Maeva, Lady of Frozen Grief (fey)

[PhoenixPhyre]

Here's something I cooked up for a party soon.

Maeva is a fey, once a dryad attached to the Mother Tree and aligned to love and joy. When her druid love was killed in a cataclysmic battle and interred in a barrow near her tree as part of the containment for a host of angry dead (the fallen from that battle), she broke and has become the embodiment of grief and loss. She stole his body from the barrow and entombed it in ice in a cavern under her tree (which has turned white as snow and freezing cold). There she broods over the body, bathing it in her icy tears. She blames mortals for his death and reacts murderously to anyone entering her lair.

The CR on this is totally ball-parked. It's designed as a solo encounter for a party of 5 level 5 characters (plus an imp familiar). I do intend for it to be a very hard encounter, and it will be the only major fight that day.


https://www.admiralbenbo.org/images/creatures/Maeva-crop.png

[Maelynn]

She looks interesting, especially with her background shaping her. I love the bitter cold theme. A few minor points:

- there isn't much 'evidence' of her being a former Dryad, other than the ability to speak Sylvan and the high Charisma. Should she perhaps get the magic resistance trait that other fey type have? Or will that become too powerful when combined with Legendary Resistance?

- at her level of power, I would've expected her to have a few more immunities/resistances than just cold and poioson

- under languages you list 'white wolf'. Not sure what language this is, or why it should be listed twice. Typo?

- Draining Touch deals cold damage. Since it heals the caster for a portion of the damage, shouldn't it be necrotic damage instead?

- not sure if this is because of the tool you used to create this statblock, but in some sections (legendary resistance, description legendary action) you suddenly start talking about 'the Maeva'. Why the inconsistent determiner?

[PhoenixPhyre]

She looks interesting, especially with her background shaping her. I love the bitter cold theme. A few minor points:

- there isn't much 'evidence' of her being a former Dryad, other than the ability to speak Sylvan and the high Charisma. Should she perhaps get the magic resistance trait that other fey type have? Or will that become too powerful when combined with Legendary Resistance?


At this point, she's not really a dryad. For lore reasons, fey in my setting are shaped by the governing emotion (which can change). If it changes (due to trauma, etc), the type of the fey changes.



- at her level of power, I would've expected her to have a few more immunities/resistances than just cold and poioson


I could, but since the weapon-using members of the party have magic weapons, adding in resistance to non-magic weapons is rather moot. I figure she does have more, but I just don't care to list them.



- under languages you list 'white wolf'. Not sure what language this is, or why it should be listed twice. Typo?


Guessing that was supposed to be Winter Wolf, and...oops on the double. I'll blame the tool I used.



- Draining Touch deals cold damage. Since it heals the caster for a portion of the damage, shouldn't it be necrotic damage instead?


Going with the winter theme and draining the heat out of you. I'm not fond of tightly "if heals, then necrotic" binding that the game seems to have some times.



- not sure if this is because of the tool you used to create this statblock, but in some sections (legendary resistance, description legendary action) you suddenly start talking about 'the Maeva'. Why the inconsistent determiner?

Yeah, that's a tool issue that I didn't go back and fix. It has a template of "the {CREATURENAME}", which fails for uniquely named creatures.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Yeah, that's a tool issue that I didn't go back and fix. It has a template of "the {CREATURENAME}", which fails for uniquely named creatures.

Even if you specifically tell it the creature is unique. There are so many bugs in this tool, yet there doesn't seem to be anything better...

By my reckoning, the CR comes out closer to 15, but it's hard to judge accurately when there's so much going on.