Like any good adventure, Dungeons and Dragons: Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden starts players and DMs off slow before easing them in to more intense challenges. The newest official DnD adventure guides a group of adventurers from level 1 all the way up to 12, and makes sure every step along the way is both challenging and fun as players explore Icewind Dale.
The Icewind Dale setting was made popular in Dungeons and Dragons by the Drizzt Do'Urden novels, where the famous dark elf explorer faces various challenges in the icy Far North. Icewind Dale hasn't been a major focus of the Forgotten Realms setting in past adventures and sourcebooks, but Rime of the Frostmaiden takes players all around the region, with a lot of time near the beginning being spent in the Ten-Towns. This league of settlements make up Icewind Dale's starting quests, and people playing this campaign will find themselves becoming very familiar with many of the towns.
WARNING: Spoilers ahead for the Ten-Towns quests, DMs read on, but players be advised!
Icewind Dale's Ten-Towns
After the DM chooses to start the campaign off with either the Cold-Hearted Killer quest or the Nature Spirits Quest, there is a unique feature that allows the DM and players to choose what quests interest them most in the Ten-Towns. As the moniker says, there are indeed ten settlements and each have a quest specific to that town's mood, challenges, and unique inhabitants. The book provides a table for DMs to pick the quests randomly, choose what one interests them most, or use the book's recommendation to start in Bryn Shander, the most hospitable town.
Icewind Dale has a modern horror tone and mood, but not all of the quests are equal in terms of scare factor or unease. There really is a great selection to choose from, and all offer the players opportunity for advancement when they've completed a certain number of quests. Here are some of the Ten-Towns starting quests and why they might be best for certain types of campaigns.
Caer-Dineval: Black Swords
This quest leans into a more Gothic style of horror, and concerns a cabal of devil-worshiping cultists that the players can confront in an isolated castle. This quest is unique in that the players don't have to search it out if they visit Caer-Dineval, as the events will play out regardless of whether players choose to seek the Knights of the Black Sword cult and attempt to rescue their kidnapped hostage.
The adventure gives the DM a certain number of conditions to be fulfilled to see how the cultists respond to the party, and the book also provides for the party either deciding to make a dark alliance with the cult or to defeat them. DMs with a more villainous or evil-aligned party may see this quest as a good opportunity for the characters to potentially join the cult and get the castle as a base of operations.
Good Mead: The Mead Must Flow
In a contrast to fighting (or joining) devil-worshiping cultists, the Good Mead quest gives the players on a much lower-stakes and less sinister task: getting casks of honey mead back from a giant-like creature called a verbeeg, who wants to share his spoils with a dopey ogre and a brown bear. Although this quest does contain violence and action (the verbeeg killed a man to get the mead, and the party could end up fighting the verbeeg), the tone is much lighter in comparison to some other Ten-Towns quests.
This could be a great starting Ten-Towns quest for DMs with a party that isn't sure about how they feel about modern horror, or who want to ease into the scary stuff. Plus, the election for the new town speaker of Good Mead following the verbeeg's defeat could involve Zhentarim intervention, and one of the society's agents can even take this powerful position, which could be an interesting tie-in for a party with an Icewind Dale character with the Spy secret (a member of an organization working against the Zhentarim's creeping control).
Dougan's Hole: Holed Up
Dougan's Hole is the most unfriendly and uncomfortable town players can start in, and the book describes the inhabitants as insular and very unfriendly to strangers. The quest involves saving a pair of teenagers who have been kidnapped by wolfish monstrosities, and the town speaker of Dougan's Hole refuses to help the party members should they take up this quest, as she believes the siblings are doomed anyway. This could make this quest more challenging, as the party would already be in a town with the lowest friendliness and amenities level at the game's start, but could be great for a more independent party or one comprised of characters all unfamiliar with Icewind Dale.
Holed Up also offers an interesting quest where players must decide which of the wolves is the "good wolf" or "bad wolf," and use social skills and Insight to determine what the wolves' true motivation is and whether they're a threat. Since DnD parties have a range of characters who use social manipulation, stealth, or fighting skills (and often a mix of the three), this may be a good quest for parties with a lot of so-called faces.
Other Quests
Both the Bryn Shander and Caer-Conig quests deal with stolen goods with the possibility of gaining some goods as a reward, while Lonelywood and Bremen pit the players against cryptic monsters, and Easthaven and Targos deal with rescuing missing citizens of the Ten-Towns. DMs should read at least the brief descriptions of the quests before they choose the place their party starts, and keep in mind how to incorporate the Icewind Dale secrets into the quests.
Since the Ten-Towns quest are designed to be balanced for a variety of party types and play styles, there is no one-size-fits-all "best quest" for every party. DMs should be mindful of what their players' interests and preferences are, as well as what would challenge their characters the most in a helpful way. Players may end up following a natural progression through the towns after the starting town based on rumors they hear and what interests them the most, and an experienced DM will be able to take what's thrown at them and adapt to what their party is wanting to do, with the book's help.
Dungeons and Dragons: Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden is available to play now.