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Plague of Ice is the seventh book to bear the new D&D logo on is cover. It features a sketchy plot and many random encounters that, while thematically linked to the title, make you wonder how in the heck this made for a story. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
This book starts off with the obligatory character meeting. Though, this time it’s not at a bar or some random tavern, but a bridge after an ancient curse has left the region covered in snow. It was summer, but now the characters are facing freezing weather, snow blindness and general discontentment.
Regdar and Lidda have taken up the cause of one small town, to find out what happened out in the Fell Forest (its nearby forest and place where monsters dwell) and fix it. Saving them and the region from a devastating season. It just happens that Hennet and his love interest, an ice druid named Sonja, have taken up the cause of a neighboring town and were asked to do the same.
Enter the meeting. The bridge over a near frozen river has displaced orcs fighting the parties to stay alive. Once the pleasantries are out of the way, we get to see that some character traits have been carried forward from some of the other novellas in the series (Regdar, while panting for Sonja, is reminded of Naull and what happened to her). Though somewhat connected (very tenuously) with the other books, it wouldn’t stop someone from picking up this volume and reading without any other books being read.
After the encounter with the orcs, the two bands decide that together they can face down the evil causing all the weather problems. They head into the forest and begin working down the random encounter chart for ice monsters.
They spy a white dragon, encounter wolves and their winter wolf leader (allowing the author to show-off the druid’s neat wildshape ability), an ice elemental or something—described as a solid ice scorpion. Mephits, portals and planes. Oh my.
Plague of Ice has a nice concept, D&D-speaking, but as a story it suffers from the influx of “too muchis never enough” that is common in some games. The focus was more on what can I showcase, rather than, which story can I tell. Plague of Ice succeeds as a translation from tabletop campaign to novella. But leaves my mind in doubt as to how much can the reader suffer through before the story ends.
I enjoyed the book as a D&D game being told, but this book suffers a lack of cohesion that would have made for a great read.
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