The Fantasial Freeze was the first Quelmar Campaign coming out of Minnesota, the 7th official Community Campaign overall, and the first to utilize a special variation on D&D known as DDWN.
The campaign had a "pilot" session in December 2024, before kicking off properly in January 2025 and formally ending on June 27 2026.
About
In 466 PR, a veteran of the BR-Era War of Essence sought to finish the job he couldn't during the war: Kill the Elementals and destroy their homelands. That would become the story of Ancients Alive. But when the heroes of THAT campaign failed to contain or stop that Veteran Paladin in time, he took dramatic action, harnessing the primordial power of water itself to shift water into Ice everywhere, freezing Quelmar into an arctic extreme known as The Arctic Autumn.
Act 1: The Arctic Autumn
The first 6-8 months of the campaign told the story of how southwest Osugbo (particularly near the city of Ravel) handled the Arctic Autumn. This was a long campaign of starvation, desperation, and finding the moments of heroism in a world that was destined to die soon.
Act 1 culminated in a brief stand off with the very Paladin responsible for the Freeze, who alluded that a great power existed to the far north, a power that was connected to strange supernatural behaviors noticed during the freeze.
Act 2: The Cailleach Bhearab
The next 6 months of the story covered the Cailleach Bhéara, a mysterious winter hag that seemingly had been awoken by the Freeze. In reality, while winter indeed made her strong, the inciting incident that unleashed her was actually brought on by all of the starvation and freezing death everywhere. The unthinkable number of dying creatures thinned the veil, and allowed her to escape from her afterlife prison.and hold a tight grip on Osugbo.
She manifested as a friendly hag, and offered power and deals and XP and items and everything PCs could ever dream of...if they dared to take her gifts.
Act 2 culminated in the The Fantasial Freeze Megagame in which 20 or so of the campaign's PCs gathered together to lock away this hag forever, saving Quelmar for good from her corruption.
Act 3: The Ending of Everything
Act 3 told the tragic backstory of the Cailleach Bheara, and also revealed how she became a monstrous hag when she was once a beautiful Celtic deity named Brigid. The more players learned about her, the more they worked to save Brigid from her corrupted self, and in the process discover something more powerful than the Paladin, and more powerful than the Bearah, a dark unnamed thing which wanted nothing less than total destruction of Quelmar and desolation of its energies. Even worse, prophecies and visions of the future showed exactly that: It wins and the realm will end in just about 2 years in 468 PR.
Simultaneously to this 2-year long dramatic eldritch plot, 30 of the campaign players submitted their own personal goals, and most of Act 3 was about spotlighting individual PCs and helping them get their happy (or not so happy) endings.
Act 3 culminated in the return to Paraska Manor where the dark power had formed a stronghold of sorts, and used its unimaginable prowess to melt the minds of those brave enough to try to take it down.
Player Characters
- PCs are made up of a combination of DDWN Race, Class, and Background
- PCs currently start at Level 1. But provided they survive their first session, immediately level up to 2. Players who survive two sessions earn Level 3, and then level progression slows down much more.
- Ability Scores are either rolled (4D6 drop one) or chosen from the DDWN Standard Array: 14, 12, 11, 10, 9, 7
Downtime
Each month a player can make progress on a downtime project of their choice. Downtimes are resolved in the Fantasial Freeze downtimes discord channel.
Players can also use their downtimes to work on any of the Bastions being erected as headquarters for the team.
NPCs
The Story So Far
Community Whiteboard
Community whiteboard can be found in the link above, or by clicking here: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVJ3wK9gA=/?share_link_id=969761529939
Use the whiteboard to add notes or try to theorize about the story as it unfolds.
Wiki SP
As in the case with most Quelmar community campaigns, special points can be gathered between sessions by writing on the Quelmar Wiki. For DDWN, plays gain 1 Wiki Skill Point (WSP) per every 625 words written. These are collected on your sheet and spent just like the normal skill points gained when leveling up.
Players cap out Wiki SP at 10,000 words (for a total of 16 Wiki Skill Points that can be optionally earned).
As seen on the DDWN character sheet, Skill Points can be spent to increase Ability Scores and Skill Ranks.
House Rules
- Races have been expanded and rethemed from original sources, you can find all of their specific details here:
- First time players get to more easily pick out their class by choosing from a dozen prefabs, structured after the traditional D&D 5e classes.
- DDWN House Rules
- A long rest removes Frail from a PC. (As the RAW rule of 1 week's long rest is impractical for the one-shot style of the campaign)