Icewind Dale

Icewind Dale – Current Events, 1496 DR

In the far reaches of the north, @Icewind Dale has learned to endure winters without mercy, but 1496 DR has brought a different kind of cold—one that seeps into the bones and doesn’t let go. The Ten-Towns’ fishing fleets have been plagued by a new and inexplicable danger: massive chunks of crystal-clear ice drifting in from the @Sea of Moving Ice, each bearing the frozen silhouette of a humanoid figure locked mid-motion. These are not corpses; when the ice is cracked open, the “prisoners” inside vanish in a burst of frost and reappear days later in completely different parts of the Dale—sometimes miles inland—naked, silent, and incapable of speech. The Reghed tribes call them the Hushed, claiming they are scouts of a “sleeping hunger” beneath the ice.

In @Bryn Shander, Speaker @Duvessa Shane has tried to downplay the phenomenon, but her words ring hollow when caravans from the south begin refusing to cross @The Spine of the World. The reason? A new trade tax demanded by the Shiverbind Compact, an anonymous syndicate claiming authority over every road into @Icewind Dale. Their heralds, dressed in frost-rimed black furs, leave carved walrus-ivory tokens depicting a crescent moon pierced by an icicle at waystations and campfires along the routes. Those who refuse to pay often vanish, their sleds found days later with every metal object flash-frozen into brittle shards.

At sea, the Whalebone Anchorage—a ramshackle floating dock in the @Sea of Moving Ice—has become the center of a booming black market for rare “frost glass,” a strange, perfectly smooth ice harvested from the bellies of slain white whales. Sailors swear the glass can be used to scry across impossible distances, but others whisper that staring into it too long lets “the thing on the other side” stare back. The Arcane Brotherhood has taken a sudden interest, sending quiet delegations to @Bryn Shander under false names.

Winter itself seems different this year—quieter, heavier, and threaded with pale green lights that sometimes dance across the night sky even during storms. Reghed seers claim this is a sign of the Aurora Gate, an ancient threshold between @Icewind Dale and a realm of endless frost. If that gate opens, they say, the Hushed will no longer arrive one at a time—they’ll come in armies.