Blizzard Stalker

"There are things up on that mountain, human. Monsters of ice and hunger and cruelty so ancient that you southlanders have forgotten they even exist. Laugh if you will, but if you hear cries for help up on that mountain, pay them no heed unless you wish to pay with your life. Your people may have forgotten the Stalkers, human, but they have not forgotten you." - Norixius Rhogar, Ranger of the Frostalon Mountains, advising an exploratory expedition.

Winter's Claws. Blizzard Stalkers are ravenous and cruel fey that stalk the Far North of the world, haunting desolate peaks and frigid pine forests in search of prey. Cursed with a perpetual hunger that they cannot satisfy, Blizzard Stalkers rarely kill other animals, only slaying beasts in self-defense or to mark their territory. When a sentient creature enters their domain, however, that all changes. They delight in hunting humanoids and other intelligent creatures, trailing them for days at a time. A Blizzard Stalker might steal a traveler's supplies in the night, devouring provisions or ruining tents and clothing to leave their victims vulnerable against the harsh conditions of their domain. They instill fear by mimicking humanoid voices and leaving mutilated animal carcasses for their quarry behind, steadily ramping up dread so that the prey knows there will be no escape from whatever is hunting them. When the final attack comes, it comes swiftly and cruelly, the Blizzard Stalker often incapacitating their victims in order to feed on them while they still live.

Hunger Personified. A Blizzard Stalker is just as hideous as its behavior. Almost eight feet tall when standing upright, a Blizzard Stalker looks like a cross between an emaciated elf and the decomposed carcass of an elk. Humanoid in shape, the Blizzard Stalker's arms and legs are freakishly long, the former ending in long, black-clawed fingers and the latter in charred stumps that it still manages stand upright on. Most of the time, Stalkers crawl with impossible agility and speed on their hands and knees, racing through snowbanks and down mountainsides at an unnerving lope. Their bodies are the blue-tinged grey of frostbitten flesh, and are horrifically gaunt and emaciated. Their chests cavities gape open, intestines spilling out from jagged ribcages. Their backs and forearms bear patches of pale fur, which are patchy and often matted with gore. To see the face of a stalker is to know terror, for their visage suggests nothing but rapacious hunger. Their jaws are filled with needle teeth and their eyes are black pits that shine with a predatory need. Extending from the tops of their bald, point-eared heads are a set of medium-sized black deer's antlers. Their mouths and claws are almost always smeared with dried, crusted blood. When a Blizzard Stalker wishes to feed, they crouch over their victim and tear into it not only with claws and fangs, but with rapacious feeder tendrils that emerge from their open ribcages. Because of their bloody work, Stalkers reek of blood and gore. They can dull this stench at will, but rarely do so in part to instill terror, but also because this smell is so overpowering when close to the Stalker it affects a prey item's ability to fight.

The Mad and the Ravenous. Blizzard Stalkers can live virtually forever unless killed, and they come into the world one of two ways. The most common way is by the Curse of Insatiable Hunger. Whenever a humanoid is forced to resort to cannibalism in order to survive conditions of extreme cold, there is a chance that Ithaqua, an enigmatic entity of the frozen wilderness and a patron of cannibals, will take notice and lay the Curse of Insatiable Hunger upon them, especially if the person they were forced to eat was a loved one. An individual afflicted by the curse will first suffer horrific nightmares, in which they kill and then feast upon people that they know and are close to. Unable to sleep, the cursed individual slowly goes mad, inevitably succumbing to the cannibalistic urges the curse instills. When they consume the flesh of their third victim, the Curse overtakes them entirely and they flee into the wild, returning as soon as they can to the nearest area of frozen land, where they change over a period of 3 days into a Blizzard Stalker. The culmination of this process is the burning away of the afflicted's feet, leaving behind the characteristic charred stumps. More rarely, an existing Blizzard Stalker may create another by driving one of their victims mad. Once in a great while, if prey puts up a particularly valiant fight, a Stalker will drag them back to their cave. There, the victim will be imprisoned (usually by having their limbs frozen in ice). The Stalker will bring them food over a period of weeks, forcing them to eat the raw flesh and torturing them for their own cruel amusement. If this goes on for long enough, the victim will inevitably lose their sanity. When this happens, they themselves will transform into a Blizzard Stalker, at which point their creator sets them free to find their own territory.