The world & its history
World 9
The Chaos Wolf (Vanagander)
A Ragnarok-scale beast the cult intends to wake by shearing it with Uror's Shears. Prophesied to 'devour the sun.' The Fangs of Vanagander are named after it — sworn to prevent that awakening. Also spelled 'Chaos with a Q' in the party's proposed band-name workshopping.
William Moon
The moon-god of Rico Lunae's cult, apparently the local Odin analogue. Slain by three demons who cut up his body to build the world; his barrow preserves the story on a giant-slayer mural. Rico has convinced the party (with DM-rewarded gaslighting) that Odin was William Moon in disguise and Asgard is a realm inside the plane of Isgard alongside Argenteel, Selûne's domain.
The Norns and Ginnungagap
Norse-styled cosmology intersecting with Rico Lunae's Selûnian moon-god (William Moon = Odin). Ginnungagap is the yawning void of space between crystal spheres — a rigidly-gravitied plane in the William Moon barrow's entrance chamber. The three Norns are Urðr (age, looking back, wears white), Verðandi (present, wears earth tones and metal colors), and Skuld (hidden future, wears blues). Their shears cut fate itself and return to them after each use.
Aurel
A cold entity who used to receive sacrifices in the old ways — including through a ritual pattern the Cold-handed Man appears to be reviving. Aurel is dead: per Big Fat Knucklehead hearsay, killed years back by 'a gnome with a giant cock,' incinerated at the Black Cabin, and — per Kaldur's uncle's version, in which Kaldur's uncle saved him — reborn in Phoenix fire. Also lends his name to Aurel's Tears, a deep-blue drop of liquor served at the Wet Trout.
Session notes
Session 3: By the Power of William Moon
First named this session.
The World Tree / Isgard
Home realm of William Moon and Selûne in Rico's cosmology — the moon-god's celestial residence, connected to Isgard (the plane Rico gaslit the party about last session, containing Asgard alongside Selûne's Argenteel). Kostov, a Ratatouille moon knight, claims to be from the World Tree and to have 'walked the bowels' of it. His main-material ports are Port Last (where he docks Sig's Swig) and Baldur's Gate.
Session notes
Session 3: By the Power of William Moon
Given a first named inhabitant this session in Kostov the Ratatouille moon knight.
Gillitrut Troll
'A fucking troll wolf troll' — a troll-dog hybrid with a weird guttural mucusy bark. Standard troll regeneration; only fire will stop it. Enjee identifies it by ear. Standard troll-butchery yields apply: skin (DC 10 medicine, up to a pouch of troll-skin strips or a potion-of-longevity ingredient), blood (DC 15), heart (DC 20).
Session notes
Session 3: By the Power of William Moon
First encountered this session in the William Moon barrow's outer corridor.
Cryonax
The Elemental Prince of Evil for the plane of ice — also known as the Frostfell. Appears as a giant ape with tentacle arms; a horrifying elemental being of chaos and destruction. His sacrificial sign is a six-pointed snowflake carved into the victim. The 'Aurel' story the party heard last session appears to have been a decoy or renaming: the Cold-handed Man and the Children of Splintered Ice are in fact revivalists of the Cryonax cold-sacrifice rite.
Mind-Master Duergar
A Duergar subtype specializing in mind magic. Combines standard Duergar enlarge/reduce with 'ooga-booga' psychic reach — a Charisma-style mind-mastery that can force a creature of medium intelligence to attack an ally on a failed save (DC 12 in play). Carry runic daggers that deal a d6 of psychic damage in the hands of a non-Duergar and 3d6 in the hands of a Shonuf Deep Duergar worshipper. Dreadie looted one this session and runs it in her off-hand.
Deep Duergar Soul Blades
A Duergar weapons-caste: wielders of blades manifested from or crafted using the Duergar's own soul magic. Soul Blades are not strongly intelligent (per the DM, 'they are not smart'), can turn invisible, and can rush out of ambush positions for a surprise melee strike. Roadie claimed a Soul Blade's severed head after the Denev's Rest fight on the hypothesis that the brain contains the craft knowledge required to forge a soul-weapon.
