Rime of the Frostmaiden: The Ending
The published finale is uneven and rushed. So for the last session of our twenty-session campaign, I threw it out — and got the fallen city of Ythryn back up, flying, and carrying the fight to the Frost Maiden on her own island. Here is the whole run: the changes, the encounters, the loot, and every read-aloud.
In my opinion, the conclusion of Rime of the Frostmaiden, as written in the campaign guide, is uneven and rushed. According to some theories, the “Auril’s Abode” section was meant to be the original end-game area — but the book was thought a little short, so the Caves of Hunger and Ythryn were added later to pad out the campaign and end on a higher-quality dungeon.
Finishing in Auril’s Abode and bypassing this whole area is technically feasible, but it would be a missed opportunity. Ythryn is a magnificent location; discovering the central spire by exploring the city is one of the campaign’s most memorable moments. There are several possible endings here:
As a Dungeon Master, I felt options 1 and 2 were lacklustre and unexciting — though this might differ for more combat- or RP-focused groups.
I recently listened to a brilliant two-hour Rime podcast with a highly skilled, role-play-focused group. Their game ran so differently from mine that it took me a while to work out which part of the book they were even on — it was the ghost story in Lonelywood. Two hours of high-end RP. That same scene took me two minutes, because I’d tied it heavily into the elf zombie in the moose quest.
My DM style resembles the Acquisitions Incorporated “stage” style — high drama, humour, and memorable moments. After all, I DM for children aged 11–13, and D&D is competing with Marvel movies for their attention. So the following breakdown, challenges and style may not suit your table, and that’s fine. For me, the idea of a flying city as a base is fantastic — so I went for option 4.
Staged Boss Fights
All the boss characters have stages of combat broken up with puzzles, roleplaying, and the like — no single slog.
The City Flies
The city travels to Auril’s island for the final battle. The party has to restart it, lift it, and pilot it.
Auril Is A God
Auril cannot be beaten by the players. She’s a god. You don’t kill her — you break her and drive her from her realm.
Expanded Towers
We’ve been using the excellent Expanded Towers of Magic supplement to give the spire’s rooms depth and loot.
The Time Crack
A “time crack” at Ythryn’s entrance: entering the vortex rewound time, and its energy was collected into vials. The team can “undo” the last five minutes by smashing one — woven through the Towers of Magic challenges.
The Player’s Challenge This Session
Find the items to restart the city — which naturally involves a confrontation with the Lich in the spire. Get the city aloft and fly it to Auril’s island. Then confront the Frostmaiden and stop the rime — which blasts them back in time, and so we start the next campaign.
Dragonborn, high elf, human, half-elf, dwarf — a druid, a sorcerer, a ranger, a rogue and a warlock. My own kids, and the heroes of Icewind Dale.
I begin by welcoming the team back to the table. We haven’t played since before Christmas, so I ask who remembers what happened last — and reward anyone with perfect recall, usually with an inspiration token.
Then I set them loose in the spire’s Star Library, with one job: search it, and find the Scroll of the Comet.
This ancient parchment is adorned with celestial illustrations and mystical sigils that seem to shift and shimmer like the night sky. The comet creates a 50-foot-deep, 500-foot-radius crater on impact — DC 20 Dexterity save, 30d10 force damage, half on a success.
A portal drops the party into the lich’s study. He is not here to fight — Vellynne warns, “Be wary, remember last time. Don’t attack him if you can avoid it.” Iriolarthas hums to himself and drifts around the room. The moment a player searches somewhere, he swoops over and quizzes them.
There are ten searchable areas. Each has a real find — and a gloriously stupid failure. Fail a search (DC 12–15) and you get the joke item instead. Find something real, and the lich rushes in with a puzzle (roll 1d4). Fail three puzzles and he swallows the party into his Living Demiplane for a fight.
Captures the lich’s essence. Smash it and he cries out — his health is halved.
A tiny spider construct. Held to the face, it grants a vision of Iriolarthas casting a portal spell.
DC 15 INT to decipher: the wizards could use the obelisk’s power “to turn back time and avert ruin.”
Enchanted dice that grant advantage on any check when rolled. (Also here: a screaming Whispering Snowglobe.)
A small vial — DC 15 WIS/INT to identify. Radiates a soft silvery glow across whatever it touches.
DC 10 to notice. Vellynne blanches: once summoned, the Tarrasque is uncontrollable and seeks only destruction.
DC 12 Investigation on the alchemical apparatus yields the tonic.
The key. Dark rituals tied to the mythallar — the incantation to control it and make the city fly.
Ventus et caelum, coniungam sibi.
