Icewind Dale: Cold Blooded

Icewind Dale: Cold Blooded is a Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition campaign streamed on twitch.tv/magirpg.

It is DMed by GloriousGe0rge, and the group of five adventurers follow Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign setting by Wizards of the Coast.

## Story

Not much is known about the group of individuals who escaped from Revel's End. Our fugitives band together as a prison break leads them south to Lonelywood. Shortly after their venture into the cold, the group has discovered that while Revel's End was cruel, the wilds of Icewind Dale can prove crueler.

Will our characters make it back to civilization? Tune in at 6:00PM Pacific every Wednesday to find out...

## Episode Synopsis

### Episode 1

*Title: Escaping Revel's End*

We meet our five inmates in Revel's End as the warden introduces them to his touring guest, Counselor Ozemon:

* Prisoner 128: Aidas
* Prisoner 285: Sessa Nightshade
* Prisoner 176: Minerva
* Prisoner 271: Kamara
* The Librarian: Aesandoral Lightscript

As the tour ends, the warden's guest confronts Lightscript in private about his departure from Waterdeep; threatening him that at the end of the week, the Counselor insinuates that Lightscript will be punished for what happened prior to his departure from Waterdeep.

With an unknown cause, the prison erupts in chaos as the anti-magic falls and the cell doors open simultaneously. The inmates and the librarian escape alongside six others into the night as an exit is identified, running for their lives while dodging guards and crossbow bolts. As they finally slow down, Lightscript is confronted by Prisoner 130: Harlan, about being a guard. Lightscript renounces his loyalty to the guards and conjures a bonfire that attracts the rest of the escapees: a woman carrying a staff made of frost, a large half-orc, a small duergar, a goblin, and a gentleman with sideburns. As the group gathers, Sessa gets frustrated as seemingly no one else can understand the language she are speaking. Lightscript is again challenged as the half-orc, Prisoner 248: Thuma, as she attempts to intimidate him out of his winter clothing. As they exchange words, Minerva fails her own attempt to steal a book from him. In reaction, Lightscript turns invisible and starts pacing about; mixing his footprints in with the rest of the group.

As Lightscript fades, so too does the bonfire he conjured. Even though Sessa immediately restored the group's vision by illuminating a gem on her bracelet, the warmth does not return with it. With the new found desperation, Minerva suggests that if anyone were to get hungry, the band should start with eating the smallest and work their way up. Prisoner 299: Grubgut, speaks out in protest as she is both the smallest and the newest to the prison. Kamara attempts to temper the cold by casting Prestidigitation on a rock, but it does not give him any comfort. Prisoner 135: Vernus, laughs at the feeble attempts to keep warm, offering that if anyone were to die out in the cold, the Frost Maiden will claim them as her own. Prisoner 237: Vaelish Gant, cuts the tension by suggesting that the group find Lightscript again. After speaking up, Minerva inspects Vaelish for the gear he has on, and Aidas finally speaks for the first time, warning her to not touch Vaelish.

After some discussion, Lightscript is coaxed back from invisibility and Minerva begins to lead the party south towards Lonelywood. As the group ventures out, they realize that the morning has broken but the Sun has not illuminated the horizon. Instead, an aurora resembling a snake twists across the sky. Sessa takes an opportunity to kiss Kamara, finally speaking Common as the kiss breaks. Sessa assures the group that the kiss was for "logistical reasons", an ability that their race uses to learn a language previously unknown.

As the group migrates further south, they encounter an owlbear. Lightscript convinces the owlbear that it is outnumbered and to leave the group be. As the owlbear walks away, Harlan cheers Lightscript on, and reminds the group of a saying about bears from where he came from: "If it's black, fight back. If it's brown, lie down. If it hoots, you're kaput." After ten more minutes of marching, the owlbear rushes Vaelish and a few members of the group engages. Lightscript speaks with the owlbear again and suggests gets it to agree to only eating Vaelish's leg; which Aidas successfully severs and Kamara successfully stabilizes.

The group settles in for the night while Aidas and Kamara go off and find firewood. During their collection, Kamara addresses Aidas about his business with Vaelish, revealing that Aidas is escorting Vaelish to Bryn Shander. Aidas suggests that if Vaelish is returned successfully, Kamara can be cut into the deal that was originally brokered. When they return, Harlan suggests to form a hunting party. While the hunting party is out, Minerva persuades Grubgut to part with her toes after hearing her suggest that her goblin colony join Ten Towns to become Eleven Towns; also revealing that Grubgut's dress has pockets! Harlan, Aidas, Thuma, and Sessa all return unsuccessful. The group discusses how to conjure water from the snow as Aidas and Kamara fill waterskins with snow and Sessa uses her shield.