Location 12
Ten Towns of Icewind Dale
The party is operating in the Ten Towns of the frozen north: East Haven (current base), Bryn Shander, Targos, Bremen, and others. Travel is by axe-beak mount or dog sled — or, for the truly reckless, by rocket-powered geyser sled with a decanter of endless water strapped to the back. Over the past year, geothermal rifts have opened across the ice, and new hot-spring 'way-stations' (like High Plume Station) have sprung up around them.
White Lady Inn
Seance-hippie bar and performance venue upshare in East Haven. Silks and multicolored lamps hang from the rafters; incense smoke perfumes the air. Rinaldo the halfling runs the seance service in the green room. Vardaban runs the bar. Named after the White Lady, Queen of the Lake.
William Moon Barrow
A stone barrow tomb about eight miles east of East Haven, marked with moon iconography. Contains: (1) an entrance chamber inscribed 'before ice, before flame, there was Ginnungagap — the yawning void' — a zero-gravity void trap; (2) an Odin's-eye stone tree yielding a 300 gp black-opal dagger when the left eye is pried out; (3) a well marked with the Erd rune where the eye must be thrown to reveal a stone staircase; (4) a giant-slayer mural of William Moon with a skald-riddle on the shield ('rattle-frame crafted into stone teeth tall') that opens a hidden door and collapses a titan statue; (5) a Norn's-loom room with three statues (Urðr, Verðandi, Skuld) and live spinning stone spindles trailing colored threads (golden, red, iron, gray, white, blue, earth) to be dressed onto the correct Norn; (6) a Gleipnir-and-Fenris-mouth trap that requires a Tyr-like sacrifice — putting your hand in the wolf's mouth deals psychic damage but does not actually take the hand; (7) a sarcophagus at the center, trapped to collapse the entire barrow if opened.
Argent Hall
An old moon-stronghold in the Spine of the World, wrested from the Duergar generations back by Kaldur's king and his king's old friends. Hosts a Selenite temple. Its exact coordinates arrived this session on a stone cylinder handed to Enjee by an anonymous cloaked courier at the Big Fat Knucklehead.
Session notes
Session 3: By the Power of William Moon
First named this session, coordinates now known to the party via Enjee's mystery stone.
Dzan's lair under the Lucky Liar
The Red Wizard Dzan kept a lair below the Lucky Liar inn in Lonelywood. The barkeep at the Lucky Liar is in on the arrangement — tell him Dzan sent you and he'll let you past. The lair is sealed to Dzan's own presence, so entry requires his simulacrum: Dzan sent it out into the frozen tundra guarded by a wight bodyguard, intact and with full spell slots, hoping some part of him would survive the pyre.
Skaldholm
An island far to the west of the Purple Rocks. Per Dzan, Skaldholm holds the richest surviving Skald lore in Toril — in particular the deep-cut material on Fenrir, Gleipnir, and the whole Ragnarok cosmology. Likely a late-campaign destination.
Dugan's Hole (now 'Dugan's Hell')
A settlement south of East Haven, overrun this past year by an unknown cult. Travelers' signs on the road warn against approach, with locals having crossed out 'Hole' and written 'Hell' underneath. The party has not visited yet; Rico has publicly committed to 'putting the Hole back in Hell.'
Caer Dineval
A dwindling Ten-Towns settlement east of East Haven, down to one working tavern (the Uphill Climb) after the owner of the old Denev's Rest closed up shop. The old tavern — recently haunted and now Duergar-infested — sits on the opposite side of town. The town's major landmark is the Caer, the keep up the hill, and the Speaker's authority is enforced from there. The road to Caer Dineval runs through open snowfield that chuggy pigs can take off-road.
Session notes
Session 5: Makes House Party look like House Party 2
The band passed through for the first time this session, played the Uphill Climb for Rourke, exorcised Denev's Rest (loudly), and left with the whole town's adult population mob-crashed, two members of its town watch dead, and an eleven-year-old boy traumatized.
