Snow Elves
A Lost Race of the North
Bringing Light Into a Frozen World
Snow Elves were amongst the first of the elf races to venture onto the material plane. Back then, the age of giants and dragons had just ended, the earth was frozen, covered by winter's white cloak. Glaciers slowly crept towards the chilling seas, snow storms howled across the landscape, it was a terrifying winter that lasted for hundreds of years - the great ice age. Many races and animals unable to adapt either died out or had to fight for survival in a few hideouts, where temperatures were not as cold as elsewhere.
The first snow-elves came together around a great, lonely mountain in the Far North, and from there, thriving in the cold that made other races suffer, they spread around the world and formed countless of communities, from small villages to great kingdoms. Legends tell of their wonderful magic, their pure souls and their beautiful music, of how they sang and with their songs, entire cities rose, shaped from ice and snow. Even in the darkest, coldest nights, the ice crystals always gave off a beautiful, colorful glow almost like the aurora. It was as if snow elves were representing the calm, beautiful side of winter in a cruel, relentless and deadly, frozen world.
The Heart of the Glacier
However, nothing was to last forever, and as the winter came to an end and the world thawed out, new races started to conquer the lands, some more ruthless and brutal than others. While snow elves were able to cast powerful spells, the rising temperatures took their toll and made them unable to withstand all these new threats. Those who survived fled back to the Far North, where, to their relief, winter was still there. And here, at the base of the lonely mountain where everything began, the remaining snow-elves settled down. Monumental, blessed halls of ice beneath the mountain's glaciers, some formed naturally, some built with the help of their magical songs, became the snow elves' most sacred place known as the Heart of the Glacier, serving as a temple and a place of peace, calmness and art.
Magic of the Snow Elves
The magic of snow elves always was unique. They were able to use magical songs, often sung together in small groups, to take control of and shape snow and ice around them, which allowed them to create beautiful spires and even entire palaces; and thanks to their pure souls, they even were able to use restorative and purifying magic that today would be classfied as divine in that way. However, not many of these magical songs are still known today.
In addition to that, over thousands of years, snow elves had learned to harness the energy found within snow and especially magical, crystalline ice they referred to as "pure ice" with the help of their songs, which allowed them to cast frost and ice magic of tremendous power. How they did that, and what exactly they were able to do, that is a great mystery today, as most findings of "pure ice" nowadays appear black and corrupted.
The Fall
Meanwhile humans and other races in other parts of the world had learned to master traditional arcane magic, which allowed them to rise to great power - and eventually, the most powerful of these wizards came together to create the empire of Netheril. With power, however, came corruption and madness, and soon the Netherese wizards began experiencing an unquenchable thirst for more knowledge and power. They wanted to master all kinds of magic. They knew that snow elves were somehow able to use magical energy bound within ice, but they did not know how they did that. Insane as they were, they tried everything to learn the "secret of the magic within the ice"; the snow elves, sensing how these wizards were corrupted and, with their thirst for power, a danger for the entire world, refused. This culminated in the great war of the Far North - and as the snow elves had taken severe losses, being overwhelmed by strange spells cast by Netherese wizards despite refusing to succumb to the spreading corruption, they all came together and held a last prayer in the Heart of the Glacier before they decided to take the secret with them to the grave, or rather to the undying lands. And then they departed from the mortal world, in search of peace in the elven paradise. And Netheril fell soon after as its inhabitants succumbed to irreversible madness, unable to ever use their magic again.
Snow Elves Today
A general consensus is that there are no snow-elves left today. Ruins of their settlements, tombs, palaces and spires can still be found today, and many people still tell legends of these elves, their wonderful realm in the Far North and their magic. Frescoes and mosaics within their ruins provide a rather detailled image of snow elven culture and of their appearance. They depict mystic elves with pale skin and long dark, silvery or white hair clad in white and blue or wearing silvery shiny armor, wearing sapphire rings and necklaces, who were singing, casting ancient spells or fighting with swords with blades of ice.
Even a few magical items crafted by snow elves have been found, such as a suit of armor made of mithril, fine hilts of longswords, glaives and even double-bladed scimitars that very likely once had crystals of "pure ice" as blades and a magical ring that most likely was used as a wedding band.
Inscriptions left behind by snow elves are generally difficult to decipher even for those who speak elvish, as the language of the snow elves had quite a few differences compared to "modern" elvish, like a lot of draconic and sylvan influence.
However, there are rumors that maybe a few snow elves chose to remain on the material plane, living in a small enclave most likely even further up in the north... Why they would do that is not known, but some researchers who dedicate themselves to the history of the snow elves and Netheril think that maybe there is something important up there in the North, something that must be guarded by these snow elves.
Creating your Character
When you create your D&D character, you decide whether your character is a member of the human race or one of the game’s fantastical races, which include the race presented in this article. If you create a character using a race option presented here, follow these additional rules during character creation.
Abiltiy Score Increases
When determining your character’s ability scores, increase one of those scores by 2 and increase a different score by 1, or increase three different scores by 1. Follow this rule regardless of the method you use to determine the scores, such as rolling or point buy. The “Quick Build” section for your character’s class offers suggestions on which scores to increase. You’re free to follow those suggestions or to ignore them. Whichever scores you decide to increase, none of the scores can be raised above 20.
Languages
Your character can typically speak, read, and write Common and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for the character. The Player’s Handbook offers a list of widespread languages to choose from. The DM is free to add or remove languages from that list for a particular campaign.
