5E - LEVEL 4
INTO THE ICE FOREST
I RUNNING THIS ADVENTURE
nto the Ice Forest is a Fifth Edition adventure
optimized for a party of four 4th level characters.
The adventure takes place in The Adventure
Board's setting of Brennskald, but it can easily be
adapted to take place in any wintery setting of your choice
with a small village situated on the border of a dense
forest. We recommend narrative milestone leveling, but if
you prefer XP based leveling, the party can expect to gain
enough XP to advance to about two-thirds of the way
through level 4, depending on your style of play.
CW: abduction of/violence against children
ADVENTURE OVERVIEW
In Into the Ice Forest, the party arrives in Isholt, a small
village recently beset by troubles. Roughly a month ago, a
ghost began visiting Isholt’s children in the night, leaving
many despondent and nigh-catanoic. Worse, children have
begun disappearing, and others have been caught trying to
wander into the woods outside town. Moreover, bones and
an ancient relic have been stolen from the town’s grave-
yard. Various clues will guide the party into the forest,
where they will defeat the mastermind behind the circum-
stances plaguing the village, a mysterious witch who has
corrupted forest spirits to aid her purposes.
A NOTE ON ADVENTURE STYLE
This adventure begins with a mystery, and the final
encounter is meant to provide a moral quandary rather
than a knockdown fight, as it can quickly turn deadly for a
party of 4th level adventurers if run as a straight fight to
the death. Players looking for a strict hack-and-slash
experience may not find what they’re looking for in Into the
Ice Forest.
Magic items, spells, and equipment in this adventure are
italicized and monsters are bolded, and can be found in the
Fifth Edition Basic Rules unless otherwise indicated.
Text presented in boxed text, such as this, is meant to be
read aloud or paraphrased for the players. However,
keep in mind that the GM is free to use, not use, or
modify anything in this adventure at their discretion,
including these text prompts.
In any location where combat is the designer’s intent, a
table like this will be included to clarify exactly who is
intended as a combatant. These tables also state where the
creature’s statblock can be found. Remember, though, that
combat never has to be an inevitability. Players should feel
free to find non-violent solutions to potentially dangerous
situations.
One example creature (source)
BACKGROUND
Unbeknownst to the people of Isholt, they have been
neighbors with a cruel and capricious hag, Widow Sundra
Drairot, who lairs in the center of the forest bordering
town, the Svartwald. Sundra is usually content with
conducting her magical experiments and spreading misery
only to those who seek her out. However, she has been
unable to focus on her experiments since a group of
loggers from Isholt cut down a tree in the Svartwald that
housed a dryad three months ago, sending the Svartwald’s
dryad population into a frenzy. Seeing an opportunity to
bend the dryads to her will and more than happy to see the
village suffer, Widow Drairot agreed to take revenge on
the village when the forest spirits came to her for aid.
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 A GHOST IN THE NIGHT
The perfect opportunity to do so arose a little over two
months ago, when Niklas Ostrem, the town’s miller,
stumbled into the center of the Svartwald, looking for the
hedge witch rumored to live there. Niklas’s eleven
year-old-son, Einar, was deathly ill with a sickness the
town doctor could neither recognize nor cure, and the
witch was Niklas’s last resort. He traveled to the center of
the Svartwald and found Widow Drairot, who gave him a
vial of medicine which she claimed would “tie the boy to
life.”
Niklas failed to read the true meaning behind her
words and dutifully went home to his son. The medicine,
however, was a necromantic brew that anchored Einar’s
soul to his bones, forcing him to become a ghost, who
now haunts Isholt. Sundra Drairot then instructed her
dryad minions to steal Einar’s bones from the town
graveyard and cover up the crime by robbing other graves
as well.
FOREST SPIRITS, PERVERTED
Widow Drairot has another motive for helping the dryads
take revenge on Isholt. As a price for her help, the hag
demanded to be allowed to tend to the dryad’s trees. For
the past month, since receiving the spoils of the grave
robbing, she has been watering the dryad’s trees with a
concoction of powdered bone and cruel magic. These
ministrations have driven the Svartwald dryads mad and
made them susceptible to the hag’s orders.
ADVENTURE HOOKS
In this adventure, the village of Isholt is quite clearly in
dire straits. A well-intentioned and civic-minded adventur-
ing party will likely be inclined to help investigate the cause
of the village’s troubles out of the goodness of their
hearts (or curiosity). However, you can use any of the
below additional hooks, either to inspire the party to travel
to Isholt in the first place or to help the village once there.
