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I was trying to avoid doing this, but as with Elturel, I ended up doing a fairly deep dive into Zariel’s background as I was working on the Remix. After digging into sources from across multiple editions of the game, I thought it might be interesting to share the results. Perhaps more importantly, a lot of this material will influence Part 6D: Lulu’s Memories, but I don’t want to weigh that material down by trying to discuss all of this there.

In addition to Zariel herself, this textual history will also briefly look at adjacent topics (primarily how the rulership of Avernus shifted both diegetically and non-diegetically over time).

DESCENT INTO AVERNUS (2019)

Let’s start by looking at the version of events laid out in Descent Into Avernus itself. Or rather, as we’ll see, the many versions of those events. (The continuity is rather tangled.)

TO BEGIN WITH: Zariel and Lulu, her hollyphant warmount, were friends for centuries.

GENERATIONS BEFORE THE 14^th CENTURY: In response to a prayer to Lathander, Zariel is sent to the village of Idyllglen in the Fields of the Dead to drive off a gnoll invasion.

13?? DR – ZARIEL’S CRUSADE: Zariel leaves Mount Celestia with Lulu. She goes to Elturel and creates the order of knights which would become the Hellriders.

• The knights swear a personal oath to Zariel that binds them to her service even after death.
• General Yael was Zariel’s most loyal general.
• General Olanthius was in love with Yael. (It’s unclear if this was reciprocated.)
• General Haruman
• Among the knights was Jander Sunstar, a reformed vampire.

Note: I find the use of “General” (and the fact that the Crusade had so many of them) curious. It would seem to suggest that Zariel managed to raise an army of thousands or even tens of thousands.

The Crusade is referred to as such only twice (and in lower case). But I think it’s a useful term. And referring to Zariel’s knights as crusaders is probably a useful bit of nomenclature.

135? DR – IDYLLGLEN: Yeenoghu personally leads an attack on the village of Idyllglen. Zariel leads the Hellriders to repel the attack.

There is an implication that Yeenoghu fled to Avernus, leaving the portal open behind him and that the Riders immediately followed him on the Charge (see below): “As Zariel prepares to send her forces through the portal into Avernus…” (DIA, p. 144)

But this is a continuity error because the boxed text earlier on the same page reads: “The angel slashes her sword across Yeenoghu’s chest and utters a spell. A portal opens behind the demon lord as the mammoth rams its head into Yeenoghu. The demon lord is sent tumbling through the portal, which quickly closes behind him.”

Note: This material also contradicts how the Hellriders got their name – i.e., for riding into Hell – because they’re referred to as such before doing so.

1354 DR – THE CHARGE OF THE HELLRIDERS: Zariel leads the Elturian knights into Avernus.

Some of the knights panic, ride back through the gate, and seal it. They become the first Hellriders, telling a false tale of their “glorious” achievements.

• VERSION 2: The future Hellriders didn’t flee until the middle of the battle. (Lulu says, “Victory was within our grasp until some of the Hellriders betrayed us. They retreated through the gate and sealed it behind them.”

Note: This is also inconsistent with how the Hellriders got their name, once again suggesting they were known as such before and/or during the Ride and not just after it.

• Jander Sunstar was among those who fled back through the portal. It’s implied on p. 93 that he was the one to actually seal the portal.

Note: It’s possible he was also a general and actually led or triggered the retreat back through the portal, but it’s vague. I don’t think he was a general (see below), but my personal head canon is that he was the highest ranking officer among those who betrayed Zariel and he subsequently became the first High Rider of the Hellriders. (Partly I like the poetry of both the first and last High Rider having been vampires.)

The rest of Zariel’s army fights to utter destruction.

If the memories Lulu recovers in Fort Knucklebones are real (which they probably aren’t), then at some point during the fighting Zariel and Lulu are both knocked unconscious.

Zariel’s hand holding her Sword is cut off. As it falls towards the ground, she orders General Yael to take the Sword and hide it. Lulu goes with Yael and they hide the Sword.

• VERSION 2: Zariel ordered Lulu (not Yael) to hide the Sword and Yael went with Lulu.
• VERSION 3: Zariel ordered Yael to hide the Sword and also ordered Lulu to help Yael do it.

Note: These seem like subtle differences, but thematically there’s actually quite a bit of weight to exactly who was charged to do what in those final moments.

Olanthius, Haruman, and Zariel are captured and sent to Nessus, the lowest of the Nine Hells.

• VERSION 2: Asmodeus appeared in front of Zariel on the Avernian battlefield and immediately offered her command of the Blood Legions in exchange for her fealty. In this version, Yael and Lulu are there to witness Asmodeus make the offer, but flee with Zariel’s Sword before Zariel accepts and becomes an archdevil.

1354 DR – LULU AND YAEL HIDE THE SWORD OF ZARIEL.

Lulu and Yael blundered into a group of demons led by Yeenoghu, but narrowly escaped.

Note: This probably makes more sense if we assume they crossed the Styx in an effort to escape Avernus with the Sword, only to be forced back across the River when they encountered Yeenoghu’s legions.

Crokek’toeck, a demon follower of Yeenoghu, chased them across the Avernian plains.

Just before Crokek’toeck could catch them, Yael plunged the Sword into a rock and Lulu “made a trumpet sound” with her trunk before pouring “every ounce of her celestial being into it,” causing a fortress or alabaster palace to spring up around the sword “hedging out evil.”

• VERSION 2: Lulu “gave up [her] magic and memories, and Yael gave her life” to construct the palace.

Lulu flew up into the sky and watched as a bloody scab grew from the ground to engulf the palace and the enormous demon.

Lulu became disoriented and flew away, leaving Yael behind.

1354 DR – ZARIEL’S FALL: Asmodeus immediately offers Zariel rulership of Avernus, replacing Bel. She accepts. (This either happens on the battlefield in Avernus or in Nessus, see variants above.)

General Haruman joined Zariel in swearing fealty to Asmodeus and became a devil. He ends up watching over Haruman’s Hill.

