The Shattered

The air had grown cold in spite of the cresting sun, and the forest around the camp had grown sharply silent. The sprawled remains of the Tribal scouts seemed untouched even though they had been missing for days, preserved perhaps by the unnatural chill. As we neared, however, the bodies began to rise. Their blue-grey flesh crackled beneath a layer of frost that shimmered in the sunlight. Our party stood in horrific awe until our first warrior was struck down.

Classification: Entropic

Major Element: Cold

Minor Elements: Any. Shattered retain elemental ties they had while living, excluding Fire.

Habitat: Any (same as living species, more common near cold)

Shattered are the most common of the Cold-corrupted creatures an adventurer will come across, but they are a harsh introduction to the brutality of Entropy.  Born of the remains of the living, a shattered creature is created when Cold 'infects' the body of a creature that has already died.  The result is more puppetry than true elemental infusion, leaving the host shambling along unnaturally on brittle limbs, mindless.  

Unlike other, more subtle forms of Cold-corruption documented, the death and reanimation of the Shattered leaves the mental faculties all but destroyed.  However, the intense hatred that is seen to infest other entropic creatures still seems to exist in shattered organisms, manifesting as an aimless destruction of anything that might catch its attention.  

Considerable caution is advised in dealing with these monstrosities.  Though freezing often leaves these walking corpses slow and brittle, with many crumbling to pieces on their own within a few days, the Cold-corruption freezes the bodies solid, turning limbs into icy clubs and a shoulder into a rime-caked battering ram.  On top of this, there seems to be little concern for their own beings.  They will continue on a relentless path of destruction so long as they may find a target, or until completely dismembered.  Shattered have been seen to clumsily batter themselves against a target, often breaking their own limbs in their blind attempts at bringing down their foe.

What is perhaps the most worrisome, while other entropic creatures seem to require some sort of ritual or other noticeable manipulation of the host (usually by a creature already infused by Cold), shattered creatures seem to rise without any outside intervention.  They will rise on their own accord anywhere that is sufficiently cold once the corpse has thoroughly cooled.