Relic of Ieva. The grave robbing has defiled the
resting place of Marta Alldottir, a mighty champion of
Ieva, the goddess of Justice, War, and Women. Over a
century ago, Marta led a company across the lands of the
Myxodinian Empire, rooting out injustice and evil wherev-
er she found it before returning home to Isholt when she
retired. She was buried with her blessed amulet of Ieva still
around her neck, and her grave has been a site of pilgrim-
age among Ieva’s most devout for decades. Characters with
a connection to Ieva may be inclined to investigate the
cause of the grave robbing simply to avenge the slight
against Ieva, while others may be inspired to do so in order
to track down Ieva’s amulet, which is missing.
Won’t You Think of the Children? While villages in
the northern reaches of the Myxodinian Empire are spread
apart, news does still travel from town to town. Characters
in the region may have heard rumors of children vanishing
in the night, never to be seen again. Those who travel to
Isholt quickly realize that the missing children, as well as
children with glazed, vacant expressions and empty eyes
caught attempting to wander into the Svarwald, are a main
topic of conversation in town. Any villager with ties to
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one or more missing children is quick to ask the characters
for help in retrieving them.
Ice Wheat Shortage. The events plaguing Isholt —
especially those affecting Niklas Ostrem, the miller —
have disrupted the supply chain of ice wheat flour to the
south. This will have impacted everyone from tavern and
restaurant owners to merchant guilds. Prior to arriving in
Isholt, the characters may have been asked by representa-
tives of the Cooks’ Guild to look into the supply chain
disruption, with the promise of reward should they be able
to restore a steady stream of ice wheat flour down south.
THE VILLAGE OF ISHOLT
Isholt is a small, predominantly agrarian village of roughly
five hundred in the northern reaches of the Myxodinian
Empire, where snow covers the ground for most of the
year and villagers keep the chill away with roaring fires well
into the early summer months. The people of Isholt make
their living in two main ways: the farming, processing, and
sale of ice wheat, a specialty crop prized in the southern
areas of Brennskald for its subtle sweetness, and forestry,
as the village is located only a short distance away from the
Svartwald woods. Primarily a human settlement, a sizable
number of dwarves, elves, and halflings make a living in
Isholt as well.
THE WANDERING CHILD
When the party first enters Isholt, read the following:
The outlying farms and snow-covered agricultural
pastures dwindle in size until the hard-packed earthen
trail beneath your feet widens to a large, main street
bisecting the town. Houses and shops dot either side of
this street and smoke swirls into the frigid air, starkly
black against the cloudless sky. Sunlight glitters off the
snow and ice on the ground, and despite the cold wind
you feel your skin warm beneath its touch. The open
street provides a clear view through the town and into
the fields beyond, which terminate roughly a mile away
in a wall of dark green, twisting trees.
As you step into the town proper, a door creaks open
on the left, ahead of you. A small figure, bundled in
warm furs and with their hood up, steps out into the
street, their movements stiff and mechanical. They turn
toward the forest and stagger toward it, swaying
slightly. Suddenly, the door opens once more, this time
with explosive force, as a haggard woman wearing a
faded blue dress and a dark navy apron rushes out into
the street. She runs after the figure and grabs them by
the hand, and begins to march what you now see is a
small child back inside before coming up short as she
sees you.
The woman is Linda Daniels (LG female human com-
moner), chasing after her daughter, Emilia (CG female
human commoner). Linda is Isholt’s most popular baker,
although the recent ice wheat shortage and resulting lack
of flour have impacted her business. She has been passing
the slow period trying to teach Emilia to bake, with little
success, as of late Emilia has become withdrawn and
sullen, often with a vacant stare fixed in the direction of
the Svartwald. Linda has just caught her sleep-walking out
of the house toward the forest. This is not the first time
Emilia has done this, and she isn’t the only child in the
village to be sleep-puppeted towards the woods.
WHAT LINDA KNOWS
Linda is at her wits end with trying to figure out what is
wrong with Emilia, and happily shares her story. While she
doesn’t know the cause, she can tell the party that Emilia
began acting strange four weeks ago, and that everything
started when she started claiming Einar Ostrem visited her
in the night. While Linda and her husband, Fredrich,
initially chalked this up to an overactive imagination —
Einar died two months ago, after all — other parents
reported similar claims from their children, leading them
to believe the village children are being haunted. Linda is
terrified that Emilia will be taken by the forest, as two
other children have already, and begs the party for their
help in uncovering the source of whatever plagues the
village and ridding the village of Einar’s ghost.
Linda is aware that Emilia is not the only child in
Isholt acting strangely, and relates that common symptoms
include despondency, loss of appetite, claims of intense
loneliness, and an unnatural obsession with the Svartwald.