General Olanthius commits suicide. He’s raised as a death knight and ends up watching over the Crypt of the Hellriders.

Note: This is described as “most of her generals fell to evil.” This would suggest there were only three generals in her army – Haruman, Olanthius, and Yael – and two of them fell to evil.

1354 DR – LULU WANDERS AVERNUS: For “several months.”

Lulu goes to Fort Knucklebones and meets two kenku named Chukka and Clonk who were working on an infernal war machine.

Lulu goes to the Wandering Emporium, where she is “befriended” by a rakshasa named Mahadi.

Mahadi splashes Lulu with water from the River Styx, stripping her memory and her spellcasting.

Note: This contradicts the version of events in which Lulu sacrificed her memories to make the alabaster fortress. See above.

Mahadi gives Lulu to a group of devils who take her to Zariel as a gift. “Zariel had Lulu sent back to Faerun with her mental faculties restored. Unfortunately, the damage to Lulu’s memories was not so easy to repair.”

Note: No idea what “with her mental faculties restored” is supposed to mean. Neither her memories nor her spellcasting abilities were restored to her.

Zariel’s last words to her were: “This is who I am. When demons die, they cry out my name in terror.”

1444 DR – THE PACT OF THE COMPANION: Zariel makes the Pact of the Companion with Thavius Kreeg.

149? DR – SYLVIRA FINDS LULU: Sylvira finds Lulu near a portal to the Nine Hells in the Fields of the Dead west of Elturel.

Note: So did Lulu spend 140-ish years just floating around the portal she came back through? Was this originally meant to be the portal that the Hellriders used (even though we’re told that it was “sealed” elsewhere)? If not, then… what was this portal? Why was Lulu there? Is it still open? Where in Hell does it lead, exactly?

1494 DR – TODAY.

Go to Part 2: Previous Zariel Continuity

Go to Part 1

PASHAR

(Created by Peter Heeringa)

Mamoon Pashar Al-Eiraf Um-Hafayah (Moonborn Pashar, the Diviner of Hafayah) was born in Qadib (known as the city of sages or city of wands*) in the free cities of Zakhara in 1392.  His father, a traveling gem-running sea-merchant from Hafayah* (city of secrets), and his mother a wizard of the noble class.  Though they married in secret, their love was improper for their stations and Pashar was, as a result, cloistered away by his mother to be brought up by the very nurse (his “Marbia”) who had raised his mother – a now ancient elf with the gift of reading the scrolls of fate upon the faces of those that stood before her.  Pashar heard her provide readings to many and they always came to pass, but she always flat refused to provide a reading for Pashar.

During Pashar’s childhood, his father returned to see his mother every three years while he struggled to make money and prestige enough to make himself a suitable match for Pashar’s mother.  These rare times with his father brought strange gifts from afar, the opportunity to travel about the city, visit the docks, gardens, and more.  He was always sad to see his father go, and would be quick to inquire with his mother when their next meeting would occur.  Outside of these bright moments much of his time was spent hidden away.

As a boy Pashar learned much about the histories of the world, learned to read the common tongue, elvish, and proceeded to be trained in the elemental languages of the Djinn.  There was a routine and rigidity to his upbringing, but he listened well and learned much.  All the same, when the moon was full he would sneak out from his confines and observe the stars, listen in on the talk of traders, and attempt to find playmates in the streets.  It wasn’t until he had a strange vision during a bout of sickness that his mother and Marbia decided it was time to test the boy for the gift.

ADOLESCENCE: In his 50th year, Pashar proved he had the capability and aptitude to learn magic.  Delighted, his mother became a far more active part in his life as she provided training and testing in the magical arts.  His was not an isolated apprenticeship, however.  In addition to tutelage from his mother, he received regular training from his Marbia as well as a select number of arcane associates of his mother.  An entire world opened up for Pashar as he was introduced to the fantastical and strange. During this time his father took his first great journey north to his ancestral home in Calimshan.  He would return only twice in the next 40 years.  After his father’s first return Pashar questioned Marbia when his father would take Pashar and his mother.  She remarked on his fate for the first and only time, “Once you are a great wizard you will have already been united.”  Pashar’s spirits sank.

These years, while filled with exposure to knowledge from the best libraries within Qadib, dragged on as if they hovered in time.  It wasn’t until the last decade that Pashar’s life would suddenly lurch forward to catch up for the stalled time.

FLIGHT FROM ZAKHARA: In his 90th year, Pashar’s mother agreed to apprentice Pashar to a fellow wizard, Khorraveh.  During this apprenticeship, Pashar found himself secreting his way past the wards and traps guarding the treasure hoard of his master Khorraveh. He sought to find something to show to his father, who was to arrive the next morning; something that could prove his capability as a wizard.  In his exploration he inadvertently released a Djinn of great power from a strange crystal (where it had been imprisoned by Khorraveh).  In a mock blessing/curse the Djinn wiped clean all that was written in Pashar’s fate calling out as it departed, “I cast you upon the sea of fate to chart your own course, young wizard.”

Khorraveh was furious at the loss of his prize and set to magically imprison Pashar for his transgression.  Pashar’s fate would have been sealed, but Marbia mysteriously arrived to save Pashar from the terrible end.  In the ensuing battle there was terrible destruction within the city.  Upon learning what transgressed, Pashar’s mother secreted them away in the night. They were able to intercept his father before he arrived. The three were finally to be together, though without the luxury of the life to which Pashar was accustomed.

WRITINGS OF THE PRESENT: The next decade involved travelling north to Faerun, visiting strange and wonderful sites as the now united family made their way to Calimshan.  The sea life grew on the trio, and while they spent several months in Calimshan, their time there was brought to a close early.  Wanderlust and the lure of lucrative trade routes enticed the family to spur the crew of the merchant vessel onward.

During this time Pashar studied regularly with his mother, assisted his father with trade deals in port, played the zither, or helped keep lookout.  In addition to these more mundane activities, his visions began to return and, in turn, intensify.  He spoke once of his father’s impending death – blame upon the son. Another time of a demon descending upon the ship in the night.  This talk caused a rift between him and the crew, and Pashar found himself alone more and more frequently.

