In Frosthaven, you’ll be testing your skills against an array of menacing enemies. It’s time to shine the spotlight on them, so you can learn more about them and increase your chances of survival out there in the cold!
Learn all about the Algox here: View game page
Missed our series about the Unfettered? Here it is: View game page
Take a peek across the planes and read about the Demons: View game page
Prepare to face off against the Lurkers: View game page
Meet the Undead
Necromantic activity has been on the rise across the Empire, most notoriously around Gloomhaven. Frosthaven is no exception - though not all the undead encountered in the North can be traced back to the same cultist rites or dusty scrolls. Along the coasts of the Biting Sea, there appears to be a divergent, ancient energy capable of animating the dead without a necromancer’s hand. Its nature remains a mystery, and its secrets will only be uncovered by an expedition brave (or foolish) enough to risk both the horrors of undeath and the harshness of the North.
Living Bones
If you’ve ever delved into a dungeon, chances are you’ve already crossed blades with the Living Bones. For the uninitiated, these undead are competent sword fighters, and - being skeletons - are trickier to hit cleanly than an opponent with flesh.
The catch is this: Living Bones are not the reanimated remains of a single corpse, but rather a grim collage of bones pieced together to resemble a human frame. The handiwork (or cruel joke) of necromantic design often leaves them with three arms.
That might sound harmless enough - who are you to judge extra limbs? - but each one typically wields a sword or dagger. Worse still, they suffer none of the usual limits of coordination. This means three separate slashes in the same breath, often spread across multiple foes. Summoners in particular curse the Living Bones’ ability to shred their creatures faster than they can call them forth.
The true danger, however, comes when those strikes are all focused on the same unfortunate target. In a single heartbeat, three blades can land with brutal efficiency - and even the hardiest mercenary will learn that bones, however brittle, can still be can still be lethally sharp.
Outside of that, they lack many tricks. Standard practice against strictly melee foes works well: pin them down with immobilization and whittle them from range. They’ll crumble soon enough.
Frozen Corpse
One of the undead creatures you’re bound to face in the far North is the Frozen Corpse. At first glance, they resemble the Living Corpses often tied to cultist rites, but any mercenary who’s stood against them will tell you they are something else entirely.
The common speculation in Frosthaven is that these are warriors long dead - fallen in battles fought decades, perhaps centuries, past. Their bodies lay preserved in ice, steeped in the strange, ancient energy that seeps from the earth in this part of the Empire. Whatever the truth, they rise now in a mindless, shambling state, driven by nothing but cold malice.
Truth be told, their origin matters little to a mercenary. Hit them long enough and they’ll fall. The rest is just fireside tales told to frighten noisy children who stray too far from the outpost walls. What matters is how to survive when one lurches toward you. And here lies the danger: for something that looks as brainless as a snowdrift, Frozen Corpses display a troubling variety of tactics.
Their chilled flesh takes more effort to pierce than that of the living, and the best-preserved among them can lash out with vicious retaliation when struck. They can also channel the cold around them - often the very frost they exude - leaving you brittle and vulnerable to follow-up blows. Another tactic to worry about is their ability to strike multiple targets at once, whether with an icy swipe of their claws (or what remains of them) or a breath of winter air that freezes the lungs.
There is, however, one detail worth remembering: warmth has a curious effect on them. Bring fire close, and their movements grow quicker, more frantic - but their frozen flesh softens, their resilience wanes. The smart mercenary pairs this with the most reliable counters to sturdy foes - wounds, poison, and patient strikes from range. Do so, and even these frostbitten horrors will crumble, one deliberate blow at a time.
Living Doom
Another of the undead you may encounter in the crypts around Frosthaven is the Living Doom. Perhaps once an elite warrior in life, in death it has become something far more dreadful: a towering suit of armor, hollow but for the otherworldly emanation that seeps from behind its helm. One look is enough to command both fear and respect - and both are well earned.
