Snow Oracle

I'll tell ya, in all our battles it just never occurred to me to fear death. It would be there at the end one way or another. Just one more journey to take, I suppose.

Then I heard the old crone sing to the snow. The words were in a language like nothing we'd ever heard, if they even were real words. But we knew it all the same. Felt it. And it chilled us in a way the icy wind never could. It wasn't a threat or warning. More a story. A story about death. But . . . not death the way we know it. As the living see it. It wasn't about suffering or dying, or loss. No. This was the song of someone who had died. And returned. Of someone that's seen what's on the other side.

I tell ya, I never feared death. But I do now.

-Testimony of Klin Bersk, Mercenary and Adventurer

Classification: Entropic
Major Elements: Cold
Minor Elements: Air/Water
Habitat: Any Cold Climate

Called "shamans of the drifts" by locals, or sometimes "death bards" by those moved by their songs, the snow oracles haunt the tundras and cold forests of eastern Rhydd. At a distance they may be mistaken for lost travelers, endlessly searching the frigid landscape. Closer inspection reveals a fragile figure, skin white and cracked like fresh snow; eyes like the abyss. Though a frightening visage, the oracles are not violent and unlike other Cold-corrupted creatures they seem to harbor no ill-will toward the living. Regardless most encounters with a snow oracle leave individuals deeply shaken.

The song of the oracles can sometimes be heard over the fields of snow on calm nights. The language of the dirge is unlike any known on Telus, yet those who hear the otherworldly hymn are invariably filled with a sense of dread, insisting it to be the "song of the dead" or the "song of death".

The oracles seem to be perpetually searching, their empty sockets scanning the snow and skies for some unknown truth. Some believe they seek a way to return to the living. To have the their souls rekindled and the Cold lifted. Others say it is not life they seek but death. A final peace and freedom from the Cold that has corrupted them.

Aboriginal shamans tell another tale. They insist the oracles originated from their own people, wise women and men who sought answers to dark questions. Some went searching for a way to elongate their lives or the lives of loved ones, others sought cures to dread maladies, and still others merely looked for enlightenment, to peer beyond the veil. What they found, the shamans say, was truth beyond any they had expected. A truth not meant for mortal minds. The truth of what lies beyond death.