One ill-fated evening Pashar, with a bright mood, was on lookout.  Beset by a terrible vision and rendered unconscious, Pashar was unable to warn of an advancing pirate ship until they were already upon the merchant vessel.  In the chaos, his father and most of the crew were slain.  Pashar was taken prisoner by a vicious tiefling pirate.  While his mother caused irreparable harm to the pirate vessel, in the end she surrendered to save Pashar’s life.  The pirates gathered what they could from their vessel, scuttled it, and set off in the merchant vessel.

During their captivity, Pashar turned 100, the age of adulthood for elves.  Pashar befriended Kittisoth, the very tiefling who had captured him upon the ship. Kitti eventually convinced her captain that Pashar should be allowed to earn or buy his freedom.

Down a suitable warship due to his mother’s actions, the pirates seemed to think it fitting to ransom the pair of them for the cost of a new one. They named ransom at a price of 600 harbor moons (which sadly got a little lost in the translation). Pashar set off with his Kittisoth, his newfound ally, to seek these “six hundred coins.”

DESCRIPTION: Pashar’s golden skin, silver hair, and emerald eyes cause him to stand out despite his thin frame and short stature typical of sun elves.  Not much over 5 feet tall, he doesn’t gain any height from his typical footwear of Zakharan slippers and other garb. He wears his hair long and loose behind his ears; or pulled up into a bun under a fez.

ZAKHARAN CULTURAL NOTES

*Zakharan society is patriarchal and the father’s hometown would be prescribed to Pashar, but it would be expected he would be raised by his mother.

Zakharan society pillars: honor, family, purity, hospitality, and piety

The Bond of Salt is an ancient tradition to link guest and host. When a guest accepts salt from a host, the host is guaranteeing the safety of the guest for three days, the believed time that the salt remains in the system. The guest, for their part, agrees to not harm the host or the host’s family for the duration as well. To do so would do incredible damage to one’s honor and station.

CREATING PASHAR

Peter was probably the most knowledgeable player at the table when it came to the lore of the Forgotten Realms. His character concept was also almost fully developed right from the beginning: Not just the general conceit of a cloistered, scholastic elf now eager with wanderlust while fairly naïve about anything not found in a history book, but all the rich, specific detail of Zakharan life.

One thing to note here, in fact, is the section of his character background dedicated to miscellaneous cultural notes. Peter pulled these details on his own, but it’s also a technique that I like to use: I’ll pull — or, more often, create (one thing I love about character creation is that it almost always prompts me to develop parts of my worlds that I had never thought about before) — specific cultural details relevant to a PC’s background.

You don’t need a lot of these. (And, in fact, an encyclopedia article can often be counterproductive.) But 4-8 really evocative, specific details — what they think, what they eat, what their clothing looks like, what their popular slang words are, etc. — can give the player a touchstone for both ground and developing their character.

(If you get really lucky, you’ll get a player who takes your handful of evocative details and develop them into a richly detailed encyclopedia article that you can tuck into your own notes for future reference.)

BRING THE PARTY TOGETHER: So my first question for Peter was, “What brings Pashar to Waterdeep?”

Peter’s original concept was that he and his parents had come to Waterdeep on their travels, and then his parents had gotten into some sort of legal trouble and gotten arrested. He was now stuck in the city and was trying to figure out how to pay off a debt of some sort to get them freed.

You can see how this basic concept, but also shifted and evolved. This was primarily in response to Heather’s development of Kittisoth (which we’ll dive into next), but the short version is that she was creating a tiefling pirate. Since Kitti and Pashar both had maritime elements in their backgrounds, Heather and Peter thought it made sense for the two of them to have crossed paths at some point.

As the three of us tossed ideas around, it was a pretty short leap to the idea that Pashar’s parents had been taken by pirates (instead of being arrested in Waterdeep) and then an even shorter leap to Kitti actually being one of the pirates who had done it. (Pashar’s dad also got killed in there somewhere along the way.)

Why Waterdeep? Well, Pashar thought it was the city he knew best in the North. (Because he’d read a number of histories about it. Same thing as being streetwise, right?)

PRIVATE INTEGRATION: As a fish out of water in Waterdeep, I didn’t do a lot to privately integrate Pashar into the campaign. (To some extent, “the outsider who has to learn the city” is the hook.)

But the one thing I did do was set the ransom for his mother at 30,000 gold pieces. The players all thought his was an insane amount — “a king’s ransom” as one put it and “oh-shit-money” as another suggested. But I, of course, knew that the central conceit of the whole campaign was a horde of half a million gold pieces. Pashar would be highly motivated once the stakes of Neverember’s Enigma became clear.

At this point, Erik — another player — jumped in and jokingly suggested that Pashar, in his naivete, had actually set the ransom. “Right, right,” Peter said. “They asked me how much money I thought I could get for my mother. And I was like, ‘Thirty thousand gold pieces? How much could thirty thousand be, right?’”

This joke actually evolved into the idea that Pashar had been confused by the size of the ransom: The pirates, hearing he was going to Waterdeep for the money, told him that they wanted 600 harbor moons (a rare currency used only in Waterdeep that was worth 50gp per coin). Pashar heard that as “600 coins,” more or less assumed they meant 600 gold pieces, and thought it was a very reasonable request.

Surprisingly, in addition to becoming a very funny running joke at the beginning of the campaign, this misunderstanding also became a minor lynchpin in the backgrounds of the other characters. So we’ll be coming back to it.

Go to Part 3: Kittisoth Ka’iter

This has been a highly requested series from my patrons: a closer look at the player characters in my Dragon Heist campaign and how I (or, more accurately, we) integrated them into the game. I’ve resisted writing it, however, because I wasn’t entirely sure how to make it high-value.

