Great survival theme with a bit convuluted puzzle just before the final part. But the finale was absolutely worth it.

The story is interesting and great for a new group, we ran it last night. As a new DM, relatively speaking, I found the book easy to consume and enjoyed the tutorial-esque infoboxes throughout, explaining key gameplay aspects. What the booklet did less well, was giving me more help with blue callouts of what information to share with the players. The information is presented to the DM, and it leaves it up to you to describe most of the locations and points of interest. There are only a large handful of blue boxes with descriptions, so you'll probably want to make notes... Apart from this shortcoming, the adventure was fun, engaging and perfect for a long evening's play (6h for us).

The Frozen North does a great job at introducing the ongoing threat of FROSTCLAW!! The tension in this module is easily acquired and maintained throughout. It has a little bit of everything for all players, social, combat, and exploring.

I'm a little underwhelmed by this adventure for two reasons:

1. The setup feels too similar to DDAL10-00. The adventure pretty quickly diverges but getting past that point with a group who have already played the initial entry point just has too much cognative dissonance.
2. The plot seems to happen to and around the PCs; there's almost no agency on their part. That can make for a great horror campaign, but the DM needs some tips on how to make it feel natural rather than narratively forced. As is, there's no nuance for newer DMs to employ, just "this thing happens no matter what the party tries" over and over.

Overall this is a good start to the light-horror themes of the first half of season 10 while providing a series of challenges for newer players to start to learn how to adventure.

This was an awesome adventure! I ran this for a group after doing DDAL10-00 and the difference between the two was great fun. Kind of like how Rime of the Frostmaiden offers two starting quests, 1 light hearted adventure chasing Chwingas and 1 creepier murder mystery. DDal10-01 is a much creepier story than DDAL10-00 and being stalked by Frostclaw with the threat of PC death along with the NPCs along with the party was a great teaser for future encounters with the Snowy Owbear.

2 things I would have preferred:

1. Final encounter with Frostclaw, I would have preferred this scenario set up as a fighting retreat, if she's not going to die at the end of the module, have the win condition be escaping from a much stronger Frostclaw instead of burning her down and then having her conveniently escape.
2. In terms of layout of the mini-module sections, certain information would have been helpful in the section ahead. I was a bit confused as DM about certain parts, like the door puzzle. I would have liked that mentioned at the end of the mini-module before being introduced in the next, so that I could have described the room more accurately with less prep.

I was quite excited to run this module while I was reading it as the potential for the sense of dread that could be instilled in players was very high and ultimately it felt like it delivered. The notion of Frostclaw hunting the party and picking them off, one by one, is great and using some NPCs (which could be run as uncooperative & non-friendly horror movie fodder). Since I ran this back when DDAL10-02 was delayed, I chose to make it a two-parter (a rare thing), but I knew there was a good amount of enjoyment that could be pulled from it. There's borderline too much in here for a single session, but that's never truly a bad thing as there's elements that can be cleanly cut out to make room if time is needed (owl fight, some of the side areas before the Netherese door, etc.).

Starting with an action sequence as players scatter to rescue survivors (instead of a dry combat) is a great kickoff to set the tone that the environment is as much your enemy as the things lurking in the snow. My players followed it up by nearly suffocating in quicksnow, again highlighting that fighting isn't the skill you need to focus on in Icewind Dale. When they make it to the cave, it became fun trying to find ways to make them dislike their NPC allies with the warrior being a jerk, the rogue pickpocketing their stuff, and the scholar being creepily obsessed with Netherese necromancy. The blankness of the NPCs are probably my only complaint; I read some discussion here and really liked the idea to use them as open vessels for "allies from back home," but I don't remember that intent ever being stated in the module itself. It's a great idea, one that I wish I had thought of before I ran it.

The ending sequence was fun, but I found even capped at Level 2, Frostclaw was melted down damage-wise quite quickly by the players and really had to find ways to pad out the the fight further. One of my players was also a little bummed that there was no way to truly kill Frostclaw and, while it makes sense why, there were probably enough tools here that resurrection into a more powerful entity could have been an option for the owlbear.

Overall, a lot of great work was put into this and it's a perfect tone-setter for Season 10. There's going to be some work on the DM's shoulders to sift this down to the core of what you want to run, but it's certainly worth the exercise as, especially compared to other AL modules, my criticisms above are very minor and don't get in the way of a great (1 or 2) session(s).

