Blog Carnival – The icy embrace of winter

The February 2014 Blog Carnival is being hosted by Enderra and has as topic : “The icy embrace of winter”. The Blog Carnival is a monthly feature of the RPG Blog Alliance in which bloggers agree on a specific topic to blog about during that month. Check here for the Blog Carnival Archives.

As my contribution to the carnival, I will create some encounters with a snowflake topping that could leave your players excited, horrified, or puzzled. If you use any of these, let me know how their stories went.

1. While travelling through a snow-covered landscape, the characters find a blue colored, frozen hand emerging from the snow holding up a perfectly cut amethyst gem the size of an egg. 
2. The characters find a piece of parchment. A poem called Late winter snow is written on the parchment in exquisite handwriting. When the poem is read aloud, the ink become fluid and reforms to show the map of a cave among snow-covered mountains. A large crown is depicted on the entrance of the cave.
3. After a good night’s rest in a local inn, the characters wake to find that all doors and windows are blocked by a wall of snow. It looks like the inn has literally been covered in snow.
4. While traveling it suddenly starts to snow. Weirdly enough the snowflakes are colored blood-red.
5.  While hiking up a snow-covered mountain, the characters encounter a man with long white hear and gray eyes,  wearing polar bear furs. The man has a grim demeanor, totally ignores the party, and shoulders through the group. As the characters turn around, he has disappeared.
6. The characters arrive in a small village where they find all the villagers frozen in place during their day-to-day activities.
7. While traveling through a desert landscape with the sun burning on their backs, the characters find a single flower peaking through the sands. The flower can be identified as a Snow’s Glory, a plant that normally only grows on snow-covered mountains.
8. While traveling through heaps of snow, the characters discover a monk sitting in lotus position on a rock. The monk, covered by a few inches of snow, is wearing only a loincloth and seems lost in meditation.
9. The characters took shelter in an inn during a winter storm. When they open the inn’s outer door to continue their travels, they find a halfling messenger, frozen to death lying near the inn.
10. While the characters cross a frozen lake, they suddenly notice a person trapped under the ice, trying frantically to break through the surface.
11. While traveling through a forest covered in snow, the party hears the sound of a battle. As they approach they find a frost giant looming over a wounded wolf creature, weaving magical patterns in the air while howling a formula. All of a sudden the earth shakes as an ice elemental crawls through the snow and attacks the giant.
12. While crossing a bridge in the city in ice-cold weather, the characters find a beggar shaking his bowl at them, a meager 3 copper pieces jingling softly within. If the beggar is given some alms, he smiles a toothless smile, inhales deeply, and blows out his breath full power. The beggar’s breath, visible in the cold air, then transforms into the figure of a mounted knight. The beggar smiles again and holds the bowl forward. “I can do a princess too if you’d like to see more”.
13. During a cold winter month, the party encounters two sallow-faced orphans in a back-alley of the city, wearing tattered clothes, eating a Rat Stick.
14. On the counter of a small shop selling all sorts of junk, the characters find a small crystal statue of two faeries building a snow man. As they move through the shop, they get the feeling that the eyes of the faeries are following them.
15. The party finds itself trudging through the snow once again as suddenly a loud crack is heard and the ground below them falls from beneath their feet which sends the characters tumbling 10 feet downwards. When they have recovered from their fall, they appear to be in the attic of a house. A big gaping hole in the roof stares down at them.

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