Session A20 — Bonus Session: Icewind Dale

Summary

A back-to-back session continuing directly from the A20 cliffhanger: the female frost giant is still standing at the Tresendar Manor construction site when combat opens. The party brings her down, stakes her face-down in the dirt, and waits. When she wakes at twilight, she reveals herself as Gertie Orelsdottir — Queen of the Frost Giants, Cleric of Auril the Frostmaiden, and a figure of considerable fame among those with giant lore. She was manipulated into the attack by a cloaked figure bearing a spider emblem, who promised her that Phandalin held the Codicil of the White — an artifact she believes can end the never-ending winter devastating Icewind Dale.

The party releases Gertie on terms: she owes them a boon, and she does not return. Haldak chases her out of town and extracts a conditional alliance offer — she will call him ally if the party finds and delivers the Codicil.

The session ends with the party agreeing to ride out at dawn with Gundren Rockseeker to Wave Echo Cave, as Boulders for Muscles departs Phandalin carrying Linene Graywind in a backpack toward Neverwinter to have her legs reattached.

Key Events

The Manor Fight — Giant Falls

The session opens mid-combat. The female frost giant at Tresendar Manor had already grabbed Haldak Tencloak on her previous turn and, in a moment of tactical creativity, announced: "I cast magic missile" — and physically threw him at Othorion as a living projectile. Both took 18 bludgeoning damage.

The fight continued. The giant had regeneration, but Kavu's fire output suppressed it. Between Drizzle's Divine Smites and Othorion's finishing blow — again through the spleen — she was brought down. Sildar Hallwinter and Daran Edermath held the perimeter. Gundren Rockseeker was present and participated in his peripheral way. Linene Graywind arrived from the wagon, walking on her hands:

"Now! I told you they were going to whoop your ass!"

And then, taking stock of her own situation:

"I ain't gonna be up for anything anytime soon there, but hey, we can look at each other eye to eye now."

Pip Stonehill appeared at some point during the aftermath and began kicking the downed giant repeatedly.

Staking the Giant — Gulliver's Travels

Rather than kill the unconscious giant, the party debated. They opted to secure her: face-down in the dirt, staked with ropes and wood, covered across the body in multiple bindings — the DM invoked Gulliver's Travels explicitly. The restraints were thorough but temporary; a creature of her size would eventually pull free. The plan was to wait, let her wake, and have a conversation.

Kavu's sanity check: Watching Linene get cleaved by the axe in A20 had been a significant psychological moment. The DM requested a sanity roll. Kavu passed — 15 — but the event left a mark.

Phandalin's dead: By the party's best count in the aftermath, approximately 30 of Phandalin's 126 residents had been killed in the giant assault. The fires were being controlled. Kavu and Drizzle worked through the night on both.

Twilight — Gertie Wakes

As the sun went down, the ropes strained, several stakes gave way, and the giant worked herself loose. She stood. She did not immediately attack.

"Why do I still live?"

Haldak was the first to address her, introducing himself. She responded:

"I am Gertie Orl's daughter. Queen of the Frost Giants."

The party had found her. Or she had found them.

Gertie Orelsdottir — The Frost Giant Queen

Haldak's history check revealed what he knew. Gertie Orelsdottir is one of the few giants — not just frost giants but giants of any kind — known to have mastered magic. She is a Cleric of Auril the Frostmaiden. She is the current leader of the unified frost giants along the Spine of the World and into Icewind Dale. She is, by the standards of giant civilization, famous.

She explained her situation:

"The Dale is currently engulfed in a never-ending winter. We did not have a summer season."

And what had driven her to Phandalin:

"We were told that you had the codicil of the white. The secret toad of Oro, the ice maiden."

The Codicil of the White: an artifact Gertie's people believe can end the magical winter strangling Icewind Dale and threatening Ten-Towns. Someone had told her it was here.

The Cloaked Figure — Spider Emblem

The party asked who gave her this intelligence. Gertie did not have a name.

"They were a dark figure, always cloaked with a commanding and sinister presence. We met them in a web-filled cave."

The cave was not deep underground. It was nearby. And the figure bore, on their person, "a dark eight-legged creature emblem" — a spider.

More than the false intelligence, this figure had actively aided the assault: Gertie confirmed the giants were cloaked by the figure's magic before attacking, giving them the element of surprise against Phandalin's defenders. The figure had told her the town held "many great warriors" — which proved false until the party arrived.

"Clearly someone has been using me and my people and our plight."

Releasing Gertie — The Vow

The debate at the party level was sharp. Kavu pointed to the bodies in the streets. Kelvin argued from a naturalist position — the giants acted from desperation, as predators sometimes do. Kavu cut him off: "Tell that to them." Then walked away.

Pip watched from down the street and was furious when the decision to release Gertie became clear:

"All that bluster, and you just cave, and you let her go. She gets to come in here and do that, and there are no consequences."

Kelvin's response — that revenge would not bring back what was lost — got him: "You're stupid. You're only five years old." She ran off.