A Living Doom is a formidable opponent. Its sheer strength and heavy plating would make it dangerous even if it only swung fists. But what makes it truly terrifying is the otherworldly misery woven into its blows. Many of its strikes channel dark energy, and any mercenary foolish enough to linger in range risks being disarmed outright, weapon torn from their grip as though by unseen hands.
Even in a defensive stance, the Doom is trouble. Beyond the usual benefits of being harder to hit and punishing those who strike it, they often leave behind a lingering curse, dulling your precision and making the decisive blow that much harder to land.
They may be large, but don’t mistake them for lumbering. A Living Doom’s most dangerous attack - a crushing swing that plants a bane deep within your body - can often be anticipated, but escaping it isn’t as simple as running. These armored horrors can close ground with surprising speed, cutting you down while you’re still struggling to catch your breath.
Worst of all, Living Dooms are not alone. With a single gesture, they can summon Living Spirits to their side. Summoning allies to battle is nothing new, but what makes this ability especially perilous is that a single Doom can conjure as many as three Spirits at once. The number seems tied to its own reserves of vital energy - which is reason enough to make the Living Doom your top priority whenever it looms before you.
Living Spirit
Speaking of Living Spirits, your encounters with them won’t be limited to when a Living Doom calls them to its aid. These incorporeal ghosts seem to haunt, in spades, the usual workplace of any mercenary - deep, dark, dampy dungeons.
What tragic fate befell these souls in their final moments is none of your business. Your business is cleansing out anything that stands between you and your pay. And damn it all, Living Spirits are a real nuisance to clear. They fall quickly once struck, sure -but landing a meaningful hit is the hard part.
Being ghostly and all, they’re not only difficult to hit, but they also glide straight through the worst hazardous terrain and traps without triggering a thing. Naturally, they favor striking from a distance - something they manage with ease thanks to their, well, corpse-lessness. You’ll usually find them drifting just behind something far more direct and painful -like a Living Doom, Frozen Corpse, or Living Bones - taking cheap shots while you’re busy getting pummeled.
Their attacks are rarely straightforward, either. They often lash out at multiple targets in a single spectral sweep or bring the usual undead misery: muddle, curses, even stuns if you’re not careful. Strangely, despite being incorporeal, they aren’t immune to wounds - so if you can inflict one, it might just save you the trouble of chasing these slippery ghosts around the battlefield.
Ice Wraith
One of the undead apparitions unique to the frozen North is the Ice Wraith. And as it usually goes with local horrors, what’s born of this land tends to come with strange tricks of its own - and the Ice Wraith is no exception.
What makes them truly dangerous is their ability to shift, mid-battle, between two distinct forms - each with a completely different approach to combat. While their vitality remains the same between the two, one form is heavily armored, taking far more zeal and focus to banish. The other seems to cherish the maxim that the best defense is a good offense, lashing out in fierce retaliation to any close-range attack and making you think twice before swinging in the first place.
Both forms are capable of flight, though the armored one moves far slower (understandably so) but it hardly matters when it keeps its distance, pelting you with jagged shards of ice from afar. The unarmored form, on the other hand, can dart forward with unsettling speed, raking through you with slashing melee strikes.
Among their ranks, the greater Wraiths bring extra misery: the armored, ranged form inflicts curses, while the melee form leaves behind wounds that bite long after the strike.
Outside of their attacks, their tactics remain much the same. Both forms can turn invisible for a time, becoming utterly untouchable to your blows. They also tend to heal themselves - never much, but just enough to make conditions like wound, poison, brittle, or bane frustratingly unreliable. Conditions that always work against them, however, are disarm and stun - so stock your bag of tricks accordingly.
And if that weren’t enough, both can channel the surrounding frost to empower themselves - hardening their armor, strengthening their retaliation, or enhancing their strikes with blessings and strengthen.
So if you find yourself face to face with an Ice Wraith, remember this: it’s not just one enemy - it’s two. And both are more than happy to make you regret coming North.
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