So you arrive in Targos a penniless refugee accompanied by your first henchman, Kinnuki, an elderly Reghed Priest of Tempos (or Tempus to people who bathe) whom you met on the Bremen docks. While not under siege at present, Targos is under lockdown for fear of the monstrous threat to the Ten Towns, giving you an opportunity to explore the place, meet some shopkeepers and companions, and catch up on what’s menacing the Icewind Dale this time. However, this is not the same sort of setup you encountered in Darkness over Daggerford, Targos has relatively little content to explore and you’ll only need to complete one token quest – an opportunity for Luke to hand you some consolation money after stealing your riches – before you’re set loose on the main plot. You depart Targos with twin objectives: tracking down a local hero on behalf of Speaker Kemp and, for yourself, pursuing rumours of a mysterious masked woman seen haunting Maer Dualdon as bodies keep washing up on its shores, ultimately leading you to face down the latest threat to the Icewind Dale and picking up the scent of the Alazander Series' underlying conspiracy by the end.

As has been typical of Scull’s prior work, DoIWD’s worldbuilding boasts an abundance of Forgotten Realms lore and a comprehensive panoply of iconic characters from various related works. The moment you hit Targos, you’ll start running into a plethora of individuals who either reference events or have themselves taken part in the NWN OC, and the module gives you every opportunity to introduce yourself as the Hero of Neverwinter. You’ll forgive me if I spoil one or two minor moments in the very beginning to touch on your party and, aside from the aforementioned hunter-gatherer, you’ll quickly have the option of recruiting Aarin Gend, demoted from Nasher’s former spymaster to your personal thief, or once more enjoy the haughty company of Sharwyn the Bard. Your last henchman you may (or may not) discover later – Blizzard, a mage and secondary character through TotM. There’s one more, but only for the final battle and we need not spoil that. However, your choice of sidekicks will be mostly mechanical, since their journal entries don't progress as quests (only one packs a twist) and they seldom interject in dialogue. Aside from the NWN material, you may additionally mingle with a bunch of characters from Black Isle’s Icewind Dale series and R.A. Salvatore’s novels set in the same region. Those looking for cliffnotes will also be relieved at the return of in-game booklets summarising the events of relevant prior modules.

This is all well and good, DoIWD draws upon source material to provide the player with a rich and familiar setting to its benefit, but then carries on to bring even more references and cameos into the fold, even going so far as to feature a certain “Neomi”... To the writer’s credit, it never gets too much, but there are a couple of moments when it teeters on the edge and meeting a particular fiend mid-game did actually make me mumble “So you’re here too, huh?” You can only include so many before the player starts questioning how seemingly everyone who is anyone has started converging on the frozen arse-end of the Realms for some thrice-damned reason.

[...] Moving on from combat, skill and ability checks feature with some regularity in dialogue interactions and can lead to different narrative and mechanical outcomes, though I’m sad to say I kept Charm memorised through the whole adventure and never got a chance to use it in dialogue like at the Bron’s tower in TotM. Most agency faces limited, immediate consequences, such as avoiding a fight or extracting additional pay, though some can access or terminate additional plot and quest opportunities – for example, stiffing the mage Jaluth on her optional task will close off a follow-up quest involving the dragons in the next area. Another interesting affordance consists of roleplaying options to murder a couple of mages, which will also provide you with spellbooks that Blizzard can use to swap her repertoire, but at the cost of losing merchants and possibly other repercussions further down the line…

Of course, just because you can talk yourself around a fight doesn't necessarily make it the most profitable solution. When tasked by the Red Wizard Marcos to "gently" evict a meddling duergar's party from his lair, I chose to try Persuasion on a lark, seeing as my skills were middling in that department. Shockingly, I succeeded, netting me a bonus 250XP and the duergar left peacefully, but Marcos complained that hadn't been our deal, awarding me another 1500XP while withholding the promised magical item. Since I hadn't actually intended on persuading the dwarf, I took the liberty to reload and began blasting – not only did I get Marcos' full reward, but I butchered more than 250XP from the enemy corpses plus turned up a small treasure trove of useful gear. So always remember that the RP in RPG stands for roleplaying, but the G stands for greed!

The module also features automatic Search checks here and there as you roam around, and passing them may reveal a tucked-away chest or a fresh corpse for you to rob. I’m chuffed to say DoIWD does this correctly, like in Swordflight or Pathfinder: Kingmaker, meaning the hidden object is only discovered on a successful check and will otherwise give no indication of its presence so as not to invite the player trying to game the system. And yes, that was a stab at Baldur’s Gate 3. Aside from that, a thorough explorer will be rewarded in knocking on every door they come across, as the odd hut or barn may turn up a valuable item on inspection, although the game shows no rolls here.