Gertie, for her part, addressed Kavu directly — smelling him out:

"You are the only one here who has any mettle to apologize to your enemy even in a time of folly... Battle is battle. Rage is the correct response in this situation. Rage for the ones that you have lost. And I will have rage for being used and set upon the innocent like a pawn."

Her vow was specific:

"I, Gertie Orl's daughter, do not proclaim myself your ally, but do vow this, that should our paths cross again, I will owe you a boon. And that no matter the circumstance, we shall part ways in that time with my debt paid and your bodies mostly whole and intact."

Her parting words:

"Read the desperation in both my actions and on my face. Winter is coming."

She stood up and began walking north, dragging the corpses of her fallen clanmates.

Haldak Chases the Giant

While the rest of the party processed the aftermath, Haldak ran after Gertie — catching up to her on the trail north, where she was collecting the bodies of the two giants killed on the road.

"Did you follow me out here, Magic Missile Tencloak? How many times must a person say no? I am not your ally."

Haldak pressed. He named the Codicil. She confirmed:

"The magical artifact that the man in the cave, who had a dark eight-legged creature emblem on his self but was otherwise obscured and did not give me their name, said was integral to stopping the everlasting rhyme that has taken over the Icewind Dale and threatens not only my people but all of Ten-Towns."

Haldak proposed a deal: if the party found and delivered the Codicil of the White, ending the eternal winter:

"I shall call myself you, Haldak Magic Missile Tencloak, my ally."

She reached down and grabbed his hand, lifting him entirely off the ground and shaking him before tossing him gently into the 60-foot spike growth patch Kelvin had laid earlier in the battle. Her final words to him, as she walked into the trees and her Icewind Aura began shredding the plants around her:

"Until we meet again. Or should I say, should we ever meet again?"

Roland's Paper Bird — Vajra and Force Grey

Roland asked Sildar for a piece of paper. Sildar produced one without asking questions. Roland wrote a message to Vajra, the Blackstaff of Waterdeep, and sent a paper bird — a Waterdeep messaging device that folds into an origami crane, flies at walking speed, and cannot be opened except by extreme magical means.

The message summary Roland described: Gundren kidnapped on the road; the party tracked and freed him; a drow made off with his map to Wave Echo Cave; the drow is now in Cragmaw Castle; a never-ending winter is engulfing Icewind Dale; Phandalin was attacked by giants sent by a manipulator; the same bad actor may be behind both the kidnapping and the giant assault.

What he did not include: things that might make Vajra angry.

Sildar's response when he learned a letter had gone to Force Grey was immediate and hostile:

"He will not accept the meddling of any outside force from Waterdeep, Neverwinter, or Solvage. If he sees a single Flaming Fist in this town or its streets, he's going to tell them to fuck right off."

Kavu added his own warning to Roland:

"If I find out that Force Grey or any other one of the major factions is planning on using you and your owning of property or having of stature in this town, they will put an end to it. Am I clear?"

Roland: "Crystal."

Sylphrena and Haldak — Shared Grief

In the aftermath, Haldak sought out Sylphrena in her lantern (attuned to Roland). He attempted to open a conversation about shared loss — both of them having lost everything from a civilization that was destroyed. The exchange, conducted in High Old Common, did not go as Haldak planned.

Sylphrena's position: she was an orphan who knew only her master. She spent millennia in the lamp mourning him, and is now past that stage. She has no grief for the fall of the Netherese Empire because the more she learns of it, the more it deserved to fall — the slavery, the weave damage, the arcane exploitation.

When Haldak suggested she might want to regain her corporeal form:

"Would you like to experience real-time life, the aging, the process of learning and forgetting?"

Sylphrena reconsidered entirely:

"No, I'll stay in my fucking lamp... I thought I wanted a corporeal form, but you made it sound super gross and shitty."

She concluded: "I am going to go take a shower." And vanished back into the lamp.

Kavu's Sermon — Fire and Rebirth

Kavu organized a funeral ceremony for Phandalin's dead, setting up a funeral pyre and making himself available to any townsfolk who wished to mourn. He held an open invitation for any who wanted to burn their dead under Kossuth's rites rather than bury them.

He gave a sermon: fire leads to rebirth. That things must be destroyed in fire in order for new life to spring forth. Drizzle stood close by, listening. The DM's note: "That's what Drizzle is hearing." Drizzle's response: "Hallelujah. Preach it, master." Kavu ignored him.

After the ceremony, Kavu went silent. He stopped acknowledging Roland. He stopped acknowledging Kelvin. He was not specifically angry at anyone — he was processing. The bodies in the streets, the moral cost of releasing Gertie, the weight of thirty people dead. He helped with the rebuilding through the night without speaking much.

Othorion and Pip — The Training Sword

Heading to his room for the night, Othorion heard wood-on-wood from Pip's door. He knocked. Inside: Pip had constructed a training dummy from broken and whole furniture and was beating it with her Spear of Legends. She claimed to be fine. He rolled a nat-20 Insight.

