Why & How to Use Legacy of the Crystal Shard in Your Frostmaiden Game

**This post contains SPOILERS – if you are playing Rime of the Frostmaiden, beware!***

I’ve now run 3 sessions of Rime of the Frostmaiden and I have found Legacy of the Crystal Shard, the D&DNext adventure, to be very helpful in fleshing out Ten-Towns and the greater Icewind Dale region. I have used some of the information, NPCs, and encounters from that product while prepping my Rime game, so I thought you might like to read why and how I am doing it. I am using the original release print version of this product:

Ten-Towns Businesses & NPCs

Businesses in Rime

Rime of the Frostmaiden is tasked with covering a lot of information (10 towns and their associated quests) in relatively few pages of text. As such, Rime presents only a limited number of businesses and NPCs in each town. The campaign guide that comes with Legacy of the Crystal Shard is chock full of information about shops, taverns, inns, and other businesses in Ten-Towns. Rime presents the following:

Businesses in Legacy

While it seems like a lot of locations in Rime, it is spread among 10 towns, meaning that each town only gets 2 or 3 described locations. Legacy of the Crystal Shard presents all of these plus 17 more! While Caer-Konig, Dougan’s Hole, Good Mead, and Termalaine have only the same businesses as what is found in Rime, Bryn Shander and Easthaven get many more mentioned locations. Here is the rundown on those:

It is fair to say that the write-ups for some of these are not extensive – for example, the Armory and Council Hall in Bryn Shander get 2-3 sentences each. However, some of them get a nice description, such as the House of the Triad in Bryn Shander, Culver’s in Caer-Dineval, and Ewen’s Trinkets in Bremen. What is also true is that these locations are on the maps of each town! That alone is worth it to me since my players are always asking around town for different types of locations and want to see on the map were they are. Now I have a good guide to use to pin-point some new locations without having to make it up myself during prep, or worse, on-the-spot in the middle of a session.

Tying in the Locations

You can easily slip these locations into Ten-Towns with no problems. Here is one example of how I did so… Right now my party is in Bryn Shander and it has some interesting things going on. They have completed the ‘Foaming Mugs‘ quest and gotten a much nicer reception here than they did in Targos. They are sticking around for a couple of days at least, so I am using all of the locations in Legacy to bump up my knowledge of the town and add to the NPC list I have for Bryn Shander.

The party decided they wanted to stay in an inn that was less raucous than the Northlook and I had the information at my fingertips when they asked around town for an inn with a reputation for being quiet (the genasi fighter in the party was upset the rest of them didn’t want to drink and carouse, but she was out-voted, LOL). They found Geldenstag’s Rest, run by Myrtle, an old, grey-haired, human woman who is not only an innkeeper but also a hopeless busybody. I had her sitting in a comfortable chair reading a book when they entered the inn and that immediately endeared her to the group, despite her peppering them with questions in nosy-but-forceful-grandma style. In another stroke of true-grandma-style she had morning libations for them in appropriate vessels – fancy goblet for the noble, large pint for the hearty fighter, cup carved from bone for the elk tribesman, etc.).

Those specific items weren’t in Legacy, but the description of the busy-body nature of Myrtle stoked my creative juices. To be fair, I also elaborated on the description and mannerisms of NPCs in Rime as well – Owenn Tarsenel, proprietor of the Luskan Arms Inn in Targos, now has a penchant for making fish-based dishes, including mulled-knucklehead trout wine. Scramsax, owner of the Northlook, hates Ol’ Bitey, but can’t bring himself to give the fish up, and he is just waiting for the day when the wizard who cast the singing spell on it to come back… in a good natured way. Anyway, my point is that it’s not that Rime doesn’t have good descriptions (it does) or doesn’t provide enough to riff off of or improv (it does), it’s just that I like to have multiple things at my fingertips and Legacy provides enough for me to add to Rime that I really feel like this is a living place.

Could I have made this stuff up on my own? Sure – I would have no problem doing that, but since I owned Legacy already it just made sense to mine it for information. My reading of Legacy of the Crystal Shard paid off in spades. I may only use a small percentage of the extra material in each town, but I feel like I know more about each town, and for me that helps me relax into DMing since I know I have the info at my fingertips.