The key thing is that I already wrote a couple posts about creating characters for long-term campaigns — Running the Campaign: Designing Character Backgrounds. The short summary is:

1. Establish the campaign concept.
2. Have the players pitch their character concepts.
3. Collaborate on a public integration, with the GM using their expertise in the setting to take generic archetypes of the character concept (e.g., northern barbarian) and make them specific (e.g., a member of the Tribe of the Red Elk).
4. Have the GM do a private integration of the character, tying them into the larger structure of the campaign (e.g., Is there a major villain? Make it the long-lost brother of one of the PCs).
5. Bring the party together. At least 95 times out of 100, you’ll want to explain why the PCs are all going to generally hang out and do things together — specifically, the usually crazy things the campaign concept is predicated on — before you start your first session. 4 times out of the remaining 5, you’ll probably want to have things pre-arranged so that they all fall in together within the first few scenes.

There are other ways to handle character creation, but this was essentially the same procedure I’d followed for Dragon Heist. It didn’t feel like there was really new territory to explore.

I’ve had a number of recent conversations, however, suggesting that people would like to see more practical examples of what some of this theoretical material actually looks like in actual play. So that’s our primary goal here.

I’d also commissioned some really fantastic art depicting the characters from @BroadfootLenny, so if nothing else you’ll be able to “ooooh” and “aaahh” over some pretty pictures!

THE BASELINE

Let’s start by establishing a baseline understanding of how character creation (and the campaign in general) were set up. You might want to start by reading through those two earlier posts for a more detailed discussion of the general procedure, but it’s probably not strictly necessary.

GAME SESSIONS: We should briefly discuss how we were actually playing the campaign because it has an impact on how character creation played out.

As I’ve discussed previously, we mostly played Dragon Heist in weekend intensives: We would play four hours on Friday night, then 10-12 hours on Saturday, and then another 8-10 hours on Sunday.

We also went from talking about doing this to actually doing it very quickly. This meant that, for our first weekend, we would be creating characters Friday night and then starting the campaign the next day at 10 AM.

This was unusual for me: For a dedicated campaign like this, I’m usually chatting about characters and swapping e-mails weeks ahead of time. There’s often a Session 0 with one or two weeks before we actually start play, allowing further development and refinement of the characters before we get going. In this case, all of this was truncated and there would be very little time (particularly very little awake time) between creating our characters and launching into a long-term campaign with them.

CAMPAIGN CONCEPT: My pitch for the campaign was pretty straightforward: “Would you like to play the new Dragon Heist campaign from Wizards of the Coast? I’ve been remixing it for my website.”

Although brief, this carried with it some key information:

• We were playing D&D 5^th (Just saying “D&D”, as I’ve noted in those previous essays, carries a lot of weight when it comes to campaign concept, in a way that isn’t necessarily true for other RPGs.)
• The campaign would in some way involve a “heist.”

To this, if I recall correctly, I basically added only one additional piece of information:

• The campaign will be taking place in Waterdeep, which is located in the Forgotten Realms.

I had maps of Waterdeep and Faerûn hung on the walls of our game room for handy reference. For players who were not familiar with the source material, I also briefly introduced them to the various sourcebooks we’d be using, including:

• Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide
• 3^rd Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
• 1^st Edition Forgotten Realms boxed set
• 2^nd Edition Forgotten Realms: City System boxed set

This meant literally holding them up and saying, “These exist, feel free to flip through them if you’re looking for inspiration.” We also identified the people at the table who were familiar with the Realms and could serve as sources of expertise. Besides myself, this was Chris and Peter, both of whom were probably more well-versed in Realms lore than I was.

We also talked about our group’s familiarity with D&D, which ranged considerably. Some of us had been playing since the ‘80s. Another had played virtually no D&D whatsoever, but had just started playing in another 5^th Edition campaign a couple months earlier. Another had played one session of 2^nd Edition in 1997, one session of 3^rd Edition in 2003, and a dozen or so sessions of my OD&D open table. Personally my own experience with 5^th Edition was limited — I’d played a couple of sessions in a heavily homebrewed game and hadn’t run it at all yet.

BRINGING THE PARTY TOGETHER: The last thing I said before starting character creation was that:

• The first scene of the campaign would be the five of them walking through the doors of the Yawning Portal to meet a contact who was offering them a job.
• In creating their characters, they needed to figure out how they had ended up there.

Dragon Heist Remix – Addendum: First Impressions discusses how I handled the opening scene of the campaign in more detail, but I basically knew that this moment at the door of the Yawning Portal would bookend character creation: By immediately establishing what I needed them from them, I knew aiming at that specific moment would be hanging in the back of their brains throughout the entire process, ready to opportunistically shape any and all decisions along the way.

Then, at the end, we would return to this beat. I would show them the “Friendly Faces” handout from p. 223 of Dragon Heist and ask them to pick the picture of the NPC they were coming to meet. I knew that combining why they were walking through that door looking for a job together with who they were meeting on the other side of the door to get the job from would provide a final act of creative closure that would shape and personalize the opening of the campaign.

(Spoilers: It did.)

I think the big thing to note here is how simple this all was. I’ve talked about it at length, but it boils down:

• Four or five sentences pitching the campaign concept.
• A one sentence improv prompt for them to build their group dynamic around.
• And, later, pointing at a picture and asking a simple question.

It can be more complicated than that, but it doesn’t need to be.

In any case, that’s basically the whole set up. So now we’re going to look at the specific character backgrounds that we worked up and discuss how the procedure got us to that point.

EDANA

(Created by Sarah Holmberg)

Her father died (at least that is the story her mother told her) when she was still an infant. Her mother fell in with the Shadow Thieves as a way to make best use of her skills to support her young family. When things went south,  Edana was sent to stay with family friends while her mother worked on making plans for them to leave safely and secretly, but her mother never came back. She was told that her mother died, though she still hears rumors that make her suspect her mother is alive.

It’s part of the reason Edana tries to stay connected to, but not part of, the underworld in Waterdeep. Keeping enough distance to not make herself a target when the inevitable drumming out occurs again, but close enough to hear about her mother’s return. Though by this point, she doesn’t expect it to happen, it’s more out of habit and making best use of the skills that she picks up the occasional job from her underworld connections.

