I am finally able to review this! I’ve been running the campaign for close to two years now and we’re going into the finale in July (which is not in the book). I replaced the Icewind Dale setting with Eiselcross from Wildmount. Nothing major was changed but I thought I’d mention it. 

This cannot be run as written; it is a poorly conceived adventure and needs a lot of help from third party material. It felt more like random encounter after random encounter rather than a complete adventure. If you are looking for snowy side quests or ideas then grab a few from here and re-jig as necessary. 

The main problem is how disjointed it is. It takes the players from levels 1-15. The first half/early levels are spent wandering around Ten Towns and doing quests. I kept referring back to spring never having come, never ending winter, it was colder, food was scarce etc and my players did not care. They were happy dicking around Ten Towns. 

Ten Towns is problematic. I would grab either an expanded version of them or write your own as some of the stuff included in the book did not make sense or was unnecessary. Looking at you incest town. 

The middle part has nothing to do with the main plotline. It’s essentially a side quest to grind levels. The players had no motivation to engage with it. It was mostly dungeon crawls, fortresses, nothing unusual or special. 

My players had a lot of fun in Ythryn, though mine was Aeor and I took a lot of inspiration from what was done in Critical Role. They did not enjoy hitting specific locations to find bits of poetry. Again, they weren’t fully interested in the plot. 

There were fun elements but get third party stuff to help restructure it and make Auril an interesting BBEG. Her stat block was a joke. If your characters are level 15 when they encounter her, she won’t be a challenge at all. 

The art work was amazing. I loved flicking through this book because it was so colourful. It does add depth to a tundra/snow setting, the monsters are fun, and you can transplant the dungeon crawls into other settings. The maps were really good as well so the locations could be useful in other campaigns. 

I would definitely run it again but I would make changes before we even start. 

Also, if your players/characters like animals ignore the awakened animals part because that is all they will focus on.