Oath of the Frozen King is an adventure kit published by Absolute Tabletop. The following quest in the land of Dragongrin was undertaken by Bison the half orc barbarian, Giotto the tortle blood hunter, Harcourt the human ranger, Orwen the gnome cleric, and Skittak the ratfolk rogue.

In the land of Dragongrin, the shadows of dark tyrants stretched across the land. Long ago, the Frozen King ruled the realm of Varnholme until his subjects overthrew him and cast him from his throne. Before he perished at the hands of his people, the Frozen King swore an oath to return one day and cover the land with an endless winter.

Long years passed since the Frozen King was entombed in the Maw of Black Ice, a dark keep hidden in the depths of the mountains in the frozen north of Varnholme. The people of Varnholme kept a watch upon the keep, for fear that the Frozen King might indeed rise from the dead and exact his revenge, and to prevent the king’s few remaining loyalists from disturbing the keep. But as time passed, the guards sent to the northern keep dwindled in number, and fewer still remained there willingly, until the watch upon the king’s tomb not an honor but a burden that was left to miscreants and malcontents.

Then recently, a desperate message was received from the three guards in the Maw of Black Ice who had kept their oaths. These three had asked for reinforcements to defend the keep from an unknown disturbance. A half dozen soldiers, led by a young man named Siegfriend, set out a fortnight ago, but they had not been heard from since.

Fearing the worst, the local townspeople beseeched Harcourt, a brave folk hero, and Bison, a bold half-orc pirate, to seek out the party that had been sent to the Maw of Black Ice and return with news of their fate. Few others were willing to heed the people’s call, for the keep was rumored to be haunted by the living dead. Harcourt, whose family had been brutally murdered and turned into undead monsters, was not one to shy away such a place, and neither was Bison one to cringe from danger. Moreover, both Harcourt and Bison felt beholden to the townspeople who had nursed them back to health after finding them left for dead on the road, the victoms of an ambush by highway robbers.

Harcourt and Bison set out for the Maw of Black Ice with provisions given by the townspeople, including a live chicken. And they were joined by an unlikely band of adventurers. There was Skittak, a ratfolk rogue from the local thieves’ guild who had been caught red handed by members of the local church and was sent on this quest as part of his parole, and his parole officer, a rock gnome cleric named Orwen the Quick. Orwen was an acolyte of The Wanderer who was sent by the Church to keep an eye on Skittak and also to investigate and report back on the disturbance in the keep. On the road, the party was joined by a peculiar tortle from a distant land who called himself Giotto. Giotto was searching for exotic new cuisines. He had heard rumors of a macabre delicacy in Dragongrin – a worm that dwelled in the heart of the living dead – and he was dying to try it.

The party was guided to the Maw of Black Ice by a veteran tomb robber named Ruska and a young halfling warrior named Varniss. After several days of travel through high rocky passes crowned with snow, they arrived at a sheer wall of frost-covered rock cleft by a deep rift that looked like a gash upon the face of the mountain. Inside the rift, they saw the entrance to the weathered old keep brooding in darkness.

The party entered within and found themselves in the first chamber. The room was bare but for a stone altar. Something glimmered upon the surface of the altar. On closer inspection, the party discovered a wondrous sword covered in runes. Surely this was the legendary runeblade that had once been used to slay the Frozen King!

The heroes inspected the altar closely and realized that it was warded by a magical trap. Fearing for their own safety, they bade brave Ruska to lift up the runeblade, assuring him that it was quite safe. As Ruska picked up the blade, the hand that held the hilt of the marvelous weapon became petrified in black ice! He would surely have been frozen entirely if not for his hardy constitution. Ruska looked at the party in sorrow and rage, but they looked at him innocently.

“Oh wow, who would have thought it would be trapped? Not us!”