Mythallar, obedi, fervor astralis,
Civitas volat, potentia sine finis.
And the prize behind it all — Iriolarthas’ Staff of Power: ebony wood and enchanted ice crystals, a polished ruby at its pinnacle shifting through fiery hues. The staff is what jams into the mythallar. Break it there, and the city wakes.
1 · Dancing Statues — mimic the animated statues’ routine with enthusiasm and style. 2 · Giggling Gargoyles — tell jokes to three stone gargoyles until they laugh. 3 · Riddles. 4 · Find the Penguin / Dingbats — visual and word puzzles at the table.
“In the morning I’m so soft that feathers are tough. In the afternoon I roar like a mighty storm. What am I?” (Snow.)
“The more you take, the more you leave behind. What am I?” (Footsteps.)
“I have keys but no locks, space but no room; you can enter but can’t go inside. What am I?” (A keyboard.)
Killing the lich isn’t a necessity. My team got him down to 10 HP and then made a deal with him — likely because I played him friendly-crazy, and they found him funny. They did, however, make him hand over the following loot.
Advantage on saves against necrotic damage; once per day, a burst of cold energy within 10 feet.
+1d6 cold damage; once per day, Frost Strike forces a CON save or the target is restrained for a minute.
Advantage on Stealth in snow and ice; once per day, cast Invisibility for one minute.
Advantage on saves against charm; once per day, cast Hold Person without a spell slot.
While the party loots the lich, Vellynne takes the Scroll of Tarrasque and the Scroll of the Comet, places the Spectral Quill-Weaver’s web over her face — and collapses to her knees, writhing. Ask the players: how do you help her? She rises with the answer.
“I know how to defeat the Frost Maiden… We need to restart the city! Quickly — one of you grab the Staff of Power, we must go to the mythallar!”
A sudden chill has seized the air. Icy gusts blowing through the doors have extinguished the flames in the room; frost patterns have adorned every surface.
Out on the balcony: a battle at the city’s entrance, icy fog on the walkway, magic lights flashing, swords ringing. “Avarice is fighting her!” A huge explosion — DEX saves to stay upright. Then the scramble down the tower: “How does everyone get down?” Set the DC by their answers — teleport, levitate, leap, turn into birds. Reward the clever ones.
I was running out of time here, so I dropped the Tomb Tapper encounter and instead ran an RP challenge: some “force” holding the players back from the Mythallar. It turned out to be great fun — one player used items from earlier sessions, including the squid gloves (suckers and all) they’d looted from the pirate adventure.
As the power of the Mythallar of Ythryn courses through your minds, an overwhelming surge of arcane energy engulfs your consciousness — a vast tapestry of ancient magic unfurling within you, whispers of long-forgotten spells resonating in your thoughts.
A magical force holds them back from the slot. Each player spends a skill or an item to push forward — STR, DEX, a spell — until they can jam the staff in and break it. An enormous thud; sudden silence; then light plays across the whole chamber. Vellynne: “Now command it to rise!” The scroll-bearer reads the comet into the sky:
Ignite the heavens, a celestial heart.
Ephemeral messenger, traverse the space,
In the mortal gaze, leave your ethereal trace!
The comet materialises and streaks across the firmament; the cavernous ceiling of ice is blown apart and melted. Ythryn tears free of the glacier and flies — leaving Auril and Avarice behind. Vellynne, holding up the tarrasque scroll: “Now let’s fly to Auril’s island and drop this on it!”
Keeping a city aloft is a team effort. Rotate the players through checks — whoever’s free, whatever fits the fiction. A menu to draw from:
Arcana to stabilise the matrix · Perception to spot hazards · Investigation for malfunctions · Survival to navigate · Dexterity saves for sudden shifts · Engineering/INT for propulsion · Charisma to rally the inhabitants · History for aerial lore · Persuasion to coax the wards · Nature to harness the wind.
“Pathetic mortals! You dare defile my realm with your feeble attempts at summoning chaos? Your powers belong to me, woven into the very essence of Ythryn. Prepare for the wrath of the Frostmaiden!”
As the first form nears defeat, Auril reaches for the Rogue — the one who completed the Rite on her island and has heard her voice ever since. “Forest, come to my aid!” She’s whisked into a fractured reflection where a voice urges her to abandon her friends.
The counter is positive memories: “Team — what good memories of this last year can you recall? I need at least three.” Channel them, and Forest shatters the reflection. A DEX check catches a shard — Mirror’s Insight: once per encounter, summon a spectral image to distract Auril, granting the whole party advantage.
