I never read enough of Dragon Magazine when I was younger to be familiar with Ed Greenwood's early articles, where he gave the first hint of the Forgotten Realms. For me, the Realms properly came into being with the publication of the original boxed set in 1987, and the publication of its first books, Douglas Niles' "Moonshae" trilogy, and R.A. Salvatore's "Icewind Dale" trilogy. The first book of that latter series, "The Crystal Shard" was published 25 years ago. The new adventure by Wizards of the Coast, Legacy of the Crystal Shard, returns us to the environs of those novels, although, in the Realms, about 100 years have passed.

This weekend was the Launch Event for the adventure – and the D&D Encounters season that is run using it. The adventure is also available to purchase in case you want to run it for your friends at home. Like Murder in Baldur's Gate, the adventure is written for three editions (3.5E, 4E and Next) with stats available to download from the Wizards site. And it's an adventure that gives each group a fair amount of freedom as to how they approach it. My first impression is that it isn't as wild and woolly as Murder in Baldur's Gate, but it still allows a lot of freedom while probably having more structure to aid the DM.

After our troubles in getting the Launch Event kit – and eventual triumph – I was disappointed to see some of our regulars couldn't make the session. This still left us with two tables each with five players and a DM. (I was hoping to actually reach three tables, but it wasn't to be. It did mean that I didn't have to worry about drafting a third DM). We split into basically the same groups as last season, with Paul's table running 4E and my table running D&D Next. The next hour we spent on character creation.

As we've run quite a bit of level 1-3 material, I'm going to adjust the adventure to handle levels 3-6, but due to not having the time to do it for the event, we made 1st level characters. After the event, I'd allow them to level up to 3rd and we'd go from there. I spent a bit more time on the reasons each character was in Icewind Dale than normal, as I felt that the basic explanation – "you are caravan guards" lacked something. Armed with a copy of the full adventure (which had arrived with the Launch Event), I used a few of its suggestions to help give more definition to why the group was there. Yes, some were "just" caravan guards, but we also had a Chosen of Amaunator seeking to end the winter and a thief on the run from Waterdeep after stealing a magic sword.

We had a couple of non-player characters in the caravan with the group, making their way to the Ten Towns; the caravan master, and a female dwarf who was proud of her heritage. It's quite likely that a more role-playing focused DM could do a lot with these characters. (I note, in retrospect, that the full adventure's campaign guide is sprinkled with stories from the caravan master; they would have been handy to know about when running this, but I didn't have the time to read it beforehand). I made a few nods towards role-playing (and more towards filling in the backstory), by having the dwarf tell our paladin about her background, and the tale of the Crystal Shard, an evil artefact which some of her ancestors had helped defeat.

And then it was time for the action to start – a giant snow-cat attacking the group! This was also the opportunity for the fifth character to join the group – we'd decided that the ranger was a citizen of the Ten Towns, and he'd been tracking the cat, so arrived as it attacked the group and was able to help out. The cat died pretty quickly, the group introduced themselves to the ranger, and then they had to deal with the guard the cat had mauled and an overturned wagon.

This led the group to a decision: the caravan master wanted to move on without the wagon as the weather was getting worse and more monsters were lurking; the wagon's driver wanted it to be repaired. The group didn't take very long to decide they'd stay with the driver. I've a feeling I should have the weather sound worse…

Unfortunately for those (like me) who wanted the group's decision to somewhat cost them, they aced every check to repair the wagon and find its scattered goods! The group were able to catch up to the rest of the caravan, and so came in sight of their destination, Bryn Shander.

And, as they entered the gates, they were attacked by Yeti!

The rest, tomorrow! (Sorry, really tired now, must sleep!)