Icewind Dale

Icewind Dale is far to the north, sandwiched between the Sea of Moving Ice, the Reghed Glacier, and the Spine of the World. Itís home to a few tribes of tundra barbarians, reindeer, polar bears, wolves, elk, the fierce tundra yeti, and a white dragon or two. In the west, as the mountains descend to the Sea of Moving Ice, the ridge falls sufficiently to provide a pass. Through this, cara- vans journey to transport the ivory scrimshaw carvings that make the Dale financially worth inhabiting.

Cold. Dark. Bleak. Forlorn. Deadly. These words describe Icewind Dale on the best of days in the height of summer, but these are not the best of times, and summer has not come to the 'Dale for two years. The sun no longer appears above the mountains at all, and noon brings instead of warmth a sickly light that could only generously be described as gloom. At night a strange aura weaves between clouds and stars. Blizzards are frequent and have all but closed the passes over the mountains known as the Spine of the World, preventing caravans from the civilized south from bringing supplies and news into the region. With the drop-off in traders, and no end in sight to winter, the scattering of settlements known as Ten Towns are isolated and frightened, and the Dalefolk are holding on in any way they can, as they have for generations.