Welcome to Part XI of my Icewind Dale walkthrough; this part covering the Wyrm's Tooth Glacier.
Wyrm's Tooth Glacier
Wyrm's Tooth Glacier Location
The world map shows Wyrm's Tooth Glacier situated between Upper & Lower Dorn's Deep.
Badge of Krilag (open palm with levitating sphere), of Joril (double-bladed axe), of Marketh (miner's pick), of Ilmadia (unicorn head), of Malavon (unsleeping eye) and of Perdiem (dove):
At this point in the proceedings the Icewind Dale campaign opens up in respect to non-linear questing and exploration. Unlike Upper Dorn's Deep in which exploration was gated by Terikan Lich, there is no such gated exploration from now on. In fact, immediately upon our arrival to Wyrm's Tooth Glacier, we can advance to Lower Dorn's Deep and Chapter Six by simply taking the southeast transition at the Wyrm's Tooth approach.
Marketh is one of Brother Poquelin's six lieutenants. No matter how we reply, Kerish is convinced that we have been sent by "the master" (Poquelin) to check up on him.
We can ask about who Kerish answers to and from that learn of Joril's betrayal of his father, Kreg. This allows us to trick Joril later.
(cf. Note to Kerish from Joril.)
We inquire as to why there are so many dead bodies strewn about the place:
He tells us how the slaves revolted, who led the revolt, and how the slaves may be freed.
In short, we need to acquire a key from Kerish. Also, a woman named Vera led the revolt. Gareth thinks she is dead but she is actually alive and well, hiding out in the museum above.
(60,000 XP.)
... or betray her to the guard.
After speaking to Vera (assuming we didn't dob her in), it is best to tell Gareth that she's alive:
(60,000 XP.)
Then, we can get the key from Kerish...
(60,000 XP.)
... and deliver it to Gareth. The slaves then run out of the basement, into the adjacent temple, and then up the stairs to the unguarded approach, to their freedom.
(60,000 XP.)
We can then return to Vera and tell her the slaves are free:
(80,000 XP.)
Finally, to conclude proceedings in the museum, we wipe out Kerish and the 50-strong frost salamander force:
Note that Kerish can drop the Potion of Life Transference (USPOT4B: permanent Str +1, Con -1).
On the other hand, if we betrayed Vera to the guard we instead return to Kerish to tell him she's dead:
(60,000 XP.)
He then requests we bring the slaves back to the museum or slay them...
... but the slaves would rather die than become slaves again:
Thus, we slay the slaves in order to resolve the quest in an evil manner:
(60,000 XP.)
It is best to speak to Joril with a Paladin because they have solid Charisma scores and there is a Paladin-only dialogue check.
So concludes Chapter Five and Wyrm's Tooth Glacier.
• Scaling to 12-72, Chain Lightning is our electric-based AoE damage spell to match Fireball and Cone of Cold. Strong.
• OFS inflicts 3-6 cold damage per caster level on a single target. Strong, too.
Lastly, we also found a barrel of pure water - one of the items required for the restoration of Valestis' arboretum. The other three items are found in Lower Dorn's.
Party is currently 10th level. No resting to provoke respawns (farming XP) has been conducted in this run.
Next up: CHAPTER 6 ICEWIND DALE.
To recap, we are searching for the six badges held by the six lieutenants of Brother Poquelin. We have already acquired the badge of neo orog chieftain, Krilag, so, in this post, we're going to hunt down and slay frost giant, Joril, for the badge he is carrying. Then, we need to push on into Chapter Six and Lower Dorn's Deep in order to locate the four other lieutenants.
At this point in the proceedings the Icewind Dale campaign opens up in respect to non-linear questing and exploration. Unlike Upper Dorn's Deep in which exploration was gated by Terikan Lich, there is no such gated exploration from now on. In fact, immediately upon our arrival to Wyrm's Tooth Glacier, we can advance to Lower Dorn's Deep and Chapter Six by simply taking the southeast transition at the Wyrm's Tooth approach.
Of course, we need to acquire Joril's badge in Wyrm's Tooth at one point or another (and Krilag's in Upper Dorn's if we don't yet have it), but I just want to make it clear that Lower Dorn's Deep - and all it entails - is open to us right now.
A Degree of Non-linearity to Consider
Are there any power-/meta-gaming advantages to prematurely pushing on into Lower Dorn's Deep, though? Depending on party composition and number of party members, conceivably. For example, Mages may like earlier access to new and higher level arcane scrolls (this is potentially very notable) and Paladins may like to acquire Pale Justice earlier in order to extend its wield-time (not so notable, but cool). For whatever reason, pushing on would be a case of duck in, get what we need and duck out: it is not advantageous to attempt a full clear-out of Lower Dorn's before cleaning out Wyrm's Tooth because the latter's questing yields great quest experience point rewards. How much quest experience points are we talking about? In excess of 1.3 million. To put that in perspective, that is twice the amount of quest experience yielded in the first four chapters taken together. Plus, it's dead-easy to get.