Additionally, most children in the village have, by this
point, claimed to have been visited by Einar, though no
adult has seen the dead child. She knows that the village
graveyard was robbed recently, and that bones both recent
and ancient were taken. She can point the party to the
village graveyard, attached to a small temple of Ieva and
tended to by Lori Spirsgard. Linda is also happy to point
the party in the direction of Niklas Ostrem and his mill,
though she warns them that he has been despondent since
the loss of his son two months ago.
DEVELOPMENT
Emilia is a shy child and is reluctant to speak to the adven-
turing party. However, if they do manage to get her to talk,
achievable with a successful DC 13 Charisma (Persuasian)
check, she speaks in halting sentences about feeling empty
inside unless she’s with Einar, who she claims lives in the
woods. If asked how she knows this, she says that he
invited her to come visit him before floating through the
walls of her bedroom. This information is new to Linda,
and clearly shocks her a great deal.
Unfortunately, Linda cannot watch Emilia every
moment of every day. Unless the characters take drastic
action to confine her — a move Linda is initially against,
although she can be convinced with DC 13 Charisma
(Persuasion or Intimidation) check — Emilia will slip out
from her mother’s watchful eye and disappear into the
Svartwald. If the characters do not engage with Linda and
Emilia when they first encounter her, this happens later
that same day. Linda, remembering the troupe of adven-
turers who’ve come to town, will seek them out and ask
for their help then.
THE MILLER’S MISFORTUNE
Niklas Ostrem (N male halfling commoner) is a lynchpin
in the Isholt economy — he runs the town’s only mill, and
is responsible for turning the harvested ice wheat into the
fine, white-blue flour that is so prized throughout
Brennskald. A jovial, well-liked man, he always had time
for his neighbors, and could often be found on off nights
playing in the snow with his son, Einar.
Sadly, half a year ago, everything changed when Einar
contracted wasting sickness. As the disease slowly ravished
his son, diminishing him by the day, Niklas tried everything
he could think of, from local cures to begging the aid of
expensive doctors in the capital. Not even the local hedge
witch could help him (see Ghost in the Night, on page 2, for
more information). Two months ago, Einar succumbed to
his illness, and Niklas hasn’t been the same since. The
once-friendly man has turned bitter and cold, and is more
likely to pretend not to be home than answer his door. In
fact, people in town are beginning to worry about him, as
he’s been outside of his mill only a handful of times since
Einar’s death.
Anybody in Isholt will tell that party that Niklas can be
found at the mill, in which he lives. If the party knocks on
his door, read:
The mill’s heavy wooden door creaks open a crack,
revealing a small figure squinting into the light. His
clothes are disheveled and hang loosely off his frame,
and the thick, scraggly beard he wears only serves to
accentuate the heavy bags under his eyes. Behind him,
through the dark, you can just barely make out a still
and silent milling room. The windows are shuttered, and
the only light source is a single, pitiful candle burning
low in the man’s hand.
When the man speaks, his voice is gruff, raspy with
disuse. “What do you want?”
WHAT NIKLAS KNOWS
Niklas knows nothing of the goings on in the Svartwald,
and little of the hauntings around town. A group of
concerned parents has approached him twice in the past
month to say that their children claim to have been visited
by Einar, but Niklas puts little stock in such tales and does
not believe them, particularly because no ghost has come
to visit him. Niklas reasons that if Einar were a ghost, the
first thing he’d do would be to come home and visit his
father.
On the other hand, Niklas is familiar with the Svart-
wald itself and Widow Sundra Drairot, and can tell the
party about his attempts to save Einar’s life — including
his visit to the Widow — should the opportunity arise. He
knows that when in her presence, he felt a subtle thrum-
ming of disquiet, and that the witch, as he calls her, uses
magic. Niklas can also verbally guide the party through the
Svartwald and to the Heartwood, though he has no knowl-
edge of the dryads or other fey creatures in the forest and
so can’t provide forewarning regarding them.
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Niklas Ostrem is, first and foremost, despondent. He is
unlikely to say more than a few words at a time, and is
reluctant to speak at length about Einar. However, his
love for his son is palpable, and Niklas will often bring
the conversation around, obliquely, to how splendid his
son was.
That said, he has a soft spot in his heart for children in
general, and would not wish the loss of a child on
anyone in the village. Characters that appeal to this side
of him, or who point out that they are attempting to
save the children of Isholt, will find Niklas more forth-
coming.
IEVA’S FAITHFUL
The party will find themselves directed to the Temple of
Ieva in Isholt if they follow up on the rumors of the
town’s graveyard being robbed, or if they are looking for
more information about what measures the town has taken
to counteract the haunting. If they ignore or do not
receive the information from Linda, the graverobbing is a
topic of discussion for most townspeople in Isholt, all of
whom are willing to direct the party to the temple. When
the party first approaches the temple, read:
You proceed down the main street and pass through the
main square, where the buildings are clustered more
closely together and people bustle in and out from
storefronts and homes. Rich smells pour from some of
these shops, and the sounds of life and commerce fill
the square.
One building, however, is curiously set apart from the
others, almost as if surrounded by a halo of space. This,
you recognize from the iconography, is the Temple of
Ieva. The structure is low and wide, with a domed roof
and a massive door flung wide. As you approach, you
can see a large gathering space inside dominated by the
statue of an armored woman roughly hewn from a solid
block of black stone. The statue clutches a sword, blade
jutting into the earth between her feet, and a filigree of
fine silver metal form wings jutting from her back.
A young woman in a clean, cream-colored tunic stacks
books together in the far corner of the room, while
another person, wearing a chain-mail shirt over a similar
tunic, stands in contemplation at the base of the statue.
As you near the entrance to the temple, they turn and
regard you with a measured, if tired, gaze. A scar runs
vertically down their face, across their left eye, and their
face cracks with a quiet smile at the sight of your group.
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The person at the statue’s base is Lori Spirsgard (LG
non-binary human priest), the middle-aged caretaker of
the Temple. They are also the head, and only, priest in
residence. The woman stacking books is their apprentice,
Meredith Tornkil (CG female half-elf acolyte), a young
thief who has recently turned to a life of service. Both
Lori and Meredith are friendly and welcoming, and happy
to speak about Isholt’s recent troubles. They are doing
their best to keep the town from descending into panic
and to discover whatever is tying Einar’s ghost to the town,
but have had no luck. Additionally, they are both
distraught at the loss of Marta Alldottir’s amulet, an amulet
with the same properties as a ring of protection, at the hands
of graverobbers, and request the party’s aid in discovering
its location and returning it. If the party returns the
amulet, Lori promises that they will be rewarded.
THE DISTURBED GRAVEYARD
Lori is happy to show the party to the graveyard, should
the group ask. The first time the party enters the grave-
yard, read:
The village graveyard nestles behind the Temple of Ieva,
enclosed with a low stone wall that looks decently
maintained, though places clearly need repair. The
enclosed lot is lined with neat rows of obelisks jutting
from beneath the layer of snow and ice covering the
ground. The older headstones are beaten and pock-
marked from the weather, their inscriptions, if they
survive, unreadable, while the newer ones are crisper
and lighter in color, their inscriptions clearly visible.
A number of graves to the left of the area lie open,
their headstones toppled and smashed. These graves
are little more than open pits, the hard, dark earth
exposed to the elements. From where you stand, you
can just make out the shattered remnants of coffins
dispersed in the black earth.
Lori explains that the ground is too hard to properly fill in,
given that the winter frost has yet to fully thaw. Whatever
dug the graves up, they explain, clearly did so with magic
or extreme strength.
Lori also explains that there appears to be no pattern to
grave robbing. They initially suspected that the target was
Marta Alldottir’s grave and the relic that lay within (see
Adventure Hooks, above, for more information). Howev-
er, once the villagers of Isholt came forward claiming that
the ghost visiting their children was Einar Ostrem, Lori
began to suspect that the exhumed graves served a more
dastardly purpose: to obscure the theft of Einar’s bones.
Their fears were seemingly confirmed when they investi-
gated further and discovered that Einar’s grave was the
only fresh grave so defiled.
The ground is still hardened from cold, but any
character who succeeds on a DC 14 Intelligence (Investi-
gation) check will discover strange markings around the
distrubed graves and remnants of leaves and bark with no
clear origin. These were left behind by the dryads that
robbed the graveyard on Widow Drairot’s orders. A
successful DC 17 Wisdom (Survival) check allows the
characters to follow the scant traces of the dryad’s passage
over the graveyard’s wall and a few hundred feet in the
direction of Svartwald before the trail peters out.
WHAT LORI KNOWS
Lori has served the community of Isholt for many years,
and is known as a cool, level-head in crisis. For that reason,
they were one of the first people the villagers approached
with tales of the nightly hauntings. Lori, always one to take
threats to Isholt seriously, jumped into action the instant a
villager told them about a ghost, and warded both that
villager’s house and the graveyard attached to the temple,
hoping to exorcize the ghost. However, that night the
graves were ransacked, and soon after the ghost reap-
peared, seemingly unfettered by the wards.