Creature Type
Every creature in D&D, including every player character, has a special tag in the rules that identifies the type of creature they are. Most player characters are of the Humanoid type. A race option presented here tells you what your character’s creature type is. Here’s a list of the game’s creature types in alphabetical order: Aberration, Beast, Celestial, Construct, Dragon, Elemental, Fey, Fiend, Giant, Humanoid, Monstrosity, Ooze, Plant, Undead. These types don’t have rules themselves, but some rules in the game affect creatures of certain types in different ways. For example, the text of the cure wounds spell specifies that the spell doesn’t work on a creature that has the Construct type.
Life Span
The typical life span of a player character in the D&D multiverse is about a century, assuming the character doesn’t meet a violent end on an adventure. Members of some races, such as dwarves and elves, can live for centuries—a fact noted in the description of the race.
Height and Weight
Player characters, regardless of race, typically fall into the same ranges of height and weight that humans have in our world. If you’d like to determine your character’s height or weight randomly, consult the Random Height and Weight table in the Player’s Handbook, and choose the row in the table that best represents the build you imagine for your character.
Snow Elf Traits
When you choose the snow elf as your race, you gain the following traits:
Age: The elven understanding of adulthood goes beyond physical growth to encompass worldly experience. Most likely due to living in extremely cold environments, snow elves mature and age a bit slower than other elf races, a typical snow elf claims adulthood and an adult name around the age of 150 and can live to be around 1200 years old, although legends of even older snow elves exist.
Creature Type: You are a Humanoid. You are also considered an elf for any prerequisite or effect that requires you to be an elf.
Size: Your size is medium.
Speed: Your walking speed is 30 ft.
Child of the Glacier. You are resistant to cold damage and you ignore difficult terrain created by ice or snow. Furthermore, you can see normally in areas heavily obscured by snow.
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in that darkness only as shades of gray.
Fear of Fire. When you take fire damage, you have disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks until the end of your next turn.
Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the charmed condition on yourself.
Keen Senses. You have proficiency in the Perception skill.
Songs of Ice and Snow. Your songs can influence ice and snow around you and shape them to your will. You know the ray of frost and word of radiance cantrips.
Starting at 3rd level, you can spend 10 minutes to create an inanimate object made of ice and snow. An object created in this way must fit inside a 5-foot cube, can't have any moving parts and has the density of stone or steel (your choice). The object appears in an unoccupied space within 5 feet of you, has hit points equal to five times your proficency bonus and lasts for 1 hour or until it is destroyed. In temperatures above 0 degrees, the object loses 1d10 hit points every 10 minutes as it melts. You can create an amount of objects equal to your proficiency bonus in this way and regain all uses when you finish a long rest.
Starting at 5th level, you can cast the spell Galder's tower once with this trait and you regain the ability to cast it when you finish a long rest. Your spellcasting ability for these spells is Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma (your choice).
Trance. You don't need to sleep, and magic can't put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in a trancelike meditation, during which you retain consciousness.
Whenever you finish this trance, you can gain two proficiencies that you don't have, each one with a weapon or a tool of your choice selected from the Player's Handbook. You mystically acquire these proficiencies by drawing them from shared elven memory, and you retain them until you finish your next long rest.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Elvish and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for your character. Elvish is fluid, with subtle intonations and intricate grammar. Elven literature is rich and varied, and their songs and poems are famous among other races. Many bards learn their language so they can add Elvish ballads to their repertoires.
Snow Elf Magic. As a snow elf spellcaster, you have learned to harness the energy within the "pure ice" to cast spells unlike any other. If you have the Spellcasting or the Pact Magic class feature, the spells on the Snow Elf Magic table are added to the spell list of your spellcasting class. When you cast one of these spells, it does not require any material components besides a shard of crystal clear ice.
Snow Elf Magic
| Spell Level | Spell |
|---|---|
| 1st | armor of agathys, protection from good and evil |
| 2nd | lesser restoration, rime's binding ice |
| 3rd | sleet storm, spirit guardians |
| 4th | aura of purity, ice storm |
| 5th | cone of cold, greater restoration |
Racial Feats
Soul of the Glacier
Prerequisite: snow elf, spellcasting or pact magic feature, level 4
Your understanding of the mystic magic of ice and snow deepens. You gain the following benefits:
- When you deal cold damage, you ignore resistance to cold damage and treat immunity to cold damage as resistance.
- When you cast one of your Snow Elf Magic spells, you briefly become surrounded by radiant aurora, or, if the spell deals cold damage, by chilling winds and snow, with the following effects:
- Aurora: Each creature of your choice within 15 feet of you regains hit points equal to 1d4 plus your proficiency bonus.
- Chilling Winds: Each creature of your choice within 15 feet of you takes cold damage equal to 1d8 plus your proficiency bonus.
Purity of Ice
Prerequisite: snow elf, spellcasting or pact magic feature, level 8
Pure as crystalline ice, you are able to withstand corruption. You gain the following benefits:
- You are immune to diseases.
- You gain resistance to necrotic and poison damage and have advantage on saving throws against poison.
- When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can call upon your inner strength and purity to drop to 1 hit point instead. When you do so, you can use your reaction to immediately cast one of your Snow Elf Magic spells. You can't use this feature again until you finish a long rest.
Artwork: Araeglos, the Snow Prince by Xealynn Art / Stain: Xanathar stains - Imgur by unknown.