Tasks + Starting Setting

Good Evening Folks. One week until our first session! Thanks to Dave for Raldoran’s bio and thanks to Derek and Logan for getting their character sheets up in the Campaign! The link again for the D & D Beyond Campaign is:

https://www.dndbeyond.com/campaigns/join/48384041257741105

Before Sunday next week, please get your character sheets in D & D Beyond. If you need any help let Derek or I know and we’ll help you get set up. So here’s your to-do list:

1. Get character sheets in D & D Beyond and add them to the campaign.
2. Let me know your character’s familiarity with The Ten Towns/Icewind Dale. Email, text whatever.
3. Be prepared to introduce your character in the context of the setting below, if you want to let me know ahead of time how they got there and what they’re up to that’d be great, but not a must do.

Starting Setting

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.

It’s Midnight at the Even Keel tavern in Bremen. The Frostmaiden begins to cast her nightly aurora and the few patrons unaccustomed to the nightly phenomenon crane their necks to look out the windows….it begins to snow.….

The Even Keel is one of five taverns located in the Five-Tavern Center at the heart of Bremen.

Bremen

Founded by dwarf prospectors, the sleepy town of Bremen sits on the west bank of Maer Dualdon, at the mouth of the Shaengarne River. Bremen’s harbor has frozen, requiring local fishers to haul their boats across the ice to put them in the lake. Visitors who lack a boat can reach Bremen only by crossing the river, which is mostly frozen over. Targos, Termalaine, and Lonelywood are all visible from the docks on clear days.

If Auril’s everlasting winter has one benefit, it’s that the hardy folk of Bremen are spared the seasonal floods that normally threaten the town in early summer. That’s not to say that the long nights, frigid air, and howling blizzards provide any comfort. They don’t.

Twice in the past two months, residents of Bremen have had to mount search parties for their town speaker and oldest living resident, Dorbulgruf Shalescar, and twice they’ve found him wandering the frozen shores of the Shaengarne in heavy furs, with no memory of how he got there. Dorbulgruf, old even by dwarf standards, isn’t long for this world. Many locals fear the same is true of the town itself, if Auril’s brutal winter does not abate.