In the middle of the night, Vaelish finally wakes up to his own horror of missing a leg. After being informed of his run in with the owlbear, Karama has a private chat with him via Message, and reveals both that Vaelish is part of the Arcane Brotherhood and that Aidas is part of the Zhentarim. Kamara ends the conversation by informing Vaelish that he should stay close to Aidas.

As the group settles in for a long rest, Lightscript's alarm is tripped, and the group is woken up to four crag cats...

### Episode 2

*Title: Cold Lesson in Cruelty*

*The below synopsis are by one of our amazing community members, DrPenguinCorey. Thank you, Penguin!*

Our heroes and their traveling companions were attempting to get a full night’s rest by the fire when a pack of Crag Cats ambushed them. Kamara suggested to Aidas that they throw Grub Gut the injured goblin to the cats and Minerva attempted to con Grub Gut into playing the hero while the rest of the party fled. Grub Gut sensed Minerva’s treachery and attempted to strike Minerva first with a fire bolt.

As the Crag Cats launched their attack, Minerva lost all pretense with Grub Gut and tossed the goblin towards the hungry cats which quickly pounced and killed Grub Gut with a single bite. The remaining escapees battled the Crag Cats slaying three of them and injuring several others that did not stick around to be injured again.

With three cats dispatched, the motley crew attempted to divvy up the spoils of the kill but there simply was not enough skins and meat to go around to everyone equally. The bigger escapees like Harland attempted to hoard an entire kill to himself causing Minerva to intimidate him into sharing. Harland retorted with a threat that Minerva was “scary but she would need to sleep sometime.” Minerva then brokered some of her meat with Sessa to have an extra pair of eyes watching her back.

Later, Lightscript informed Minerva that he overheard Vernus talking to the Crag Cats in the Druidic language and expressed his belief that Vernus might have caused the Cats to attack in the first place. Meanwhile, Kamara used his message power to contact both Minerva and Vernus offering information and assistance should their cold rivalry turn deadly.

The party set up camp near the Lonely Wood, Sessa and Aidas’s prisoner Vaelish began to show severe signs of exhaustion. The group chatted some of the night about the various gods they served, and each speculated on which god was causing the sun to cease from rising.

Later in the night, Vaelish attempted to talk to Aidas and discern who in the Arcane brotherhood had placed a bounty on him. Vaelish attempted to intimidate Aidas that if the bounty came from a Mage named Valendra, it would be better if they both died before she could open a portal to the Abyss and destroy them both.

During the night, Vaelish used a magic spell to locate Aidas’s stashed money located outside the town of Breaman. Vaelish contacted Kamara using message and offered to split the money with him if Kamara would kill Aidas and deliver him safely to Breaman instead.

The next day the party became engulfed in a snowstorm and Vernus froze Minerva’s foot to the ground as the owl bear from earlier returned looking for more food. Aidas accused Vernus of “throwing snow at them” but Vernus retorted that it was the Frost Maiden testing them. With that our heroes plotted their next action—continue south through the forest and another possible ambush from animals summoned by Vernus, or head towards the town of Breaman and possibly run out of food.

### Episode 3

*Title: Pass The River*

*The below synopsis are by one of our amazing community members, DrPenguinCorey. Thank you, Penguin!*

Last week on Cold Blooded, the party began on the northern outskirts of the forest leading to the town of Lonely Wood. The party decided to “risk it for the round pastry” and go through the woods knowing it may give their traveling companion, Vernis, more opportunity to make their lives difficult. Aidas and Harland discussed the possibility of taking Vernis out in their sleep, but Harland kept trying to goad Aidas to do the murder solo, so they eventually took a wait and see approach.

Afterwards, Aidas approached Vernis attempting to come to some sort of accord that she would not hinder the party, but he found her esoteric ramblings on the everlasting Rime of the Frost Maiden to be a non-starter. Kamara then took advantage of Aidas’ absence to try to convince Vaelish to use his magic power to “convince his enemies” that he is a force to be reckoned with.