Forest is our Rogue — she had completed the Rite of Auril on the Frostmaiden’s island, and had been hearing her voice ever since. So when Auril called out for her, it landed. Watch the player’s eyes: once the charm breaks, they stop glowing blue.
“Behold the majesty of winter incarnate, for I am the Frost Maiden, unbound by mortal constraints. Embrace the eternal frost, for in my second form, I am the harbinger of your demise!”
She teleports the party into solo trials. Escape the Rift: a slippery ice bridge over a chasm — Acrobatics to cross, DEX saves each square or fall prone, falling icicles and patrolling ice elementals. Reach the far side to unlock a portal back.
Survive the Avalanche: a steep snow slope with the wall of white coming down. Roll initiative; move at half speed, sprint on an Athletics check; DEX saves each round against the avalanche; assist each other for advantage; reach the escape point to teleport back to the fight.
“Behold my descent — not into defeat, but into a form more insidious. I am the eternal winter, and in my weaker guise, you shall discover the true extent of your folly.”
When a creature enters or starts its turn within 20 ft, she summons a shard of ice — 4d8 piercing and restrained until the start of its next turn on a fail.
Target a creature within 60 ft; on a fail, restrained until the end of its next turn.
Ice explosion in a 20-ft radius — 8d6 cold and pushed 10 ft on a fail; half and no push on a save.
“Quickly — cast the Tarrasque spell!”
In echoes of torment and darkness persist.
With a voice of thunder, a roar of the abyss,
I beckon thee, Tarrasque, arise from the chasm’s kiss.
The very fabric of the world seems to warp and twist. The Tarrasque materialises in a violent eruption of otherworldly energy, its gargantuan form rising from the ground, scaled hide covered in ethereal energies that writhe and flicker like dark flames. It unleashes a bestial roar — and the landscape buckles beneath its colossal weight.
The entire city of Ythryn is encased in an ethereal frost, a crystalline cocoon that spreads rapidly from the epicentre of Auril’s demise. Nothing can move except Auril. She laughs. Frozen players can only watch as she cackles with glee…
…and then she is slammed by a giant iron golem. It crashes through her icy shield and carries them both over the city’s edge. “Metal meets frost, plunge into chaos; destiny intertwined in descent!” The golem gives a thumbs-up as it falls.
It’s the iron golem who was missing a head back in the Caves of Hunger — my team saved it and helped it regain its head. If that hadn’t happened, I’d have used Oyaminartok, the goliath werebear, from an earlier chapter. Either way: a callback the table earned, arriving at the exact moment all hope is lost.
But the frozen city loses its buoyancy. With a mournful groan, Ythryn begins to fall. Vellynne: “If only we had more time!” — and someone remembers the time vial. “This is not enough to save the whole city. Wait — the Obelisk! Grab the staff!”
In that fleeting exchange, unspoken camaraderie and resolve pass between them — a silent pact forged in the crucible of their quest. With a final nod, they unleash the Staff of Power’s potential. The air crackles, the obelisk resonates, time bending and folding around them. With a flash, the entire city vanishes.
Ythryn plunges backward in time, its history unfolding in reverse — a kaleidoscopic tapestry of ages. And each of the heroes blacks out.
They wake with their armour hanging off them, sizes too large. The city around them is brand new — and the frozen figures are, on closer inspection, people. The orb glows and answers Vellynne’s question:
“You’re still in the flying city of Ythryn. Only you’ve travelled into the past. Two thousand years into the past — to the time of the Netherese wizards!”
I love Fallout: New Vegas and 4. One of the best things about them is the ending slides that outline what happened and the impact the players had on the world. So I made my own for Icewind Dale — and read the accompanying text aloud.
Auril’s Fate
The Tarrasque’s rampage triggers avalanches that bury her sanctuaries. She flees the island — some say to the Underdark, others to another dimension.
Ten Towns
The rime curse lifts. Frozen lakes thaw, trade routes reopen, and the isolating cold gives way to a communal warmth.
The Pirate Queen
The Frozen Sea warms and marine life returns. News of the heroes reaches a humble inn, and her heart swells with pride.
Sunblight
Warmth returns to the stone halls. The duergar shed their icy obedience and become guardians of Icewind Dale.
Lonelywood
Speaker Nimsy Huddle leads the rebuild. The tale of their saviours becomes cherished folklore.
Icewind Dale
Passes reopen, communities reconnect, and the Northern Lights dance over a land reborn in resilience and hope.
We’re taking a two-month break before a few one-shots — then building up to a new campaign in the summer.
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🎲Convention Chronicles #1
Want something lighter for your next session? A comedic Level-9 one-shot that drops into any campaign — foam swords, a cosplay tournament, and Hype instead of HP. Free PDF.