***
Museum of Dugmaren Brightmantle Wyrm's Tooth Glacier
Dominating this sprawling glacial zone is an impressive example of dwarven architecture: the Museum of Dugmaren Brightmantle, designed by Alkonos the Visionary.
Broken Bridge Wyrm's Tooth Glacier
The broken bridge over the chasm (annotated above) is the barrier to acquiring Joril's badge. This must be repaired in order to reach the frost giant caves wherein Joril and the frost giants reside. To do that, we need to enter the temple, head to its basement library and request an engineering manual from a guy named Soth. Then, we need to fix the bridge by referring to the manual, raid the frost giant caves, and acquire Joril's badge. That is the minimalist approach to Wyrm's Tooth.
However, there is much more content offered in Wyrm's Tooth so let's break it down from beginning to end, shall we?
First of all, the height-mapped exterior of Wyrm's Tooth is littered with dead bodies of human villagers. We learn later that these were escaped slaves who were slain by the patrolling snow and greater ice trolls. It is best that we lure the snow trolls together, pound them into the snow with our collective ApR, and then finish them off with Fireball. In fact, fire-based spells and on-hit fire works very well against the Wyrm's Tooth mobs: they are cold-based and therefore take +fire dmg. On the flip-side, attempting to inflict cold damage on such mobs is unwise.
 |
| Cf. Dragon's Eye Trolls / BG2 trolls |
There are also yetis and glacial yetis getting about led by a chieftain hanging out on the roof of the museum. As well, a lone ettin guards the temple roof. This is stock-standard stuff and amounts to nothing more than mook-slaying for tenth level adventurers.
Museum of Dugmaren
Frost Salamanders
The interior of the museum is controlled by a force of frost salamanders about 30 in number. These are backed up by no fewer than 16 greater ice trolls and seven winter wolves. The freeze aura sported by frost salamanders is no joke. Anyone in close proximity takes 1-6 cold damage. If mobbed, this becomes non-trivial. However, the entire interior force is initially non-hostile. But still, that freeze aura affects us so we keep our squishies out of the AoE when exploring or engaging in dialogue.
Kerish
Upon entering the museum through its main entrance we are immediately approached by a frost salamander guard who promptly escorts us to his leader, Kerish.
Marketh is one of Brother Poquelin's six lieutenants. No matter how we reply, Kerish is convinced that we have been sent by "the master" (Poquelin) to check up on him.
We can ask about who Kerish answers to and from that learn of Joril's betrayal of his father, Kreg. This allows us to trick Joril later.
(cf. Note to Kerish from Joril.)
We inquire as to why there are so many dead bodies strewn about the place:
In short, the slaves revolted and humiliated Kerish. For vindication, he wants the leader dead and the remaining slaves returned to him.
Gareth
Descending to the basement we find one dozen human slaves hiding out; their speaker a slave named Gareth.
He tells us how the slaves revolted, who led the revolt, and how the slaves may be freed.
Vera
Now, just up the hall is a frost salamander guard that is hearing noises from Vera's location. We can protect Vera at this point...
(60,000 XP.)
... or betray her to the guard.
After speaking to Vera (assuming we didn't dob her in), it is best to tell Gareth that she's alive:
(60,000 XP.)
Then, we can get the key from Kerish...
(60,000 XP.)
... and deliver it to Gareth. The slaves then run out of the basement, into the adjacent temple, and then up the stairs to the unguarded approach, to their freedom.
(60,000 XP.)
We can then return to Vera and tell her the slaves are free:
(80,000 XP.)
Finally, to conclude proceedings in the museum, we wipe out Kerish and the 50-strong frost salamander force:
(60,000 XP.)
He then requests we bring the slaves back to the museum or slay them...
... but the slaves would rather die than become slaves again:
Thus, we slay the slaves in order to resolve the quest in an evil manner:
Engineering manual: Soth
We can then wipe out the frost salamander force as per the good option. As can be seen, the good option to the quest yields more quest experience than the evil one. It's also important to get the engineering manual from Soth (a slave) before giving Gareth the escape key or before slaying the slaves. Otherwise, we miss out on a whopping 112,500 XP.
So, just for this segment, assuming we took the good route and milked what was on offer, we slew 87 enemies and yielded a whopping 609,780 XP. But we're only half way through Wyrm's Tooth...
Frost Giant Caves
Having optionally freed the slaves or slain them, we can now fix the bridge using the engineering manual. We simply need to have the manual in our inventory as we attempt to cross the bridge (60,000 XP).
Now, if we thought quest experience was "easy money" in the museum, we've seen nothing yet.
As we can see, this frost giant-controlled dungeon is partitioned into western and eastern portions, the latter of which is accessed by small tunnels in the north and south. Initially, some monsters are hostile and others are made hostile by freeing the slaves that are holed up in the center of the cavern.
Frost Giant Caves Map
The object here is twofold:
1. acquire Joril's Badge and
2. free the slaves
The order matters because freeing the slaves first turns Joril hostile and we therefore miss out on 260,000 quest experience points from his dialogue.