Lori, having interviewed the townsfolk already, has
more collected information about the hauntings than
anyone else in Isholt. They can tell the party that all the
children who have seen the ghost tell of being overcome
with a powerful loneliness and a longing for friends. This
feeling does not fade, and on subsequent hauntings grows
into a nigh uncontrollable urge to go find their friend in
the Svartwald. Based on that and the fact that the ghost
only seems to visit children between the ages of eight and
twelve, roughly Einar’s age, Lori concurs with the town
consensus that the ghost is, in fact, Einar.
They also believe that the spirit is somehow tied to the
boy’s body, as it did not escape their notice that Einar’s
corpse was among those taken. Lori doesn’t know where
the grave robbers went, exactly, but recommends the
group look for them in the Svartwald, as faint tracks
indicate something emerged from the forest on the night
of the desecration. However, Lori knows that fey creatures
inhabit the Svartwald, and warns the party of such. They
know nothing about Widow Drairot or her current plans.
DEVELOPMENT
Lori understands that the most pressing problem facing
Isholt is the mystery surrounding Einar’s ghost and the
hauntings of the town’s children. However, they are
devoutly faithful to Ieva, and the loss of Marta Alldottir’s
relic is like a physical pain for them. They offer to reward
the group to the best of their ability should the relic be
returned. While Lori hasn’t seen the relic personally, if the
group asks, they tell the party to look for an amulet in the
shape of an eagle with spread wings.
If the conversation turns in that direction, Lori can
point the party to the parents of the missing children,
though they warn the group to be sensitive to the families’
grief. The parents can relate the same details as Lori above,
although more personalized for their individual situations.
The details of the missing children and their families are
up to you as the GM to decide
If the party speaks to Meredith Tornkil and mentions
their intention to journey into the forest, or if Meredith
overhears that information, she begs them to be careful
and then asks the party for a favor. She tells the tale of
how her father joined a hunting party traveling into the
Svartwald six winters ago and never returned. She was
alerted to his sudden disappearance while traveling the
Empire, living the life of a thief, by a vision that she
attributes to Ieva. Since returning to Isholt, Meredith has
dedicated her life to Ieva’s service, and uses what meager
earnings she makes at the Temple to care for her younger
siblings. Meredith has long since resigned herself to her
father’s loss; however, he disappeared with a family
heirloom — a necklace said to be blessed with Ieva’s
protective light — and Meredith would dearly like to see it
returned. See Lights in the Dark, below, for more informa-
tion about what happened to Meredith’s father and the
family heirloom.
THE SVARTWALD
By this point in the adventure, the party should have some
idea that the root of Isholt’s troubles lie in the Svartwald,
an ancient forest on the edge of town that predates
memory. The Svartwald trees are dense; felling them
requires significant effort, but the wood they produce is
prized for its quality.
Unknown to the villagers of Isholt, the Svartwald is a
minor nexus of fey power, and as such as an unusually
high concentration of spirits, fey creatures, and beasts.
Many of the trees in the Svartwald, particularly near the
center of the wood, house dryads and other fey creatures,
who tend to the forest and generally keep peace with the
neighboring settlement of humanoids. While generally not
in favor of the logging industry that has sprung up in
Isholt, the fey have until recently been content with the
state of things, as the Isholt villagers have confined their
logging activity to the outskirts of the forest, outside of
the fey’s immediate notice.
The first time the characters enter the Svartwald, read:
As you approach the edge of the Svartwald, the blurred
thicket of trees obscured by a light snowfall sharpens to
reveal individual trees. The trunks are thick, smooth, and
jet black, and appear to almost drink the light. Despite
this, the trees’ broad leaves, veined with purple tracings,
seem to catch and reflect the light, reminding you of
warm candles in the night. Paths wind through the
wood, plunging deep toward the center of the forest,
and the trees are just dense enough that the
near-year-round snowfall here in the north dusts, rather
than blankets, the forest floor.
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 ENCOUNTERS IN THE SVARTWALD
As the party delves deeper into the Svartwald, they have
the chance to encounter various fey and beastial denizens
of the woods. The below encounters can be run in any
order, though it is recommended that Lights in the Dark be
run last, as the will-o’-wisps in that encounter are more
likely to appear closer to Widow Drairot’s lair.
EVEN THE WOLVES ARE HUNGRY
Two dire wolves (SRD)
Two dire wolves stumble across the characters. Driven to
aggression by hunger and the negative energy permeating
the Svartwald, the wolves immediately attack. When you
judge the time to be right, read the following:
An unearthly howl splits the air. In the corners of your
eyes, you see great, hulking shapes flitting between the
trees. Suddenly, from opposite sides of the path burst
two massive wolves, each the size of a small horse.
Slavering at the mouth, the wolves charge at you, their
eyes glinting with a malevolent green light.
The wolves attempt to bring the character that appears the
physically weakest to 0 hp and then flee with the uncon-
scious character. If both wolves are reduced to half their
maximum hit points, before or after achieving this goal,
they will immediately abandon the attack and flee.
