Meet Freezemaw!

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

One of the early lessons I learned working on adventures for Dungeon was that RPG players have an extra level of demands when it comes to dragons. You can throw pretty much any other monster into an adventure without worry, but if you want to include a dragon, you'd best be sure said dragon has a history and personality. And honestly, the readers are right (as they often are). Dragons shouldn't be throwaway encounters. They shouldn't just wander by as a result of a wandering monster result. In Pathfinder, I'm going to try to make sure that whenever we have a dragon appearing in the adventure, he or she has a story. Especially, as in the case of Pathfinder #5, when the dragon appears on the cover.

The white dragon on the cover is Arkrhyst—called Freezemaw by the Shoanti—an old white dragon who has lived on Rimeskull for 50 years. In his youth several centuries ago, Arkrhyst was a great and hated enemy of the Shoanti; his raids on the nomads of the Velashu Uplands and the western Storval Plateau were legendary, and many of those tribes still sing of these dark times, and of the countless heroes who sought out his home on Rimeskull to defeat him. None accomplished this goal, but as Arkrhyst grew older, his urge to raid grew less. Content now with the reputation he earned, he sleeps for years at a time on his considerable store of treasure, dreaming of his youthful rampages.

Of course, Freezemaw's only one of many menaces that wait for PCs brave enough to seek out the legendary dungeon of Runeforge in Pathfinder #5—but he's certainly one of the adventure's more memorable villains!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief