Incorporeal Movement. Jezra can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. She takes 5 (1d10) force damage if she ends her turn inside an object.
Damage Immunity. Jezra can only be injured by magical or silvered weapons.
Cold Invigoration. Cold-based attacks not only do not injure Jezra, they heal her. Jezra recovers back the equivalent of half of the damage she would have taken. The experience is painful for her though, and her next attack or action is done at a disadvantage.
Fire Enthrallment. Jezra has resistance to fire-based attacks due to her incorporeal form. But given she is forever freezing, the sensation of the warmth briefly invigorates her. When she takes fire damage, Jezra gains advantage on her next attack or action, but she must also make a DC 13 Wisdom saving throw or focus those next actions solely on the source of the fire, in hopes of consuming more of it.
Sunlight Sensitivity. While in sunlight, Jezra has disadvantage on attack rolls, as well as on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight. As Barovia does not have direct sunlight, she can go out in the day, though usually only does so during a snowstorm.
Alluring Song. Jezra's haunting music enraptures those that hear it, and those who see her are further transfixed. As a bonus action, Jezra can begin to sing. The song is carried on the winter wind, and can be heard as far as a half-mile away. Those who hear it must make a DC 13 Wisdom saving throw or fall under a suggestion to search out the source of the song. Any who see and hear her at the same time must make the save at disadvantage. Those who make the save for her singing but then see her ethereal form as she sings must make a second save or fall under the spell. Jezra can continue to sing under she takes another action, and which point all under the spell can make another saving throw to shake the effects. And like the spell, taking damage from Jezra ends the effect.
Freezing Life Drain. Melee Spell Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 20 (6d6) cold damage. The target must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or its hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the damage taken. This reduction lasts until the creature finishes a long rest. Additionally, a bone-numbing cold wracks the targets body, giving it disadvantage on all attacks or actions (including spell concentration checks) until the end of the next round.
Icy Petrification. If Jezra's life drain effect reduces a targets hit point maximum to 0, the target has been instantly frozen, transforming it into something not unlike a perfect ice sculpture. Those frozen in this way can be revived only by great magical power: true resurrection or wish will be sufficient, but lesser spells will generally fail. By a curious twist of fate, the simulacrum spell can be used to restore a body frozen by Jezra back to life.
Description
Jezra demonstrates similarities to other incorporeal undead, particularly a snow maiden. She retains the appearance of a living woman, save that light passes through her as if she were some manner of projection or image. Although short, just over five feet in height, Jezra is incredibly beautiful. She has fair skin, silver hair, and pale blue eyes that glint like frozen pools. Jezra’s clothes are of the finest manufacture, making it clear she was one of Barovia’s most wealthy nobles, though the style is slightly out of date.
Jezra is able to speak just as she did in life. Her voice is sweet and melodic, but carries a tone of authority. Jezra is fond of singing, and the haunting beauty of her fine voice conveys the misery and suffering of unlife so clearly that it is said to have driven more than one person to an early grave.
Fire and Ice. Jezra Wagner died at the age of 27, some 75 years after Strahd became a vampire and entrapped Barovia. When Strahd resettled the valley after his conquest, Jezra's family was granted the remote location north of Lake Zarovich, on the slopes of Mount Baratok, where they served boyars. Their lands turned out to be a source of wealth, for a fine vein of silver ran amid the stone, and the boyars oversaw the operation of this mine for many years. With the closing of the mists and the shriveling of Barovia's economy, the need for the mines dropped and the boyars focused on timber instead. Jezra, the great-granddaughter of the original boyars granted the land, was a Barovian born with a soul. A free and fiery spirit, she was a glimmer of joy in an increasingly gloomy land. Jezra loved her family, and the people of her lands, of all of whom loved her in return. But her greatest love were the wild lands of her family’s ancestral estate, and she cherished each season for the special gifts that it brought. She could almost always be found exploring the wilderness, often convincing others to accompany her on these carefree adventures. Thus Jezra's accidental death in an avalanche on the slopes of Mount Baratok, and the terrible fate that awaited her on the other side, is one of the land's most tragic stories. For in that avalanche Jezra did not find peace, instead some dark power heard her cries for help as she was trapped by the snow and dying, and gave the young woman a twisted reflection of her old existence. She arose from the grave, but is forever freezing and alone.
Undying Need for Warmth. Three long centuries and more have passed since that terrible day. When the snows come on Mount Baratok, Jezra roams down the frozen slopes in search of warmth. From time to time, she escapes the agony of her frozen unlife by drawing the heat from a living body and leaving a crystallized corpse in her wake. When she does this, her pain subsides for a number of minutes equal to the original HP maximum of her victim. Jezra does not realize that she died in an avalanche accident, nor is she aware of the cold death she leaves in her wake. She believes instead that she is suffering from some strange curse, and her most fervent wish is only for warmth and companionship. Ironically, to get the former she makes the latter impossible.
Jezra’s unlife is tied to the snows on Mount Baratok and Barovian winters. If the snow ends or she reaches a place where the ground begins to thaw, she is forced to retreat. When it is not winter or snowing, she returns to the place on the mountain where her body lies, where her spirit re-enters the frozen corpse and she sleeps until the next snowstorm blankets the mountains. Thus, the sight of living things that she held so dear in life is lost to her forever.
Tales of the Ice Queen. The story of the young girl’s death and transformation is not unknown in the land of Barovia. Indeed, the Vistani sing a song called Regina d’Ghiaccio or The Ice Queen which retells the event of her sad death and current spectral existence. This tragic story is often told as a folk story and is frequently taken to be apocryphal by the scholarly and uneducated alike. The famous vampire hunter Rudolph Van Richten knows better, having encountered her on at least one occasion. It was his assertion that she might be destroyed by anyone who located her frozen corpse and set it atop a funeral pyre. He attempted to do this himself but found the task beyond him. With remorse, he was forced to abandon his quest to lay this unusual and tragic spirit to rest.
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Posted May 2, 2021Note: the use of Romula or Romulich (depending on how strict one is being using the paternal name conventions) is to avoid any potential confusion with the Wagner family of Vallaki. The Romul/a/ich family is old (Ciril is a priest buried in the catacombs) and can fit the history of Jezra, as that family could have later become the boyars of the lands north of Lake Zarovich and the mines of Mt. Baratok.
Credit: Original content, including artwork, created for TSR's Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium II, and thus current IP of Wizards of the Coast. Additional liberties were taken with the content to suit 5E mechanics and adventures.