What the roll revealed: Pip feels deeply betrayed by the party's decision to release Gertie, believing it failed to bring justice for her town. She feels utterly useless — a liability during the attack, nearly crushed — and her current training is a desperate attempt to become stronger so she will never feel that powerless again. She is confused by the gap between her childhood admiration for the party and the harsh reality she has witnessed. She harbors resentment that Drizzle — who she regards as weaker, smaller, and less capable than herself — was taken on as a squire and allowed to adventure while she was left behind.

The conversation that followed was one of the session's best scenes. Pip, eventually, said what she actually wanted:

"To be useful."

Othorion: "Yeah, I think we all do. I think we all want to be useful in one way or another."

She made her position clear: she knew she could not beat a frost giant. She knew a stick was useless. But she wanted the tools to not have to wait for rescue.

"I just want someone to give me the tools and the knowledge to take care of myself so I don't have to wait for you. Or my Pa, or the Frax, or Mr. Edermath, Mr. Hallwinter, or any of them."

Othorion asked her the hard question: "Are you prepared to kill? More importantly, when you do kill, can you live with yourself the day after?"

Pip looked him in the eye: "I guess there's only one way to find out."

He told her he would help her train. He found a training sword at the smithy the next morning — Alger Frakk and his apprentice Maza had been awake all night forging repair hardware for the town. Maza produced a blunt short sword from the back room, given free of charge. Othorion presented it to Pip before departure.

As the party prepared to leave, Othorion caught a glimpse of Pip watching from down the street. When the party confirmed they were going, she shook her head and disappeared around the corner.

Gundren and the Decision to Leave

At dawn, Gundren Rockseeker appeared outside Barthen's Provisions, having a horse saddled:

"I'm going to Wave Echo Cave, boy. You think I'm going to let that bastard of a black spider beat us to it? If my brothers are there, they'll need all the backup that they can get."

He did not ask the party to come. He stated his intention and waited. The back-and-forth about whether to stay and help rebuild versus following Gundren toward Wave Echo Cave played out against Haldak pitching the Codicil thread as a separate urgent objective. Kavu was initially resistant — still in collective-care mode, needing to stay and shore up the community. Gundren's mention of the Forge pushed the needle:

"This is why we came all this way. If we get beat to the Forge, you might not get to see it ever, Kavu."

Kavu wavered. The party ultimately agreed to ride out with Gundren.

Boulders for Muscles — Departure

As the party finalized preparations, they encountered Boulders for Muscles walking up the road with a large pack on his back. From inside the pack, Linene's head protruded.

"I have to get her legs put back on. And it cannot be done here, so I am heading to Neverwinter."

He expected to be back in about a month. Linene's granddaughter would manage the Lionshield Coster in her absence. His parting threat was characteristic: "And if any of you tries to get into her knickers, I'm gonna cut your fucking pecker off. That is not a promise. That is a threat." A correction: "That is not a threat. That is a promise."

From inside the pack: the sound of two sharp pieces of metal grinding against each other.

Session End — To Wave Echo Cave

The party loaded into the cart. Gundren — who does not like horses — joined them. They departed Phandalin following his directions toward Wave Echo Cave.

Long rest declared. Kelvin suffered one level of exhaustion for failing to drink water during the session.

NPCs Encountered

Loot / Discoveries

Threads Opened / Advanced

• The Codicil of the White: A document or artifact connected to Auril the Frostmaiden and the never-ending winter in Icewind Dale. Gertie's people need it to end the magical winter. Haldak has extracted a conditional alliance from Gertie — if the party finds the Codicil and ends the winter, she will call him ally. The party does not yet know what the Codicil actually is or where it might be found.
• The Cloaked Spider Figure: A dark-cloaked individual with an eight-legged creature emblem who met Gertie in a web-filled, not-deeply-underground cave; gave her false intelligence about Phandalin; and used cloaking magic to help her assault the town. This actor has now been identified as the orchestrator behind the giant attack. Their identity and agenda are unknown.
• Wave Echo Cave: Gundren is departing and the party is riding with him. The Black Spider — whoever that is — may already be moving on the cave. Gundren's brothers may be inside.
• Pip Stonehill: Furious at the party for releasing Gertie. Feels like a liability. Wants to become a fighter. Received a training sword from Othorion. Watched the party leave and shook her head. Her trust in the party has been genuinely shaken — not permanently, but it requires attention.
• Linene Graywind: Alive but requiring Regenerate; Boulders for Muscles is transporting her to Neverwinter on his back. Expected return in approximately one month.
• Roland and Force Grey: A paper bird has gone to Vajra. Sildar is furious. The response — if any — is pending. Kavu has made clear that any faction attempt to use Roland's manor ownership or local status will be resisted.
• Phandalin Damage: ~30 of 126 residents dead. Buildings burning but mostly controlled. Rebuilding underway through the night. The town was not destroyed — the party's rapid response made a significant difference.
• Sylphrena: Haldak's attempt to bond over shared loss did not land. She is not interested in corporeal form (at least as described). Her own goals remain unresolved. She will let Roland know first when she figures out what she wants.
• Harshnag: Named by Sildar as a frost giant member of the Order of the Gauntlet based in Waterdeep — a potential contact for those dealing with giant-related matters.