NPCs

Along with the numerous locations described, each town write-up comes with at least one new NPC per location. In this supplement we meet some interesting characters: Myrtle, the aforementioned grey haired busybody innkeeper; Barton, an innkeeper who left Targos to settle in Bryn Shander (I wonder why?); Ogden Flamebeard, a dwarf with many connections; Rendaril, a half-elf from Waterdeep who moved to Icewind Dale to open an emporium; Rurden, a shop owner whose weapon and armor shop looks like a keep fortified against siege; Culver Ailsen, an eccentric collector and historian; a rogue band of pirates from Caer-Dineval; Graendel Granitefist, an old, talkative dwarven smith; and a halfling named Ewen, who gave up panning for gold and opened a shop in Bremen. That’s only a short list of all of the characters written into this campaign guide. These are all from the town write-ups – there are even more in the other sections of the campaign book.

Other Locations

Okay, so you can live without the extra businesses and NPCs, but this campaign guide also has extra locations that could be useful to you. Let’s run through those…

Evermelt

Evermelt is a hot spring on the edge of Reghed Glacier frequented by the Bear Tribe, who often set up camps near the hot spring so they have access to its rejuvenating powers. Two things are happening in this location: 1) A priestess of Auril has commandeered the area and forced a group of Bear tribesmen to pledge allegiance to Auril. They now hold the hot springs and refuse access to others. And 2) a white dragon lair is located within the cave beyond the spring. In Legacy, the dragon is named Icingdeath, and was slain by Wulfgar over 100 years ago. In Rime there is also an ancient white dragon said to lair upon the Reghed and its name is Arveiaturace. If the party encounters the dragon in chapter 2, they may want to seek out its lair later on… and there is a side-view map of the cavern showing how to enter from the hot springs and how the dragon exits the lair. If you don’t care about the dragon’s lair, you could still use the hot spring and the bear tribe nearby, and if you are using the Cult of Auril in the game this is a great setup to show how her influence is felt not only in Ten-Towns, but also among the tribes of the glacier.

The Dwarven Valley

The valley at the base of Kelvin’s Cairn gets rather short shrift in Rime of the Frostmaiden as there isn’t much said about it overall. In fact, it seems dwarves don’t play much of a prominent part in Ten-Towns either. There are the three dwarven quest-givers in Bryn Shander, and the smithy there is owned by a pair of dwarves… but not much is made of the entire valley occupied by dwarves just a few miles to the East! Granted, even in Legacy of the Crystal Shard there are only about 200 dwarves living in the valley, but the population of Ten-Towns is only about 4200 people anyway, so having a couple hundred more is a large chunk. The campaign guide has a 4 page write-up on the valley and a very nice map of the internal structure (including several described locations). One of the dwarves, Baerick Hammerstone, has learned how to forge black ice and make weapons, armor, trinkets, and jewelry with the material. This could be very interesting to anyone in Icewind Dale who might know about black ice, including the arcane brotherhood and anyone who believes that Auril has blessed the black ice. In my game I am using cultists of Auril, some of whom have rings made of black ice that bear Auril’s symbol and are magical in nature (the ring and its magical power is described in the Creed of Auril).

Kelvin’s Cairn

The Legacy campaign guide also features a 2 page write-up on Kelvin’s Cairn. It describes 3 basic locations on or near the mountain as well as a 4th with details of an old dwarven outpost on the mountain complete with a map. It, annoyingly, refers to this location as the verbeeg lair, but it is really an abandoned dwarven outpost. This could be something the group stumbles onto when they do the ‘Mountain Climb‘ quest from Targos, which has them scaling Kelvin’s Cairn… the entrance to the dwarven outpost could be just the thing they need to find to escape a blizzard or avalanche.