The party eventually bedded down for the evening and Sessa arranged to share Kamara’s furs and body warmth as they slept. The next day, the party journeyed to the river north of Lonely Wood. Since the ice seemed to be relatively thick on the surface, the party attempted to cross on foot. Unfortunately for Lightscript the Firblog, he stumbled on a thin patch of ice and fell into the freezing river.

Sessa, Minerva, Kamara, and Aidas all sprang into action attempting to save Lightscript because he could reliably cast fire spells and was deemed necessary to the party’s survival. The rescue attempts went from bad to desperate as Lightscript became completely submerged under the ice and was dragged away by the current.

Kamara and Sessa both became drenched by the ice water in their rescue attempts, becoming increasingly exhausted as the onset of hypothermia hit them both. Vernis then taunted the party that Lightscript had shown himself to be unworthy. Vernis derided Sessa as well that she would not last long either and marched off ahead of the party leaving them behind.

Unbeknownst to the party, Lightscript emerged from under the ice where the river poured out into a small lake. Lightscript clung to life for several minutes attempting to create a bonfire but his efforts were in vain. As he lay there dying, a supernatural being bearing the image of a blue gemstone attempted to bargain with Lightscript offering him power and vengeance if only Lightscript would serve it.

Lightscript rejected the being’s offer and succumbed to hypothermia. The Rime of the Frostmaiden had claimed yet another life. Meanwhile, the party assessed that finding firewood was their top priority. Aidas offered his winter coat to Sessa to keep her from freezing to death, while Minerva cast destroy water on Kamara’s clothing to dry it out.

The party burned a small fire for a few hours but realized they would need to gather more wood quickly. Minerva went out on her own looking for wood but ran into a trap set by Vernis. Minerva found herself surrounded by wolves and was savagely mauled by three of them. With horror, Minerva endured Vernis’ one last taunt against her deity Dendar as she bled to death.

As Minerva lay dying, an anthropomorphic polar bear approached Lightscript’s corpse and declared that it was Lightscript’s “lucky unluckiest day.” The polar bear began assembling the components to cast a reincarnation spell—the outcome and Lightscript’s future uncertain.

### Episode 4

*Cold Embrace of Death*

*The below synopsis are by one of our amazing community members, DrPenguinCorey. Thank you, Penguin!*

Last week on Cold Blooded, our adventuring party of escaped convicts discovered that their traveling companion, Minerva, had been ambushed and slain by wolves. Aidas also found human tracks and a magical glyph on Minerva’s corpse that suggested that the druid Vernis was behind the wolf ambush.

The party regrouped around a campfire with adequate fuel and wolf pelts to make winter clothing for Sessa. As the night wore on, the party discussed their traveling options with Aidas wanting to stick close to the river to force Vernis to attack them from the forest, while Vaelish wanted to lure Vernis into a trap by using one of their number as bait.

Sessa suggested Vaelish would make the best bait considering his maimed condition. Vaelish rejected this idea by noting that he might be able to counter Vernis’ cold spells if it came to it. Vaelish further postured to the group that he would kill them all before offering himself as bait. Eventually, Durth the Dwarf volunteered to become the bait reasoning he had the best chance to survive a direct attack from Vernis and the wolves.

Meanwhile, Uthal the Kodan, read a scroll of reincarnation over Lightscript’s corpse only to exclaim, “whoa, I don’t think you’re done cooking yet” When Lightscript began to move. To Uthal’s chagrin, Lightscript came back as some form of undead creature still bearing frostbite on his fingers and missing his nose. Uthal apologized to Lightscript for botching the reincarnation spell and blamed Milo their scroll dealer for creating a flawed spell scroll.

Lightscript received a Knucklehead Trout from Uthal as a good-luck parting gift. Uthal mentioned that their tribe could be found at Sky Tower Shelter but expressed concern that Lightscript’s undead state would not be well received by some members of the tribe.

Later that day, the adventuring party sprang their trap on Vernis. With four wolves in tow, Vernis entered the clearing where Durth was praying to his god and proceeded to attack the party who did not gain the element of surprise as they had hoped. Vernis’s cone of cold spell nearly incapacitated Harland and Aidas.

Durth transformed his own body into a large size and began plowing a swath of carnage through the wolves with his psionic blade to get to Vernis. The rest of the party concentrated their fire on Vernis slowly whittling down the frost druid’s health. Vaelish temporarily looked like he might not render assistance to the party but after a brief telepathic message to Aidas, Vaelish began using his counter spells to block Vernis’s most potent attacks.