The Uphill Climb
Caer Dineval's only remaining tavern, run by Rourke the Northman. Famous for the name's local traditional end-of-the-night-when-everyone's-drunk race up the hill to the Caer, which usually ends with the losers falling. The band played two sets here this session — a preview during the day and a four-priest closer at night. Rourke pays promptly and his liquor pours generously (two free drinks per band member).
Denev's Rest
Rourke's old tavern on the opposite side of Caer Dineval, abandoned and 'haunted' after a chandelier dragon damaged the roof years back and bar staff started vanishing. In fact squatted this session by the last Sunblight-clan Deep Duergar remnants — Mind Masters and Soul Blades — who were deliberately maintaining the haunted appearance to keep locals away. The band wiped the cell (one Mind Master, three Soul Blades) and found their 340-gold piggy bank behind a dart-trapped hollow floorboard. One Soul Blade escaped invisible.
Session notes
Session 5: Makes House Party look like House Party 2
First explored this session. The 'exorcism' consisted of parading drunk cocaine'd townspeople through the halls while the band fought Duergar upstairs. The crowd ultimately pulled a Mind Master apart with bare hands and left the building passed out but structurally intact.
Rinderyl's (Bryn Shander)
A high-end weapon shop in Bryn Shander Kaldur named as the party's preferred stop for a halberd for Scales. Expensive, and Rinderyl is the merchant Rico unsuccessfully tried to Charm Person in the first two seconds of meeting him — any future band business there will go through Kaldur, not Rico.
Session notes
Session 5: Makes House Party look like House Party 2
First named this session.
Lewis-Anna (Louisanna)
A small town somewhere down south, Scales' home. Named 'Louisanna' after its two founders, Lewis Dutre and Anna Winters. Scales' real voice — a thick slow drawl — is from there, and had been hidden under a Duke-Nukem rasp for years because of a throat injury Dreadie healed out of him this session as a wet red lump.
Session notes
Session 5: Makes House Party look like House Party 2
First named this session, after Dreadie Cure Wounds'd Scales' real voice back.
Npc 5
The White Lady (Queen of the Lake)
Moon-tied spirit or goddess contacted through cold seance-work at the White Lady Inn. When she answers, frost traces itself on the windows and candles gutter with plumes of smoke. Bristled at Roadie's small-talk 'how you doing?' and retaliated by freezing Rico's exposed cock into a camel toe. Speaks in terse fragments — 'east coast, north.' Considers the gold in her lake her own.
Session notes
Session 2: Shearing the Wolf
The party petitioned her for four answers this session: Bot Withers' location, a Dumathoin secret (Termalane), a bag for Enjee's drum kit (Triglio in Targos, Ewan's Trinkets in Bremen), and where the spirits yearn to rock (Kerr Koenig the corpse).
Paxton
A dwarven prosthetic-maker known in the Icewind Dale / Dwarven Valley area, familiar to Kaldur. His signature: fully articulated mechanical hands with tools extruding from the fingers. Normally works on the right hand. The one-armed Fang Finulf One-Hand wears a left-handed Paxton and confirms he knows Paxton personally.
The Cold-handed Man (Sifos Cifik)
Abductor active around East Haven, rumored to be snatching people for sacrifice to a cold winter entity — 'like they used to do for Aurel.' Real name Sifos Cifik. His grip is so cold it leaves a hand-shaped mark of near-frostbitten flesh on the victim. Escaped Kaldur and Roadie's pursuit outside the Wet Trout at speed.
Session notes
Session 3: By the Power of William Moon
First named this session. Attempted to drag Samantha out into the killing cold and escaped the band's chase.
Ramrod (the legendary roadie)
Legend figure among roadies — 'the most legendary roadie that ever roadied.' Said to live in the ruins of Thunder Tree, far to the north of Icewind Dale. Kaldur invoked him when Roadie began hallucinating undead hooligans on stage: 'if only Ramrod were here, he'd know what to do.'
Session notes
Session 3: By the Power of William Moon
First named this session.