[...] What Scull's been strong at in the past – worldbuilding, dialogue, art direction – is similarly superb in DoIWD, but what didn't necessarily excel before is much the same and one or two aspects would bear course-correction. Going forward in TBoN, I’d like to see proper dungeon-crawling make a return, perhaps a slightly more modular scope to open-world exploration, and I’d advise treading lightly around the continuities of related adventures. Where we go from here is interesting – as a series of fan modules, TBoN was originally intended to comprise of seven smaller installments, though the author’s suggested a publishing deal might require consolidating DoIWD’s follow-up content into two larger chapters instead. Personally, I feel like a broader chapter scope could accommodate a more open structure if the narrative allows and I’d prefer it that way, but in any case, I hope we won’t have to wait as long to find out given where DoIWD leaves things. Whether the completed series can steal that “definitive single-player NWN experience” accolade I awarded TotM is still in the running, and with the artistry already in such good shape, I suspect the answer will hinge primarily on matching gameplay fortes.

In summary, Doom of Icewind Dale is an exciting adventure delivering strong plot-driven action with a high grade of aesthetic polish and, while just this opening chapter can’t bowl me over the way Tyrants of the Moonsea or Darkness over Daggerford did, it’s absolutely worthwhile on its own and generously indulges that certain nostalgia for a beloved piece of D&D history. As a fan-module-turned-DLC, it doesn’t meet the scope and production values of the flagship expansions, but it pulls ahead of other Premium Modules like Wyvern Crown of Cormyr or Pirates of the Sword Coast and the €8 RRP is fair value for the quality and runtime of content on offer. For my part, I came away well impressed and eager for the next installment, and if you care to follow suit, Doom of Icewind Dale is available on any storefront of your choosing, so long as it’s either GOG or Steam.​

When I chose to review Tyrants of the Moonsea and Darkness over Daggerford back in 2024, it’s true that neither was hot of the presses by that point, but they were both still relevant enough to the RPG space and it’s not like the internet was crawling with in-depth analyses of them. Now I trust the present article should be even easier to understand because, twenty-some years and still running, Neverwinter Nights has just landed yet another piece of original content…​

​

Doom of Icewind Dale is the first installment in The Blades of Netheril, a brand new series of NWN modules from Luke Scull, author of The Grim Company and game designer whose portfolio includes the Tyrants of the Moonsea expansion for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition, the Mysteries of Westgate expansion for Neverwinter Nights 2, as well as the free NWN fan modules Siege of Shadowdale and Crimson Tides of Tethyr. With his experience and the praise I’ve lavished on TotM previously, you can imagine I’ve been looking forward to DoIWD. And I’ve been doing it for a long time, because TBoN began life as a non-commercial fan project and only got picked up for publishing around the time DoIWD was approaching completion… in spring of 2024. For those of you not keeping track, the module released as DLC in February 2025, a delay I suspect is attributed to licensing complexities around NWN’s juggernaut Dungeons & Dragons IP.

Concerning subject matter, Scull's eponymous "Alazander Series" (SoS, CToT and TotM) told discrete stories with a shared secondary plot and introduced our present "Blades of Netheril." The new campaign by this name proposes to bring that secondary plot to the fore and thrust it upon a returning Hero of Neverwinter, the protagonist of NWN's Original Campaign (or The Wailing Death in the EE), faced with an all new threat to the Forgotten Realms and their own person now that the events of the OC are concluded. Friends and foes both new and old are promised, as well as tie-ins with Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark, and setting this first chapter in the Icewind Dale of Black Isle's games and various official novels carries plenty of baggage of its own... Lest you ask, yes, this is still an RPG review, not a treaty on Habsburg genealogy.

Seeing as we’re reviewing brand new content for a change, I’ll only have my one playthrough to base it on. For obvious reasons, I’ll be using TotM as a recurring point of reference, but also various other NWN modules as they become pertinent. Also before we begin, a disclaimer – I’ve been a minor supporter on Scull’s Patreon for a few months at the time of writing this. I don’t see that it makes a difference to reviewing any other product you’ve paid for, but if you think it might bias me one way or the other, you can factor that in as you proceed. So, with that out of the way, let’s dive in and see whether good things do indeed come to he who waits…​