Eventually, Durth landed the killing blow on Vernis and the remaining wolves scattered once their leader had fallen. As the party inspected Vernis’ staff they realized the icy rod did not contain the magic that caused the land to become cold and kept the sun from rising. As the party tended their wounds, they heard Lightscript approaching.

Kamara was initially happy to see Lightscript, but drew back in revulsion when he recognized Lightscript’s new undead visage. This reunion was quickly joined by another as the corpse of Minerva shambled up to the party. Zombie-Minerva was followed by the appearance of prisoner 266 who introduced themselves as Darcy. The party spent the remainder of the day intrigued and bewildered by the sudden appearance of Darcy who seemed both desperate for friendship and mentally unhinged.

### Episode 5

*Arrival in Lonelywood*

*The below synopsis are by one of our amazing community members, DrPenguinCorey. Thank you, Penguin!*

Last time on Cold Blooded, our rag-tag group of escaped inmates finally arrived at the town of Lonelywood after over a week of travel in Icewind Dale’s frozen north. Harland left the group after coming to terms with the sudden appearance of a necromancer named Darcy who displayed more weirdness than he could handle. Without much ceremony, Harland left in a direction that would not take him to Lonely Wood.

The party arrived in the small town and immediately sought out shelter, provisions, and work. Kamara and Sessa made for the Lucky Liar tavern and attempted to earn some coin by playing music and picking up odd jobs from the town speaker. Aidas, Vaelish, Thuma, and Lightscript made for the tavern and found it vacant, its previous owner dead by suicide.

The party established the Ramshackle inn as their base for sleeping. They rekindled the hearth fire and blacked out the windows to keep their presence a secret. Darcy, meanwhile, sent her unseen servant into the Happy Scrimshander general store to get “snackies.” The store proprietor caught Darcy, but eventually let her take the supplies as she explained that her father was Speaker Whalen.

Later at the Tavern, the party met with Speaker Milo Fernkettle, who described his position as something akin to a mayor. Lightscript inquired about getting a scroll of reincarnation from Milo, but the cost of 350 gold was more than he could afford. Milo suggested that the party could investigate some local trouble in the east at Caer-Dineval and exchange that work for the scroll.

Milo also noted to Lightscript that the town of Bryn Shander had a bounty out for a group of dwarves who went missing. Meanwhile, back at the inn, Darcy inquired if it would be alright if she made a new leg for Vaelish. Vaelish accepted the offer to get Darcy to stop bugging him. Afterwards, Vaelish and Aidas agreed to stay with their “merry band of idiots” until they could get to the town of Bryn Shander.

Later that night, Aidas overheard Darcy chanting followed by the smell of something putrid coming from Darcy’s room. When Aidas investigated, he discovered that Darcy had summoned a small bug-eyed creature. Darcy merrily introduced Aidas to “her son” Herbert.

Later that evening, Sessa attempted to contact her homeland by climbing on the roof of the inn and using her gauntlets to send a message. The communication she received was reminiscent of a language she heard when she was once a prisoner elsewhere in the cosmos. Stunned and frightened by the voice, Sessa fell off the roof. Kamara went to check on Sessa and realized that she had experienced some major trauma before she was incarcerated in the prison.

Once the party retired to the inn for the evening, they met Darcy’s son, Herbert. Lightscript identified Herbert as a Quasit—a small demon. Later that night, Lightscript went out to check on Marcy-Zombie and contemplated his new undead state. After watching all night, around morning, Marcy unsuccessfully attacked Lightscript.

Lightscript quickly left the storage shed and ran into Darcy who calmed Marcy-Zombie down with a blow from a whistle. Lightscript inquired about the whistle since it also hurt his own ears and realized the magic item had words written on it in the abyssal language. Lightscript then confided to Darcy that persimmons were his favorite food and they both went back to the inn.

### Episode 6

*A Bounty and a Debt*

*The below synopsis are by one of our amazing community members, DrPenguinCorey. Thank you, Penguin!*

Last week on Cold Blooded, our ragged band of escaped prisoners spent the night at the town of Lonelywood and prepared for their journeys ahead of them. Aidas got to know his sword a little and discovered it was forged by a person known as the Kavetel, a Forge Smith who serves an arch-mage. The sword explained that as Aidas gained proficiency in melee combat, new modes of combat would become unlocked

Darcy also approached Lightscript and confided that he had her blessing to enter into a relationship with Marcy-Zombie. Lightscript admitted it would be his first relationship in over 300 years of existence and Darcy pondered if that would be too much of a difference for them to have a healthy relationship. As the conversation continued, Darcy showed Lightscript the whistle she had used to animate Marcy-Zombie but refused to explain how she acquired it.

