LMoP DM Blog VI: Tower of Storms Finale, Travel to Icespire Peak and Icespire Hold

We snuck this session in on a Saturday (10/19/2019) in order to finish the adventure before the player playing Kaalia had to leave town, in hopes to finish the adventure.

Stormy Tower

The session started with the players out front of the Tower of Storms. (see the link to the adventure text.) The players started in area L2 after having defeated some Harpies last session. The players knew their goal was to retrieve the magical conch shell and free the banshee Miraal for their new friend, the Giant Crab.

Inside the tower, they learned more about the bright green light and the wreck ships outside. They noted a lightning bolt on the door to T4, but eventually followed the green glow to the rood where they found the beating heart of Moesko.

This heart serves as the vile engine of the lighthouse, drawing in unsuspecting ships to their doom. The players examined the bright heart and all wanted to make perception checks. I decided to have the lowest two players get blinded from the bright light (which ended up being Pheonix the Fighter and Brise the Paladin), so at this point the players were spooked that the heaviest hitters had disadvantage.

They ran out of ideas quickly at the heart and decided to not try to destroy it. I made the heart beat faster (as Moesko was about to approach) in order to keep the session moving, but they decided to cast Slow on it and continue exploring.

I rolled with it because rule of cool.

The group was very interested in the lightning rod in area T8 and eventually followed it below to T4 where they found an ornate lightning altar. They rolled great on knowledge checks and knew that the altar was for the god Talos.

After some discussion, they decided to not touch it and instead destroy the altar. (If they touched it, the would have gotten a blessing "Mark of the Storm" which allows them to cast Lightning Bolt 3 times. Instead, they cast some spells and slowly destroyed the altars connection to the rod above.

Eventually, Moesko noticed the desecration and charged into the room T4. I had planned for Moesko to summon some homebrew lightning sprite/swarm monsters.

Since the altar was destroyed, Moesko charged in and failed to summon the sprites. He instead cast Thunderwave, knocking back 3 players. After a short combat, where the players took some decent damage, the druid summoned a giant snake and constricted Moesko out of the fight.

Quick! Make Stuff up!

The players then decided to try to put the mystical green heart back into Moesko. To be clear, the dungeon as written provides absolutely no guidance as to what should happen in this scenario, only describing the fact that Moesko will revive after some time.

Moesko is an angry dude when you destroy his altar.

After a quick "everyone ride the giant snake up the lighthouse" interlude, the players successfully placed the corpse on top of the heart. I had a moment of slight panic, and decided that Moesko would be revived. He didnt remember anything about the time he didnt have his heart, and questioned the players about where he was and what he was doing.

(Still winging stuff) He explained that the last thing he remembers is his ship crashing on the rocks. The lighthouse wasn't green then, and Miraal was his captain at the time, who he thought well of.

My players immediately were on to my bullshit and were like "BUT WHY DOES HE HAVE MIRAALS CONCH SHELL IF HE THINKS SHE IS A GOOD CAPTAIN" and an insight check proved him to be lying.

As thanks for reviving him, Moesko offered the players his Javelin of Lightning and his Lantern of Revealing. The players rode the snake-train back down to Miraal where they found out more about he situation. (Still winging it). Miraal the banshee was super pissed when she saw Miraal and explained that he had been put in the brig before the ship crashed. All was eased as Miraal touched the shell and phased out of existence.

The players let Moesko go free and were concerned about the lonely giant crab. They tried to summon their druid friend Reidoth with a magical birdcall staff, but failed, only producing two real eagles who were very confused.

(Maybe Moesko will come back in the future on board some boat/ship.)
(The big crab friend [who the players named!] should come back in the future as well!)

The giant lonely crab asked them to come back sometime and decided to live in the lighthouse. He also awarded the players some loot from the shipwrecks, a pair of magical walkie-talkie stones. (which are super-useful to one player who won the mayorship and wishes to keep in touch with town).

The players then headed for Icespire Peak to slay the dragon.

The Journey

One thing I really don't like about Dragon of Icespire Peak is the lack of interesting things on top of Icespire Peak. I feel like climbing a mountain to fight a dragon should feel like an epic journey, so I homebrewed a whole dungeon-like adventure here. The players opted to skip most of the combat (with Yetis, under-ice fish and winter wolves) by choosing to climb instead.

The Spider Staff magic item (from the Black Spider in LMOP) proved to be invaluable here as all the charges of Web and Spider Climb made most of the climb checks moot. There was some interesting climbing/slipping drama though, and it let the players use their cool powers. (Like Druid monkey-form and the Paladin Aasimars wings.)

I am writing an article about the mountain adventure here.

Though it was just some described areas, skill checks, CON saves vs exhaustion and narrative, I felt like the climb was interesting and helped make the players feel powerful and also make some interesting choices along their climb.

Icespire Hold

I had the players first find the peak of the mountain and enjoy the view, then I described the large fortress that lay a short distance from the peak. I described the thick fog and heavy winds, and through the weather they spotted Cryovain sleeping atop the fortress.

Crafty Map Interlude

I got crafty and hand drew the map for the whole fortress. (I didn't get a picture of the gatehouse though!). I made these maps with brown craft paper with upside down wrapping paper glued on. I got some cheap wrapping paper with a 1-inch grid, and proceeded to draw the map with sharpies.

I also drew the rooftop layer, which I cut out and used to cover the top of the fortress. I think it turned out pretty well and these kinds of things are fun to work on.

Back to the adventure...

The players approached the gatehouse (area H2) and found a frozen dead red wizard outside. (I am planning to have them be some recurring villains!). After opening the door into H2, they found horses and soon found 3 bandits coming to chat with them.

The module is pretty weak here, but the gist of this encounter is that a group of bandits called the "Stone Cold Reavers" are here waiting for the dragon to fly away so they can steal its treasure hoard. The adventure even has the audacity to say that THE DRAGON HAS NO TREASURE HOARD, which is absolutely ridiculous. (This is one of my biggest complains with the Dragon of Icespire Peak adventure, laziness in design where it really counts. For me, this encounter is the culmination of an 18-week campaign, and you expect me to say there is no treasure?!)

I had 3 of the 4 reavers openly chat with the players about their plans and also mention that they were low on supplies. A half butchered horse had been their only sustenance for a week and the dragon had yet to fly away.
The reavers would not allow the group to pass, and also would not agree to fight the dragon at any cost. Eventually words came to blows, and the remaining reaver kicked open the door from H6, starting the combat.

This fight is against 4x CR3 Veteran monsters and turned out to be pretty tough in the enclosed spaces. I also added some flavor by varying their HP, weapons, and making one a ranger with ranger spells. The fight started with a few crits on the players, leaving the rogue low early on. Aeras the druid exercise her crown control ability by casting Spike Growth, which shut down the fight pretty quickly.

I roleplayed the bandits pretty well, and once their leader was dead, half of them gave up. After the fight had settled, the players decided to force the two remaining reavers out into the cold, likely to die.

Ending Credits

Two players ended up in single digit HP after that fight, and they quickly found a room to short rest in. They spend about half of their hitdice and rested up then we ended the session for the week.


Overall I feel like this was a pretty good session. The mountain climb was mostly bypassed by clever players, but I feel like it still added a lot to the feeling of climbing a mountain and overcoming challenge. The players probably felt bad-ass too, and that's what really matters!

Next time, we will explore the rest of the fortress and slay the ice dragon Cryovain.