Greater Snow Golem

First found on a lonely arctic island, snow golems are kin to the greater golems and usually stand watch over a valuable object or doorway. A creator can carve one into any shape, but the usual choice is an armored, helmeted warrior without shield or weapon, its helm worked into a snarling beast or a leering, ghastly face. Packed far harder than ordinary snow, the figure looks like white marble, and people often take it for a statue or a snow-dusted topiary. It cannot speak, yet a mournful wind seems to rise whenever it moves, a sound that chills the spirit as the climate chills the body.

Like the other golems of the misty dread realm, it can be harmed only by weapons of +2 or better, ignores poisons, and is immune to spells that affect the mind or life force, such as sleep, charm, finger of death or hold. Cold and water attacks do nothing to it; instead it heals 1 hit point per die of damage they would have dealt.

Electricity striking the golem while it touches someone passes straight through into that creature at full damage. If it is touching no one, it appears unharmed but actually holds the charge, releasing the same damage into the next creature it contacts.

Every five rounds it can breathe a cone of cold as the spell from a 10th-level wizard. At close quarters it prefers to pound with two great fists, each dealing 2d12 points of damage, though sometimes it wrestles instead, using the standard wrestling rules with a Strength of 19 for unarmed fighting.

Its body is so frigid that ordinary metal weapons shatter on contact. Even magical ones have a 35% chance to break with every hit, reduced by 5% per plus above +2, so a +3 blade has a 30% risk. Magical fire hurts it but releases a 20-foot cloud of scalding steam; everyone inside saves vs. breath weapon or takes half the damage the golem suffered, and a successful save avoids it entirely.

A snow golem is an automaton that obeys a few simple orders and stays wholly under its master's control unless it breaks free. Golems have no society, though tales speak of free-willed snow golems keeping one another company.

Only a wizard of 15th level or higher can build one. Carving the snow body takes four weeks and 45,000 gp in materials and components, and naturally the work must happen somewhere cold or refrigerated. The finished figure is brought to life by casting cone of cold, wish, permanency and polymorph any object.