Depending on the characters' actions and the whims of the dice gods, this adventure has several possible endings. Likely conclusions are discussed below, though others are certainly possible.
What Secrets Remain
Allow time at the end of the adventure for players to reveal any character secrets that have not come to light. Some players will want to keep their characters' secrets buried. For the others, work with them to figure out the best way for the characters' secrets to bear fruit. For example, a character who has the Ring Hunter secret might still be searching for the signet ring that secures their inheritance; perhaps the ring is discovered during a celebratory dinner in Ten-Towns, when the character cuts open their pan-fried knucklehead trout and the ring unceremoniously spills out!
Summer Is Coming
Slaying Auril or her roc prevents the Frostmaiden from casting her nightly spell, ending her everlasting winter. The characters can also counteract the Frostmaiden’s everlasting winter by using the
With the Frostmaiden’s defeat, normal seasonal weather returns to Icewind Dale. The sun again rises above the horizon, and as temperatures improve, flora and fauna begin to recover. Depending on how they fared against the chardalyn dragon in chapter 4, the people of Ten-Towns can look forward to warmer times once more.
Auril’s death is temporary, for a god who has mortal worshipers can’t truly die. When the Frostmaiden is resurrected on the next winter solstice, she has all her divine power. But her inclination is to retreat from the world and not allow herself to be imperiled by mortals once more. The characters won’t have to deal with her again in their lifetimes unless they continue meddling in her followers' affairs.
The characters can help Ten-Towners rebuild their settlements in the wake of the chardalyn dragon’s rampage and the floods. If the dragon has not yet been defeated, finding and destroying it should be a priority. Until its master sends it on another rampage, it lurks inside the forge where it was created (see chapter 3).
Characters who help rebuild Ten-Towns might be asked to take up the mantle of speaker in one or more communities, replacing leaders who were killed during the adventure. If he survived, Speaker Naerth Maxildanarr of Targos opposes the characters' political ascendance, since they represent a threat to Zhentarim control of the region; without a power base of his own, however, Naerth can do little to stop them.
Winter Everlasting
If the characters don’t stop Auril, her everlasting winter becomes unendurable to most of Icewind Dale’s inhabitants. The hostile climate and the scarcity of food force indigenous creatures to migrate southward or die. As go the reindeer, so go the Reghed tribesfolk. In time, even the lakes freeze solid, depriving Ten-Towners of the knucklehead trout upon which their survival depends. Within a year or two, Icewind Dale becomes a gods-forsaken wasteland as cold as Stygia. The bitter cold allows Levistus to open portals between Icewind Dale and the sixth layer of the Nine Hells, from which come forth ice devils under the archdevil’s command. Knights of the Black Sword who survive to see these events come to pass try to maintain a foothold in the region, though they are opposed by duergar at every turn.
The ice devils help clear the way for the duergar, who aren’t going anywhere unless the characters kill Xardorok Sunblight and put an end to his line. Once Ten-Towns is no longer a threat to his supremacy, Xardorok does his utmost to conquer the rest of Icewind Dale. If left unchecked, the duergar become a controlling power in the region. The ice devils, once subservient to Levistus, are dragooned by Asmodeus into helping the duergar turn the Far North into a vassal kingdom secretly under the sway of the Nine Hells.
Year of Chilled Marrow
If the characters use Iriolarthas’s
The obelisk is gone, leaving an indentation in the ground where it once stood. In its place is an aarakocra with brilliantly colored plumage. Using telepathy, it reaches out to each of you in turn and introduces itself as Necalli. “I am released from a duty long forgotten,” it says. “The world has rolled back more than fifteen hundred years. Now, history can be rewritten.”
The city is no longer trapped deep beneath the Reghed Glacier. Instead, it drifts among the clouds, its spires and other structures agleam and undamaged. A skycoach glides overhead, bathing you briefly in its shadow before making its way toward the city’s glass-enclosed skydock.
Weaving between the city’s spires are boulevards traversed by tall humans of noble bearing in wizardly robes, many of them accompanied by hairless, green-skinned humanoids that serve as their valets and bodyguards. Some take note of your presence, while others gawk at the empty space where the obelisk once stood.
Necalli, a couatl shapechanged into the form of an aarakocra, doesn’t remember why it was bound to the obelisk or by whom. It knows only that it is free of its obligation to the obelisk’s builders. It does its best to convince the characters that the obelisk is gone forever, along with nearly two thousand years of history. Necalli can administer healing to wounded characters, after which it assumes its true form and departs. It takes no action that might harm another creature.
Ythryn is now a floating, living city under the rule of the lich Iriolarthas and his apprentices, the Wizards of the Arcane Star (eight evil Archmage). Almost every other inhabitant of the city is either a Netherese mage or a green-skinned magen (described in appendix C). When not partaking in their studies and revels, the Netherese focus their efforts on finding ruins of Ostoria, the ancient empire of giants. It is toward this supreme goal that all of the city’s resources are directed.
The obelisk is gone, erased from history, leaving the characters stranded. They are now stuck in −343 DR. If the characters warn Iriolarthas about the fate that awaits Ythryn and recount the circumstances leading to its fall, the lich takes steps to ensure that history does not repeat itself, including but not limited to keeping Ostorian relics away from the
To put it mildly, the characters have a whole new world to explore. Ten-Towns doesn’t exist in this timeline, nor do most of the cities along the Sword Coast that characters might recognize. Many tribes of Reghed nomads prowl Icewind Dale, while Uthgardt tribes descended from Netherese claim vast tracts of untamed land south of the Spine of the World, kept in check by marauding monsters. The Empire of Netheril controls the lush, temperate lands doomed to become the desert of Anauroch. The town of Illusk (still centuries away from becoming Luskan) surrounds the brooding Hosttower of the Arcane. Characters hoping to visit some past version of Waterdeep or Neverwinter find nothing but unsettled land surrounded by the remnants of the elven kingdom of Illefarn. Humans won’t begin farming the plateau above Deepwater Harbor (the future site of Waterdeep) or building the settlement of Eigersstor (later renamed Neverwinter) for another three centuries.
To run a campaign set in this earlier time frame, you will need to delve into earlier products tied to the Forgotten Realms to get the lay of the land circa–343 DR. Of course, once the characters move beyond the strongholds of civilization, the Realms of the past is very much like the Realms of the present—a land of mystery, with old ruins and lost dungeons waiting to be explored. Only now the characters are poised to witness the inevitable fall of Netheril, or find a way to stop it.