You awaken in a sinister mortuary with a floating skull gawking at you… Wait, wrong script. You awaken in a sinister planar crypt with a hooded edgelord gawking at you. You were killed and whoever did it took the contents of your pockets, the pockets themselves and much of your recent memories for good measure, then dumped your carcass in a lake. The hooded bloke plucked your soul from Kelemvor’s grip and plans to return you to the Prime because something super important is happening somewhere, and only you can stop it! You won’t be getting any details because this is what in the adventuring business is known as “an offer you can’t refuse”, so after telling Todd that yes, you will help his settlement, you skip ahead to rousing in the home of a Bremen fisherman. It’s 1373 DR, less than a year after the Wailing Death and the Luskan-Neverwinter war, and Lara, the woman who mistook you for a Knucklehead (trout!), fills you in on the circumstances of your rescue. Your chinwag is shortly interrupted by her son announcing you’re all under attack by Yetis! After dispatching a couple of furballs, you make it to Speaker Gil who’s organising an evacuation and you realise at last that no, Bremen is not the starting town. That honour belongs to Targos, and you’ll have to fight your way to the docks and flee with the other townsfolk.

So you arrive in Targos a penniless refugee accompanied by your first henchman, Kinnuki, an elderly Reghed Priest of Tempos (or Tempus to people who bathe) whom you met on the Bremen docks. While not under siege at present, Targos is under lockdown for fear of the monstrous threat to the Ten Towns, giving you an opportunity to explore the place, meet some shopkeepers and companions, and catch up on what’s menacing the Icewind Dale this time. However, this is not the same sort of setup you encountered in Darkness over Daggerford, Targos has relatively little content to explore and you’ll only need to complete one token quest – an opportunity for Luke to hand you some consolation money after stealing your riches – before you’re set loose on the main plot. You depart Targos with twin objectives: tracking down a local hero on behalf of Speaker Kemp and, for yourself, pursuing rumours of a mysterious masked woman seen haunting Maer Dualdon as bodies keep washing up on its shores, ultimately leading you to face down the latest threat to the Icewind Dale and picking up the scent of the Alazander Series' underlying conspiracy by the end.​

Remind me, why do people live here again?​

As has been typical of Scull’s prior work, DoIWD’s worldbuilding boasts an abundance of Forgotten Realms lore and a comprehensive panoply of iconic characters from various related works. The moment you hit Targos, you’ll start running into a plethora of individuals who either reference events or have themselves taken part in the NWN OC, and the module gives you every opportunity to introduce yourself as the Hero of Neverwinter. You’ll forgive me if I spoil one or two minor moments in the very beginning to touch on your party and, aside from the aforementioned hunter-gatherer, you’ll quickly have the option of recruiting Aarin Gend, demoted from Nasher’s former spymaster to your personal thief, or once more enjoy the haughty company of Sharwyn the Bard. Your last henchman you may (or may not) discover later – Blizzard, a mage and secondary character through TotM. There’s one more, but only for the final battle and we need not spoil that. However, your choice of sidekicks will be mostly mechanical, since their journal entries don't progress as quests (only one packs a twist) and they seldom interject in dialogue. Aside from the NWN material, you may additionally mingle with a bunch of characters from Black Isle’s Icewind Dale series and R.A. Salvatore’s novels set in the same region. Those looking for cliffnotes will also be relieved at the return of in-game booklets summarising the events of relevant prior modules.

This is all well and good, DoIWD draws upon source material to provide the player with a rich and familiar setting to its benefit, but then carries on to bring even more references and cameos into the fold, even going so far as to feature a certain “Neomi”... To the writer’s credit, it never gets too much, but there are a couple of moments when it teeters on the edge and meeting a particular fiend mid-game did actually make me mumble “So you’re here too, huh?” You can only include so many before the player starts questioning how seemingly everyone who is anyone has started converging on the frozen arse-end of the Realms for some thrice-damned reason.​

Rölph Bremen, founder of Bremen, and Pavel, PHD in Right-Clicking.​

On that note, if I have one major bone to pick with the writing it's that DoIWD takes an unorthodox approach in establishing some hard canon regarding related adventures. Blizzard's mere presence is one such step because (minor spoiler) she's a character the PC may have chosen to kill through TotM. Her dialogue confirms things went differently and that her companion was dispatched later in the module, but also that the protagonist in Tyrants was a woman named Jana, described as a Neutral-aligned Monk from Kara-Tur. Another such instance is in Sharwyn's dialogue, who point-blank tells us that the protagonist of SoU/HotU, the "Slayer of Mephistopheles", was an Evil sort of man who took Nathyrra for a lover. (Oh, and Grimgnaw's dead, but nobody cares.) This is an odd and disappointing choice because it erases player agency in separate adventures and doesn't leverage the very reason RPGs so often use protagonist nicknames, e.g. said Slayer of Mephistopheles or Gorion's Ward or, heck, the Sole Survivor. Settling canon on a prominent focal point like Aribeth’s fate is reasonable, but with these other plot threads, even if the author means to rope them further into The Blades of Netheril, were the details necessary? Sharwyn could've spoken more vaguely about the Slayer, Blizzard could've recounted she only narrowly avoided death through the events of TotM and let the player speculate whether she meant in the arena or with her doomed lover. In that respect, penning a default continuity feels like a gratuitous mistake and, ironically, the in-game summary booklets are rather less prescriptive.​

