Dungeons & Dragons - A Guide to Arveiaturace

One of my favorite NPCs in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden is the white dragon, Arveiaturace. I got to thinking about the corpse that rides on her back and decided to wander around the internet and see what I could find about it.

Guess what? Almost nothing! His name is Meltharond Thone, and there's just a few sentences about him! Ed Greenwood has created mountains of lore. I mean, just the other day on twitter he fired off a massive list of Icewind Dale slang. 

I decided to whip up a guide to collect all the info that I could find on Meltharond and Arveiaturace. I had forgotten that Arveiaturace is linked to Arauthator from Tyranny of Dragons!

The Arveiaturace Miniature

Before we start, I should note that they just came out with a MASSIVE Arveiaturace miniature. In fact, when I google her, mostly I just get results on the mini. This one comes out in January 2021, looks really cool.

Dragon Magazine #231 - Arveiaturace, "The White Wyrm"

This article is pretty much the main source of information on the dragon. While this article originally appeared in an issue of Dragon, they also posted it online way back when along with many other of Ed Greenwood's 'Wyrms of the North" articles. You can read this article for yourself right here.

Tons and tons of lore packed into this one! Let's seen what we've got. 

Nickname: Also known as "Iceclaws."

Hunting People: She likes to drift over ships and pluck up crew members to eat. Sometimes she lands on a ship and tears it apart to get at the delicious sailors below decks.

Arveiaturace spares sailors if they desire to talk or can sing. She has abducted people and then just talked to them for a month.

Meltharond Thone: She was once the steed of a wizard named Meltharond Thone, who captured and tamed her. Over the years, she became close with him and became lonely when he died.

She straps his palanquin to her back and flies with his skeletal figure riding between her shoulders.

"A web of arcane magics spun by Meltharond in his waning days keep his bones whole and in proper relation to each other, so the wizard's skeleton sits upright and turns its head to look in whichever direction Iceclaws is looking."

Candlekeep Incident: She once went to Candlekeep when a sage wrote bad things about Meltharond. She tore the roof of the building and set the sage straight.  

Laeral of Waterdeep personally delivered a freshly printed tome from Candlekeep entitled "The High History of the Mighty Mage Meltharond" to the White Wyrm,

Laeral stayed there for ten days. The wyrm now leaves ships near Waterdeep alone.

Mate: Arveiaturace sometimes mates with a white dragon named Arauthator.

She Uses Magic: Meltharond gave her a "ring of spell triggering" that allows her to trigger the wands, rods, and staves he left behind. From what I can tell, basically, she can use a wand without holding it. As long as it is on the same plane, she can use it.

She can cast spells of up to 5th level. Her spells include:

• Detect Magic
• See Invisibility
• Dispel Magic
• Wall of Ice
  

New Spell: This article also details a spell that both Meltharond and the dragon use, called Awaken from Afar. It basically lets you use a wand without touching it. If the wand is on the same PLANE as you are, you can use it.  

Her Lair: Arveiaturace lives on an island south of the Sea of Moving Ice. She dwells in a cavern right next to smaller chambers that were once the sanctum of Meltharond.

• Meltharond's rooms are how he left it.
• She uses one of Meltharond's wands to summon unseen servants to keep things tidy.
• She may have a crystal ball to observe weather and ships.
• We get a list of treasure, which is similar to what appears in the 3e hoard. Plus: "...half a dozen of Meltharond's spellbooks (contents to be determined by the DM)."

She Once Fought 12 Black Dragons: "Arveiaturace is famous for tearing apart a midair portal to other planes that opened uncomfortably close to her lair and disgorged some sort of flying ship and an aerial guard of no less than twelve young adult black dragons! The White Wyrm screamed a challenge and charged to the attack, destroying the ship, the gate, and every last dragon in a wild fray that lasted for most of a day -- despite the hostile and quite spectacular spells of several wizards aboard the ship."

Dragons of Faerun

This one has an epic piece of art by the late, great William O'Connor (at the top of this article). We get a lot of the same information as in the 2e article. I was hoping for a map of her lair, but I don't see one.

She has "scales of powder blue."

Hoard: They actually detail her entire treasure hoard, which includes

• Piles of gems
• An idol of Gargauth aka the archdevil trapped in a shield from Baldur's Gate: Avernus
• Crystal ball
• Flesh golem manual
• Stone golem manual
• Staff of frost
• Wand of slow
• Wand of unseen servant
  

Her treasure hoard is guarded by 2 stone golems and one flesh golem.

Island: Meltharond was the ruler of the Ice Peak, an island south of the sea of moving ice. Arveiaturace became adept at battling wizards after years of serving as a steed in "mage-battle."

Personality: Arveiaturace is more paranoid than ambitious, and would like to find a wizard to replace Meltharond.

Tiamat Connection: A member of the Cult of the Dragon named Lashivian tried to convince her to become a dracolich.

Rise of the King by R.A. Salvatore

From what I can glean, in this book it is explained that Arveiaturace mated with the dragon Arauthator and they spawned a progeny named Aurbanfras, a white dragon who was slain in the War of the Silver Marches. 

Tyranny of Dragons

Arauthator, Arveiaturace's sometime-mate, is in this adventure. The group needs to go to his lair ("...just one of a number of minor lairs maintained by the dragon..."), which is a small cave/dungeon in an iceberg on the Sea of Moving Ice. His treasure hoard is pretty meager. He's got some ice troll and ice toad servants.

Storm King's Thunder

Storm King's Thunder has a random encounters in Icewind Dale section. The first entry: Arveiaturace. "Rarely does she condescend to meddle in the affairs of land dwellers; however, if one or more characters neglect to take cover, she swoops down for a closer look at them (and they at her)."

It says she is insane and that she calls out the the "withered corpse of a wizard she once regarded as a great friend. Arveiaturace occasionally calls out to the corpse in Draconic, as though the wizard were still alive."

Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden

She has a large entry in the "Wilderness Encounter" section on page 105. 

Eyesight: Age has clouded her eyes with cataracts, limiting the range of her vision to 60 feet.

Prefers Beasts: She prefers the taste of reindeer, walrus, and polar bear flesh to that of humanoids. 

Meltharond: Meltharond's corpse is strapped to a saddle on her back. She has never acknowledged his death and still speaks to his body as if he were alive.

Ship Lair: On of her lairs is one page 127, "Dark Duchess." She has placed some of her hoard in an abandoned pirate ship called the Dark Duchess. 

Hoard: Her treasure is buried under four thick, translucent layers of ice. This hoard includes:

• A Quiver of Ehlonna
• Suit of Mithral Armor
• A replica of the Wand of Orcus (!)

Arveiaturace is meant to show up while the group is exploring the ship. There is discussion of Meltharond falling out of his saddle. We are told that she can't put him back in the saddle without help. If the characters put Meltharond back, she spares their lives. 

"Once the characters are beyond her field of vision, the somewhat dim dragon remembers that she's big enough to scoop up Meltharond with one claw; she does so - gently - and flies back to her lair atop the Reghed Glacier."