Curse of Strahd Reloaded Update: The Ice Caves

I. Reloaded Update

Since last Saturday's update, I've added an additional 3.4k words to Arc R: Trials of the Mountain—less than I'd like, but a decent amount nonetheless. Specifically, I've completed the following work regarding the players' post-avalanche foray through the frozen caverns of Mt. Ghakis:

• added the Frozen Vault, which holds a disguised (and cursed) amber shard of the Vampyr

• added the Cave of Daggers, an icefall cave, including mechanics for icicle cascades and a horde of forsaken soldiers—remnants of King Dostron's campaigns against the First Folk

• added the den of an elder shoosuva, including the amber shard that corrupted it

You can read some excerpts from these scenes below:

The Vampyr's Shard

You find yourself standing amidst a dark, endless void, illuminated by no light but a flickering, crimson glow. The light exudes from a chunk of blood-red resin—no longer mounted upon the iron pendant you wear, but hovering in the air before you, unmoored from matter or the pull of gravity. A shadow stirs in the resin’s heart, and you feel the weight of an ancient, interested gaze fall upon you.

"You are fragile, little mortal,” the shadow whispers. “I taste the fear of death upon you. Yet I smell, too, a desire for strength—a will that would bend Death to its service. Accept this small fragment of my gift, and you may yet survive what is to come.”

A small, blood-red spark floats forth from the resin’s depths, hovering patiently in the air before you.

The Cave of Daggers 

The tunnel winds nearly a mile east through the mountain, curving faintly through the ice sheet as you tread through the darkness.

Eventually, the tunnel widens further, its walls flanked by tall, hourglass-like ice structures with bulbous bases, where frozen meltwater has formed elongated ice “stalactites” and “stalagmites” that meet and meld in-between. Not far away, frozen cascades have formed eerie, ghostlike silhouettes, with long, crystalline tendrils hanging from rounded, overhanging “caps.”

Ahead, a ring of swollen icicles mark your entrance to a much larger space. As you pass beneath them, you find the tunnel ends upon a narrow, icy shelf overlooking a vast, cathedral-like ice cavern below.

Beams of soft, pale light filter in from far above, illuminating hundreds of jagged, tapering ice formations that glisten with radiant, ethereal beauty. An endless array of enormous icicles, ranging from a foot in length to the height of a man, dangle delicately from the ceiling overhead, their darkened reflections shimmering in a thin layer of frigid water that covers the cavern’s floor.

Ten feet to the left, at the edge of your current perch, a five-foot fallen icicle stands amidst a large patch of hoarfrost—a carpet of lacelike, feathery ice crystals—its sharpened end splitting the frozen earth like a lance through flesh. Forty feet ahead and to the right, an opening to an adjoining chamber stands atop another icy shelf that looms fifteen feet above the floor below.

One hundred feet ahead, the light illuminates the glittering surface of a fifty-foot frozen lake. Beyond the lake, the pale, gray glow of daylight flickers through a yawning cavern mouth.

The Frozen Lake

When the players first arrive at the lake’s banks, read:

The frost-veined ice of the frozen lake spreads out before you, its surface dotted with several small, rocky, snow-dusted, rocky isles that rise several feet above the ice below. Past the lake, and beyond the cavern mouth’s toothy threshold, the steely cliffs of Mount Ghakis rise sharply against the gray Barovian sky.

If a player has a passive Wisdom (Perception) score of 15 or greater, add:

You catch a glimpse of several still, dark shadows beneath the ice of the frozen lake’s surface.

The lake, which runs from the left side of the cave to the right, is covered with thin ice, except for the near and far banks, which are bordered by 5 feet of slippery ice. All thin ice along the lake’s surface has a weight tolerance of 165 pounds.

Five small, rocky isles dot the surface of the lake. Each isle is also topped with slippery ice.

The dark shadows beneath the ice are four forsaken soldiers. Twelve others have sunk low enough in the lake to be invisible from the surface. Of these sixteen, eight bear shortswords and eight bear spears.

The forsaken soldiers attack any creature that falls through the ice. If a forsaken soldier successfully grapples a player, it attempts to pull them underwater before attacking them with its shortsword or spear.

As always, you can get full access to my in-progress drafts by joining the Patreon as a paid member. All working drafts and outlines for future arcs, as well as a changelog and Trello board of upcoming edits, can be found on the Patreon Bronze Masterpost.

II. Other News

Upcoming Patch. Reloaded's next minor patch/edit update, 2.0.9.7, is coming soon! I'm currently working with my new editor to get it ready for publication, and it should hopefully be released before the end of next week.

Fanes Blog. Since my last update, I've published two blogs in a multi-part series regarding the development of the Fanes in Curse of Strahd: Reloaded. Silver-tier members of the Patreon can read the first installment here.

DM Skills Mentoring. Thank you to everyone who has purchased a Discord DMing skills mentoring session so far via my new Patreon Shop! For those interested, I'm currently offering 1-hour mentoring sessions regarding NPC roleplay, NPC voice-acting, combat execution, and monster design. Feel free to check it out if you haven't already!

Office Hours. Following the success of the last one, I've posted a new Reloaded Office Hours thread on /r/CurseOfStrahd. Feel free to post any questions, stories, or other comments there!

That's all I've got for this update! Hope you've been enjoying the previews of what's to come, and I'll see you next time.

Cheers,
Dragna