Left, the thing that should not be, and right… Oh, no, you DIDN’T!​

I also have to confess that Iceblood, the game’s banner antagonist, left me, um… cold? He’s very similar to Maganus in TotM, both tragic figures driven to court powers greater than themselves, but neither manages to truly become a menacing presence for the protagonist. Maganus gets more space to interact with your hero whereas DoIWD’s scope only allows Iceblood the one face-to-face prior to the showdown, with most of his characterisation coming second-hand in the last stretch of the game, and your Moonsea romp also had the benefit of its titular tyrants picking up much of the slack in hostile branding. However, another similarity between DoIWD and TotM, a positive one, is the deployment of their respective final bosses – revelation, a breather, crescendo action and climax – with DoIWD having the edge in teasing that last colossal challenge early through the adventure.

Though the player is afforded regular nodes of agency along the way, the main plot’s progression is fairly straightforward and converges on a singular outcome at the end of a lengthy denouement segment, closing abruptly on a massive cliffhanger that’s practically into the beginning of the next chapter to come. This may vary with personal preference, I get that this is only a first part of a single adventure and I’m certainly hooked for the next episode, but I rather prefer to end on a natural break in the action. It’s most certainly an effective hook, however, and I really hope Luke remains committed to completing the campaign regardless of where the licensing dice land for the rest of TBoN.

But let's stop kidding ourselves, you didn't read Playboy for the articles and I don't play NWN for the stories, so let's check out that centrefold...​

Doom of Icewind Dale is billed at ten to fifteen hours and I can confirm it’s not embellishing, I actually ran over as I gathered material for this review. The level range, however, is quite short for that runtime. As I alluded to when discussing plot, the introduction sees your PC bumped down to a starting level 10 and, over the space of the entire module, I only climbed back up to level 13 despite completing most of the content available. Maybe 14 was in the cards and I missed out on account of constantly having a summon up (we’ll get to that) but I also suspect that a significant chunk of DoIWD is driven by its storytelling-centric structure, with ample dialogue and dramatic focus. For a point of reference, the more gameplay-intensive Shadows of Undrentide clocks in a similar duration but takes you levels 1 to 12 or over.​

Odds that any of these places are warm?​

To elaborate further, cast your eyes on that stylish map above. While there’s stuff to discover within these locations and connected areas, only the two lowest pins – Bryn Shander and Dragon’s Dip – are optional in some capacity, and their only content is a merchant, a free weapon and the henchman Blizzard. All the other locations will be visited as you progress your two main quests, and though I suppose you could head towards the Deep Rift instead of Lonelywood at any time, there really isn’t much to gain out of sequence. The function of the world map here is rather more decorative compared to TotM, which had a slightly open scope post-Elmwood, or especially to DoD with its Baldur’s Gate-like exploration. Even the EE revision of SoS boasted a whole dungeon you could miss entirely and I know this because I missed it. Which isn’t to say it’s a pointless flourish, I’m a big proponent of overworld maps even if purely cosmetic as they anchor an RPG’s sense of space, and DoIWD’s does a great job in that regard, but don’t go in expecting a major free-roaming adventure.

A couple more notes on overworld exploration – there are no random encounters and while DoD’s fatigue mechanic is implemented, I never got to see its effects since distances are fairly short and auto-camping kicks in at 6 hours’ travel. I also had a spot of trouble with a map connection because new locations are opened on geographical coordinates but in the case of the Dwarven Valley you have to go from Termalaine, half the map away. Having completed Termalaine hours prior and with no journal directions, I forgot about that transition and wanted to reach the Valley via nearby Icewind Pass, but that place is inaccessible until a later plot stage and I thought I'd hit a bug, having to dig through the module's data before realising my mistake.