The party moved forward. The second chamber was much like the first, but this one contained a large block of stone with a narrow slit on top of it. The slit looked to be about the girth of the runeblade frozen in Ruska’s hand. The party had an idea and told Ruska to put the runeblade into the slit, but the tomb robber dared not take any more risks at the party’s request.

From behind the stone block, they heard a noise, as of a man shuddering in fright. When Skittak peered over to see the source of the sound, he found a man wearing the red armor of the sentinels of Varnholme cowering in terror. The man looked up and screamed when he saw the ratfolk’s face.

“Ah! P- Please don’t eat me!”

The heroes managed to calm the frightened soldier. They learned that he was Siegfried, the leader of the sentinels recently sent to the Maw of Black Ice to reinforce the wardens of the keep. But he reported that all of his men had been slain by a terrible monster lurking within the halls of the keep. Siegfried wondered if it might not be the Frozen King risen from his tomb. He alone had survived, but only because he fled while his men fought bravely to the end. Harcourt became furious, for there was nothing that he hated more than cowardice, and he nearly slew Siegfried then and there but kept himself in check.

It had come into Siegfried’s mind to take the runeblade and place it upon the altar of offering, hoping to cleanse of the keep of the darkness that had infested it. Now, Ruska flew into a rage and nearly slew Siegfried then and there, but the others held him back.

The heroes had now learned the fate of the lost soldiers, as was their task, but they decided to delve further into the keep to unravel the mystery of what had slain those brave men. Yet they knew that they could not bring Siegfried with them, for fear that he might endanger their mission and also fearing that either Ruska or Harcourt might stab him in the darkness. So they sent him back to the entrance of the keep, but not before Harcourt gave him his chicken as a parting gift and asked him to place it upon the altar on his way out for good luck.

As the heroes continued down the hall, they soon learned the answer to their question. For the party was waylaid by a ferocious troll that had been hiding in the shadows. The immense creature tore at them with its sharp claws, but the heroes beat it back with sword and spell, until at last it was cut down in a smoking ruin. To ensure the monstrosity would not rise again, Orwen said a prayer and conjured a holy flame that consumed the remains of the troll.

Now they had discovered the true fate of the sentinels, but the heroes were not content. Some dark power had lured the troll, and perhaps other evil things, to the Maw of Black Ice. Fearing the worst, the party decided to press on until they reached the deepest part of the keep where they would confirm or disprove their suspicions. From this point, there were two passages before them. One stairway went up while the other went down. The heroes decided to split up. Bison, Giotto, Orwen, and Varniss went upward while Harcourt, Skittak, and Ruska descended down the stairs.

Bison’s group came to a chamber with a great rift that nearly sundered the hall in twain. They tossed a coin into the rift to hear how long it would take to reach the bottom. The coin rattled through the jagged walls of the rift, but they could not hear the echo of its final descent. They tried to cross over to the other side, but the rift began to widen as the stonework crumbled beneath their feet. Bison and Giotto leapt forward to safety, but Varniss was not quick enough. She would have plummeted to her doom were it not for the swift hand of Orwen the Quick who pulled her to safety.

Down below, Harcourt’s group came to a large chamber whose walls were lined with sunken vats. Upon the ceiling, there was a large tear in the stonework. As they stood contemplating the room, a single coin fell from the tear in the ceiling and rattled upon the floor. Soon after, a thin, blue arm reached up from a nearby vat and grabbed the coin before receding back into the vat. Harcourt and his companions realized that the vats were occupied. Then they recalled the rumors of a cult of cannibals that worshiped the Frozen King as a dark god. They prepared to do battle against the unknown numbers of cannibals lurking within the vats when suddenly the ceiling came crumbling down and crushed the occupants of the vats. Where once the ceiling had been, they saw a gapping hole leading to the upper chamber where the rest of their company stood.

