D20 SYSTEM✦ Normal

Dragondown Snowfields: The Frostheart Gambit

# Beast# Wilderness# Intrigue

The Dragondown Snowfields are in turmoil. A Frost Dragon Wyrmling has been stolen from its clutch by ruthless poachers, destabilizing the local ecosystem. The dragon's enraged mother now threatens nearby settlements, while the poachers trade the stolen 'Scale Shards'—fragments of the wyrmling's nascent magic—on the black market. Players are thrust into a frozen powder keg where saving the wyrmling may condemn the region's struggling pioneers, and siding with the poachers may unleash a greater draconic wrath.

Chronicle Prelude

The player party arrives at the frontier trading post of Frostholm, a hardscrabble settlement clinging to the edge of the frozen wastes. Smoke rises from chimneys, but an undercurrent of fear is palpable. The town elder begs for help against the rampaging mother dragon, while whispers in the tavern point to a syndicate operating out of the old silver mine.

Environmental Traits

The immediate crisis is the enraged mother Frost Dragon, Iskrathor, whose violent rampages endanger Frostholm and the surrounding pioneer homesteads. The underlying conflict is between the desperate pioneers who see the Scale Shards as their economic salvation and a secret druidic circle sworn to draconic balance.

Legendary Archetypes

Rayan

HP:45

STR:16

WIS: 12

CHA:11

Key Factions & Autonomous Nodes (8)

Elder Henrik
An aged human with a thick grey beard and deep lines of worry etched around his eyes. He wears heavy furs and a tarnished silver chain of office. His movements are slow, weighed down by the burden of leadership in a dying land.
Silas the Coin
A sleek, well-dressed half-elf with a charming smile that never quite reaches his cold, calculating eyes. He wears fine, albeit practical, wool and carries a ledger of transactions. He operates from a hidden alcove in Frostholm's market.
Elara Moss-heart
A young human woman with hair like autumn leaves and eyes the colour of deep moss. She wears robes of woven bark and green wool, and is often found meticulously examining frost-bitten plants or dragon-spore in the snowfields.
Old Theron
A gaunt, weather-beaten human with matted grey hair and a patchy beard, dressed in mismatched furs and rags. He lives in a hidden cave littered with dragon bones, obsidian shards, and decades of strange observations. His eyes hold a piercing, lonely intelligence.
Bjorn Iron-jaw
A towering, powerfully built human with a matted beard, numerous scars, and a lower jaw sheathed in crude iron plate. He wears heavy, patched leather and carries a massive, notched warhammer. He guards the wyrmling's prison with silent, unwavering loyalty.
Archdruid Valerius Thorn
An ancient human whose skin resembles weathered bark and whose long white hair is intertwined with living vines. His eyes glow with a soft, green light, and he is surrounded by a palpable aura of primal magic. He stands vigil over the wyrmling within the Root-Glade.
Aethelglim, the Frost Wyrmling
A young dragon, no larger than a large horse, with scales of shimmering blue-white and delicate, frost-rimmed wings. It is magically sedated and bound with thick, rune-inscribed chains in a pool of its own freezing breath. It breathes slowly, its presence a palpable cold spot and the source of all conflict.
Iskrathor, the Frost Fury
A colossal adult white dragon whose rage has weathered her scales to a dull, angry grey. Her eyes burn with cold fire, and her breath is a blizzard incarnate. She patrols the skies above the snowfields, her roars echoing as a constant environmental threat.

Chronicle Prelude

Environmental Traits

Legendary Archetypes

✦ Related Cases ✦

The Frozen Gambit of Winterhold

The Oasis of the Scorpion's Kiss