When she’s flush, she creates new personas and lives for years as them, spending her time reading, creating art, carousing,  practicing her card tricks and forgery skills. When she’s skint, she sheds those personas and returns to her true self, takes what work she can and builds up enough funds to start a new life for a while.

DESCRIPTION: Edana is a high elf with golden skin and golden hair. High, delicate cheekbones, with usually a faintly amused expression on her face. Her everyday look is hair braided back in two braids around the crown of her head, with hair loose in back. When she’s staying at the tavern she wears deceptively simple looking dresses that in blues and greens that have a lot of detail work in them. When leaving the tavern she wears breaches and a belted tunic. Her cloak has a lot of secret pockets in it.

She’s also very skilled in disguising herself. She can style her hair to cover her ears, apply makeup to make her skin look merely tanned instead of golden. She’s quick to adjust her clothing to either blend in or stand out, as needed. Even when she’s at her most broke she retains one set of very fine clothes.

WHAT EDANA KNOWS – THE ZHENTARIM:

• Zhentarim are a shadow organization of thieves, spies, assassins, and wizards that trades mercenaries and goods (including weapons) for profit.
• Their original base of power was among the Zhent people in the Moonsea region, primarily a place called Zhentil Keep.
• Long sought to gain political influence in Waterdeep, but the strength of the city’s Masked Lords, nobility, and professional guilds makes that difficult.
• In the late 14^th century (about 100 years ago), the founder of the Zhentarim (Manshoon) was killed and Zhentil Keep was razed. Zhentarim power was shattered, with the organization breaking down into many internecine factions.
• Recently the local Zhentarim in Waterdeep were rallied around a mercenary group known as the Doom Raiders. They’d been rising in power. Recently, however, there’s been a schism in the Zhentarim: A second locus of power seems to have risen within the group and is peeling support off from the Doom Raiders. You aren’t sure exactly who this second locus belongs to, but you do know that:
  • They keep an interrogation house in Brindul Alley in the Trade Ward. It was most recently being run by a woman named Avareen Windrivver.
  • Members of the new faction have taken up residence at Yellowspire, a tower in the Castle Ward.
• This schism is not widely known, because the Zhentarim are simultaneously fighting a gang war with the Xanathar Crime League.

WHAT EDANA KNOWS – THE XANATHAR CRIME LEAGUE:

• Xanathar is a beholder. He’s hundreds of years old and has held court over the Waterdhavian underworld for centuries.
• The location of his headquarters is a closely kept secret, but definitely lies somewhere under Waterdeep. Possibly in the vicinity of the underground city of Skullport.

CREATING EDANA

Sarah’s core concept was an elf with criminal connections who had been coasting for a long time. She was already playing a very young elf in another campaign, and here she really wanted to lean into elven longevity. A central image was the endless carousel of identities; each picked up, enjoyed, and then casually discarded.

In play, I think she discovered that the “safety” of Edana’s serial identities was less about comfort and more about fear. This became very interesting to explore as the events of the campaign kept pushing her to put down meaningful roots.

PUBLIC INTEGRATION: The main thing here was pulling the lore of the Shadow Thieves. Connecting the disappearance of Edana’s mother to the height of the Shadow Thieves’ power in Waterdeep (centuries earlier) helped cement just how long Edana had been coasting through her disposable identities.

PRIVATE INTEGRATION: Usually the GM’s private integration is, well, private… at least for a time. In this case, though, I immediately handed Sarah these short cheat sheets of what Edana knew about the Zhentarim and Xanathar’s gang. I framed this as being what she knew about the local criminal scene in Waterdeep, but obviously I knew both of these organizations would be featuring in the campaign. Breaking down exactly what she knew accomplished two things:

First, it let me think very carefully about what information the PCs would just know and what information would need to be discovered through play.

Second, when these topics inevitably came up during play, having the info sheet meant that Sarah could just act as an expert, using the knowledge that Edana had to brief in the other PCs. Instead of asking me what her character knew and then having the information come from the GM, she could just confidently roleplay through the moment.

It also meant that, for example, I could drop some off-hand reference to “Brindul Alley,” and then the player — just like the character — could go, “Wait a minute! I know what that means!” Which is infinitely better than me dropping an off-hand reference to “Brindul Alley” and then calling for an Intelligence check to continue telling them information. (Similar to the Matryoshka search technique.)

MAKING THE PARTY: Edana’s background obviously positioned her as a fixer, and very early on the group decided that she was probably the one who was connecting them with the contact at the Yawning Portal.

In principle, this was pretty straightforward, although it became considerably more convoluted as the other PCs became involved.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: One last thing I’ll note here is how important I think it is for players to think about the physical description of their characters. I think it’s collectively essential for the whole group (and me!) to be able to picture what’s happening in the game world. I also think that the mental construct of a character’s physicality is essential for capturing the psychological gesture of the character. (If you want to delve into that, check out On the Technique of Acting by Michael Chekhov.)

The advice I’ll give for this is often very similar to that found in the Universal NPC Roleplaying Template.

Go to Part 2: Pashar

Travel times in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden are somewhat confusing and difficult to reference. Due to the harsh winter conditions of the Dale, the normal rules for overland travel in 5^th Edition don’t apply. Instead:

The speed that characters can travel across Icewind Dale’s rough, snowy terrain is given in the Overland Travel table. Travel is less time-consuming on the snowy roads and trails that connect the settlements of Ten-Towns, as discussed in Chapter 1.

Method of Travel	Distance per Hour
Dogsled	1 mile
On foot, with snowshoes	1/2 mile
On foot, without snowshoes	1/4 mile

If you look up the equipment entry for dogsleds, there’s also this rule:

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

It’s unclear whether this rule is already calculated into the distance per hour for dogsleds given on the Method of Travel table.

