The newest adventure for Dungeons and Dragons released two days ago, and many fans weren't surprised to see a return to Icewind Dale since leaks hinted at the next D&D adventure location a few months ago. The book, entitled Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, brings players back to the setting of the dark elf Drizzt Do'Urden's heroic journeys in a series of novels. This adventure references R.A. Salvatore's iconic character and combines the icy setting with a modern-horror spin, pitting player characters against both nature and their own fears.
Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden is a fascinating adventure that takes players from levels 1-12 and pits them against increasingly more difficult challenges, including a lesser deity, the Frostmaiden herself. It's an exciting chance for Dungeons and Dragons players to delve into a Forgotten Realms location that not a lot of source material has touched and offers a different experience than the typical hack-and-slash medieval quest. The timezone is still medieval, and players are still slinging spells and swinging swords, but paranoia, isolation, and modern horror tropes all play a huge part in this adventure.
Many DMs and players will have already interacted with media that forces characters to be trapped in hostile environments while dealing with the suspicious motives of their peers, as these tropes are often great ways to amp up the tension and stakes in a story. Here is some more media that plays on these fears and motivations that can help get Dungeon Masters and players get in the right mood to trap their characters in the chilly Far North.
WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS ahead for the adventure!
The Terror (Season 1)
AMC's The Terror is an anthology television series based on a novel by Dan Simmons, and both deal with the real-life mystery of the Franklin expedition that disappeared in the Arctic, but with a supernaturally horrific spin. The Terror is slow but scary and at times gruesome, and deals with the characters turning on each other while trapped in the Arctic, just as Icewind Dale's player characters must face both the Far North and the secrets their fellow party members hide from each other.
Icewind Dale's "Pirate Cannibal" character background is a grim nod to various real-life Arctic and Antarctic explorers who were shipwrecked or lost and turned to eating their crew, and players wishing to play this kind of character can turn to this brilliant adaptation to witness the descent of proper Victorian Englishmen into backstabbing cannibals.
Frostpunk
Frostpunk just got its last DLC, making this subzero city management game finally complete and an interesting option for DMs who want to try out something interactive to get in the right mood for Icewind Dale. While Frostpunk isn't explicitly marketed as a horror game, it deals with resource management in a cold unfeeling icescape, as well as wilderness survival in the Far North, both of which play a huge part in Icewind Dale.
DMs can throw avalanches, blizzards, and extreme cold at their players when they least expect it, and players can attempt to combat this with features and equipment, similar to the plate-juggling tension of running a frozen city in Frostpunk against all the odds. This video game is a great exercise in making difficult choices in an environment that wants players dead, which may help DMs up the challenge level for their players and help players know how to deal with what the DM throws at them.
10 Cloverfield Lane
The second installment in the Cloverfield franchise took inspiration from video games like Half-Life 2 and The Last of Us that deal with characters trapped in dangerous environments who don't know who to trust, and it definitely shows in this post apocalyptic movie. 10 Cloverfield Lane is the story of a young woman who gets pulled into an underground bunker by a sinister man with a vat of acid who claims they can't go outside because of the apocalypse, and she and her fellow survivors struggle to know who to trust, or whether anything they're experiencing is real.
Insanity is a very real outcome in an Icewind Dale game, and just like any well-run campaign, the players are often wary of what the DM tell them about the world through the NPCs and descriptions. Icewind Dale also encourages player characters to have ulterior motives and be unsure of who they should trust, even those in their own party. Hopefully, though, people's campaigns won't devolve into the murder and betrayal in 10 Cloverfield Lane.
A Quiet Place
A Quiet Place's group of "adventurers" is a family that loves and trusts each other, for the most part, which could be good inspiration for a more tight-knit Icewind Dale party. The family in A Quiet Place (which will be appearing in A Quiet Place 2 next year) has to deal with basic survival but instead of fighting their environment, they try to stay hidden from a group of vicious alien creatures that they eventually fight head-on, similar to how Icewind Dale party members build up the strength to fight an evil deity after spending so long in Ten-Towns, which lives in fear of the Frostmaiden.
Alien
Ridley Scott's Alien gets an implicit reference with the Slaad Host secret a player may take, with the film's iconic "chestburster" scene becoming something the player has to fight the clock so they don't fall to the same fate. In Icewind Dale, a character can choose a background where an aberration implanted a small egg in them before the adventure begins, which they must remove before two months is up or the creature will burst from the player's body, killing them and potentially more people.
Dungeon Masters and players alike can study these stories and gain inspiration for tone, roleplay, and what kind of tension to bring to the table. DMs should keep in mind, though, an important bit of text the book gives them about handling horror responsibly, and make sure to check in with their players during potentially gruesome, squeamish, or plain scary scenes to make sure everyone around the table is enjoying the game and the direction it's taking.
Dungeons and Dragons: Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden is available to play now.