After one thousand years, the fell winter has passed...
Amidst the frozen ruins of an ancient city, wizards battle in the hopes of discovering the treasures of a fallen empire. In this fantasy skirmish wargame, each player takes on the role of a wizard from one of ten schools of magic, and builds his band of followers. The wizard's apprentice will usually accompany his master, and more than a dozen other henchman types are available for hire, from lowly thugs to heavily armoured knights and stealthy thieves.Frostgrave was created by Joseph A. McCullough and released in July of 2015. The second edition was released in October of 2020. A number of expansions have been released, as well as two novels set in the Frozen City of Felstad
Expansions
- Thaw of the Lich Lord (2015) - A ten scenario narrative campaign involving an ancient lich awakening in Felstad, and the wizards either stopping him or being corrupted by his dark power
- Into the Breeding Pits (2016) - A five scenario narrative campaign that takes the warbands into Felstad's sewers to confront the gnoll menace
- Forgotten Pacts (2016) - Four scenarios, involving the summoning of demons and the pacts one can make with them
- The Frostgrave Folio (2017) - a collection of scenarios and additional rules that were previously only published as e-books.
- The Maze of Malcor (2018) - A twelve scenario narrative campaign involving the once lost Collegium of Artistry, which is infested with powerful monsters and the wraith of it's final headmaster.
- The Wizards Conclave (2019) - Sixteen scenarios, including solo and four warband scenarios. Has several guest writers
- Perilous Dark (2019) - Solo and cooperative rules, along with a ten scenario solo campaign. Also adds dungeon exploration options.
- The Red King (2020) - A twelve scenario narrative campaign, where the Frozen City is invaded by demons lead by a powerful demon prince, forcing competing wizards into an uneasy truce as they are forced to fend off the hordes.
- Blood Legacy (2021) - Two mini campaigns, as well as introducing Vampires and Giants to the Frozen City, and increases the level cap to epic levels.
- Fireheart (2022) - A five scenario campaign into the Construct Palace, as well as rules for constructs and prosthetics.
- The Wildwood (2023) - A six scenario campaign where the warbands travel beyond the city to the Tower of Storms, as well as rules for traveling through the frozen wilderness
This game provides examples of:
- The Apprentice: A wizard has an option of taking an apprentice, giving you a second but inferior main character/spellcaster for your squad.
- Attack Animal:
- War Hounds are cheap, Fragile Speedster beasts you can purchase for your warband; unable to collect treasure or use items.
- At the start of the game, the witch can summon a more powerful beast to join the warband via the Animal Companion spell; gaining a bear, ice toad, snow leopard, or wolf with a +3 Will bonus.
- The Control Animal spell allows the witch to take control over a wandering beast and fight for them.
- Ballistic Bone: One of the necromancer spells is "bone dart", summoning a bone to attack an enemy at range.
- Banishing Ritual: Banish is a Thaumaturge spell that forces all demons within line of sight to make a Will Roll; suffering damage on a success or being outright "killed" by being sent back to their dimension on a failure.
- Dem Bones: There are multiple skeleton enemies prowling Felstad; basic skeletons which can be humanoid or beast but share the same stat block, archers, and difficult to create armored skeleton soldiers.
- Elemental Powers: The Elementalist school controls Fire, Water, Earth, and Air, and can manipulate the weather as well.
- Flying Face: Animated skulls are created by necromancers to do simple tasks like send messages or hold candles; they're weak monsters that can be encountered or summoned by necromancer wizards.
- Healing Potion: These restore five Hit Points to whoever drink them, up to their maximum. Apothecaries start with a free healing potion and can apply them to allies.
- Hell on Earth: The plot of The Red King campaign, as the warbands usual competition for treasure is interrupted by a massive demon invasion.
- Mutually Exclusive Magic: Every school is aligned with several others, natural to most of the rest, but has one that opposes them. There are increasing degrees of difficultly in casting spells outside of your school, with aligned being the easiest and opposed being the hardest.
- Necromancer: One of the ten schools that your wizard can be apart of.
- Our Liches Are Different: The Lich-lord is pretty standard, being a powerful undead necromancer. In the campaign he appears in, a Necromancer wizard may attempt to become a lich themselves.
- Our Witches Are Different: Witch is a school of wizard which uses subtle nature powers to get help from plants and animals, as well as brewing potions and casting curses. They're noted as not all being ugly old women despite the stereotype but tend to be hoarders toting around weird ingredients and knickknacks.
- Rat Men: Gnolls in Felstad are a mixture of rat, dog, and man. They are found in the Frozen City's sewers, naturally.
- Underground Monkey: Because the city of Felstad has been frozen over, wild animals have adapted to the environment and stalk the ruins; including beats like ice spiders and toads, white gorillas, frost giants and snow trolls.
- Whatevermancy: "Chronomancers" are from the school that manipulate time.