The guidelines for road/trail travel in Chapter 1 are not generalized, but are instead presented in sections like this one (for the town of Bremen):

Heavy snow has obliterated the trail that once guided travelers to Targos. Adventurers determined to make the journey on foot can reach Targos in 2 hours. Using mounts or dogsleds can reduce this travel time by as much as 50 percent.

No specific speed for road travel is given, but if you run the numbers they tend to land somewhere between 1.25 and 2.25 miles per hour.

The book also includes incredibly awesome axe beak mounts… but neglects to give a speed for them.

RECOMMENDED TRAVEL RULES

Method of Travel	Mountains (Distance per Hour)	Tundra (Distance per Hour)	Road (Distance per Hour)
Dogsled	1/2 mile	1 mile	4 miles
Axe Beak	1/2 mile	1 mile	2 miles
On foot, with snowshoes	1/4 mile	1/2 mile	2 miles
On foot, without snowshoes	1/8 mile	1/4 mile	2 miles

Dogsleds: These rules assume that dogsleds increase their speed in the same ratio as humans do on the roads. These travel times include 1 hour of rest for every hour of travel. Double the speed if the dogs are not being given rest, but they suffer 1 level of exhaustion per hour (which means after the second hour of being pushed their speed will be halved).

Axe Beaks: I’ve arbitrarily decided they move very well through snow or across trackless tundra, but perform like a normal mount on roads (traveling at the same speed as a humanoid). On roads, this means axe beak mounts can gallop at 6 miles per hour, but at the cost of suffering 2 levels of exhaustion per hour. (This means that after the first hour of a gallop, their speed will be halved.)

On Foot: Snowshoes don’t help on roads.

OPTIONAL: TRAVEL PACE

In modifying the rules for overland travel, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden doesn’t specify how travel pace should be handled. If you assume the table above lists a Normal pace of travel, you can use the table below to calculate Fast and Slow paces.

Fast Pace: -5 penalty to passive Wisdom (Perception) scores

Slow Pace: Able to use Stealth

Slow Pace	Normal Pace	Fast Pace
1/8 mile	1/4 mile	1/2 mile
1/4 mile	1/2 mile	1 mile
1/2 mile	1 mile	1 1/2 miles
1 mile	2 miles	3 miles
2 miles	4 miles	6 miles

Design Note: The comparison between dogsleds under snowy conditions and horses under normal conditions gets wonky. This is because Icewind Dale reduces human speed by two-thirds, but then has dogsleds moving at twice that speed. The net result is that you end up with dogs in snow being faster than horses on open ground. However, my research indicates these values are broadly accurate for how dogsleds perform in the real world, so I’m going to let the book values stand.

OPTIONAL RULE: DETERIORATING ROADS

Although the roads between the settlements of Ten-Towns are still kept open and trade is mostly uninterrupted, the Frostmaiden’s eternal winter has pushed the region’s infrastructure to the breaking point. Drifting snow and frequent blizzards can effectively obliterate the road between two towns.

There is a 1 in 6 chance of encountering an obliterated road (check for each section of the road).

It is still possible to follow the track of an obliterated road (due to tall waymarker posts that still manage to rise above the ever-growing snowpack), but characters on an obliterated road cannot travel faster than Slow Pace. Furthermore, the group’s navigator must make a DC 12 Wisdom (Survival) check each hour or veer off the road.

If the check fails, the party wanders off course and gets no closer to their destination in that hour. It takes an additional check to find the road again, with each failure costing the group an additional hour.

REFERENCE TOOLS

I also thought it would be useful to compile the travel data into some easy-to-use references, which you’ll find below.

MAP: TRAVEL TIME

(click for large map)

This map compiles the travel times given in each town’s entry in the Rime of the Frostmaiden. It turns out, however, that these values are inconsistent with each other along the Eastway. They’ve been adjusted for consistency here (which, of course, means that some of these values will be slightly out of sync with the book).

Note: The path between Bremen and Targos has been “obliterated,” which appears to roughly double what would otherwise be the travel time between these towns. If you’re using the optional rules for deteriorating roads, you’ll want to take this into account.

MAP: TRAVEL DISTANCE

This map lists the distance in miles between each settlement. These distances are calculated directly from the poster map that comes with the book, using the included scale and following the precise path of the trail/road indicated.

(Technically I used the D&D Beyond version of the map, and then used Adobe Illustrator to trace each path and then precisely calculate its length.)

If you calculate the travel times from the distances given here, you will not end up with the travel times given Travel Time Map. This is because the travel times given in the book are all radically inconsistent: Routes are referred to indiscriminately as roads, trails, or paths. Some routes are referred to as being blocked or obliterated. But none of these descriptions have any relation, as far as I can tell, to the variances in travel time given.

ICEWIND DALE TRAVEL SPREADSHEET

You can download an Excel spreadsheet with Icewind Dale travel information here. It contains the following sheets:

• Rounded Distance: As noted above, I calculated precise distances from the original map. This sheet rounds those distances to the nearest half mile.
• Travel Time (Foot): This sheet has the travel time in hours between all ten towns. These values are calculated using the values on the Rounded Distance sheet and the recommended travel rules above (not the time values given in the book).
• Travel Time (Dogsled): Same thing, but for dogsleds.
• Travel Time (Dogsled – No Rest): Same thing, but this assumes the party is pushing their mush team to the limits without any rest. These values have been manually adjusted where necessary to reflect that the speed of the dogs’ becomes halved after two hours due to exhaustion. Some journeys will kill the dogs if they are not allowed to rest, and this is also indicated.
• Raw Distance Data: This is the original, raw distance data as directly measured from the original map. It’s included mainly as a curiosity here.

All of these tables include an entry for “Intersection,” which is the intersection between the Eastway and the north-south road running from Dougan’s Hole to Caer-Konig.

Icons by Delapouite. Used under CC BY 3.0 license.

Go to Icewind Dale Index

Go to Part 1

So what does this all look like in actual play? Well, let’s simulate a campaign (with some actual dice rolls for stuff like the campaign’s starting town) and take a look.