WHITE ON WHITE
One polar bear (SRD)
This optional encounter with a single polar bear is intend-
ed for adventuring parties who are looking for more of a
challenge or who are particularly experienced. The bear,
like the wolves in the above encounter, is attuned to the
forest spirits’ agitation and is unusually aggressive. Having
smelled the party approaching, it lies in wait, camouflaging
itself in a snow bluff off the path.
As the group moves along the path, they have a chance
to notice the ambush. Once the players come within
charging range of it, it bursts forth from its hiding place
and attacks. Any characters who are keeping watch notice
the polar bear lying in wait on a successful DC 14 Wisdom
(Perception) check and can alert the party. If the party
notices the bear, read:
The path wends deeper into the forest, the dark black
trees pressing in on you from all sides. The trees are
thicker now, and less light makes it way through the
canopy. The bitter northern chill sinks into your bones.
Snowdrifts dot the side of the path, and for a moment
you mistake the mound ahead of you for a particularly
large pile of snow. But as you walk closer, you see faint
traces of steamy breath rising from it, and the slow,
steady motion of something large breathing as it lies in
wait for unsuspecting travelers.
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If they do not, instead read:
The path wends deeper into the forest, the dark black
trees pressing in on you from all sides. The trees are
thicker now, and less light makes it way through the
canopy. The bitter northern chill sinks into your bones.
Snowdrifts dot the side of the path, icy and cold in the
low light.
In a burst of movement, one of the larger mounds of
snow explodes into movement. The monstrous white
bear before you growls as it advances, the sound low
and loud enough that you feel it resonating in your
chests.
A party that does not notice the bear is surprised for the
first round of combat. Unlike the wolves, the polar bear is
unused to being overpowered, and will fight to the death.
WHO TRAVERSES MY WOODS?
As the party moves through the Svartwald, they encounter
Sif, a satyr who lives in the forest. When they do, read:
Without warning, the path bends sharply and the thick
cluster of trees opens up to reveal a small clearing. Tufts
of grass and small winter flowers poke through the thin
layer of snow, and the leaves on the trees dance to a
melody only they can hear.
At the north end of the clearing, atop a large boulder
lined with quartz, sits a man with goat legs and horns
curling back from his forehead in an elegant spiral. He
wears a deep purple cloak and is playing a pan flute
hewn from an unearthly, translucent pink crystal.
Curiously, no sound — or none that reaches your ears —
comes from the pipe.
The man’s ears twitch and he stops playing. The tree
leaves fall still, and in the quiet he looks at you and says,
“Well met! What brings you here, to my woods?”
Contrary to most of the fey in the Svartwald, Sif is
non-aggressive, though he will defend himself if attacked.
He is quick to assure the party that he wishes them no
harm; a self-styled guardian of the forest, he is concerned
with the recent shift in attitude in the Svartwald and
instead asks the party if they will investigate the cause of
the Svartwald dryads’ madness.
Sif can tell the party, should they be interested in
conversing with him, that he has seen a number of
children being spirited away to Widow Drairot’s hut, and
that he’s seen the woman in question performing strange
midnight rituals at the bases of the trees inhabited by the
dryads. If asked about Widow Sundra Drairot, he will
warn the party that she is a powerful magic user, and tell
them that they will have the forest’s thanks if they defeat
her.
LIGHTS IN THE DARK
Two will-o’-wisps (SRD)
Two will-o’-wisps attempt to lure the adventurers to an
early, watery grave.
You find yourself in a particularly dense patch of the
Svartwald. The path narrows, the trees pushing in on the
sides until you are forced to continue forward one by
one. The ground beneath your feet, previously clear and
well-trodden, buckles with gnarled roots, warren holes,
and icy, uneven mounds of dirt. Light all but fades from
the world, and you strain your eyes to see.
Off the path, ahead of you and to the right in the
trees, a flicker of light in the dark catches your attention.
Bobbing about thirty feet off the path are two faint, pale
blue lights, twin beacons of hope and safety in this
treacherous stretch of forest.
The will-o’-wisps wait for the party to investigate, and then
begin drifting slowly away, deeper into the forest. They
lead the party forward into the forest, hoping to get the
party lost and push them into a trap, where they can feed
on the adventurers’ death rattles.
