Icewind Dale

Icewind Dale is far to the north, sandwiched between the Sea of Moving Ice, the Reghed Glacier, and the Spine of the World. It’s home to a few tribes of tundra barbarians, reindeer, polar bears, wolves, elk, the fierce tundra yeti, and a white dragon or two. In the west, as the mountains descend to the Sea of Moving Ice, the ridge falls sufficiently to provide a pass. Through this, caravans journey to transport the ivory scrimshaw carvings that make the Dale financially worth inhabiting.

A harsh land almost beyond the reach of the warmer and more settled south, the small amount of warmth generated by the Sea of Swords funnels across the lowest part of the mountain wall, keeping the dale marginally hospitable. Nomadic tribes who hunt reindeer huddle next to the three lakes (Maer Dualdon, Lac Dinneshere, and Redwaters), and the dwarves in their tunnels attempt to survive in the harsh land. Evil creatures flourish in hundreds of mountainous delves, and Icewind Dale has the reputation as a hideout for those seeking to lose themselves. In this bleak tundra is the farthest bastion of civilization in the Savage Frontier, a loose confederation of 10 towns and villages known collectively as the Ten Towns. The towns are located on or near the three deadly cold lakes, the habitat of the knucklehead trout (found nowhere else in Faerûn). The lakes of Icewind Dale are justly famous for their fishing, but locals tend to think of the lakes as their own, not a pond for southerners to wander up to and pull their living out of.