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.

A harsh land almost beyond the reach of the warmer and more settled south, the small amount of warmth generated by the Sea of Swords funnels across the lowest part of the mountain wall, keeping the dale marginally hospitable. Nomadic tribes who hunt reindeer huddle next to the three lakes (Maer Dual- don, Lac Dinneshere, and Redwaters), and the dwarves in their tunnels attempt to survive in the harsh land. Evil creatures flour- ish in hundreds of mountainous delves, and Icewind Dale has the reputation as a hideout for those seeking to lose themselves.

In this bleak tundra is the farthest bastion of civilization in the Savage Frontier, a loose confederation of 10 towns and vil- lages known collectively as the Ten Towns. The towns are lo- cated on or near the three deadly cold lakes, the habitat of the knucklehead trout (found nowhere else in Faerun). The lakes of Icewind Dale are justly famous for their fishing, but locals tend to think of the lakes as their own, not a pond for south- erners to wander up to and pull their living out of.

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.

Map of Icewind Dale