If Xardorok Sunblight lives, his scouts assess the damage to Ten-Towns. The dragon returns to Sunblight for repairs, if possible. The dragon attacks the final town of Bryn Shander. The dragon attacks each of Ten-Towns’ settlements in turn (see “ Dragon Flight Path” in chapter 4 of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden). The chardalyn dragon leaves Sunblight and flies to the town of Dougan’s Hole (2 hours). Here’s a rough timeline of the events of the chapter: This chapter isn’t described in a perfectly linear fashion, since the players are able to dictate the shape of the story by choosing to pursue the dragon or by hunkering down to ambush it. In this chapter, a number of different things can happen. This scenario is a mix of tense planning, frantic travel, and thrilling combat! This chapter gives the characters the choice to pursue the dragon from town to town to force it to break off its attack, or preparing the fortified town of Bryn Shander for the thousands of refugees who will pour in from the other towns, and for the dragon’s final attack. The race to stop Xardorok Sunblight’s ultimate weapon from annihilating Ten-Towns-and any hope of stopping him from creating his surface-empire-is the focus of chapter 4: Devastation’s Light. Even though it’s little more than a weapon, the chardalyn that this dragon was crafted from is infused with demonic power, giving the chardalyn dragon a hateful, sadistic personality. This monster is a challenge 11 creature-not too strong in the grand scheme of the Monster Manual, but a terrifying foe for the party of 5th- or 6th-level characters that just watched it burst free of Sunblight fortress and take wing into the eternal nighttime sky! It’s a construct that follows its creator’s evil commands with dull, malevolent delight. Many of the numerous episodic events that take place over the course of chapters 1 and 2 eventually lead the characters to the Sunblight fortress in chapter 3, where they have the opportunity to see the fearsome chardalyn dragon firsthand-just as it takes off into the skies of Icewind Dale to rain destruction down upon Ten-Towns. 
Though Auril the Frostmaiden is the source of Icewind Dale’s greatest woes, many of the problems which plague Ten-Towns in chapter 1 of this adventure are actually the work of a duergar named Xardorok Sunblight. If you’re a player in an Icewind Dale campaign, reading this article any further will ruin your experience of one of the most interesting encounters in the book.
This article is for Dungeon Masters’ eyes only-it contains massive spoilers for chapters 3 and 4 of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. Before we go any further, let’s drop a big, chonky SPOILER WARNING. Chapter 4: Devastation’s Light, is one of the coolest and most challenging chapters to run in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden.
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