The other thing you shouldn’t expect is a walk in the park. Let’s set the stage – D&D Hardcore Rules, a twenty-year NWN veteran, albeit never a powergamer and I’ll readily admit I’m no pro in the Wizard class. The first area out of Targos is Ice Troll country and, for an example, one larger encounter spawned a Shaman (Very Difficult), a Berserker (Challenging), pair of Rangers (also Challenging) and one or two Effortless regulars… Clearing it took multiple reloads, bottlenecking next to a chasm and burning through my entire spellbook, coming down to last man standing on either side. This sort of encounter configuration would be fine even at level 10 under normal circumstances, but not after an inventory reset with my mage’s holdings consisting of a crossbow, six healing potions, and an out-of-season T-shirt. A few yards over in a deep ravine, a boss encounter spawned an Ice Troll Shaman and a Chieftain (Overpowering), plus a goon or two, but who’s counting? I lucked out spotting it from on high and set Aarin to volley Fire Arrows while I shamelessly began to (quite literally) nuke from orbit… A helping of Black Tentacles, a Cloudkill and Fireball, double-tap Lesser Missile Storms, Flame Arrows and Magic Missiles, plus three Acid Arrows is what took for the Chief to drop. In all fairness, the game very explicitly warns you to be ready for a fight when you descend the intended way and it’s an optional encounter you could leave for later, but it just comes to show you how beefy some of these mobs could be – I was shooting fish in a barrel and wondering whether I had enough bullets.​

I’m not even sorry.​

And I said “could”, past tense, because I'm happy to report the author acknowledged the feedback and has been addressing it in patches. While I wasn't in a position to play through again by the time the 1.02 update dropped, a cursory Toolset examination of the aforementioned fights confirms enemies have been adjusted down and I expect there've been other changes to smooth out the challenge curve going forward. Additionally, I should point out that tuning wasn’t a pervasive problem at release, but rather isolated to certain encounter groups and stages of progression. Goblins were the same old pushovers even if they were packing poisoned arrows and the Sahuagin fared little better, though enemies such as Verbeeg or Abishai can serve as an effective source of attrition and even pose a serious threat if you’re rushing in. Then you’ve got setpiece encounters like a Lonelywood ambush, a duergar’s raiding party or Zhentarim brigands which felt challenging without being obtuse, whereas the spiders of the Deep Rift were obtuse without being challenging. The module does a good job rotating through a range of enemy types, between humanoids (monstrous or otherwise), beasts, giants, even demons and undead, so you’ll face a variety of strengths and weaknesses through your travels, although Fire damage gets the most mileage. You’re limited to up to two henchman at a time and if they go down swinging, they automatically recover at the end of combat (and sometimes during, if you run around long enough) without a need for resurrection spells.

While I’m assuming any parallel to Swordflight’s murderous combat was purely accidental, there is a more deliberate similarity in the addition of a limited player respawn mechanic and DoIWD very strenuously warns that you only have sixty spare lives to call upon, presumably for the whole series, which puts the Hero of Neverwinter roughly on par with 6.(6) cats. Respawning is a mechanic I refuse to engage with on principle and even Swordflight could only get me to do it once, at my absolute wits’ end, but I tested it for this review and I’m gratified that there appears to be no story content gated behind it. You simply teleport to limbo at the cost of a small XP loss and one of your spare lives, then may return to the exact place you perished. However, I do have to signal an architectural problem here – the number of lives is stored in the database at the time of respawn, so if you were to hypothetically do it a bunch of times on a hard fight, keep failing and then decide to reload an earlier save instead, those respawn attempts will remain spent. I don’t imagine this is what the author had in mind, so perhaps it would make more sense to track respawns locally on the save and only dump to DB at the end of the module, for chapter transition. I guess my protagonist’s record is now forever tainted with the shame of having clicked the Respawn button, but these are the sacrifices I make for you, the reading public.

But encounter design wasn’t my only quibble with balance and some things are harder to patch away... Enter your first henchman, Kinnuki, a Cleric with Martial Proficiency, Great Axe Focus, Barbarian Rage and Power Attack. This concept of a Reghed Priest of Tempos, something that might pass for a DIY paladin among the arctic barbarians, is as narratively appealing as it is mechanically appalling. He can't wear plate so his AC could really use a shield, nullifying his weapon feat. His AB trails my Dire Bear's even before engaging Power Attack, meaning he misses aplenty. You don't want him buffing mid-combat but even with Spellcasting disabled, he'll still try using his meagre heals and give enemies free AOOs on his wrinkly hide. Scull tried to compensate with an illegal Abilities spread (93 points at level 9!) but NWN’s AI couldn’t make this build work against those early encounters, not the way they were configured at release, meaning I went in with a glass cannon mage for a PC and a wet rag for a front line. This resulted in a lot of kiting, resting and reloading, and a generally glacial pace of progression for many hours until I could afford to gear around my vanguard’s shortcomings. Tuning encounters down would certainly alleviate the hurt and DoIWD wouldn’t be the first NWN module to ship without a proper meatshield (looking at you, Xanos) but there’s a lesson to be learned here, especially now that the EE’s new party controls open up build options for backline PCs.