I was not a huge fan. It basically plays like bad horror movie. Horrifying creature comes in and kills random NPC during a cut scene that players aren't supposed to interupt. If the players try to chase the creature then it disappears via plot armor! Search for tracks? Nat 20! Too bad - plot stealth. After the first NPC death a few of the players checked out realizing that they were just passive partipcants and that their actions didn't matter. Also, after the big bad fight at the end, the BBEG runs away, regardless of what players attempt to do to stop it or follow it. "The module is over and you won!" is not the victory the players are looking for.

I realize not all of this is the fault of the author. There's a 4-part series where the BBEG is a reoccuring character and they can't die. I just wish it didn't destroy player agency to accomplish this. While I do like the concept of an overarching plot for the series, i think a better way to accomplish this would be foreshadowing over plot armor.

If you are a new DM this module has a lot of tips on mechanics that are used. Some were helpful (the exaustion chart for quick reference) but others seemed a bit over the top (describing what damage is and how to apply it to a monster).

Finally I'm not a huge fan of the new intra-story awards. They add confusion to the module. Why does the warrior die at the end of part 2, then potentially again at the start of part 3, and once again at the start of part 4?

This adventure is an interesting start to a storyline set in Icewind Dale, it has a lot of potential for tension and suspense with the constant shadow of a large creature stalking the group.

The reason I give this 3 stars is the following:

• The side-kicks feel very underwhelming, they have a full stat block and interesting back story but no race/name which is hidden at the end of the document with a small paragraph stating you need to prep this beforehand. Not only this, the sidekicks are picked off extremely fast, the characters will barely ever get to use them and it feels railroaded. My characters all tried to grab the expert before his untimely demise because they predicted it was going to happen. Fortunately the rolls allowed him to meet that end as planned.
• The snow birds encounter is pretty useless. I decided to just give them the information with passive nature because they had no idea what was going on and just attacked as would be the natural response. If you have a "strong" group it also suggests using the giant wasp which is a very silly choice as they have a poison effect which 1. Makes no sense unless you flavour it somehow and 2. Can easily insta-kill a level 1 player. They also have less health than owls so that's not great not great in that respect I would recommend increasing the health of the owls to 33 if you have a strong group.
• The 2 caves where the adventurers find the painted stones felt very unnecessary, the map was very small with only the stones inside each. My advice on these is to run these scenerios theatre of the mind as the maps are so small and featureless it doesn't do much for the session.
• The pit of sacrifice has some intriguing depictions and what sounds like a great mechanic but there is just no use I could find for it. I don't see how an adventurer would end up falling into it. I personally added some tension to this area by revealing a fresco to each of the players as they took turns crossing the bridge.
• The final encounter is somewhat lackluster even when using legendary actions and the largest stat block. I really wanted the ability to grab adventurers and use the previous points mechanics by throwing someone in but that would mean sacrificing a multi-attack, I think a grapple would have been a great legendary action instead of shove.

This is all constructive feedback and over all I think the adventure was a good start.

This was a cool story and pretty easy to run. I love the horror element that was really hightened in this mod. The mod gives a lot of good tips on how to increase the sense of dread, fear, and danger as they get stalked by a fast, wild, and powerful beast. The final battle is definitely one to remember! I did find one or two encounters redundant as they didn't really improve the overall story, but I loved the mod regardless.

A DM must buy BUT....... This is great module for any DM but especially for new DMs. Lots of hand holding and suggestions. Lots of information and how to handle the information. The use of sidekicks is very interesting BUT. The adventure gives players sidekicks and asks them to run the sidekicks. But then takes player agency away and has the sidekicks do stupid stuff. And there is some railroading along the way. I did like how encounters were adjusted. My player feedback. Redo page 28 as it only readable is you use the color copy, snap a picture of it with your cell phone and view it that way. Plus it is not needed. The railroad with the Sidekicks was not well liked. The group found it funny a sidekick warrior can don armour quicker than pcs.

I enjoyed playing this adventure very much and look forward to DMing it soon. It offers a great balance of all three pillars, with an added S10 emphasis on the gothic and brutal terrain.