Frost Bitten
A
B
C
The Nest of the Remorhaz
Note: To run this encounter, you'll need either the monster manual or an internet connection 🏴☠️
Lair Description
Unless otherwise specified, each corridor is 10ft tall, and each room 20ft tall.
Entrance
The entrance of cave is rather small-- only a 10ft by 10ft hole in the side of a glacier, hard to see and even harder to gain the courage to walk through.
Breath of the Remorhaz
A creature that entering the nest can feel an immediate drop in temperature. Those without cold weather clothes or cold resistance gain a stack of exhaustion every hour that they spend in here, and non-magical fires extinguish themselves. Those that have cold weather clothes or resistance to cold weather gain a stack of exhaustion every 4 hours. The biting cold makes it impossible to sleep here, and those who try often never wake.
Design Notes. This is really to serve two purposes-- reward characters who prepared well (by buying winter clothing), and prevent long rests. A well prepared group can take short rests-- but if they do, the Remorhaz can expend hit dice to heal.
Secret Tunnels & Walls of Ice
If two corridors share a wall, that wall can be destroyed. It has 20hp, and is immune to piercing, slashing, poison, psychic, and cold. Smashing a wall of ice can be very loud though, and will likely attract the attention of the Remorhaz... especially since many of the ice-walls are near its eggs. They can avoid this by chipping away at it rather than blasting.
You can have these sections be "secret doors" of sorts, requiring a Perception check (DC 14) to notice, but that feels lame to me. If your players have a light source on them, they should be able to tell the wall of ice is thinner, and has no snow behind it.
Slippery Ice
If an area is described as "slippery ice", any creature walking in that area that does not have a burrow speed must make a DC 12 Dex Save or be knocked prone and slide 10ft in the direction they were attempting to move.
The Eggs
If your players are in the nest, you've likely sent them on a quest to kill the Remorhaz, or to clear the eggs. Either works.
The eggs are marked on the map (as pulsing red lumps of eggs & tendrils). They glow 10ft brightly, and another 10ft dimly.
Remorhaz Egg Sac
Large Object (Egg), unaligned
- Armor Class 13 (Shell of Ice)
- Hit Points 75 (10d10 + 20) Speed 0ft
Damage Immunities. Cold, Fire, Piercing.
Heated Shell. A creature that touches the remorhaz or hits it with a melee attack while within 5 feet of it takes 7 (2d6) fire damage.
Incubation The egg constantly draws heat from the surrounding area to incubate itself. A creature that begins its turn within 10ft of the Egg or enters that area for the first time on a turn must make a DC 15 Constitution Save or take 7 (2d6) Cold damage.
Rooms
Room A is a 20ft tall room with a collapsed portion of icy rubble where the Remorhaz's digging caused a partial collapse. This area is difficult terrain for any creature without a burrow speed. Any spell that deals damage in an 20ft or more area (such as fireball) or direct attacks to the ceiling causes the icicles to crash. Creatures in the room must make a DC 15 Dex Save or take 2d6 piercing and 2d6 cold damage.
Room B is 15 ft tall, but has a chasm that falls 100ft (10d6 fall damage). The Remorhaz is large enough to step over the chasm, but cannot end its turn on it without falling. The cliffs next to the chasm are Slippery Ice.
Room C is 50ft tall, and centered around the sword of a fallen giant-- its strange, magical energies are what attracted the Remorhaz here in the first place. The egg sag here (laid around the blade of the sword), is buried under a sheet of ice, that can be broken similar to the Walls of Ice. This egg sac is size huge, with 120hp.
The fluctuation between the immense heat and cold of the eggs has caused the surrounding area to melt into salty water with a shore of Slippery Ice, which is pitch black and dangerously cold. Creatures that enter it for the first time on a turn or begin their turn in it must make a DC 14 Constitution save, taking 3d6 cold damage on a failure. On success, they take half.
Encounter Guide
Party Scaling
The Remorhaz as written is quite challenging. Fun fact, first 5e Monster to ever kill a party member of mine. Technically, 3 level 7 party members are enough to kill it (based on CR) if they are very careful in their tactics, and have healing on standby, so we'll use that as our baseline.
Scaling for Level
For every party level over 7, add +10 to the Remorhaz's HP, up to 285 (the Max for its stat block). This will help keep it alive if the party does manage to get some lucky shots in.
Scaling for Party Size
The Remorhaz has some very specific abilities that make it brutal against less-tanky melee people without a reach weapon. When counting for party size: don't count monks or dual wielders. If they go in and do their usual "attack as much as possible" tactic, it will kill them using only passives.