The next day, the party decided to depart for the town of Bryn Shander and discovered as they were leaving town that wanted posters of the party now adorned the town message board. While the posters listed the crimes of the various inmates, the blame for the prison break was erroneously placed on Lightscript. Interestingly, Darcy was not included among the wanted people even though the rest of the inmates remembered she was a prisoner too.

Kamara scouted around and discovered that counselor Osmond from Waterdeep was leading the search for the escapees. The party decided to leave town immediately and made a b-line for the town of Termalaine. Once they arrived at Termalaine the group pondered stealing horses or buying more winter gear but decided to abandon the city all together when they realized wanted posters were already adorning the message boards of this town as well.

The party made their way to the city of Bryn Shander and the group split up to run their errands. Aidas and Vaelish went to the tavern to meet with Aidas’ contact who had placed the bounty on Vaelish. Once again, Vaelish attempted to get Aidas to abort the idea of turning him in, but Aidas did not find Vaelish’s promise of super powerful magic items to be worth the risk of angering his current employer.

The rest of the party sought out the general store buying winter supplies and haggling for magic items and enchanted clothing. Once again Darcy purchased the items on credit, claiming to be the daughter of the speaker of Easthaven. After the shopping spree, the party went to the tavern to harass Aidas and Vaelish even though Aidas had warned them to not be around to witness the meeting with his employer.

As the party arrived at the tavern, Aidas’ employer, named Avarice, also arrived. She got the information from Vaelish she desired and excused Aidas to go and retrieve his payment. Aidas and Vaelish both sensed that Avarice was planning to kill Vaelish, but Aidas left the injured mage to fend for himself, leaving to collect his payment.

Vaelish realized that he needed allies quickly and lied to Avarice that he had told the rest of the party about the location of the magical artifacts, and that they would defend him if necessary. Avarice was not impressed with Vaelish’s threat and cast a fireball killing the other patrons of the tavern and seriously injuring the most of the members of the party.

In the scrap that followed, the group consisting of Darcy, Lightscript, Sessa, and Kamara managed to escape the tavern and fight off a gargoyle that Avarice had animated. Thuma the orc stayed behind to fight Avarice and was killed along with Vaelish. As the melee concluded, Aidas reached the statue where his payment was buried only to be double-crossed by Avarice who summoned another gargoyle to kill him.

### Episode 7

*On The Lamb Again*

*The below synopsis are by one of our amazing community members, DrPenguinCorey. Thank you, Penguin!*

Last time on Cold Blooded, Aidas split from the party of escaped prisoners in the town of Brinshander to go collect his pay for delivering Vaelish to Avarice, a mage with the arcane brotherhood. Aidas went to the place where his payment was supposedly buried but instead, he found an animated gargoyle that attacked him.

Aidas was able to muster his newly acquired powers over darkness to confuse and disorient the gargoyle. Striking and dodging, Aidas whittled the gargoyle down to gravel. Realizing he had been betrayed by the Arcane Brotherhood, Aidas returned behind the walls of Brinshander to find the party’s scuffle with Avarice in the tavern had put the entire city on high alert.

The rest of the party, including Kamara, Darcy, Sessa, and Lightscript all ventured into the housing district of Bryn Shander and commandeered an abandoned building to lodge for the night. Lightscript kept fretting that his body was looking increasingly “undead” after taking a blast from a fireball during the bar fight with Avarice. Lightscript used the bind familiar spell to conjure a raven for himself—he named it Craven.

Kamara went out looking for Aidas and Darcy sent her familiar Herbert looking for him as well, but both came back empty handed. Kamara did notice that there was a door-to-door search going on in the town and he concocted a plausible story that he had purchased the dwelling “sight unseen” at a very good price. The guard did not inquire further or alert the town guard.

Later, Kamara discovered the ghost of the previous owner of the home. Apparently, he had been sacrificed by the townsfolk in an attempt to plicate the Frost Maiden and remove the sunless curse upon the land. Meanwhile, Lightscript sent out his raven to look for Aidas and deliver a written note detailing where the party was staying. Aidas misinterpreted the message and went to the address thinking Avarice had captured them all since she had a Raven too.