Reunited once more, the party descended the last set of stairs to the final hall. This vast subterranean chamber was the burial place of the Frozen King. The air was unnaturally cold, even for the far north. The heroes felt a dread presence that grew stronger as they crept deeper into the hall until they arrived at the furthest end of the hall. There they found the black sarcophagus, surrounded by the frozen bodies of fallen wardens of Varnholme who had been cut down by wicked things – perhaps the troll, the cannibals, or something else.

Then they saw to their horror that the stone lid was broken. And as if drawn forth by the presence of living beings, a tall, dark figure emerged from the sarcophagus. He looked like the shadow of a moghty king, but his face and limbs were of burnt bone, a tangled mane of shimmering white hair flowed from his iron crown, and a beating crystalline heart burned with cold blue flame between his blackened ribs. Twin blue flames appeared in the black sockets of his grim skull. The Frozen King saw, and as he fixed his gaze upon the heroes in his lair, a cold voice issued from him.

“I… liiiive…….. Vaaarnhoolme… iiis… miiiiiine…..”

The Frozen King had awakened, and his power had drawn the troll and cannibals to the Maw of Max Ice. Now the Frozen King lifted his finger, and the bodies of the wardens stirred. As the corpses stood up, the icy flesh sloughed from their ivory bones, turning the wardens into skeletal warriors. The skeletons bowed before their king and then stood with their blades drawn toward the adventurers.

The heroes were all that stood between the Frozen King and the fulfilment of his vengeful oath. Yet they feared the power of the Frozen King to raise up all the dead creatures in the confines of the keep. It came into the heart of Bison the pirate to step forward and challenge the Frozen King in single combat. And his challenge of accepted. Perhaps the Frozen King was still bound by a code of honor, or perhaps he could not suffer to be insulted by a mere mortal, let alone a lowly half orc corsair. Whatever the reason, Bison found himself face to face with the undead lord in a duel that would decide the fate of Varnholme.

The pirate drew his axe and the Frozen King raised him his vicious maul, and then their weapons clashed. Time and again, Bison evaded and withstood the crushing blows of his opponent’s maul, even as his own mighty axe swing found their mark. Yet his companions could not stand idly by while Bison faced the menace alone. They bided their time until they found their opening and then pounced upon the Frozen King together with their steel and their spells.

“Treacheroouuuus…. mortaaaals!”

In his rage and hubris, the Frozen King did not see Ruska sneaking up behind him at the party’s urging. The tomb robber thrust the runeblade into the Frozen King’s crystalline heart. The black ice around Ruska’s hand shattered, freeing him from his curse. As the heart of the Frozen King was shattered, the blue flames in his eyes brightened for an instant before growing dark. The bones of the former wardens clattered to the floor, and the Frozen King, gripping the runeblade in his chest, collapsed where he stood.

The party of adventurers had survived and emerged victorious. They brought remains of the wardens and sentinels to the surface where they burned them with ceremony. Siegfried was waiting for them at the entrance of the keep, his hand petrified and holding a frozen chicken encased in black ice.

Having completed their quest, the heroes each went their separate ways. Giotto, having failed to find what he was looking for, continued his search for strange new delicacies. Skittak was granted his freedom as promised by the church. Ruska and Varniss left in search of new tombs and ruins to explore. Harcourt and Bison returned to the village in Varnholme where they told the people of all they had witnessed and were hailed as heroes.

Meanwhile, Orwen returned to the church where he reported his findings. Yet he was disturbed to learn that the church elders were not pleased. He came to know that the Frozen King was the patron of the founders of the church who were the king’s loyalists that had gone into hiding. The elders had hoped for the Frozen King’s imminent return, so they were displeased by Orwen’s report. Orwen feared that he would be sent on a more dangerous quest as his reward.

Yet his would be the lesser punishment. Soon the faces of his companions would be seen on wanted posters across the land. They would become fugitives from the law, pursued by knights of the church and bounty hunters hired by the authorities, hiding in the homes of those common folk who knew the truth. For there could be no heroes in the land of Dragongrin – only foolhardy adventurers destined for an early grave.