called for.

Finding Torg’s

You can randomly determine the location of the merchant company by rolling a d10 and consulting the Starting Town table (see “area Starting Town"). Roll again if the result is the adventure’s starting town. Conversely, you can forgo the roll and pick a town you like. Bremen and Dougan’s Hole are good choices because they’re small and isolated.

The characters can either visit towns one by one until they find Torg’s, or they can try to get a solid lead before setting out. Any character who spends an hour talking to townsfolk can make a DC 17 Charisma (Investigation) check at the end of that hour. On a successful check, the character finds someone who knows Torrga Icevein’s travel plans and is willing to share that information for a small bribe (at least 5 gp or nonperishable goods of equal value). Armed with that information, the characters can travel to the town by the most expeditious route.

Torrga Icevein and Her Caravan

The Torg’s caravan consists of three heavily laden dogsleds, each one pulled by six friendly sled dogs. One sled carries provisions and supplies for Torrga, her team, and her dogs. It flies a flag bearing the company’s emblem, a gold wolf’s paw on a black field. The other two sleds transport goods for sale, including cut wood, flint and tinder, flasks of whale oil, blankets, furs, rations, bottles of wine, casks of cheap ale, fake medicines, and vials of poison (used primarily for killing vermin).

Torg’s is an outdoor shop. Goods are unpacked and displayed in crates, with small canopies to keep the snow off them. Most of Torrga’s goods are stolen or fenced, and she sells them for double the normal price. She has a protection racket that earns her a little coin on the side, and she also commits murders for profit on the sly. One of the larger sacks on Torrga’s sled contains the frozen corpse of a male half-elf in his thirties with a stab wound in his chest. The half-elf had a bounty on his head and came to Icewind Dale to disappear. Torrga found him and killed him with Sephek’s help. Once she’s sold off her goods in Ten-Towns, she plans to deliver the corpse to Luskan and collect the 125 gp bounty.

Torrga is a neutral evil shield dwarf bandit captain with darkvision out to a range of 60 feet, resistance to poison damage, and advantage on saving throws against being poisoned. While Torg’s is open for business, she keeps her employees close to her. She employs Sephek Kaltro as a bodyguard and pays four others (neutral evil human Bandit) to drive and protect the other two sleds. Torrga is interested only in profits, turns a blind eye to Sephek’s murderous escapades, and tries to help him as best she can without endangering her own life.

Treasure

Torrga keeps her proceeds in a small, locked iron strongbox, which she hides in a satchel. She wears the key to the strongbox around her neck. A character with thieves' tools can use an action to try to pick the strongbox’s lock, doing so with a successful DC 20 Dexterity check. The box contains 92 gp, 76 sp, 125 cp, and seven gemstones worth 10 gp each.

Sephek Kaltro

Sephek Kaltro (see the accompanying stat block) is a well-built man in his thirties. He has an olive complexion, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, and no facial or body hair. He is dressed in a stylish vest with matching pants and boots, similar in style to those worn by mariners of the southern Sword Coast, but wears no armor or cold weather clothing and doesn’t appear to be armed. His most striking feature is his eyes, which are as blue as a frozen lake.

The best way to deal with Sephek is to confront him while he’s separated from Torrga and her other cronies. Sephek stays close to Torrga during business hours. Once activity drops off, Torrga shuts down her operation for the rest of the day, puts the dogs in a kennel and the sleds in a secure shed, and pays for the team’s lodgings. After Torrga retires for the night, Sephek is free to do as he pleases until the following morning. If he happens to be in Bryn Shander, Easthaven, or Targos, he stalks his next murder victim. If he’s elsewhere, he spends the night drinking and carousing, then falls asleep for a few hours, preferably in an unheated place such as a barn or an abandoned cottage.

When asked about his odd style of dress, Sephek Kaltro claims that he was born on the holiday of Midwinter and that the Frostmaiden’s blessing protects him from the cold. In truth, Sephek was not born during Midwinter. He was a mariner whose ship sank off the coast of Auril’s island a few months ago. He swam to the island but nearly froze to death. As his life was fading, the spirit of a frost druid beholden to Auril possessed him. The winter spirit cannibalized Sephek’s spirit and is using him as a living vessel to do the Frostmaiden’s work. The spirit can’t leave Sephek’s body; if Sephek dies, the winter spirit is destroyed along with him.

Auril inspired Sephek to travel to Ten-Towns and offer his services to Torrga Icevein. As Hlin suspects, he has been killing Ten-Towners who pay off low-ranking town officials to exclude their names from the lotteries in Bryn Shander, Easthaven, and Targos. Because he’s doing the Frostmaiden’s work, the spirit inside Sephek doesn’t care about getting caught, and he isn’t shy about admitting his guilt. He considers surrendering only because it buys time for him to escape and commit more murders. In combat, he wields a magical sword and magical daggers made of ice that he can conjure at will. These weapons melt and break like icicles in the hands of other creatures.

Concluding the Quest

After finding and slaying Sephek, the characters can return to Hlin and collect their 100 gp reward. If they don’t have evidence to prove that Sephek is dead, Hlin is willing to take them at their word. If the ice-dagger murders stop, she’ll know her trust was not misplaced. Failure to stop Sephek allows him to continue slaying Ten-Towners who cheat Auril the Frostmaiden. These murders occur irregularly, and only in towns visited by Torg’s.