Aidas snuck into the house, managed to mildly injure Lightscript, and then realized the party was fine. As they pondered their situation, the party decided to go for broke and steal an airship docked in the city. They managed a clever plan to impersonate town guards and commandeer the ship under the pretense of taking prisoners back to the Revel’s End prison.

The party made their way to the airship-port and managed to convince the airship crew that they needed to depart immediately. As the party listened to the pre-launch spiel, some were given rings of feather-fall, which prompted Kamara to try to abscond with more of the rings for himself. Darcy kept the crew’s attention by feigning a broken leg but Kamara was unable to turn the distraction to his advantage.

As the airship made for Revel’s End, Lightscript sent out his raven to communicate with Darcy on the upper decks to make it look like the speaker of Easthaven was summoning the airship to turn south and arrive at Easthaven even though the city did not have a sky-dock. Eventually, the crew turned the ship to head to Easthaven.

The party of escapees decided they would strike before they arrived at Easthaven. Using invisibility spells, Lightscript and Kamara snuck up on the crew and methodically pushed them off of the deck, plummeting to their deaths. The captain surrendered to Sessa who demanded that the captain teach her how to fly the ship. The session ended with Lightscript chastising the captain for lying about the rings of feather-fall which cost him the lives of his crew.

### Episode 8

*The ID Ascendant*

*The below synopsis are by one of our amazing community members, DrPenguinCorey. Thank you, Penguin!*

On the season finale of Icewind Dale: Cold Blooded, our party of escaped convicts had successfully taken over an airship and dispatched most of the ship’s original crew. Sessa demanded that the captain of the ship teach her how to operate the craft and was startled to find that the ship lacked the sort of technology she was accustomed to. Realizing the ship was not “voice activated” Sessa lamented to her associates that she would not be helpful in making the ship go.

The captain was exceptionally fearful for his life and offered to take the party to Luskin, describing it as a pirate city south of the Spine of the World. As the party headed south, a Roc attacked the ship. Lightscript attempted to communicate with the creature, but he eventually realized that there was another creature riding on the Roc controlling it.

As the Roc made its third pass at the ship, it plunged into the balloon which kept the ship aloft. Quickly the ship plummeted from the sky causing the party to make desperate survival actions. Lightscript and Darcy prepared to misty step when the ship hit the ground. Darcy sent her Quasit Herbert to rescue Marcy-Zombie. Aidas asked his sword to do something and it cast a feather fall charm on itself—sadly, Aidas was not able to hold on to the sword and reap the benefits.

Sessa grabbed the ship’s captain and princess-carried him over the bow into a free fall. Sessa was able to misty step, sustaining minimal injury, the captain was not so lucky. Lightscript prepared to cast misty step but the spell book flew from his hand before he could cast the spell. Kamara took a desperation drink from his enchanted bottle of wine and encouraged Lightscript to do better. The result is that all of the party survived the crash but some like Aidas sustained severe injuries.

As the party came to, Sessa and Aidas began having visions of a ship that reminded them both of previous encounters. Aidas attributed the feelings and voices in his head to the powers portrayed by Mind Flayers. Sessa initially wanted to escape, but soon realized that the spaceship she arrived on may be close by. As they pondered investigating the strange feelings they were experiencing, a large red creature began to approach the party.

Sessa identified the creature as a Slaad. Using spells to nerf the creature, the party made incredibly short work of the monster without suffering any injuries themselves. After the combat, Sessa assessed that the Slaad was starving and malnourished. Searching the area, Aidas alerted the party to a Nautaloid ship crashed in the ice close to where they discovered the Slaad.

Sessa decided to explore the ship and recommended to the rest of the party that they would be safer if they stayed behind. Kamara took the opportunity to promise to go with Sessa because he cared for her. The rest of the group also agreed not to split the party and they all journeyed inside. Darcy sent Herbert in to scout the ship discovering several dead Mind Flayers, A flesh golem, and other unidentified aberrations. One of those creatures discovered Herbert and blasted him to pieces.

The aberration then summoned two carrion crawlers to investigate the perimeter of the ship. The party engaged the creatures with both of Darcy’s zombies falling to the creatures before they managed to destroy the bugs with a mix of spells and melee attacks. The party grabbed Marcy’s body and ran from the ship as a Gnome Ceramorph appeared on the deck of the ship and fired a shot from its laser gun at the party. The shot went wide, and the party escaped to find cover.