Moving on from combat, skill and ability checks feature with some regularity in dialogue interactions and can lead to different narrative and mechanical outcomes, though I’m sad to say I kept Charm memorised through the whole adventure and never got a chance to use it in dialogue like at the Bron’s tower in TotM. Most agency faces limited, immediate consequences, such as avoiding a fight or extracting additional pay, though some can access or terminate additional plot and quest opportunities – for example, stiffing the mage Jaluth on her optional task will close off a follow-up quest involving the dragons in the next area. Another interesting affordance consists of roleplaying options to murder a couple of mages, which will also provide you with spellbooks that Blizzard can use to swap her repertoire, but at the cost of losing merchants and possibly other repercussions further down the line…

Of course, just because you can talk yourself around a fight doesn't necessarily make it the most profitable solution. When tasked by the Red Wizard Marcos to "gently" evict a meddling duergar's party from his lair, I chose to try Persuasion on a lark, seeing as my skills were middling in that department. Shockingly, I succeeded, netting me a bonus 250XP and the duergar left peacefully, but Marcos complained that hadn't been our deal, awarding me another 1500XP while withholding the promised magical item. Since I hadn't actually intended on persuading the dwarf, I took the liberty to reload and began blasting – not only did I get Marcos' full reward, but I butchered more than 250XP from the enemy corpses plus turned up a small treasure trove of useful gear. So always remember that the RP in RPG stands for roleplaying, but the G stands for greed!

The module also features automatic Search checks here and there as you roam around, and passing them may reveal a tucked-away chest or a fresh corpse for you to rob. I’m chuffed to say DoIWD does this correctly, like in Swordflight or Pathfinder: Kingmaker, meaning the hidden object is only discovered on a successful check and will otherwise give no indication of its presence so as not to invite the player trying to game the system. And yes, that was a stab at Baldur’s Gate 3. Aside from that, a thorough explorer will be rewarded in knocking on every door they come across, as the odd hut or barn may turn up a valuable item on inspection, although the game shows no rolls here.​

Yeah, nice stats, but can it run Crysis?​

Itemisation is generally strong, with a variety of interesting weapons and armour cropping up regularly starting around Termalaine from either loot or merchants, and you’ll even see ports of equipment from the Black Isle games – if you missed IWD’s Three White Doves, well, miss it no longer. Additionally, the smith in Targos can craft a handful of nifty trinkets if you fetch him the special components. There are some gaps in coverage, however, and DoIWD doesn’t have an Altar of Blessings mechanic to account for the less represented weapon types. For instance, I don’t believe I’ve seen a single Greataxe drop through the module and there isn’t much for sale either – if you were to keep Kinnuki on his Weapon Focus, you’d be stuck with his starting Greataxe +2 or a +1/1d6 Fire piece you can purchase in Targos. For my PC, the only magic staff I came across was a Staff of Command bought off the Red Wizard, though it’s certainly possible I missed some stuff in the one playthrough. You’re definitely in for a treat, however, if you roll a Greatsword warrior, because those drop like there’s a stock clearance.

Following the same principles as in Scull’s prior work, the economy’s an engaging little side quest all of its own. Targos has a smattering of merchants and you’ll be turning up new ones in various corners of the Dale, sometimes in places you really wouldn’t expect, each with their own supplies, price markups and limited funds. The mainstream traders sport a buy limit of 10K per item and some of the others will cut that down to 5K. Their coffers only go so deep, however, and once they’ve run out, the only way they get more coin is from your business. Targos also has a couple of specialty gear purveyors who give you great prices but only up to 2500 gold and they deplete right quick, so you probably want to take advantage of them early on by unloading Ice Arrows for an easy buck. It’s all a tried-and-tested approach that works very well to reign in the player’s material progression and avaricious gamers can have a good bit of fun mapping out how to best expand their fortunes. My only suggestion here is that perhaps Graendel should also restock his coinpurse when you pay to craft special items.

But brace yourselves 'cause now we change pace and hit on DoIWD's principal flaw – no dungeons. Yep, we're back to this. If DoD was "no dungeons except that one cool dungeon at the end", DoIWD is "no dungeons except that one tiny dungeon at the end." It's like five rooms with a handful of fights and a story boss, similar to TotM’s smaller ones, and it barely gets the title. Admittedly, it caps off a long sequence of wilderness exploration and probably wouldn't have done to be much longer at that point, but it leaves the module wanting all the same – other than this one location, if you're breaking your ski trip for anything, it's only a room or two and usually a cave. More persnickety readers might ask "Well, what is a dungeon? If the wilderness has traps and treasure, isn't it just window dressing?" And the answer's no, for two reasons - first, the window dressing matters, an RPG isn't just an Excel sheet that fights back, and second, dungeons are meant to be concentrated challenges. Mazes, alternative routes, traps, secret areas, treasure and puzzles, bespoke encounters, all of these things should be densely packed and provide a sense of escalated stakes – you comb the wilderness for crawlable dungeons.​

