Copyright 2009 Wizards of the Coast

This post is part of a series! Go here to see the other entries.

The Monster Manual already gave us wolves normal and dire, and it also gave us worgs. Now the Monster Manual 2 continues to climb the wolf power ladder. I first remember seeing Winter Wolves in the 3e monster books, but I’m pretty sure they’ve been around longer than that.

The Lore

If I tried to explain how all of these monsters fit together I suppose I’d say it all starts with the Sons of the Spirit Wolf. The Great Spirit Wolf is a godlike primal spirit, and his progeny wander the world forever trying to satisfy their endless hunger. I guess they’re more or less equivalent to the various wolf spirits worshipped by the Uratha from Werewolf: The Forsaken, only not nearly as nice.

These primal spirits probably had descendants themselves, which would be your “standard” winter wolves. These fit above worgs in the Wolf Power Ladder. They’re a bit smaller than worgs, but are much deadlier, much smarter, and just as evil. They also have ice powers.

At some point a primordial entity of ice and cold might have taken a look at the Sons of the Spirit Wolf and thought hey, I want me some of that. So it developed a process where it takes the living heart of an elemental blizzard and fashions a Rime Hound out of it. Unlike the creatures they are modeled after, Rime Hounds are entirely made of ice. Their creators give them as gifts to loyal servants and worshippers.

The Numbers

All the creatures in this entry are Magical Beasts. Winter wolves are Natural, and the others are Elemental. They all have low-light vision and a ground speed of 8 with Ice Walk, which means they ignore cold-themed difficult terrain. Sons of the Spirit Wolf have Resist Cold 30, all the others have Resist Cold 20.

Their powers are a combination of the usual wolfy bites and takedowns with a suite of frost breath weapons and the like, but the specifics vary with each stat block. Their Int scores are in the average human range. We’ll look at them by order of level.

Winter Wolf

Winter Wolves are Medium, and are Level 14 Skirmishers with 141 HP. They attack with bites that deal bonus cold damage, and deal about double damage to prone targets. They can get people prone with a Takedown, a charge attack that’s stronger than the basic bite and knocks the target prone on a hit.

If a winter wolf is adjacent to a prone target it can use Drag, an at-will minor action that allows the wolf to shift 1 square and pull the prone victim along with it. It’s more than smart enough to use this to put the victim in a position to be surrounded by its wolf buddies.

Finally, winter wolves can use a Freezing Breath (recharge 5+), a Close Blast 5 that targets Reflex and deals cold damage (half on a miss). This attack’s damage is smaller than the wolf’s cold resistance, so a pack of winter wolves is going to try to get the party all bunched up and then hit them with multiple blasts.

Winter Wolf Snowfang

Snowfangs are Level 16 Lurkers with 124 HP, representing the sort of wily wolf that keeps out of sight and nips at your heels until you’re too weak to fight back. Rather than relying on takedowns, it tries to freeze its victims.

Their bites do bonus cold damage, and are stronger against victims who are taking ongoing cold damage. Their Frigid Breath works like that of the standard winter wolf with an added ongoing cold damage rider.

The snowfang’s lurker-y ability is Snow Zephyr, a reaction that triggers when it gets damaged and turns it into a whirlwind of snow. This causes the snowfang to become insubstantial, and to gain the ability to shift its speed as a move action. In this form it can only attack with Frigid Breath, which also causes it to revert to wolf form. It can also revert voluntarily as a minor action.

These powers allow snowfangs to act as very effective harriers: they charge in, use Freezing Breath, and fight until damaged. Then they shift away in Snow Zephyr form, and vanish for a while. Then they come back, perhaps even still in zephyr form, use Freezing Breath again, and repeat the process. You could use them like this as persistent foes who refuse to have a stand-up fight to the last, and who pop up to make opportunistic attacks in the middle of other encounters.

Rime Hounds

These knockoff winter wolves are quite well-made! They’re Huge in size, and are Level 17 Elite Skirmishers with 332 HP. They have the Earth, Cold, and Mount keywords, so they’re appropriate mounts for ice giants!

They have Reach 2 Bite and Takedown attacks identical to those of a winter wolf, with bigger numbers. They have the same Drag ability as well. Instead of a Freezing Breath, they have Frost Storm, a Close Burst 3 that targets Fortitude and deals cold damage (half on a miss). This creates a zone of frozen difficult terrain that lasts for a turn.

Finally, their “elite multi-attack” power is actually a reaction: Ice Spikes which extend whenever the hound or its rider are missed by an enemy melee attack. This acts as a free attack on the triggering enemy.

Son of the Spirit Wolf

These Large wolfy demigods are Level 26 Elite Skirmishers with 486 HP. Their surrounded by an aura (1) named Everfrost Coat, which deals 10 cold damage to enemies who enter it. Enemies damaged by the aura can’t make opportunity attacks for a turn, which allows this wolf to freely disengage from most PCs.

Their Reach 2 bites do the usual physical/cold damage mix and grab the target on a hit. They can then use Drag Away to either shift 1 square or move their speed while pulling the victim along. They can also use Rending Jaws (recharge 5+) against the grabbed victim, a much stronger attack than the basic bite that also pushes the target 5 squares and knocks them prone as the wolf ends the grab and flings the victim away.

There’s nothing in the text forbidding the wolf from using normal bites on other enemies while it has a victim grabbed. You are of course free to forbid it since it only has one mouth… but what if it doesn’t? What if this is a vaguely wolf-shaped ball of dark spirit stuff instead of being just a big wolf? What if it can grow extra mouths to bite people with? Maybe it’s not canon, but it’s metal as fuck.

Anyway, the thing’s last attack is a Black Ice Breath which is kind of a hybrid between the breaths of the other two varieties: big cold damage in a Close Blast 5, and it leaves a zone of frozen difficult terrain that lasts for the whole encounter. This is an encounter power that recharges when the wolf is first bloodied, just like dragon breath.

Sample Encounters and Final Impressions

All the links between the different monsters here are purely my invention. Judging from the descriptions of the book alone, they don’t have anything in common other than being generally wintery and wolfy. The individual stat blocks have good mechanics, though.

The sample encounter is level 14: a Chillfire Destroyer elemental and a pair of winter wolves being bossed around by a Beholder Eye of Frost.