If the characters capture Sephek and deliver him to the authorities, they stop the murders but lose the reward offered by Hlin, who isn’t satisfied with that outcome.

If Torrga Icevein survives but has reason to believe the characters slew her bodyguard, she pressures certain Ten-Towners not to do business with them. At some later point, the characters might find themselves unable to buy something they need or denied lodging at a local inn because the merchant or proprietor doesn’t want to earn Torrga’s everlasting enmity.

Starting Quest: Nature Spirits

This is the second of two quests designed to kick off the adventure. It prompts the characters to explore the various locales in Ten-Towns, where they can pick up other quests.

At the start of this quest, the characters are approached by a young spellcaster named Dannika Graysteel. A new resident of Ten-Towns, she’s trying to find a way to alter the climate in Icewind Dale. She hires them to locate and capture a chwinga, several of which she believes are located in and around Ten-Towns. Although she provides the characters with a magical means to locate chwingas, it’s up to them to figure out a way to capture one or convince it to help Dannika with her experiments.

Getting the Quest

Begin this quest by reading the following boxed text to the players:

A bundled-up figure walks briskly up to you. “Well met! You lot seem like you’re looking for work. Or trouble. You wouldn’t be standing around in this cold otherwise.”

The speaker is Dannika Graysteel (lawful neutral half-elf acolyte), a scholar who thinks that wee elemental spirits known as chwingas might be the key to improving Icewind Dale’s climate. Since chwingas are known to inhabit Ten-Towns and have some ability to alter their natural surroundings, Dannika thinks she can learn a lot by studying one up close. For the characters' services, Dannika is offering the group 25 gp as well as a Lantern of Tracking that can help locate chwingas. She says she’ll be at the local tavern each evening, so the characters should have no trouble finding her once the job is completed. If the characters accept her quest, Dannika gives them her lantern (see appendix D) and explains how it works. She then tells them she’s been looking all over town and hasn’t found any chwingas. She suggests the characters might have better luck in one of the other settlements. She could continue the search herself, but she’s nervous about venturing out into the extreme cold and has other research-related chores to attend to.

Elusive Elementals

There are no chwingas in the adventurers' starting town, but each time they visit another town in Icewind Dale, there’s a cumulative 25 percent chance of chwingas being present. Searching a town for chwingas doesn’t take long if the characters use the lantern of tracking, since the towns are small and compact.

If the characters ask the residents of a town about chwinga sightings, people seem dismissive of the notion of elementals living among them. The occasional fisher reeking of dwarven ale might recall seeing “a tiny figure riding a fox through town” but can’t remember where or when the sighting occurred.

Thieves in the Wind

When the characters find a town that has chwingas living in or near it, the flame in the Lantern of Tracking turns green as they approach the edge of town, whereupon they spot a bundled-up figure—a human commoner named Elva—stomping out of a snow-covered cottage. Upon seeing the adventurers, she starts yelling at the wind and warning the characters to watch out for the curses it brings. According to Elva, trickster spirits have been opening her windows, sending horrible chills through her home, and knocking over her cups and plates. Some of her cutlery has even gone missing.

Characters who inspect the windows of Elva’s cottage can make a DC 10 Intelligence (Investigation) check. On a success, they find wee tracks leading away from a snowy windowsill of the cottage toward a nearby thicket. A character who succeeds on a DC 14 Wisdom (Survival) check can discern three individual sets of tiny footprints. Some of the footprints have a thin furrow in the snow alongside them, as if something was being dragged behind the creatures.

Playing House

By following the tracks, a character with a passive Wisdom (Perception) score of 13 or higher can pick up the sound of movement from behind the conifers, where three Chwinga (see appendix C) are playing atop the snow in a clearing. A dinner plate with branches and pinecones arrayed on it is placed between them, and one chwinga is sitting at the edge of the plate while the two others are moving a fork and a knife as if to cut and eat the “food.”

When the characters enter the clearing, the chwingas look up at them with interest. The one not holding a piece of cutlery starts moving its hands, mimicking eating while looking up at the characters and making welcoming gestures.

If a character indulges in the game of pretend that is being played out, such as by sitting down and joining the dinner, the chwingas become excited and start inspecting the character in detail. After this, the chwinga that wasn’t holding any cutlery begins following the character, remaining with that individual for up to a tenday, leaving the other chwingas behind. When the chwinga finally parts company with the character, assuming it has been well treated, it bestows a supernatural charm upon the character (see “Supernatural Gifts” in the Dungeon Master’s Guide for more information). The charm can be any one of the following:

• A charm of animal conjuring, a charm of heroism, or a charm of vitality, all of which are described in the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
• One of the charms described in the “New Chwinga Charms” section in appendix C.

The chwingas remain docile unless a character acts aggressively toward them, whereupon they try to hide in nearby rocks, plants, or snowdrifts. They won’t come out until they no longer feel threatened by the humanoids in their presence. Clever players might devise creative ways to lure the chwingas out of hiding, perhaps by doing something odd to gain their attention (such as engaging in a snowball fight or dancing in the snow). As the DM, you determine the success of such efforts.

Concluding the Quest

If the characters return with a live chwinga, Dannika pays their promised reward of 25 gp, and they get to keep the lantern of tracking. If the characters brought a chwinga back without having to restrain or harm it, Dannika provides them with an additional 25 gp for their outstanding service.