The Tower of the Ice Witch

A hundred foot tall tower of black ice and containing a temple to Auril has been constructed on an iceberg in the Sea of Moving Ice. In the Legacy of the Crystal Shard this is the location where the party meets Hedrun Arnsfirth, the chosen of Auril, and (hopefully) defeat her. In my game they will definitely meet a priestess or Chosen of Auril here, along with stumbling upon the ghost of Nass Lantomir (instead of on the Island of Solstice as written in Rime). This section of the campaign guide also describes the history of Hedrun Arnsfirth, the Ice Witch and Chosen of Auril, and Davrick Fain, a priest of Auril, two great NPCs that are being ported into my game. Oh and one last thing… there is, you guessed it, a map of the tower:

Encounters

Along with the 64 page campaign guide, Legacy of the Crystal Shard comes with a 32 page adventure book. This book is slightly less helpful than the campaign guide because it describes events that are assumed to have occurred in the past in Icewind Dale (a handful of years prior to the events in Rime). However, this book does offer a few encounter ideas that fit relatively seamlessly into your Rime campaign and could help you extend and expand chapters 1 and 2, if you so choose, along with increasing the presence and activities of cult members. Here are some scenarios described therein:

1. It describes the numbered locations in the dwarven valley in more detail, complete with events and NPC motivations. There is a schism in the dwarf population due, in part, to the influence of the black ice being worked by Baerick hammerstone.
2. It presents an encounter scenario that takes place in Evermelt with some members of the Elk Tribe. If you have a Reghed Tribesman in your party, it may be fun to substitute their tribe into this scenario and insert it into your Rime game.
3. It details a rogue pirate (the aforementioned pirates of Caer-Dineval) raid on Easthaven that is actually the history behind the black ice figurehead in the Easthaven Town Hall. I would change this idea to a raid perpetrated by cultists and not having to do with water or boats, making this part of the adventure book useless… except for having a clearer understanding of the origin of the black ice ram/figurehead in the town hall.
4. It also details the labeled locations on the dwarven outpost/verbeeg lair map. In this case the scenario makes the outpost a cultist hideout, which is perfect for my game since I am relying heavily on the Cult of Auril being extremely active in the region.
5. It lays out the plans of Vaelish Gant – you may know him as Prisoner 237 (Rime of the Frostmaiden page 160). He is imprisoned in Revel’s End because of his actions during the Legacy of the Crystal Shard adventure. This has more details than what is provided in Rime and if the PCs become friendly with Duvessa Shane, Speaker of Bryn Shander, she would know all of this information and could relay it to them. It’s good background but not really useful to run it, since Rime assumes it happened and Gant has already been captured.
6. It further describes the Tower of the Ice Witch, detailing each floor/room and providing clues and motivations for the Ice Witch’s behavior. This is super easy to run basically as is, if you are interested in having your party face a Chosen of Auril.

Extras

The adventure also comes with a DM Screen that, along with maps, has a few helpful things on it:

1. Random encounter tables by location: North Road, Kelvin’s Cairn, The Eastway, Open Tundra, Dwarf Mine, In Town, and Sea of Moving Ice
2. A d12 random scrimshaw table (e.g. engraving of a mermaid)
3. A d12 black ice item table (e.g. carved amulet)
4. A d12 Reghed Tribes NPC names table (e.g. Ejnar)
5. A d12 Ten-Towns NPC names table (e.g. Breena)
6. Ten-Towns random NPCs to meet table (not names, e.g. “terrible scrimshander with delusions of grandeur” or “expert scrimshander who loves to show off“)

Campaign Update

My Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign, which we have dubbed Endless Night, is on its way – you can watch it here: Endless Night Playlist Episodes 1 and 2 are up now and 3 will be there shortly. You get to hear me sing Ol’ Bitey’s song in episode 3!

You can support my work by checking out my latest DMsGuild release – it’s called The Creed of Auril and contains information on the Church of Auril and descriptions of cult beliefs, behaviors, membership, and rationale. It also has 16 new spells, 2 new magic items, 6 new NPC statblocks, and over 12 detailed ways to add cultists and cult activity to the Ten-Towns area. The product is $4.99 on the DMs Guild and you can purchase it by clicking here: The Creed of Auril

You can also support me and my co-creators by purchasing Scientific Secrets of Icewind Dale – new and challenging creatures and lore for your arctic D&D game: Scientific Secrets of Icewind Dale on the DMsGuild or by shopping on the DMsGuild for other great products by clicking the banner below, which contains an affiliate link.

Until next time, I wish you good gaming!

 ~DMSamuel