ThremindyrBlustering winds and snow swirl around this white, almost transparent feylike phantom.Thremindyr CR 9Source Pathfinder #94: Ice Tomb of the Giant Queen pg. 90
XP 6,400
CE Medium outsider (air, cold, native)
Init +7; Senses darkvision 60 ft., sense protection; Perception +15
Aura cold aura (10 ft.)DefenseAC 23, touch 17, flat-footed 16 (+7 Dex, +6 natural)
hp 104 (11d10+44)
Fort +12, Ref +12, Will +9
DR 10/magic; Immune cold, elemental traits
Weaknesses vulnerable to fireOffenseSpeed 30 ft., fly 60 ft. (perfect)
Melee 2 slams +18 (1d6+2 plus 2d6 cold and entrap)
Special Attacks breath weapon (30-ft. cone, 4d6 cold plus entrap, Reflex DC 18 half, usable every 1d4 rounds), entrap (DC 18, 1d10 rounds, hardness 5, hp 10), shatter protectionStatisticsStr 15, Dex 25, Con 16, Int 11, Wis 14, Cha 16
Base Atk +11; CMB +18; CMD 30
Feats Agile Maneuvers, Flyby Attack, Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes, Toughness, Weapon Finesse
Skills Acrobatics +15, Bluff +11, Escape Artist +20, Fly +25, Intimidate +16, Knowledge (planes) +10, Knowledge (religion) +10, Perception +15, Stealth +15
Languages Auran, Giant
SQ indistinctEcologyEnvironment cold hills or mountains
Organization solitary, pair, or blizzard (3–6)
Treasure noneSpecial AbilitiesCold Aura (Su) A thremindyr is surrounded by an aura of intense cold. At the beginning of the thremindyr’s turn, all creatures within 10 feet of the thremindyr take 1d6 points of cold damage.
Indistinct (Ex) A thremindyr barely stands out against snow and wintery skies except when it attacks. While in cold terrain, a thremindyr can use the Stealth skill even while being observed.
Sense Protection (Su) A thremindyr can automatically sense when a creature within 30 feet is under the effects of protection from energy (cold) or resist energy (cold).
Shatter Protection (Su) A thremindyr can pit its intense supernatural cold against another creature’s magical protections in an attempt to wear them down or even shatter them completely. As a melee touch attack, the thremindyr can attempt to diminish the effectiveness of resist energy (cold) or protection from energy (cold) effects. If the touch attack is successful, the target is affected by a targeted dispel magic effect (caster level 11th). If the dispel check is successful, the spell protecting the target ends. This ability can affect only protection from energy (cold) or resist energy (cold) effects, and it deals no damage to the target directly.
This ability can be used at will, but each use can affect the effects of only one spell. If the target is under the effects of both spells, this ability affects protection from energy first; a separate use of this ability is needed to remove resist energy.
If a target is under the effects of resist energy (cold) or protection from energy (cold) as an effect of a magic item, the thremindyr’s dispel check must overcome the item’s caster level.
Creatures with inherent resistance or immunity to cold are unaffected by this ability. This does not extend to creatures that have immunity or resistance due to the effects of magic items or spells.DescriptionThremindyrs are often mistaken for ghosts or some manner of frozen spirits when spotted in the wild. Although they are not incorporeal, these icy elemental beings are pale and wispy, and are easily overlooked in the wintery outdoors where there is little to contrast with their translucent white bodies. If viewed against a dark backdrop, a thremindyr looks like a long-limbed humanoid. Close up, their features have an inhuman, angular, and almost crystalline quality to them. They sport high cheekbones, upward-slanted eyes, and pointed ears. What might represent hair is a swirling mass of ever-roiling tendrils of mist and snow. Thremindyrs are usually androgynous, but very rarely some thremindyrs sport what appears to be a beard composed of icicles. When agitated, these arctic elementals radiate a flurry of snow in the direction of their attention, especially when they howl and roar. They possess a considerable strength but are ephemeral, like an air elemental. Thremindyrs stand roughly 7 feet tall and weigh no more than 15 pounds.EcologyThe name “thremindyr” roughly translates from the Giant language as “breath of Thremyr,” and a connection between the giant god and these creatures appears certain. Students of ancient lore and experts on the planes point to legends that describe how parts of the god Thremyr fell away from the deity and sprang to life, creating the frost giant, ice troll, and winter wolf races, and suggest that thremindyrs may have been created in the same way. These legends say that, instead of sloughing off of Thremyr as he staggered into the Steaming Sea, the first thremindyr escaped from Thremyr’s lungs as the ancient being sighed, passing through his lips and onto Golarion.
Although this in some ways parallels how thremindyrs reproduce on the Material Plane, the theory that thremindyrs spawn directly from the deity isn’t supported by the evidence. For one thing, thremindyrs hail from the Plane of Air, and Thremyr does not reside there. Scholars propose that the thremindyrs’ existence actually informs one of the nature of Thremyr—and other gods worshiped by giants (such as Gozreh)—far more than the other way around.
Thremindyrs are consistently humanoid in shape, unlike many other elemental beings, whose shapes are often chaotic or take on animalistic forms. Thremindyrs spontaneously generate on the Plane of Air, but procreate through asexual reproduction on the Material Plane. They seem to thrive on the Material Plane, and by some accounts are slowly evolving to a less elemental state of existence.Habitat & SocietyThremindyrs are thought to have originally sprung into existence in the misty zone where the Elemental Plane of Air juts up against the Plane of Water. Whatever their origin, thremindyrs have proliferated and are encountered as indigenous forms of life in many places on the Material Plane, especially on Golarion. When encountered outside of the Material Plane, thremindyrs possess the extraplanar subtype. Thremindyrs who dwell on the Material Plane require air, food, and moisture and have daily periods of inactivity. The creatures wither and die quickly in hot environments, and are found only in environments where water can freeze. Though thremindyrs need to eat, the period of time between each feeding can stretch for months.
Thremindyrs are curious creatures, but they are contemptuous of beings that can’t adapt to the environments in which these outsiders thrive. When they coexist with creatures immune to their bitter cold presence, it is with a reserved indifference or muted curiosity. They are fickle and rarely maintain long-term alliances with other creatures.
Among their own kind, thremindyrs are peaceable and demonstrate a willingness to share ideas and cooperate—though they lack any ideas that do not lend themselves to mischief and mayhem. Thremindyrs are disastrously curious, and tend to treat any new stimulus as an excuse for playful destruction. A gathering of thremindyrs is dangerous indeed; more than one mountaineering expedition has been lost by being frozen to the side of a mountain by these strange elemental beings.
Thremindyrs chafe at being summoned—they have little patience for communication with creatures that have no natural inclination to cold or abilities to overcome it. Yet if directed toward an objective or opponent that it can freeze solid, a summoned thremindyr quickly forgets the indignity and sets about its work with malicious glee.
In combat, thremindyrs attempt to keep their distance from their enemies. They prefer to fly just out of the reach of their foes and attack with their breath weapons, hoping to entrap those struck. Once an opponent is immobilized, the thremindyr focuses on other foes until they are all coated in rime. Thremindyrs can tell whether creatures are magically protected against the cold, and they find these sorts of protections affronts to their icy nature. Thremindyrs focus their attacks on protected creatures first, and use their shatter protection ability to break down these defenses. If their enemies fight using ranged weapons, thremindyrs soar down and attack using Flyby Attack, sometimes remaining in melee combat long enough for their auras to damage their opponents.
|