Frost

Frosts, also known as snow sprites, snow fairies or winter folk, are miniature elf-like beings that fly on buzzing wings like a bee's. Their skin is pale blue, deeper blue in those from subarctic lands, with silver or white hair and green or blue eyes. They dress mostly in white, patched with green, blue, gray and black.

Like their pixie and sprite relatives, frosts enjoy tricking travelers, though they keep it light: dumping snow from a branch onto a hulking warrior, say, or slicking a trail with ice. At will, and at 10th level of ability, any frost may invoke control temperature, 10' radius.

Evil or destructive beings who bother them invite real revenge. Frosts never fight anything larger in melee, preferring to retreat and work from range, and reserve their icicle daggers for hunting animals and monsters their own size. They start by turning the terrain against their foes, warming the ice under enemies crossing a frozen pond until it cracks, then freezing the water over anyone who falls through. Against massed enemies they will spring an avalanche if they get the chance.

If that fails, each frost can cast cone of cold three times a day at 3rd level, a cone 15 feet long and 5 feet wide that deals 3d4+3 damage. At will, each can call on a spell-like touch power known as ice hands, dealing 1d2 cold damage that can freeze up to a gallon of liquid each round, potions and holy or unholy water included. One frost in six can fire a cold ray from its hands once a day, an inch wide and 90 feet long, which deals 6d4+6 damage on a failed save vs. spell and nothing at all on a successful one, since the beam is so thin.

Cold of any kind cannot harm them, but fire and heat spells do normal damage, and any flame dealing 1 or more points burns their wings away for good. They are so light that a fall of more than 10 feet deals only 1d2 damage, and none if they land in snow.

Frosts roam deep forests, moving with the seasons to stay in cold weather. Most groups are families, though some are bands of young adventurers out to see the world, make a little mischief or hunt for crystals and gems, which they adore and hoard. They never stay put more than a year, sheltering in hollow trees, rock overhangs and abandoned burrows. Clothing is about all they make, by some unknown method that yields remarkably fine cloth; their daggers are simply sharp, hard icicles.

Approached with care and a gift of gems, frosts can be quite helpful to courteous visitors who do not linger in their woods. They like other small fairy folk most, then dryads and elves, then halflings, with everyone else far behind. They are forever at war with quicklings and other small evil creatures, and some communities join elves and fairies to drive out goblins and similar invaders, though they are just as likely to harass heedless human woodcutters, hunters and town-builders. Frosts speak their own tongue, Elven and up to three languages of nearby allies, but neither read nor write and have no wish to.

They need so little food or material that they barely touch their surroundings. No use for them as spell components is known. Some evil sorcerers are said to have looked into it, but several of them met with fatal mishaps crossing frozen rivers or wintry woods, which has likely discouraged further study.