It doesn’t take a lot of evil to pervade two chambers, Luke.​

As it happens, I paused a replay of SoU to plunge into DoIWD and coming off the former's Tomb of Kel-Garas or Excavated Ruins to an almost exclusively outdoor ramble was all the more jarring. I'm not proposing the author drop what he's doing and start making Swordflight, that's a different sort of adventure altogether, but every good cRPG should star at least a dungeon or two. Looking back to TotM, you had Kur-Tharsu, the Dreadspire, the sewers of Zhentil Keep and so on... none of them were particularly vast or teeming with secrets, but they were solid and frequent enough to scratch that itch. Even allowing for DoIWD being just an opening act, TotM had the lovely Voonlar catacombs available in its first hour, so let’s call that another lesson for the future.​

A dark, brooding refuge for dark, brooding people with dark, brooding pasts…​

Doom of Icewind Dale kicks off with an intro cinematic – clean, crisp art in black and white – which sets the wintry stage for our adventure, and though the artwork is full of classic D&D charm, I had to enjoy it with a letterbox of green bars on my 16:10 screen. It’s a common enough sight among fan module cinematics, the level’s fog-of-war is visible around the video’s aspect ratio, but one that surprised me in a commercial Premium Module when none of the other official content does this. For another nitpick, I was also surprised that Scull let slide the mispronouncing of “Luskan” and “Tylmarande” in the opening voiceover, guessing another take wasn’t on the menu. Moving forward, the writing's clean and tidy throughout the module, with few typos having slipped through the cracks, but a more pervasive problem is misuse of the dialogue <race> token, which resolves to the adjective form rather than the intended noun (e.g. "half-elven" instead of "half-elf"). BioWare should've arguably called it <racial> from the beginning, but that ship's long sailed and it's up to the module-builder to address.

Now, it’s a tedious affair, but whenever I talk NWN graphics, I have to start with the usual set of disclaimers – old game, the blocky 3D of the era persists underneath the new shaders, etc. etc. Having settled the boilerplate, let me just say that within the platform’s technical characteristics, DoIWD looks gorgeous! I had high expectations in this department after waxing poetic about TotM and I was not disappointed… The levels are dense and ornate, there’s plenty of new assets to give them unique character, and the lighting is meticulously configured to give you those cold, stark days and enveloping nights. It’s a very methodical application of the Aurora Toolset to great effect and the little details make all the difference – e.g. I’ve played with fog effects obscuring chasms myself, but Scull setting them high over Lonelywood was a stroke of brilliance and the result is marvellous in action.​

Neverwinter Nights – supplying your desktop wallpapers since 2002!​

Much like Darkness over Daggerford, this module makes extensive use of one tileset to power most of its exteriors. Different configurations of the landscape, from Lakeshore’s low waterside to Fallen Crags’ misty cliffs or the Deep Rift canyon, augmented by liberal deployment of placeables and special effects, mean that areas are nonetheless visibly distinct, with their own recognisable feel that staves off monotony well into the runtime. That said, even as the late-game areas through Icewind Pass and beyond had a couple of spectacular visual treats of their own, the snow starts wearing on you and once again I have to point out that swapping palettes more often with some larger dungeons would’ve been beneficial. As things stand, the only extended change in biome beyond Targos’ gates is provided by Lonelywood and its attendant areas, though it’s aptly placed around the game’s midpoint and probably sufficient for the average player who won’t drag things out as long as I did. Rounding off the new assets listing, there’s a number of new placeables, monster models such as Yetis, bearded goblins and snow trolls, new head parts for the likes of Kinnuki or Aarin, as well as a handful of original portraits where necessary.​

Lots of misty mountains cold and what counts for a holiday in the Dale.​

For visual negatives, my initial experience was flagged down by a bug where environmental shadows in Bremen kept popping on and off with the camera angle. The issue appears to be with the core tileset resource in NWN rather than DoIWD itself, but it was a bummer to open on and Luke's since patched out the broken shadows so new players won't suffer the distraction with an overhaul pending in future updates. Another downside I noticed is that, while all the areas themselves are beautifully crafted, there’s been less of an effort to pad out their edges and obscure NWN’s darkened borders the way TotM did, and I even spotted the odd tiling indoor exit. Sure, you couldn’t pad all the areas, but some could’ve had room to spare for cosmetic extensions.