If the party follows the wisps, they find themselves on
a stretch of treacherous, thin ice covered in a fine layer of
snow. The subtle change in ground texture is noticeable
with a successful DC 18 Wisdom (Perception) check. If
two or more Medium sized creatures step onto the ice, it
cracks. Any character within 10ft of the boundary between
ground and ice may make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw;
on a success, they manage to hurl themselves to solid
ground. On a failure, or if the character is farther than
10ft from the ground, they fall through the ice into the
frigid lake below. Any character that falls through the ice
instantly notices that they are not alone in the lake. The
corpses are also noticeable from shore with a DC 20
Wisdom (Perception) check. If one or more characters
notice the corpses, read:
Beneath the dark ice bob dark shapes, knocking gently
against the roof of ice beneath which they are trapped.
These blobs resolve into the bloated corpses of three
townsfolk locked beneath the ice, their graying skin
swollen with lakewater.
One of these corpses is Isaak Tornkil, the father of
Meredith Tornkil. He carries a necklace of adaptation, a
precious family heirloom, which can be found if his corpse
is searched. As the necklace prevented him from drowning,
the wisps kept Isaak underwater with their magic until he
froze to death. See Ieva’s Faithful, on page 4, for more
information about Meredith and the Tornkil family
heirloom.
It takes one minute to search a corpse. Any time one
of the characters chooses to do so, roll a d6; on a roll of 5
or 6, the corpse is Isaak Tornkil. For each minute a charac-
ter remains either in the water or soaked by the frigid water
without drying off, they must make a DC 10 Constitution
saving throw, suffering one point of exhaustion on a
failure.
Encounter Deadliness. Because of the will-o’-wisps
Consume Life ability and their resistance to non-magical
damage, this encounter can quickly turn deadly. Use
caution when having the will-o’-wisps engage the party
directly.
THE HEARTWOOD
Journeying to the center of the Svartwald takes about four
to five hours of uninterrupted travel, after which the
characters will come across the Heartwood, a one-mile
radius section of woods shaped by the long years of
Widow Drairot’s presence. As the players enter the Heart-
wood, read:
So slowly that you only notice the change after many
minutes of walking, the landscape begins to morph
around you. The trees clump together more tightly,
growing thick and wild, nearly swallowing the path
beneath your feet. Gnarled roots reach up to catch at
your ankles, and the faint wafting odor of rot assaults
you from the underbrush.
Here, the ground is entirely devoid of snow, and as
you thrust your way past brambles and dense foliage,
you notice that the air is fetid and borderline warm. The
ground softens beneath your feet, occasionally shifting
to putrid mud underfoot, slowing your pace to a crawl.
The sucking mud and brambles that infest the Heartwood
are harmless, but traversing the area takes twice as long as
it usually would.
Additionally, at random, visions of Widow Sundra
Drairot will appear in the Heartwood. The illusory dupli-
cate does not interact with the party, although if they draw
attention to themselves it will appear as if she registers
their presence. If the characters attempt to interact with
her in any way, she vanishes. Otherwise, what the hag does
is entirely up to you as the GM.
Widow Drairot appears as an ancient woman, white
hair matted with twigs, mud, and other filth, wrapped in a
surprisingly well-kept shawl covered in illegible symbols.
These symbols are a language of the hag’s own devising,
and chronicle all her greatest achievements and, in the rare
instance when she is bested, her greatest grudges. Her skin
is hard to make out in the dark of the Heartwood and the
shadows of her cowl, but if the characters do see it, they
notice it is sickly graying green in color. Her yellowing
nails are long, thick, and cracked.
THE WIDOW AWAITS
One green hag (SRD)
Two dryads (SRD)
Three sprites (SRD)
Thanks to her illusory duplicates, Sundra Drairot is aware
of the party's approach. Unless they have discussed them
in front of one of the duplicates, she doesn’t know the
group’s intentions, but she is naturally paranoid and is
generally hostile to visitors.
In order to bolster her defenses, the Widow recently
began watering the various trees inhabited by dryads with a
7
 mixture of ground bone — stolen from the Isholt grave-
yard — and blood, which she harvested from the children
Einar’s ghost called into the forest, whom she keeps
magically sedated. The bone and blood concoction,
infused with the hag’s own magic, is responsible for driving
the dryads mad with anger and making them susceptible to
Widow Drairot’s suggestions.
When the adventurers reach the true center of the
Heartwood, Widow Drairot, a green hag, will attempt to
stall the group while her allies, two dryads and three
sprites, flank the party through the woods. She won’t tell
the group anything about her plans or what she’s done to
Isholt, and claims ignorance of any missing children. Her
lies are careless and often contradictory, however, and a
successful DC 13 Charisma (Insight) check will reveal that
8
her speech is riddled with falsehoods.
Once her allies are in place, if combat has not yet been
triggered, Sundra Drairot will use her Invisible Passage
action, causing the dryads and sprites to burst from cover
and attack.
