Mountain Glacier unstable ice sheet, well that’s just bad.

• Ice Mephits are fairly weak but fun and frustrating to fight for a
An Introduction lower-level party.
• A relic of power is buried deep within the ice, a cult or group of evil

T
he mountain air is thin, making it hard to catch wizards is looking to dig it out. Have the party disrupt the excavation.
your breath. The bitterly cold wind freezes any • Oh look at that, it’s an evil abomination buried in the ice! And it
exposed skin and makes your eyes water. The sky is just winked at the party. Roll initiative!
clear, the sun high and bright but giving off little heat.
Only a smattering of pine trees and clumps of coarse
grasses grow at this altitude. Variants
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As you crest the next hill you see a valley before you filled with ice.
The glacier snakes along the valley like a river, frozen in ripples
partially covered in snow. At its base, where the valley opens out is
a huge lake, crystal clear and still, reflecting the sky above.

You make your way down the valley to the edge of the glacier. You
notice creaking and the sounds of ice shifting. Deeper, you hear
running water within the ice. Across the glacier, you notice cracks
and fissures big enough to swallow your entire party. You decide to
tie yourselves together with lengths of rope, and cautiously make
your way onto the ice.

Your Halfling companion takes the lead making his way slowly
across the snow-dusted ice, each step taken with the utmost cau-
tion. At the midway point, he raises a hand and pauses. You begin
to hear the sounds of shifting ice below your feet, the halfling takes
a step back and drops through the ice with a yelp. You brace and the
rope goes taught, the small man’s weight easy to hold. He shouts
from within the fissure “Pull me up! Oh gods quickly, there’s some-
thing down here!”. As you begin to pull back you feel a tug on the
rope, your feet slide towards the fissure, and the halfling screams
once before going silent. You pull back with all your strength, but
your feet slip further. Then with a snap, the rope breaks and you
fall back into the snow. Deep within the ice, something roars a
challenge. You stumble to your feet, draw your weapons, and wait
to see what emerges from the ice.

Notes and Tips

• 30x45 grid map
• Some Glacier trivia. Glaciers are compacted snow that has turned
to ice and due to its huge mass flows very slowly like a river. A
moulin is a hole in a glacier, formed by water, they can be very
deep. A crevasse is a deep crack in a glacier that forms due to the
movement of the glacier.
• This would make a perfect environmental obstacle for the party
to traverse. The lake could continue along the valley making it
the only timely route to continue.
• The snow could be hiding crevasses and moulin (holes) within
the glacier, as your party moves across it, roll dice to see if these
open up below the party.
• A pack of wolves, with a winter wolf at their head, are hunting
the party. The final confrontation could be on the ice. Throw in a
Frost Giant to make it more deadly.
• Things could be living inside the glacier, a Remorhaz comes to
mind. It’s a horrifying creature to meet in any location, but on an

Mountain Glacier
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