William O. Cosby
An East Haven prisoner — Lathander-blues singer with a lute, Bill-Cosby-cadence voice, and a chronic habit of offering his jailers juice 'made up right here in the toilet.' Carries ten vials of dry poison on his sheet in flavored varieties (grape, tutti-frutti, pudding) and casts Sleep at will. Almost got Captain Argiloth the week before the band's gig with a horchata. Burned alongside Dzan at the band's double burning. His charisma score (+13) made his death-screams actually harmonize with the band's set.
Faction 7
Church of Inexorable Ruin (Cult of Ragnarok)
A doomsday cult also known as the Cult of Ragnarok. Members wear white robes and spiral-marked cudgels, with a spiral tattoo on the forehead. Serve Thrynne the Black. Doctrine: 'Harmony. The stillness of nothing.' Goal: acquire Uror's Shears, shear the Chaos Wolf, wake it, and let it devour the sun.
Session notes
Session 2: Shearing the Wolf
Raided East Haven's Town Hall for the shears; the party wiped the initial cell (five dead, two slept, one captured and interrogated). A larger contingent (16 by Kaldur's tremorsense) is now closing in on the party inside the William Moon barrow.
Fangs of Vanagander
A mercenary company opposing the Cult of Ragnarok — specifically opposed to 'interpreting chaos.' One of their number was murdered for information about Uror's Shears. Another, Finulf One-Hand — the one-armed thief with a Paxton left-hand prosthetic and a Cape of the Mont Blanc — stole the shears from Speaker Danneth to keep them out of Thrynne's hands and holed up in the William Moon barrow. 'Scar' is another Fang, currently unaccounted for.
Red Dragon Trading Company
Luskan-based trading company 'with no scruples,' willing to move goods sourced from grave robbers. Finulf One-Hand named them as the intermediary that sold the shears — originally stolen from a burial mound — to Speaker Danneth as 'Urogears.'
Klangadin and the Proxy
Dwarven religious figure/tradition. Klangadin has a living 'Proxy' — Kaldur's cousin Astro (Astral) is the Proxy's son, called by Kaldur 'a hero that has saved a realm.' Enough of a big deal that Kaldur will sit patiently through any conversation Astro wants to have.
Session notes
Session 3: By the Power of William Moon
First named this session via Astro's astral call.
Children of Splintered Ice
A Cryonax cell cult operating out of the northwestern coast of Lac Dinneshere. Members carry cold-forged daggers that don't radiate magic unless keyed to the cult, wear snowflake tattoos on their wrists, and sign off on kill lists under single-word cell names ('Ice Knife'). Their East Haven cell was led by 'Ice Knife' — Nemitra, the silver-dragonborn Wet Trout owner — and used a tower on the northwestern shore as a holding site for sacrifice targets. Their recruitment pitch to the dying: 'if I die, I am to the Frostfell, where my essence will be preserved.' The East Haven cell was wiped and Nemitra arrested this session; the broader cult remains active.
Lich Brisket and Bloodstock '99
A Limp-Bizkit-styled rock-and-roll band active twenty or thirty years ago, fronted by a lich called Dreadwurst. Famously played Bloodstock '99 — their biggest show — and used the set to burn the 'non-nookie compliant' crowd alive on-stage. Roadie was their rhythm guitarist and quit the fold shortly after; Dreadwurst did not take it well. The band's undead agents wear sequined Adidas tracksuits and travel with cursed guitar picks that briefly inhabit the picker as an undead-shredder version of themselves. One of them visited Roadie onstage at the East Haven double burning this session.
Sunblight Clan
A Deep-Duergar clan that Kaldur's uncle thought his line had wiped out generations ago. Session 5 revealed survivors burrowing into abandoned structures (specifically Denev's Rest in Caer Dineval), maintaining the 'haunted abandoned' appearance of the buildings they occupy, and running Mind Masters and Soul Blades out of the same playbook. Their coinage carries a clan sigil Kaldur can recognize on sight. The Gravelgut-clan grudge against the Sunblights is now active again. One cell member escaped this session and is loose.
