Frostveil
Medium Plant, unaligned
“They took the sled dogs first, and later the seal-skinner set to guard them. We’d hear a confused, muffled cry in the wind and then we’d find them—a raven harvest, cold and stiff on the ice. Next time, we hid ourselves and watched, and saw them floating through the air like kites. A wisp of blowing snow that never dispersed, a billowing, snowflake sail moving with sinister purpose. The ‘cloak of death’ our skraeling guide called it.”
Whipped through the air by snowstorms and resembling a spider’s web dangling with delicate ice crystals, these silently gliding, beautiful killers are semi-sentient plants adapted to the merciless cold of the North.
Cloak of Death. Flat nodes shaped like large snowflakes connect their net-like bodies and trailing tails of transparent fibers. Gossamer tendrils stream behind and between the flying snowflakes, ready to grab and entangle any warm-blooded creature it detects.
Seek Warmth. Each star-like node contains crude sensory organs, able to detect warmth as meager as a living creature’s breath and steer the gliding web toward it.
Spirit Spores. Northern shamans say the dance of the frostveils is beautiful when lit by the northern lights, and a powerful omen. With great care, shamans sometimes harvest frostveils for their frozen spore-shards, which grant potent visions of the spirit world when melted on the tongue.
Armor Class 16
Hit Points 67 (9d8+27)
Speed 10 ft., fly 30 ft.
- STR
- 20 (+5)
- DEX
- 20 (+5)
- CON
- 16 (+3)
- INT
- 1 (-5)
- WIS
- 11 (+0)
- CHA
- 1 (-5)
Skills Stealth +7
Damage Vulnerabilities fire
Damage Resistances bludgeoning and piercing from nonmagical attacks
Damage Immunities cold
Condition Immunities blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, prone
Senses blindsight 100 ft., passive Perception 10
Languages -
Challenge 4
Traits
Chilling Acid. The frostveil's frozen acidic mist breaks down flesh and organic materials into useable nutrients. Creatures who strike the frostveil with a non-reach melee weapon or an unarmed strike take 4 (1d8) acid damage.
False Appearance. While the frostveil remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from a formation of frost and ice.
Windborne. While in blowing wind, the frostveil can fly with a speed of 30 feet. In a strong wind this speed increases to 60 feet.
Actions
Multiattack. The frostveil makes three tendril attacks.
Tendril. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8 + 5) bludgeoning damage. If two tendrils hit the same target in a single turn, the target is engulfed.
Engulf. When a frostveil wraps itself around a Medium or smaller creature, the target takes 14 (2d8 + 5) bludgeoning damage plus 13 (3d8) acid damage and is grappled (escape DC 15). The target takes another 9 (2d8) bludgeoning damage plus 13 (3d8) acid damage at the end of each of its turns when it's still grappled by the frostveil. A frostveil can't attack while it has a creature engulfed. Damage from attacks against the frostveil is split evenly between the frostveil and the engulfed creature; the only exceptions are slashing and psychic damage, which affect only the frostveil.
Spirit Spores (recharge 6). In distress, frostveils release a puff of psychotropic spores in a 10-foot cloud around themselves. Creatures within the cloud of spores must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw against poison or suffer hallucinations, as per a confusion spell, for 1d3 rounds.