CENTURIES ARE NOT UNDONE IN A DAY
Widow Drairot, like many hags, is centuries old, and has
not lived so long by engaging in pointless fights to the
death if a battle turns against her. If reduced to 32 hit
points or fewer, Widow Drairot will immediately take the
Disengage action and flee. On her next turn, she will use her
Invisible Passage ability to vanish from sight.
To cover her tracks, she will release the magical
bindings holding the three children (two N human com-
moners and one N halfling commoner, incapable of
taking actions in combat) from Isholt captive, allowing
them to stumble, groggy, from her hut. Any dryad still
alive, starving for the bones inside the children’s bodies,
will divert their attacks towards them; if both dryads have
been killed, a third and final dryad will emerge from the
trees to attack the children. The party will be forced with a
choice: abandon the children to a certain death at the
hands of a crazed forest spirit and pursue Widow Drairot,
or protect the children and allow her to escape. If Widow
Drairot is killed before getting the chance to release the
children, they can be found in a cage inside her hut.
THE WIDOW AWAITS
Once Widow Drairot is no longer a threat and her minions
have been defeated, the adventurers are free to explore her
lair at their leisure. If the characters enter her home, read:
You step into the hag’s hut and are greeted with a
pleasant sight: some sort of soup bubbles in a cauldron
to your right, giving off a warmth that suffuses the
neatly-kept living space. Bookshelves with a scattering
of books and papers line one wall, while a small bed,
roughly made, is tucked against the far wall.
It’s only upon closer inspection that the monstrous
nature of the hut’s occupant reveals itself. The books are
twisted treatises on foul necromantic magic and
poisons. A severed finger bobs to the surface in the
cauldron, and is joined by a hoof too large to be from
the goats you know to inhabit the area. Sitting on the
bookshelf is a small human skull, grinning madly down
at you.
lives or dies, however, the fey spirits inhabiting the Svart-
wald soon calm in her absence.
The only way to release Einar’s ghost is to destroy the
skull to which it is bound. If the party does not think to
do this, Lori Spirsgard can recommend this course of
action, although they themselves are loath to desecrate the
dead. If, for whatever reason, the party leaves Einar’s skull
untouched, his ghost continues to haunt Isholt. The
characters will notice this should they stay another night in
Isholt.
If they return the amulet to Lori Spirsgard, they are
immensely thankful. The amulet is returned to a place of
prominence in the Temple of Ieva, and as thanks, Lori will
pay the party 50 gp — all that can be spared from the
temple’s meager coffers — and offer the group a +1
longsword. If the party attempts to return the necklace of
adaptation to Meredith Tornkil, she bursts into tears and
offers the characters 30 sp, the sum total of her savings,
for returning it to her.
If the party succeeds in ridding Isholt of Einar’s ghost
and saving the kidnapped children, the town is enormously
grateful. Various villagers will scrape together a reward of
20 gp, and storekeepers will offer discounts on their wares
— provided the party stays in the town’s favor. The
cessation of the hauntings allows Niklas to begin to grieve
properly, and things soon return to normal in Isholt.

Sundra Drairot, unlike many of her sisters, kept a fastidi-

ous record of her comings and goings in a private ledger,
which can be found sitting on the table. In the ledger, she
detailed how she tricked Niklas Ostrem into tethering
Einar’s soul to his skull, which she then had exhumed and
now keeps on the bookshelf. It also dictates how she was
using powdered bone dust to pervert the dryads of the
Svartwald, as well as her plans to harvest the children
drawn to the Svartwald by Einar’s ghost for parts to use in
her magical experiments.
A thorough search of the Widow’s abode will reveal
that she kept little of value in her home, although a
successful DC 13 Intelligence (Investigation) check reveals
a loose floorboard by her bed, which can be pried open to
reveal a small hidden cache. Inside this cache is Marta
Alldottir’s amulet, along with various trinkets of sentimen-
tal value to the hag.

CONCLUSION
The characters, having discovered the children and likely
the Marta’s amulet of Ieva, are free to do as they wish.
Widow Drairot, if she survives her brush with the party,
departs for elsewhere and begins plotting her revenge.
What shape that revenge takes is up to you, but remember
that hags have long memories and take pride in cruelty;
Widow Drairot will not forgive nor forget easily, and she
has many years to put her plans into motion. Whether she
9
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THANKS FOR READING!
If you enjoyed this adventure, you can find the rest of our library on Drive-
ThruRPG. In “The Lost Fortress of Galvain,” an adventure for 2nd level, the
party is tasked with retaking a lost fortress from a band of raiders. In “Ritual
Sacrifice,” an adventure for 5th level, the party finds themselves teleported into
an icy cavern to be sacrificed, but something even more dangerous than their
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