Joril
With a Charisma score equal to or greater than 11, and having spoken to Kerish beforehand about Joril, we may bluff Joril out of his badge:
(80,000 XP.)
Finally, our Paladin demands the release of the slaves:
(80,000 for retrieving the badge + 180,000 for the Paladin check.)
The western portion of the dungeon is then cleared of one dozen frost giants, 15 winter wolves and five white wyrms. This is an epic battle against super-hard-hitting giants sporting a Strength score of 24.
These guys will pummel anything into the ground that doesn't have great AC. Best way to handle them? As per verbeegs: Web!
Frostbite
The speaker for the slaves, Davin, is found imprisoned in the slave pens to the north of Joril's throne. He requests that we slay a white wyrm to which slaves have been sacrificed on a daily basis.
This yields a whopping 420,000 XP from Davin. 420k for slaying a flapping thingamajig. Ok, there are five but technically only Frostbite needs a new asshole ripped. And relatively speaking, it's not even on par with a BG wyvern. It's a mook.
Kontik the Auril Priestess
Then, Davin requests we clear out the smaller, eastern portion of the dungeon. While this only requires that we slay Gorg the frost giant guard and Kontik the Auril Priestess, there are also 15 trolls, several yeti and five black ice knights (backing up Kontik). Nothing liberal castings of Web followed up by Fireball won't make easy, though.
This yields a further 180,000 XP from Davin though the slaves could have made their escape via the tunnels that pass Joril's throne, too. It doesn't matter.
Well, both routes to the exit have been cleared so take your pick, Davin. Scram.
So concludes Chapter Five and Wyrm's Tooth Glacier.
- Experience points: 388,680 kXP + 1,352,500 qXP = 1,741,180 total XP (3,584,456)
- Killcount: 149 (1389)
So, as we can see, Wyrm's Tooth Glacier is very lucrative experience point-wise. It represents nearly 50% of all experience gained up to this point. And triple of what the previous Upper Dorn's Deep yielded which was less than what its subsequent Severed Hand yielded, yet what we did in those chapters was more epic than what we achieved in this doddle. It is unfortunate that our experience gain did not feel proportionate to what we actually achieved; it was way over the top. Take the slaves for example. Freeing three groups of slaves in Dragon's Eye yielded 90,000 XP total, but freeing the two groups here? 740,000 total. Plus, relative to our level, equipment and spells, the freeing of Wyrm's Tooth slaves was much easier than the freeing of Dragon's Eye ones.
It is possible, I guess, that Black Isle threw XP around like confetti in order to facilitate party composition changes through the arbitration menu, since it is conceivable some players may run into difficulty if they lacked party composition balance or gimped one or more of their characters. This would allow them to bring in a first level character at the beginning of Wyrm's Tooth and quickly have them leveled to the point of usefulness. For example, even with a six-person party, it is possible to bring in a first level Fighter at the beginning of Wyrm's Tooth and have them leveled to 9th by the end of it. At any rate, I'll throw that out there.
That said, I've never particularly liked Wyrm's Tooth in general. The almost entirely irrelevant museum segment takes the steam out of things. And I would have much preferred a super-delve from Upper to Lower, with no relief to the world map from an approach. Some aspects of the campaign would need to be redesigned around such a change, though. Also, the dialogue is flat, characterless. Kerish's nervousness is well-written, Joril is passable, but everyone else? Forgettable. And in most cases, PC response options are flat, too. A Paladin finds out that slaves are being fed to white wyrms and he or she replies, "The slaves are to be freed, Joril". What is that? It's flat. Even a generic, "As a Paladin, I will not stand idly by while you sacrifice innocents!" would be better, but a creative writer should be able to much better for a line that precipitates an epic battle with a dozen frost giants.
WTG is also lucrative itemization-wise. Not only did we net a second set of Mithral Field Plate (the best armorset in IWD), but we also netted a Ring of Wizardry for our Mage and a Ring of Holiness for our Cleric, both of which grant bonus spell slots. There is tons of loot found in the frost giant caves but most of it is garbage compared to what we already have; it's mostly just inventory-clog for sell-off.
Chain Lightning, Globe of Invulnerability and Otiluke's Freezing Sphere were also acquired in Joril's domain. These three are of the sixth circle and quite useful though we never gain many 6th circle spell slots under an XP cap which limits Mage advancement to 14th level.
• GoI is a step up from MGoI in that it wards against fourth circle spells in addition to first through third. 4th includes Ice Storm, Confusion, Emotion: Fear and Emotion: Hopelessness. Rock solid.
• Scaling to 12-72, Chain Lightning is our electric-based AoE damage spell to match Fireball and Cone of Cold. Strong.
• OFS inflicts 3-6 cold damage per caster level on a single target. Strong, too.
Lastly, we also found a barrel of pure water - one of the items required for the restoration of Valestis' arboretum. The other three items are found in Lower Dorn's.
Party is currently 10th level. No resting to provoke respawns (farming XP) has been conducted in this run.
Next up: CHAPTER 6 ICEWIND DALE.
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