The Drow War Book Two. The Dying Of - RoseRed

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Location: The Glacial Peaks
If the Player Characters do not want to risk the tunnel,
they can always hike over the mountains. The going
is rough but bearable for a well-equipped party. The
Games Master should have one of the Player Characters
make a suitable Survival check and give the group this
information, so that they are aware that they have a
choice and are not being railroaded into the tunnel.
Rather than detailing every stretch of the journey and
having the Player Characters make Climb checks every
five minutes, the Games Master can introduce the
following events:
Spectres in the Mist: As the Player Characters skirt
around the side of a mountain on a narrow ledge
(five feet across), they encounter a difficult section to
negotiate. The ledge is broken in several places, with
gaps of between five and 15 feet. To make matters worse,
there is a thin mist in the air, making visibility poor. All
vision is obscured beyond 20 feet and creatures 20 feet
away have concealment.
As the Player Characters work out how to traverse this
obstacle, a pair of brocken spectres (see page 158)
rise up out of the valley to the west. The spectres use
their shadow illusion abilities to confuse the Player
Characters, making broken sections of ledge seem
sound.
If the Player Characters think to investigate the area
from whence the brocken spectres come, they may find
the remains of the climbers who became the spectres.
The Player Characters have to descend into the valley
to do this, which means climbing down the sheer
mountainside.
A Search check (DC 25) uncovers the bodies of two
male humans preserved by the ice. They are wearing
winter clothing and are clearly adventurers who died
from falling. In addition to rope and climber’s kits,
one carries a type IV bag of holding and the other has
a pair of boots of the winterlands. The bag of holding
contains a two-man tent, enough iron rations for four
weeks, a pot-belly stove, five sacks of coal, a shovel,
two bedrolls and four barrels of water. The iron rations
are musty but still edible; everything else is in good
condition. If the Player Characters use magic to find
out who they were, they discover that they were part
of a group led by Gustave Colombe of Chillhame two
years ago. Gustave was attempting to find a legendary
artefact called the Circlet of Chill Bone.
The Living Avalanche: As the Player Characters
progress along the floor of a small valley between two
mountain slopes, they hear the loud cawing of birds and
see a flock of arctic terns take to the air ahead of them.
Immediately afterwards there is a rumble from above
and to the east and a few loose chunks of ice come
scattering down. The Games Master should have all
the characters make Spot checks (DC 20); those who
succeed notice a huge mass of snow beginning to come
loose on the upper slopes to the east.
This is not an avalanche, but a glacial ooze (see page 161)
charging down the mountain slope. It is responding to
the stimulus of the tern flock taking off and is heading
towards what it thinks is food. If the Player Characters
run around to escape the ‘avalanche’, it homes in on
them instead. They may try to head for the opposite
slope, in which case they see the white mass crash into
the base of the valley and then slide up the opposite
slope in pursuit of them.
Encounters in the Air: The Player Characters may
try to fly over the peaks with a fly spell or something
similar. Even the sky is not safe. There are arctic lights
(see page 157) hovering in the air above the mountains.
These rabidly territorial energy beings do not like
strangers invading their space unannounced. 2–3 arctic
lights descend on any Player Character who enters their
airspace.
The brocken spectres can also fly, though not so
dextrously, and look upon flying adventurers with
special hate. The spectres are cursed to remain here
because they fell from the crags, and seeing a group
of smug adventurers go sailing overhead is an insult
to them. Two brocken spectres rise like smoky giants
from the mountains and try to cast the Player Characters
down to their deaths.
Location: The Colombe Camp
On the edge of the mountains, where the crags meet the
flat ice sheet, you see a collection of vague shapes that
you recognise as the collapsed remains of a camp. This
is no recent disaster like Ommersdale. By the looks of
it, these tents were set up more than a year ago. The
snow has piled against them, and many of the canvas
walls have collapsed under the weight, leaving only a
skeletal tangle of ice-crusted tent poles. There are no
signs of life – not that you expected any.
The Player Characters may remember Gustave
Colombe, the mad noble from The Drow War, Book
One: The Gathering Storm, who was driven insane
on a trip into the Waste to seek out the Circlet of Chill
Ibon Presno Gonzalez (order #73006) 8