Wintery winds raced down the peek, bringing with them dark clouds the bore the promise of a storm. The wizard watched it apprehensively, tilting back her wide-brimmed hat to stare suspiciously at the gathering clouds. Behind her, she could hear the flirting of the fighter and rogue between long scrapes of the whetstone against his blade. Resisting the urge to roll her eyes at the pair, she kept them focused on the sky, still certain that something was off. She was proven right when she something moving within the clouds, causing her to give a cry as she turned towards camp. Her companions looked up as she waded through the snow towards them only to trip and fall face first into it in what turned out to be a shocking turn of fortune as a white bolt streaked from she sky and narrowly missed her. As she rose from the snow, so did the beast several feet in front of her – an immense creature as white as the powder it was nestled in. Great horns rose over icy blue eyes that were set in a face that resembled the visage of an ancient and wise owl, but its powerful body was that of a great bear. It rose to unleash a roar that sounded as though it would bring the mountain down upon them before turning upon the isolated wizard, struggling to her feet.
Just in case you forgot that it was still winter, I bring you a frosty and frigid fowl, the skraev from Dauntless! This is a creature that I’ll admit I took a few liberties on, but one that I really enjoyed designing. I stuck with the lower level of the ranges for its general design but its roadmap actually hewed towards the same followed by the owlbear since at the end of the day, that is admittedly what the skraev kind of is. It just has a cold theme on top of that and is a good bit beefier. It has decent defenses with a high Armor Class and Hit Points still on the lower end of high. Its attacks have a high bonus with moderate damage talons and a high damage beak.
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To help it traverse its snowy demesne, the skraev has Ice Stride, based on similar abilities seen on other monsters. Its other passive ability is Snow Vision so that it can hunt its prey even through the fiercest of snowstorms. These are just basic abilities to help it get along where its more unique abilities start with Freezing Gust, which was actually split into two separate abilities during development. This represents the slash of air that the skraev tosses out with its wing and is able to freeze enemies in place. As such, this is a line effect that deals limited use area cold damage at a high DC and can then leave enemies frozen, as represented by the immobilized and off-guard conditions until the player popsicle breaks the ice.
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Formerly part of this effect is Erupting Ice. My original intent was to represent both its gust and the spikes of ice it creates as a single ability but during the course of the design, I came to the conclusion that I didn’t actually like that. So I split them and to help differentiate them, I decided to design this effect as an unlimited use with a lower damage to account for but it does have another way of slowing people down through its ability to knock enemies prone. Both of these effects play into its Chilling Advance, one of the aforementioned liberties I took in the design to give it a fun reaction that tied into its theme and also had some relation to some of the abilities seen on the baseline owlbear. Rounding out its more fantastical abilities is Howling Winds, intended to resemble the great tornado it unleashes. Again, I put a sizable spin of my own on it - where it is a simple tornado that travels in a straight line in Dauntless, I made it a sustained effect that deals unlimited use area damage at a moderate DC to account for the fact that the skraev can move it about the battlefield and use it to slow enemies down. The final ability I wanted to represent with the skraev is the big leap and pounce it does with the aptly named Vicious Pounce, allowing it to move and make a savage attack though I was worried about including too much AoE in its kit and therefore designed the effects of this to be a little different.
Pathfinder 2e:
I also included a weapon based off of the axe that players can build using Skraev components, the Winter Gale. This includes the somewhat goofy effect of this greataxe gaining the thrown trait based off of the axe throw ability in Dauntless and rather than have it lay ice mines after dodging, which isn't really a mechanic that exists in Pathfinder 2e, I made it an activated ability, substituting the ice minds with ice slick snares.
This was a fairly straightforward conversion from the PF2e version of the monster that includes some fun feats, particularly Cold Celerity given its favored environments. Rather than create another ability, I settled on using Death From Above to represent its pounce. It maintains its other features, again using the lower damage for its erupting ice and howling winds.
Pathfinder 1e:
Blue's D&D 5e:
ENCOUNTER HOOKS
Wings of Winter: In the midst of a blizzard, the heroes find themselves the prey of a skraev the uses the cover of the whipping wind and swirling snow to utilize hit and run tactics. The heroes must figure out some way to overcome the savage beast or find shelter from the storm to take the advantage from the burly, boreal bird. For an added twist, there may actually be two skraevs hiding in the snow, using their tactics to hide this advantage. While one attacks the party, the other circles around to an advantageous position.
Shapes in the Snow: The heroes are contacted by a town that has been plagued by attacks from owlbears they believe are lairing in the region. This seems like an easy task for the heroes who have faced such beasts before but as they draw near the den, they discover the owlbears are of sterner stuff than they've faced before. Some are unnaturally resilient to the cold while others seem to project a chill, and the reason becomes apparent as the heroes find themselves facing a skraev that has come south and taken up breeding with the local owlbear populace, giving rise to fearsome and furious fowls.
Hope you all enjoyed the first Monster Monday of that year - there are plenty more to come! If you're interested in joining the discussion on what creatures/builds I'm working on or just discussing your own homebrew works, check out our Discord! If you want to get some teasers or help us get to our yet unlisted milestones for extra content, check out the Twitter.
You can also check out the video on the YouTube channel!
Have a monstrous Monday!