Item 10
Uror's Shears
The Norn shears of Urðr — said to cut through anything, then return to the Norns after a single use. The Cult of Ragnarok wants them to shear the Chaos Wolf. Finulf One-Hand stole them from Speaker Danneth's office the morning of the raid and hid them in the William Moon barrow.
Shardalyn
A dark crystal infused from Crenshinabon during its last awakening ~30-40 years ago, mined by the Duergar in the Argonaut era. Whispers to those near it, drives listeners toward corruption. Speaker Danneth keeps a shardalyn statue in his office; it told the party 'the awakened one lies below.'
Gorilla Panic
A Mystican unregulated hallucinogen sold in packet form. Made in Mystica ('not pharmaceutically regulated over there'). Causes vivid hostile hallucinations — spider-gorillas, ripping off one's own clothes, running naked into snow. Roadie keeps multiple doses and a tea variant that hits within seconds; both packet and tea have been deployed on party and ambassador alike this session.
Rocket-powered geyser sleds
Ice sleds propelled by a decanter of endless water strapped to the back — 'basically a jet ski, but instead of water you fall on jagged ice.' Steer by angling the geyser. Leaves a trail of sheet ice behind. About 40 feet per round faster than an axe-beak mount. Exorbitantly expensive and impractical — 'only a madman would have built these.' The cult uses them; the party now has four.
Bloodstone rune
A dwarven giant-rune that enables long-distance voice communication through shared blood. Requires enough authority and craftsmanship to make — Kaldur's cousin Astro used one to call Kaldur across the continent from the Desert Valley; his father the Proxy of Klangadin helped him craft it after Astro 'killed something strong for once.' Astro described its use as calling every Gravelgut he could reach until Kaldur happened to answer.
Session notes
Session 3: By the Power of William Moon
First named this session.
Cespilar Blackberry Wine
A secret blackberry-wine recipe from a diluted elven bloodline still passed down around East Haven, named for the Cespilar bloodline it comes from. Samantha handed the recipe to Kaldur on the back of a Dreadie Mercurie autographed headshot as thanks for the Wet Trout rescue.
Session notes
Session 3: By the Power of William Moon
First named this session; recipe now in Kaldur's possession.
Book of Moon-nites (Rico's pamphlet edition)
Rico's dad's translation of the William Moon plates, distributed by Rico as a pamphlet. Includes at least 41 numbered tenets. Selected tenets confirmed in play: 'Always be badass,' 'Protect the weak,' 'Smite the evil,' 'Spread the seed,' 'Never question the teachings of William Moon,' 'It depends' (Tenet 7), 'No means yes to William Moon' (Tenet 41), and — as of this session, with an asterisk added after William Moon rewrote the pamphlets in real time — 'Don't be gay* (actually gay stuff is fine).' Enjee involuntarily memorized all 41+ tenets while sleeping upright next to Rico for four hours.
Session notes
Session 3: By the Power of William Moon
First catalogued and partially spelled out this session; edition-of-record was overwritten mid-session by William Moon himself.
Fat Bottom Orcs
A Queen pastiche Dreadie wrote in his head mid-session, immediately after a half-orc Wet Trout barmaid named Natty bent over the kitchen prep table. The chorus runs 'Fat Bottom Orcs — you make the rockin' world go round.' Debuted at the band's East Haven double-burning gig with Natty onstage straddling a cannon in Cher-on-the-Battleship pose, lit up in pink/violet Faerie Fire by Scales.
Dry Poison
A crystalline poison type Dzan the Red Wizard specialized in — stored and shipped in paper vials, flavored to disguise the taste when dissolved into a drink. William O. Cosby had ten vials on his sheet in grape, tutti-frutti, and pudding. The band inherited them when the two were burned.
The Pick of Dreadwurst
A guitar pick carried by the undead-Adidas-tracksuit agents of Lich Brisket. When Roadie accepts one it briefly re-inhabits him as a Dreadwurst-flavored shredder: dreadlocks regrow from frosted tips, a second guitar line kicks in on stage, and the carrier performs at Dreadwurst-era proficiency. Dropping the pick reverts the transformation. Clearly a leash — the longer Roadie holds it, the harder it will be to drop.