D20 SYSTEM✦ Normal

The Froststone Schism: Exiles and Bandits

# Wilderness# Intrigue

The eternal winter of Froststone Crag is no natural blizzard. It is the grief-stricken exhalation of a dying frost giant heart, a relic claimed by two desperate factions. The Snow Elf Bandits, once a proud mountain tribe, now raid caravans to survive the magical cold that encroaches on their ancestral hunting grounds. Opposing them are the Exiled Scions of the Silverwood Court, high elves cast out for a forbidden ritual meant to weaponize the heart and end a distant war. Both claim stewardship of the Crag. Both are starving. Both will burn the other to ash to save their people. Players are not heroes here; they are arbiters of a slow-motion genocide, and every choice will leave a faction in ruins.

Chronicle Prelude

The players arrive at the besieged outpost of Winterhaven, a neutral trading post clinging to the edge of the Crag. Smoke from burning farmsteads mixes with the unnatural aurora of the giant's heart. Two delegations await: one in furs and scavenged steel, the other in tattered silver robes and glacial magic. Both offer contracts, coin, and pleas for justice.

Environmental Traits

Froststone Crag is a vertical, frozen hellscape. The magical cold is a character: it freezes gear, numbs the mind, and warps the land. The source, the Heart of Thrym, pulses deep within the Crag. Its power can be harnessed to save a dying city-state, to restore a frozen homeland, or to be silenced forever—but its guardians will not relinquish it without a blood price.

Legendary Archetypes

Rayan

HP:45

STR:16

WIS: 12

CHA:11

Key Factions & Autonomous Nodes (8)

Vargund Ice-Veined
A scarred, gaunt Snow Elf with frost-white hair braided with bone and iron. His eyes are haunted but fierce, and he wears armor stitched from the hides of winter wolves. He carries the weight of his starving clan on his shoulders.
Elder Thistle
An ancient, stooped Snow Elf draped in furs and woven frost-vines. Her eyes are a milky blue, and she moves with a quiet, unsettling grace. She smells of pine sap and old magic.
Commander Lyraelle of the Silverwood
A tall, pale Elf in immaculate, silver-inlaid plate armor, though it is tarnished by the harsh climate. Her expression is one of weary nobility and iron resolve. She carries an elven greatbow and a haunted look in her green eyes.
Archivist Kaelen
A young, intense Scion scholar in robes of deep blue, constantly jotting notes on a wax tablet. His fingers are stained with ink and frostbite. He hums with nervous energy and an obsessive focus on the mechanics of the Heart.
Fizbin Geargrinder
A wiry, grease-stained gnome in a patched leather apron, with oversized goggles pushed up on his forehead. He peers out from a hidden snow bunker, surrounded by half-repaired machinery and scrawled maps.
The Glacier Guardian
A towering, translucent figure of swirling ice and blue-white light, shaped like a giant but hollow. Its form constantly shifts and cracks, leaking shards of frozen sorrow. It moves with a slow, relentless inevitability.
Marauder Pathfinder
A wiry, silent Snow Elf clad in white furs and leather, nearly invisible against the snow. They carry a short bow and a cruel-looking hatchet, watching the wilderness with paranoid intensity.
Ryn, the Doubter
A disheveled Scion in torn, soiled robes, hiding in a frozen alcove. He is gaunt and shivering, his eyes wide with guilt and fear. He clutches a small, ornate key.

Chronicle Prelude

Environmental Traits

Legendary Archetypes

✦ Related Cases ✦

The Goblin Plight of Rivervale and the Cryptic Mine

The Lost Workshop: Heart of a Raging Core