Blackfrost Prophet
Level 9Attacks
Abilities
The blackfrost dead can climb on ice as though it had the listed climb Speed. It ignores difficult terrain and greater difficult terrain from ice and snow and doesn't risk falling when crossing ice.
This affliction can't be reduced below stage 1, nor the damage from it healed, until successfully treated with Cleanse Affliction or a similar effect; the affliction can then be removed as a normal disease. A creature that dies from cold damage while cursed with blackfrost rises as a blackfrost dead after 24 hours. Blackfrost has a counteract rank of 10.
Saving Throw DC 27 fortitude
Stage 1 4d6 cold (1 minute)
Stage 2 weakness to cold 5 and Drained 1 (1 day)
Stage 3 weakness to cold 10 a
The blackfrost prophet concentrates on a creature within 60 feet, filling the target's mind with befuddling susurrations. The creature must succeed at a DC 28 will save or take (4d8+8)[mental] and become Stupefied 1 for 1 minute (Stupefied 2 on a critical failure). The creature is Slowed 1 as long as it's stupefied.
The blackfrost prophet selects a point within 60 feet, then calls upon shards of blackfrost to stab up through the crust in a 30-foot area. Creatures in the area take 2d8 piercing 2d8 cold (DC 28 reflex). A creature that takes cold damage from this ability is exposed to blackfrost. Until the next time the blackfrost prophet uses Raise Blackfrost, the affected area is difficult terrain.
With their hulking physiques and the potent connection to the Crown of the World, saumen kar who succumb to blackfrost become especially dangerous blackfrost dead. Those who guarded the Temple of Aqakaru in life continue to do so in undeath, albeit even more vigilantly and much more violently. Blackfrost prophets, as these wardens are sometimes known, maintain their formidable intellect and innate connection to their boreal environment, though the curse of blackfrost has stripped them of their memories and filled their hearts with evil.
These shambling arctic horrors are dead in name alone. Creatures who succumb to the frigid elements while cursed by blackfrost don't become mere corpses entombed in ice but rather vicious undead capable of spreading the curse of blackfrost even further. Cracked, frostbitten flesh that emits a freezing vapor like steam; inexorable, unhindered strides through feet of ash-blackened snow; a vacant, icy-blue gaze devoid of humanity—the descriptions of blackfrost dead vary by the teller, but none can deny the supernatural dread these monsters evoke.
Blackfrost dead take a variety of forms. Most are mindless, lumbering brutes, largely indiscernible from mundane zombies except for the curse they can inflict. Others not only maintain their presence of mind but wield powers of psychic corruption not unlike those of blackfrost's originator, Osoyo, the Blackfrost Whale. What form a blackfrost dead takes depends primarily on the victim's psychic fortitude and its aptitude for occult magic.
Creating Blackfrost Dead
The simplest way to create a blackfrost dead is to use an existing undead, such as a zombie or a mummy, as your base creature. Replace the creature's abilities with abilities from the list on this page. All blackfrost dead gain the cold trait and have at least one way to inflict blackfrost, often using one of their Strikes.
Curse of the Crown
Blackfrost dead are found only around the Nameless Spires, under which a massive alien being named Osoyo remains imprisoned. Only recently has this ancient being stirred from its slumber, causing blackfrost to foam out of fissures in the ice and afflict unfortunate explorers. The spread of the blackfrost curse has been mercifully slow thus far, but with each creature afflicted, Osoyo's reach expands ever outward.