Icewind Dale (game)

Icewind Dale is a computer role-playing game developed by Black Isle Studios. It is set in the Icewind Dale region of the Sword Coast, but takes place decades before the events described in R. A. Salvatore's books which made the area a well-known part of Faerûn.

Plot
The game begins in the town of Easthaven where the player's party of adventurers is resting at the local pub. Soon enough, the town's leader, Hrothgar, invites you to take part in an expedition to the town of Kuldahar, which has recently sent word of strange goings-on. However, before the group makes it to their destination, they are ambushed by Frost Giants, who cause an avalanche - apparently crushing the entire expedition force save for the player's party and blocking the way back to Easthaven.

The party continues onward to Kuldahar, where they meet the Archdruid Arundel. He explains that, due to the evil which has been terrorizing Kuldahar, the magical ring of warmth surrounding the great oak which the town is built around has begun to recede. Arundel sends the party to help discover the source of the evil before the great oak dies, and Kuldahar is destroyed.

After an unsuccessful attempt to locate the evil, Arundel asks the party to find an ancient scrying item, known as the Heartstone Gem, so he may discover the source of the evil more quickly. The player's party then ventures to a temple where Arundel believes the gem may be kept, only to find that it had been raided quite recently, and that the gem had been stolen. However, Arundel is able to discover the location of the raiders responsible for the theft of the gem - the caverns of Dragon's Eye. After making their way through the vast network of tunnels, the party finds and defeats a powerful demonic creature named Yxunomei. Yxunomei claimed to be using the Heartstone Gem for personal reasons, and mentioned a vendetta and age-old war with someone she sarcastically referred to as an old friend.

When the party returns to Kuldahar, they find it under assault by orogs. After making their way to Arundel's hut, the player converses with a shapechanger disguised as Arundel, who reveals that he is the one Yxunomei was waging war against, and that the real Arundel is dying in another section of the hut, before vanishing. With his dying breath, the real Arundel tells the party to take the Heartstone Gem to Larrel at the fortress of the Severed Hand, as he is now the only one capable of using it. Unfortunately for the player's party, Larrel is found to be insane upon arriving at the fortress, and he only brokenly mentions something about freeing his cursed people, along with a hint on how to go about it. After completing his task, Larrel regains his sanity and uses the Heartstone Gem to discover the source of the evil, which apparently resides in the dwarven city of Dorn's Deep.

After carving their way through Upper Dorn's Deep, Wyrm's Tooth, and Lower Dorn's Deep, the party at last reaches Brother Poquelin - the villain of the game. Poquelin explains that he arrived in the material plane due to his superiors exiling him from his home plane - according to Poquelin, calling his vendetta with Yxunomei "out of control". Poquelin had predicted that Yxunomei would follow him to the material plane, so he had sought a base of operations in order to begin a military force capable of crushing her. While he was doing so, he stumbled upon the ancient artifact Crenshinibon, which he claims had been "calling" to him. Using its power of attracting evil-intentioned creatures, Poquelin began amassing an immense army with which to conquer the lands of Icewind Dale.

Poquelin claims that everything was going as planned until Hrothgar's expedition had set out to investigate Yxunomei's activities in the area around Kuldahar. He used his frost giant minions to cause the avalanche to crush the expedition. Apparently, he didn't see the player's party as a threat until they stole the Heartstone Gem from Yxunomei, to which he responded by killing Arundel - the only person he thought would be capable of using it. Although the party discovered his location by taking it to Larrel, Poquelin wasn't bothered, as all the while he was amassing his forces outside of Easthaven. After combating Poquelin, he teleports the party back to Easthaven, which is now in ruins. After freeing the surviving villagers and speaking with a local cleric of Tempus, the party makes its way to Poquelin's lair - Easthaven's temple, which has been enveloped by a Cryshal-Tirith (Elvish, meaning "crystal tower"), courtesy of Crenshinibon.

In the end, it is revealed that Poquelin's true intention was to re-open Jerrod's Stone, a portal to the Abyss created long ago), so that he could conquer the North with an army of demons at his command. Although after opening the portal, the local cleric of Tempus hurls himself into it just as its namesake did - sealing it off at the cost of his own life. This buys the party enough time to fight Poquelin, who has reverted to his true form - the demon Belhifet. After defeating Belhifet and banishing him back to the Abyss, the Cryshal-Tirith collapses, and the party barely escapes in time. Easthaven begins to be rebuilt, and the game ends with the party victorious. The ending cutscene, however reveals that the narrator who has 'read' the story throughout the game is, in fact, Belhifet and that his banishment from the Prime Material Plane is nearly at an end.

Heart of Winter
The expansion to Icewind Dale involves stopping the white dragon Icasaracht from causing the posessed barbarian chieftain, Wylfdene to attack the Ten Towns. The party has only one real ally, the shaman Hjollder who is quickly banished by the possessed Wylfdene to an island in the middle of Maer Dualdon reserved for the dead. Once the party rescues him from the undead there and finds the despoiled tomb of Wylfdene, they have to track down The Seer who has been hiding in Gloomfrost, inside the peak of Kelvin's Cairn for 10 years, having forseen her death at the party's coming. She tells you of Icasaracht and gives you a magical mirror which will drive the dragon's spirit out of the corpse of Wylfdene. They do so and the seer is killed after she teleports herself to Wylfdene's tent to taunt the dragon's spirit. Wylfdene's Wyrm tribe also attacks at the apparent murder of their leader but when it's all over, Icasaracht's spirit is tracked to the Sea of Moving Ice where she is protected by undead, trolls, sahuagin and other creatures, constructs and elementals. Once Icasaracht is dead, and the crystal containing her soul is destroyed, the party is teleported to safety.

Trials of the Luremaster
Heart of Winter was deemed too short (especially in comparison to other Black Isle expansions like Throne of Bhaal) so a free downloadable addition was made called Trials of the Luremaster. This made available an entirely new adventure set in Anauroch (and according to in-game canon this was where the party who saved Easthaven left for after they'd completed their quest). A mysterious halfling, Hobart Stubbletoes, promises treasure and teleports the party to Anauroch, where there is a castle, Castle Maluradek. Inside, an undead bard with a knack for rhyming verse challenges the party to prove themselves heroes by granting the castle's undead inhabitants eternal rest at last.