Immunities: Akar is immune to disease, necrotic, and poison. He cannot be put to sleep or paralyzed and does not need to sleep, eat, or breathe.
Grim Harvest: Akar can reap life energy from creatures he kills with his spells. Once per turn when he kills one or more creatures with a spell of 1st level or higher, he regains hit points equal to twice the spell’s level, or three times its level if the spell belongs to the School of Necromancy. He doesn’t gain this benefit for killing constructs or undead.
Spellcasting: Akar is a 4th-level spellcaster mage who uses Intelligence as his magic ability (spell save DC 13). He has the following spells prepared:
Cantrips—minor illusion, ray of frost
1st Level (4/day)—cause fear, inflict wounds, magic missile, sleep
2nd Level (3/day)—hold person, invisibility, mirror image
Shocking Life Drain: Melee Attack +6 to hit (reach 5 ft.; one creature). Hit: 6(1d8 + 2) necrotic damage plus 4(1d8) lightning damage, and the target cannot take reactions until its next turn. A living target must make a DC 11 Constitution saving throw. Failed Save: The target’s hit point maximum is reduced by the amount of necrotic damage dealt. This reduction lasts until the target completes a short or long rest. A creature dies if its hit point maximum is reduced to 0.
Description
As related in The Crystal Shard, Akar Kessell was a young apprentice of the Arcane Brotherhood.
After murdering his mentor during the Year of the Crown, (1351DR), he was abandoned in Icewind Dale by his fellow wizards, who had manipulated him into committing the crime. On the brink of freezing to death on the ice-covered slopes of the Spine of the World, Kessell stumbled upon Crenshinibon, the Crystal Shard—an evil artifact that took control of the wizard and gave him incredible power. Wielding the shard, Kessell created a magical tower, Cryshal-Tirith, in its likeness. He raised an army of savage humanoids from the Spine of the World threatening to conquer Ten-Towns before he was stopped by an alliance of the Ten-Towners, the Reghed tribes, and of course, Drizzt Do’Urden and his companions—Bruenor Battlehammer; Wulfgar, son of Beornegar, of the Elk Tribe; the halfling Regis; and Catti-brie.
Thwarting Akar Kessell did not end the threat of the Crystal Shard. It was eventually destroyed, but not before leaving a permanent mark on Icewind Dale. In various places where crystal towers stood, the dust of the destroyed towers fused with the ice to form a new substance. Called black ice, this dusky gray material is cold and rock-hard, but it can be worked like metal in a forge. Now a dwarf smith crafts trinkets, weapons, and armor from this strange black ice—and Auril’s Chosen has erected a tower made of the same substance. But though Crenshinibon’s malign intelligence is gone, the black ice retains traces of its deep evil, slowly corrupting all who come into contact with it.
During Akar Kessell’s reign of terror over a century ago, he used the Crystal Shard to erect crystalline towers at three sites around Icewind Dale. One was just outside the walls of Bryn Shander, where all trace of it has long since vanished. The other two were nestled in the Spine of the World and far off on the tundra to the east, where the crumbled remnants of the towers lay undisturbed for more than a century. With the return of Akar Kessell to Icewind Dale thanks to the recent discovery of his corpse by a group of Dwarfs, the evil of the Crystal Shard has also come to trouble the region once more. Although the towers of Cryshal-Tirith, as it was called, had crumbled to dust and been buried under a hundred years of snow, time has not washed them away completely. On the slopes of the Spine of the World, where the first tower once stood, Kessell found a great slab of black ice, which he recognized as a remnant of the Crystal Shard that was infused with its evil and at least a fraction of its power.
The black ice was not all that Kessell had hoped, however. It appeared to lack the flashy, destructive power of the original Crystal Shard, and it refused to raise a tower for him. As he wrestled with it, attempting to discern what it could do, he noted the dwarf miners arguing over the black ice, until one of the miners killed the other three and claimed it for himself. Kessell stretched his frozen and desiccated skin into a smile, believing he had found the key to using the black ice. If he couldn’t use it to dominate Icewind Dale, instead he could have his revenge by destroying the region. He entrusted the surviving miner, Baerick Hammerstone, with the care of the black ice and encouraged him to take some back to the dwarven valley, to experiment and craft items from it.
The black ice contains a significant echo of the Crystal Shard’s great evil, influencing those near it. As Baerick Hammerstone crafted more and more items—arms, armor, trinkets, and figurines—its taint began to spread. Initially, its worst effects have been felt among the dwarves of Kelvin’s Cairn, where most of Baerick’s craft has been sold. One Crystal Shard was enough to cause mayhem throughout Icewind Dale for many years. How much harm will countless items formed of black ice cause?
(Information is from the adventure module Legacy of the Crystal Shard, the stats are an upgrade of those originally provided for D&D next for that adventure.)
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