For every party member over 3 (taking into account the above), give the Remorhaz 1 Legendary Action Point. It can expend 1 point to move, 2 to bite, or 2 to swallow. This will help keep the Remorhaz from being drowned in the action economy.
Note on Burrowing Tactics
The Remorhaz has a burrow speed of 20ft. Unfortunately, the rules around burrow speeds are quite vague. If you rule that the Remorhaz's tunnel is filled in by snow as it goes-- the party will likely need to spend a round or two dashing around the lair to get in line of sight of it again. So if you did this with a party member swallowed, they're basically dead. This should only be used if you think your party absolutely wants a hard as hell challenge.
If you rule that the Remorhaz leaves a tunnel, we can still use that to our advantage. Create corners to block line of sight (unless they get within your reach). Burrow straight down to force fall damage. Borrow straight up (and they can't follow unless they can jump 10ft up and grab onto ice). At least this way, they can still use flight / featherfall and other abilities to follow the Remorhaz.
Note on being Swallowed
This is highly debilitating. Because of the conditions (Blind & Restrainted), the creature who is swallowed can use any spell that says "a point you can see" (such as misty step) to teleport out of the creature. Worse, trying to attack your way out might fail because you're restrained (disadvantage). Even worse yet, you're definitely making an attack within 5ft of the Remorhaz (you're inside them), so that's another 3d6 fire damage on top of the 6d6 acid damage you're taking every round. Even if they manage to deal 30 damage in a turn to the Remorhaz, it still has a very good (50%) chance of succeeding on the check to not regurgitate you. As if that's not enough-- no one can see or touch you, so your healer can't help you either.
This ability is why the Remorhaz is a player killer.
Cooking the Remorhaz
The Remorhaz begins in Room C, where it spends most of its time. However, it does on occasion patrol to the other egg sacs to check up on them (it uses existing tunnels to patrol, since it doesn't want to destroy its home without cause, and can move faster this way). With its tremorsense, it can detect any movement within 60ft of it, including through walls. Louder sounds (such as ice walls crashing, thunder damage, or shouting) will echo enough to be heard essentially anywhere in the cavern, but will mask the direction that it comes from.
Once the Remorhaz is alerted, it will pursue the party, attempting to ambush them by cracking through a wall. If it does manage to do this, it may be able to catch the party by surprise (Perception Check DC 11 to see if they can tell which way the sound is coming from and realize what's happening; creatures that fail are Surprised for the first round). The first round should be used to bite, and the second round to swallow.
During this don't forget: Every melee attack within 5ft of the Remorhaz returns 3d6 Fire damage to the attacker.
Once it has someone swallowed, the Remorhaz will try to leave & "digest"-- unless the party actively threatens an egg sac. In that case, it will continue fighting until it is low on health. Either way, it travels to room A.
Room A Strategy. Here, we repeat the bite-swallow strategy (it's really the Remorhaz's one trick, and there's no limit to how many people you can have swallowed), but there's added danger-- the party can't use large AoEs (20ft+) without hitting the ceiling and causing an icicle crash, which will deal more damage to the party than the Remorhaz (since it is immune to cold). If the party is losing here, they may retreat from the dangerous room, and the Remorhaz will not pursue them if it is digesting someone, as it prefers to pick them off one by one. It will instead wait for them to leave, and then burrow to C to protect the main egg sac.
If the Remorhaz is losing, retreat to room B.
Room B Strategy. If the party manages to corner it here, it is fighting for survival at this point. No more time for swallowing-- simply bite, move to the cliff side (at full speed because you're size Huge), and drop the party member off the cliff. That's 9d6 bite damage + 10d6 fall damage, and likely going to take them out of the fight since they now have 100 ft of icy cliff to climb back up (if they survive somehow). The Remorhaz may die here, but if it manages to force the party to flee (or trap them down the cliff), it'll be very low on health by now-- which means it will try to move to room C for a short rest, healing a big before the party gets there.
Room C Strategy. Room strategy here is simple-- Bite, pull them into the icewater for extra damage that you're immune to, chill in the inky blackness (thus, they'll need a light source to see even you), and then swallow on the next turn. Rinse & repeat until one side wins, because the Remorhaz will not leave its egg sac.
What a good momma Remorhaz.
Thank you!
If you've gotten this far into the document, I just wanted to say thank you for checking out my latest release.
While I write the lore & stat blocks for these, I'm not an artist. As such, I use book sales to commission artwork from others to help bring these Encounters to life.
If you like my work & want to help, consider buying my book below (click the image). It contains every encounter I've written, plus all artwork and every monster stat block. That's over 115 pages of content!
Alternatively, you can send Pip a Tip via Ko-Fi, 100% of which is also used for art commissions.
Click here to view more
$9.99