So your group is nearly finished with their adventures in and around Phandalin, and it begs the question: what’s the next adventure? On the final page of Dragon of Icespire Peak under the heading “Where Next,” the module provides suggestions for other published WoTC adventures the characters might move on to.

They are: Curse of Strahd, Tyranny of Dragons, Out of the Abyss, Princes of the Apocalypse, Storm King’s Thunder, Tomb of Annihilation, and Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

Why not use the Altar of Fates (located in the Shrine of Savras) as a lead-in to one of those adventures?

As written in the adventure, the Altar of Fate isn’t exactly the Mirror of Galadriel, even if it feels like that’s what the game designers were going for:

“Any character touching the altar experiences a vision lasting 1 minute, during which time the character is incapacitated. In the vision, the character floats through the roof of the shrine, soars toward Icespire Hold, and sees the white dragon asleep on the fortress’s rooftop. (The divination power of the altar is effectively telling the characters where they must go to defeat the dragon.)”

Kind of anticlimactic. The altar basically serves the story as a device to point the characters in the direction of Cryovain, who other than acting like an apex predator in its habitat, doesn’t appear to have any plans beyond the next meal. Is that worth a vision from the Altar of Fate? I sure don’t think so.

The last known vision the altar provided was decades ago. It was a vision of the attack that would destroy Conyberry. I’m sure the clergy at the Shrine of Savras would have very much have appreciated if the altar had shown them the directors cut where, you know, the barbarians also showed up at the gates of their shrine, as well. But alas. The gods are cruel.

How would that vision foretell Conyberry’s destruction?

Barbarians sit around a bonfire, speaking it turns during what appears to be a tribal moot. The full moon appears from behind a bank of clouds, partially obscured by the silhouette of a wolf’s head raised to the sky, howling. One wolf’s head. Then another, and another until they all throw their heads back, howling at the stars; only, they are wolves in humanoid form. The full moon casts the modest houses of a village in shadows as lamp like eyes peer out from between the darkened trees of the Neverwinter Wood. A hue and cry. Common folk running to take up defense of the village. Fire. Blood. The throat of an armed combatant torn out in a spray of blood as other folk are terrorized and forced into the wood. The village in flames as the wolves, silhouetted by the fire, howl at the moon.

That’s what I’d like to think a clergy member at the Shrine of Savras saw all those years ago before the sack of Conyberry. You could use the altar to perhaps give background on what happened in Conyberry. After all, Savras is the God of divination, fate, and truth – and divination, as defined in fifth edition, is “understanding of the past, present, and future.”

But I’ve strayed off topic. We were talking about using the Altar of Fate as a device to set up the next published adventure. So let’s do this! I’ll choose Curse of Strahd as an example.

Same thing happens: the character becomes incapacitated while experiencing the following vision:

A beautiful, richly dressed woman leaps to her death from the terrace of a castle overlooking a valley bathed in moonlight. Barrel top wagons travel an ancient road shrouded in mist. Lamp like eyes peer out from between the darkened trees of an ancient, impenetrable forest. Two titanic, headless statues of armed guardians flank enormous iron gates rusted with age which slowly open. Atop a high column of rock, the darkened silhouette of a foreboding castle is framed within the full moon. Common folk shut their doors in fear as a ghostly procession marches along the cobblestone streets of their village. A crying child is led by the hand to a cart in terror. A large black carriage drawn by two black horses rests at a fork in a road, its door opening slowly. Raven quork in a frenzy, dispersing as a horse with blazing eyes and a mane of fire gallops through them bearing a faceless Dark Lord.

Or something like that. Whichever hallmarks of horror for Curse of Stradh strike your fancy, bake them into your vision. Let the Altar of Fate serve a glimpse of the harbingers of doom awaiting the party in the land of Barovia (or wherever else the next adventure takes them).

+++

If you’d like to support my work, please consider checking out my supplements for Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak over on Dungeon Master’s Guild! All of my titles are Free/PWYW offerings.