For the purposes of this simulated campaign, let’s largely ignore the players being able to define their own scenarios. In actual play, this will almost certainly happen: Ten-Towns is enough of a living environment that the players can, for example, decide to become caravan guards from Kelvin’s Cairn; or re-open an abandoned inn; or buy mead from Good Mead to sell at a high price in a town where the taverns are running dry because trade has been disrupted. But what we’re going to focus on here is primarily just the baseline play that arises directly out of the sandbox structures in the campaign.

INITIAL STARTING QUEST: Cold-Hearted Killer

A dwarf named Hlin Trollbane believes she’s identified the serial killer who’s been plaguing Ten-Towns — it’s a man named Sephek who’s travelling with Torg’s merchant caravan. She approaches the PCs in a tavern and asks them to track the killer down and kill him.

STARTING TOWN: Caer-Konig

The quest in Caer-Konig sees the PCs stumble across Speaker Torvus, the dragonborn leader of the town who is drunkenly patrolling the streets in a vain attempt to capture dwarven thieves who have been sneaking into town. This eventually leads them to a nearby Duergar Outpost (p. 47).

Right off the bat here my instinct is to have the PCs enter Caer-Konig, encounter the drunken Speaker, and get the Duergar Outpost quest. When they get back to town (having leveled up to 2^nd level), Hlin says, “I’m impressed. I think you might be able to help me bring a little more justice to this cold-blighted Dale.”

The success of the first quest diegetically justifies Hlin approaching them for the bigger job. I now roll to see which town Sephek will be found in.

SEPHEK’S TOWN: Easthaven

Alternative: If you wanted to more strictly adhere to the published structure (starting quest first!), the campaign starts in the Hook, Line, and Sinker (p. 46), where Hlin hires them to kill the serial killer. They leave the tavern and immediately stumble over Speaker Torvus, who leads them to the Northern Light tavern on the other side of the town and starts the Duergar Outpost quest.

STRANGE ALLIANCES

Either way, they head down the road and pass through CAER-DINEVAL.

Caer-Dineval is one of the towns without a proactive quest, so the PCs could just pass right through without getting one. But they’re looking for the serial killer, right? So they’re going to head to the local tavern, the Uphill Climb (p. 38), and start asking questions.

The adventure tells us that Roark, the proprietor of the Uphill Climb, won’t explicitly tell the PCs what’s going on in town (most likely out of fear), but he will try to point them at the caer (castle) in the hope that they’ll get involved. So when they start asking questions, he’ll say something like, “If any caravan was looking for permission to set up here, they’d inquire with the Speaker up at the caer.”

So the PCs head up there and knock on the door.

The caer has been secretly invaded by a cult called the Knights of the Black Swords that, among other things, wants to stop the duergar invasion of Ten-Towns: They’ve killed the guards, taken the Speaker hostage, and are ruling the town in his name. The way this quest works is that the PCs can bust up the cult and rescue the speaker, OR they can end up allying with the cult. The cult has some divine guidance which, if the PCs have taken any anti-duergar actions, will have informed the cult that the PCs can be useful allies and that they should go out of their way to accommodate them.

So if the PCs did the Duergar Outpost quest, then the likely outcome here is that the Black Swords form an alliance with them. (“Your coming has been foretold!”) That’s a second quest complete.

Alternative: If the PCs heard about the duergar thieves and said, “Doesn’t seem like our problem,” or if they tried to follow the duergar tracks, got lost, and never found the outpost, then when they go up to the caer to ask questions about Torg’s caravan, they’re simply told, “Nope, no Sephek here,” and turned away.

As the PCs head back down the hill from the caer, they meet Dannika Graysteel, who’s heading back from another disappointing attempt to find a type of fairy called a chwinga. This kicks off the SECOND STARTING QUEST — “Nature Spirits”, p. 25 — when Dannika asks them to look for chwingas in the other towns of Ten-Towns.

Now the PCs head down the road to where it intersects with the Eastway.

The choice of which way to go is now basically random. So, for the sake of argument, I rolled a die and determined that this hypothetical group is heading to GOOD MEAD.

As they approach Good Mead, they encounter a trapper. They ask him about chwingas, but he shakes his head; he hasn’t seen any chwingas around here. (There’s a 25% chance each town has chwingas. I rolled a 47 for Good Mead, so no chwingas here.) But he does tell them that he just discovered five dead bodies out on the tundra. This is the quest hook for the Verbeeg Lair (p. 71).

These players, however, decide NOT to follow the trail from the dead bodies back to the verbeeg’s lair. Tackling a giant all by themselves just sounds too tough. But they want to do the right thing, so they gather up the bodies and take them into Good Mead for a proper burial.

In Good Mead they hear that the verbeeg has stolen the town’s mead supply and killed the Speaker, threatening to ruin the town’s economy. But this mostly just confirms that the giant is going to be too tough for them to handle.

SAVIORS OF GOOD MEAD

One of the PCs, however, decides to rally the townspeople: Alone they can’t stop the verbeeg menace. But together they can triumph!

The stat block for Good Mead conveniently lists what the local militia can muster:

So the PCs make some solid Charisma checks and they rally two veterans and 10 tribal warriors to go giant-hunting. (If they’d rolled better, they could have perhaps gotten ALL the tribal warriors to go with them.)

On the way to the verbeeg lair, I frame a couple of scenes where they’re chatting with other members of the expedition. I use the opportunity to introduce Shandar Froth and Olivessa Untapoor (p. 78) and improvise a couple of new NPCs representing the common folk of Good Mead. During this small talk, the PCs also pick up two more rumors: Dwarves are having trouble bringing their goods to Bryn Shander due to yeti attacks. And Dougan’s Hole, down the road, is being plagued by a couple of dire wolves or awakened wolves or polar wolves or werewolves.

(Depends on who you ask and how tall the tale has gotten.)

Note: I’m deliberately inserting uncertainty and/or broader context into these rumors compared to the default text in the adventure. See also Random GM Tips: Surprising Scenario Hooks.

