Chilled to the Bone Fighting the Rimebone Undead

cold and deadly - Ice Skeleton Warrior by Diana Franco

Most folk who live inside the city walls of temperate places are used to the way things are. When the weather tips a little too hot or cold, they immediately notice and make their the distaste known. The life of adventurers is uncaring to this. Their quests can lead them all across the setting, even across tundras and up icy mountains.

Sometimes adventurers can be lead to cold climes with the hope of raiding a white dragon's lair or a frost giant encampment, but sometimes the intense cold of these arctic climes are the real danger which takes unprepared adventurers. Even with the gruesome fate coming for them, the spirit of adventure may keep them fighting on.

Rimebone Undead

The death of adventurers in an arctic, frozen location can spell an excruciating end for the unlucky trekkers. For those that perish in the extreme cold, the weather would preserve their bodies. Mountaineers in our world and the worlds of Dungeons and Dragons morbidly use bodies as navigation points through places such as this.

The frozen curse has made a mockery of life - Frozen Ravager by Diana Franco

There are times where the determination, the rage against dying in an adventurer is so strong, that it hardens in an ingot of determination that reanimates their dead body. The necromantic curse that brings them back quickly consumes their flesh and replaces it with the ice of the landscape they perished on.

Rimebone Undead are the violent echoes of the adventurers that got deathly lost on the mountains and tundras of the world. Possessed with a murderous copy of their original adventurous zeal, they go forth with a determination towards nothing, and see anything living that crosses their path as a rival taking their goal from them.

In rare cases, when entire parties of people perish under the same poor conditions, the bodies can unite with the same shared necromantic curse. The bones can stack upwards and towards each other to create an undead abomination with even greater destructive power.

The rimebone undead are hazards to all creatures and civilisations in the frozen places of your setting. They'd act as the ideal wandering monster, or if something drew all the skeletons in the area together to serve some dark power, that could lead to the revelation of a necromantic villain or something similarly sinister.

Now we want to hear from you. Could your headstrong character be doomed to turn into one of these? Which icy climate in games you GM could be home to Rimebone Undead? Let us know in our discord server or in the comments below.

Rimebone Undead stats generated with homebrewery

Adam Ray contributes much for adventurers here on Apotheosis Studios. As co-founder of fantasticuniverses.com, they write about card gaming and PC gaming to a corner of the internet he carved out themselves. On Youtube, they can be found game mastering for No Ordinary Heroes, or editing the antics on The Hostile Atmosphere. Find where they dwell by climbing their Linktree.