Overall, though, I have to say Doom of Icewind Dale may just be the prettiest NWN module I’ve laid eyes on so far. The other contender is still Tyrants of the Moonsea, which has an advantage in its wider scope and visual variety, alongside that area padding, but individually, I’d offer that DoIWD’s wilderness levels and the town of Lonelywood in particular are a spectacular victory lap for the old Aurora platform.

Another aspect DoIWD goes all out for is an all new soundtrack consisting of sixteen combat and exploration themes to score your return to the Frozenfar, plus a variety of ambient sound effects for backing. Some of the music tracks, like those to Targos or the Dwarven Valley are charming enough without making a lasting impression. Others, however, like the exploration pieces to Lakeshore, Fallen Crags or the temple, were enthralling and just about managed to hint at Jeremy Soule's masterpiece soundtrack for the original Icewind Dale. And that otherworldly, incisive theme accompanying your first step into the Ice Spire felt like a scene straight out of an old Conan film. I also very much enjoyed the combat tracks, a relief since the OC’s brass and strings were always a bit shrill for me. Finally, DoIWD's score saves a very special surprise for that moment the action's coming to a head and I won't spoil it save for saying that it hit the spot wonderfully. Don't worry, you'll know when you get to it.

On the other hand, the module has no bespoke voiceovers other than the opening narration, and instead sporadically uses standard Toolset audio sets to have some NPCs speak out during dialogue and add a splash of characterisation. This is a familiar approach from any number of community-made modules but it’s a tricky thing to pull off, you want to restrict it to a greeting or write dialogue that matches the available audio barks, but DoIWD’s text and audio are sometimes miles apart. It feels like a step back from a free module like Crimson Tides of Tethyr, where what little volunteer voice work it had was nonetheless recorded for that module. As things stand, I think I’d have preferred the dialogue be completely silent because those occasional instances when the conversation window says one thing and the character spouts another come across as disjointed and cheap – which is technically true, VO can be obscenely expensive and this labour-of-love project was funded from Scull’s own pocket and his Patreon, but what gets a willing pass as fan content will invite additional scrutiny once officialised with a price sticker.

As for bugs proper, that should be a short conversation, because aside from the aforementioned issue with the shadows in Bremen and an isolated incident where the game erroneously thought I’d aborted a cinematic conversation (and warned me to reload, good catch!), I encountered nothing of consequence. At most, I could point out a couple of visual glitches, like the model for Iceblood’s spear generating a large mouse-over collision or the island tower in the Sea of Moving Ice hovering half a metre off the ground, which I’m guessing wasn’t an artistic decision. All in all, though, it was smooth sailing start to finish.​

I’m not trying to hide that I’ve come into this with a lot of anticipation. I’ve long been hoping to see Beamdog turn their attention back to Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition and a project like The Blades of Netheril, with a large campaign scope and a veteran developer behind it, is just the sort of content I had in mind. Now that this first part has answered the call, is it up to the challenge?​

Crossing the proverbial bridge.​

What Scull's been strong at in the past – worldbuilding, dialogue, art direction – is similarly superb in DoIWD, but what didn't necessarily excel before is much the same and one or two aspects would bear course-correction. Going forward in TBoN, I’d like to see proper dungeon-crawling make a return, perhaps a slightly more modular scope to open-world exploration, and I’d advise treading lightly around the continuities of related adventures. Where we go from here is interesting – as a series of fan modules, TBoN was originally intended to comprise of seven smaller installments, though the author’s suggested a publishing deal might require consolidating DoIWD’s follow-up content into two larger chapters instead. Personally, I feel like a broader chapter scope could accommodate a more open structure if the narrative allows and I’d prefer it that way, but in any case, I hope we won’t have to wait as long to find out given where DoIWD leaves things. Whether the completed series can steal that “definitive single-player NWN experience” accolade I awarded TotM is still in the running, and with the artistry already in such good shape, I suspect the answer will hinge primarily on matching gameplay fortes.

In summary, Doom of Icewind Dale is an exciting adventure delivering strong plot-driven action with a high grade of aesthetic polish and, while just this opening chapter can’t bowl me over the way Tyrants of the Moonsea or Darkness over Daggerford did, it’s absolutely worthwhile on its own and generously indulges that certain nostalgia for a beloved piece of D&D history. As a fan-module-turned-DLC, it doesn’t meet the scope and production values of the flagship expansions, but it pulls ahead of other Premium Modules like Wyvern Crown of Cormyr or Pirates of the Sword Coast and the €8 RRP is fair value for the quality and runtime of content on offer. For my part, I came away well impressed and eager for the next installment, and if you care to follow suit, Doom of Icewind Dale is available on any storefront of your choosing, so long as it’s either GOG or Steam.​

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