Land of Frozen Tears | An Icewind Dale Adventure

Creating your character

Once you sign up, I’ll share a link to the D&D Beyond campaign. From there, you can create your level 3 character template. We’ll cover backstory and other important elements together during Session 0. You’re welcome to use any officially published content on D&D Beyond (no need to buy anything; I’ll share my books with you!).

Preparing for the session

You’ll need: A Discord account (for voice and chat) - mandatory A D&D Beyond account (for character creation) - optional You don’t need any paid subscriptions or extra tools; everything will be shared with you.

What Gene Waters brings to the table

Expect atmospheric music, a few questionable character voices, and plenty of opportunities for creative roleplay and exploration. I follow the Rule of Cool over rigid RAW when it makes the story more fun, but combat and dice rolls will be handled cleanly through Foundry VTT. You can expect balanced combat, downtime for character moments, and an open world that rewards curiosity and bold choices.

Homebrew rules

Stress Instead of tracking hunger, warmth, or food, players track their Stress, a measure of how much the cold, despair, and horror of Icewind Dale have eroded their spirit. Stress is tracked openly on your character sheet. Your Maximum Stress equals the sum of all your Ability Modifiers. This means strong, wise, and charismatic characters resist despair better, as in real life, resilience comes from many sources. Example: a ranger with modifiers +3, +2, +2, +1, +0, +0 → Max Stress = 8 Characters experience a Stress event when they go through significant hardship, such as a day of travel through blizzard or deadly cold, going hungry or lacking warmth for a full day, witnessing death, tragedy, or moral collapse, etc.; the GM calls for a Stress Save (usually Wisdom, Con, or Cha). Pass: You keep it together. Fail: You gain 1 Stress. When current Stress equals your Maximum, your spirit starts to crack. Each additional fail on a Stress Save forces a loss of 20% of your Max HP immediately (stacks). Recovering from this breaking point requires a Long Rest in safety and/or meaningful emotional recovery (i.e., big RP event). At any time, the GM can spend up to your current Stress Level per Long Rest to impose Disadvantage on a roll at a dramatically appropriate time. This does not reduce your current Stress level. Your fear = a storytelling resource. Stress can be reduced: You can clear 1 Stress for performing comforting or supportive actions: tending the fire, sharing rations, telling stories, helping a companion, or finding warmth. Stress automatically reduces to 0 after a true Long Rest in a safe, civilized location (a town, an inn, or a magically protected shelter). When one PC performs a hopeful/heroic act (saving a child, lighting a beacon, reuniting friends, etc.), all nearby allies reduce Stress by 1.

How Gene Waters creates a safe table

Before we begin, we’ll go through a Lines and Veils discussion to establish everyone’s comfort zones. This helps ensure a welcoming, respectful, and fun table for everyone. Players are always encouraged to speak up if something feels uncomfortable! Your enjoyment and safety come first.