As the party regrouped, Sessa explained that the Mind Flayers must be dead, because a Gnome Ceremorph would not normally come directly into combat like that. Sessa also began to show signs of severe chest pain. As the party pondered their situation, they all reached a point of solidarity acknowledging that they had become friends amid their circumstances.

Together they decided to go back to the ship and try and destroy the remaining aberrations on the ship. They placed their hands together and promised to “do it for the round pastry.” As they finished their “go team” moment, Sessa cried out, and a new-born Slaad burst out of her chest killing her instantly.

### Episode 1

*Fizzle the Friend*

*The below synopsis are by one of our amazing community members, DrPenguinCorey. Thank you, Penguin!*

Last week on Cold Blooded, our intrepid escapees had to deal with their companion Sessa’s sudden leap off this mortal coil. A small creature burst from Sessa’s chest and attempted to scurry away from the party into the snowy wilderness. Lightscript and Aidas managed to corral the creature and store it in a sealed glass jar.

Kamara grieved over the loss of Sessa and became determined to give the body a proper burial. Darcy wanted to reanimate the body with her whistle and she became enraged at the thought of not being allowed to reanimate her friend. In Darcy’s rage, she revealed that necromantic powers had twisted her visage—giving her a monstrous second smile and sharp jagged teeth.

After the burial, Aidas attempted to guide the group out of the snowy wilderness but the journey was difficult and amounted to the party becoming lost and exhausted in the snow. Along the way a few good things happened: Kamara figured out how to use Sessa’s gauntlets as a bag of holding. Lightscript found the body of a deceased mage with an unused spell scroll. Darcy animated the deceased mage and added him to her collection of friends.

Aidas managed to scavenge a ring of fire resistance from the deceased mage (Darcy named him Sesso) proving once again that when you are in a survival situation, you use every part of every kill. As they trekked further, they had a brief encounter with a Yeti that attacked them, but it quickly retreated after Aidas, Lightscript, and Darcy’s Zombies ganged up on it.

After a week, the party was exhausted, suffering from hypothermia, and on the brink of despair when they ran into a Duergar scouting party containing their old acquaintance Durth. Durth took the party back to his mountain stronghold and allowed the party to get warm and rest. The party also met Fizzle, a small Kobold Artificer who once apprenticed for the mage Vaelish. Darcy and Fizzle immediately bonded over the notion that friends are “experiment fodder.”

As the party recuperated Aidas informed Durth about their trials and tribulations they had experienced since they parted ways. Durth was not surprised by the crashed Mindflayer spaceship, but seemed immensely worried over the Firbolg riding a Roc. Kamara took the time to meet with a Duergar priest and inquire about the way his bottle of wine often put him into contact with the thoughts and memories of departed souls.

Eventually Aidas and Kamara talked with Durth about a job he wanted done. The party was asked to travel to the town of East Haven to acquire some obsidian that was discovered beneath the lake. In exchange for bringing the obsidian back, Durth offered to outfit the party with gear and supplies.

While Kamara and Aidas were talking about future jobs, the rest of the group explored their surroundings and promptly entered a library that was off limits to guests. Eventually, the guards prodded the group back to their “room” but Fizzle managed to steal a map of Icewind Dale. Later, the group gathered together again, and Aidas and Kamara let them know that they had a job to do and they would be given a set of Axe Beaks to aid in their wintery travel.

Eventually the party began to realize that Lightscript and Marcy-Zombie were beginning to putrefy. Lightscript asked a Duergar taxidermist to create a leather mask for his face so that he could keep some of his parts from randomly falling off. The taxidermist also seemed rather taken aback that he was meeting so many creatures who claimed to have experienced an afterlife.

That night Fizzle silently enchanted Kamara’s rapier and Darcy’s dagger, making them magical weapons. In the morning, Kamara and Darcy marveled at their improved blades. Darcy, like a good doting mother, immediately gave her improved blade to Herbert.

## Helpful Info

New episodes of Icewind Dale: Cold Blooded premiere every Wednesday, 6:00PM Pacific / 9:00PM Eastern on twitch.tv/magirpg.

Icewind Dale: Cold Blooded's Campaign Intro song was written & performed by our very own Usulbard.

###### Where to watch past episodes:

* Twitch
* YouTube