The giant-hunting expedition is a huge success. Maybe one of the group’s new NPC friends gets killed (a little pathos never hurt anybody). That’s another quest complete, so the PCs are now 3^rd level.

The PCs return to Good Mead. While everyone is celebrating (and mourning), Olivessa Untapoor approaches them: Good Mead needs a new Speaker. A strong speaker. Shandar Froth thinks he should do it, but he’s a jackass. People are asking Olivessa to run against him, but she really doesn’t want the position. She thinks that one of the PCs should stand for the election.

Now, if the PCs want, this could totally happen! They’re the heroes of the hour. They’ve got the support of a major civic leader. There’s a whole thing where Shandar, regardless of who he ends up running against, pulls some shenanigans during the elections (p.78), but the PC candidate can probably end up on top.

This would, of course, change the entire nature of the campaign! Which is great! As the DM you’d need to come up with some civic challenges for the new Speaker (and their closest advisors; i.e., the other PCs) to deal with. You don’t have to completely abandon the existing toybox while you’re doing this, though. For example, you can look at the existing rumor tables and think about how to re-contextualize them to the PCs’ current circumstances.

For example, this rumor:

In Lonelywood, beware the dreaded white moose! It attacks loggers and trappers on sight, and the town’s best hunters can’t seem to catch or kill the beast. They could probably use some help.

We could easily imagine Speaker Huddle of Lonelywood sending a diplomatic mission to the newly ensconced Speaker of Good Mead: Having heard the success they’ve had with the verbeeg raider, she’s hoping they can send help to Lonelywood. In exchange, she promises to give Good Mead a discounted rate on Lonelywood’s lumber.

Or maybe it’s not Speaker Huddle. Maybe local loggers have lost confidence with her and have sent their people to extend a similar offer to the PCs. Maybe the PCs end up conspiring with the loggers to oust Speaker Huddle, with another of the PCs taking her place. Desperate times call for strong men, right? So maybe this whole thing ends with one of the PCs rising to become the new King of Ten-Towns… but at what cost to their souls? Maybe this is what the devil supporting the Knights of the Black Sword wanted to happen all along!

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

However this might turn out, we’ve clearly moved away from the baseline structure of Rime of the Frostmaiden. So, for the sake of argument, let’s say this doesn’t happen: Maybe the PCs just aren’t interested. Or maybe one of the PCs becomes elected Speaker, but the others decide to continue adventuring (with the player of the Speaker starting a new character; maybe picking up one of the NPCs who fought by their side against the verbeeg).

In any case, they continue down the road to DOUGAN’S HOLE. Here we have a scenario hook in which the white wolves plaguing the town meet the PCs on the road and try to lure them back to their lair (p.54). But the PCs, having heard about them in Good Mead, know not to trust them. They kill one of the wolves and the other one runs away (as described in the book).

Reaching Dougan’s Hill they’re told people have been kidnapped by the wolves, so they track the wolf that escaped, rescue the prisoners, and are now 3^rd level. They also hear that there are adventurers in Targos planning an expedition to Kelvin’s Cairn.

But still no Sephek. And (I roll a 35) no chwingas, either. So they head back up towards the Eastway. They come back to the intersection and need to choose between Bryn Shander (where they’ve got a quest rumor) and Easthaven (where the killer has been known to operate).

It’s still a toss-up, in my opinion. Players could rationalize either choice pretty easily. (They might also head all the way back to Caer-Konig to see if there’s any chwingas there, but this seems like a marginal possibility to me at this point.) Rolling randomly, it looks like this hypothetical group is heading to BRYN SHANDER.

As they enter town, they’re approached by three dwarves who would like their help recovering a sled shipment of iron that they had to abandon during a yeti attack (p. 34).

The PCs do that, completing their fourth quest. They also pick up two more rumors at the Northlook Inn: Kobolds have invaded the gem mines of Termalaine. And people are also talking about how no one has seen the town speaker of Caer-Dineval for weeks now…

Huh. That’s weird, actually. The people in the castle were very nice, but now that you mention it, we never actually saw the Speaker did we?

CONCLUSION

At this point, I’m not sure what our hypothetical group will do next. Lots of options, though:

• Maybe they’re running low on coin and decide rescuing a gem mine from kobolds in Termalaine sounds profitable.
• They might double back to Caer-Dineval to check out what’s really going on with their “allies.”
• They might try to backtrack the goblins who stole the dwarves’ iron.
• Before leaving Bryn Shander they might stop by the local shrine to Amaunator and speak to a gnome tinkerer who asks them to check in on his friend who lives in an abandoned cabin north of Lonelywood (p. 33).
• Or they could just continue down the road to Targos, searching for fairies and serial killers.

There are a couple key things to note here:

First, looking over these events, you can see how easy it would be to end up with a completely different campaign. A different starting town; a different decision by the PCs; a different random die roll; a different moment of creative inspiration and everything is transformed. This is not just interesting and exciting, it is also empowering. The players can feel the difference, and it’s intoxicating.

Second, the level of emergent complexity that we see here — the event horizon beyond which you can have no clear vision of what the campaign will be — is inherent to true sandbox play. Do the PCs become political leaders? Run a tavern? Become security guards for a logging consortium? Start a trading company? Mount archaeological expeditions to explore giant ruins? There’s no way to know and only one to find out!

(This is also why Rime of the Frostmaiden collapsing the sandbox of early levels into a more-or-less linear plot at the middle levels is rather disappointing. At the very point that the limitless potential of the sandbox begins to truly explode, the book instead says, “Okay. That was nice, but let’s lock it down.”)

If nothing else, I hope you’ve seen here that there’s nothing magical or even particularly difficult about running a sandbox campaign: After the sandbox has been filled with a selection of simple toys (some NPCs, some dungeons, some bad guys), all you have to do is observe a fairly simple procedure and follow the players’ lead, responding to their actions by picking up the appropriate (or most convenient) toys and actively playing with them.

Go to Icewind Dale Index