Orglash

Most elementals come from other planes, the Plane of Air, Earth, etc. Even your typical ice elemental hails from the borders between the Plane of Air and Plane of Water. However, the orglash is not an extraplanar being, but an elemental which has naturally evolved on the Material Plane. While this may seem like not that big a deal, keep in mind that one of the most straight-forward ways to rid yourself of an elemental is to banish it to its home plane. This won't work with orglashes.

The orglash is a very territorial cold-based elemental found in the mountains and forests of Rashemen. They mostly attack outsiders, which is good for a nation which frequently suffers invasions from jerk wizards on one side (the Red Wizards of Thay) and barbarians on the other. Bad if you want to trade or are a travelling adventurers. Maybe stick to the slightly warmer roads where the orglashes don't lurk.

We're gonna be at TCAF next week. Yay! If any of you out there are Canadians or Americans whats lives close to the border, come on up and buy our stuff. We've got the Dungeons & Drawings books and new postcards. Joe also has his non-Dungeons & Drawings related but still really good comics, including The Hunter, published by Nobrow. Neato!

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Bheur Hag

The bheur hag is a relative of the marzanna, another evil winter witch. At first the bheur seems the less physically imposing of the two, a little old lady leaning on a stick. Then it turns out that she's considerably more dangerous.

One illustration can't show the full scope of the bheur hag's dangerousness. For one, they can fly and are content to pelt their enemies from above with snow and ice. One of the spells she can cast whenever she pleases is Snilloc's snowball swarm (it's pretty much what you think it is). Her staff is the focus of her magical power, but she's not helpless without it, just magically weakened. If the hag decides that she must enter physical combat, she makes herself double in size. And when she defeats a victim, the bheur strips the flesh away from the bones so quickly that any unlucky observers and literally stuck blind with horror.

And I do mean literally. It's a Will save where if you fail you're either permanently blind or go insane for 2d6 days on a 75-25 chance ratio. Don't look at her when she's eating, is what I'm saying.

The bheur hag is another creature I've come across in some of my reading. In Otta Swire's Skye, the Island and its Legends she appears as the winter goddess/spirit Cailleach Bheur, partially responsible for the creation of the Cuillin Hills. She appears in some other Scottish and Irish folklore, but the Skye one's the only one I've read in a book. Like the aforementioned marzanna, she also has a little bit of a ritual attached to her. But instead of being destroyed in effigy, whoever is last to bring in the harvest has to house a Cailleach effigy for a year.

Ice Troll

While still reasonably scary opponents, ice trolls are acutally the weakest of the trolls. And perhaps because they are the weakest of the trolls, they're also among the more naturally intelligent and inclined to manufacture weapons. Ice trolls are especially good at hunting down smaller white dragons and rhemorazes, tanning their hides and making armour. So while they're still a mean bunch, there's a chance that the dipomatically gifted could strike a trade agreement with them. It's always useful to have armour that's both protective against weapons and the freezing wrath of the environment.

Not that ice trolls lack the natural grossness and brutality of their more dim-witted bretheren. As well as using their claws and teeth, the ice trolls also spits. Sure it's half frozen saliva that can give you a mild case of the frostbite, but mostly it's just gross.