D&D Monster Monday Winter Eladrin : A Beginner’s Guide
So you want to learn about Winter Eladrin in Dungeons & Dragons. Maybe your friend told you about them or you saw them in a book.
Either way, you are wondering what the big deal is. Let me tell you what they are in a way that makes sense. Winter Eladrin are magical creatures that live in a special world called the Feywild.
Think of the Feywild like a dream world. It sits right next to our real world. It is filled with magic and strange things that do not make normal sense. The creatures that live there are very emotional. They feel things really deeply.
Winter Eladrin are like elves but much more magical and emotional than normal elves. The Winter part means they are always sad and thinking deeply about sad things.
They look frozen like ice. They have pale skin like snow. Their hair is white or light blue like frost on a winter morning. Their eyes look really old and tired. When you stand near them, the air gets cold. You can feel sadness in the air too. It is like all the happiness leaves and only sad feelings stay.
In the game when you fight them, they are hard to hit. They have armor class 19. Armor class is how hard it is to hit something with a sword or arrow. A bigger number means they are harder to hit. Winter Eladrin can take lots of damage. They have 127 hit points. Hit points are like health in a video game.
The more hit points something has, the longer it stays in the fight. Winter Eladrin have something special called Fey Step. This means they can teleport or jump through magic 30 feet away from where they are standing.
When they do this, one person near them has to become scared. This is really powerful in a fight because now someone cannot help their friends as well.
What Exactly Is a Winter Eladrin and Where Did They Come From
Let me explain what makes Winter Eladrin special and different from regular elves. Winter Eladrin used to be normal elves like you might have heard about. But they spent so much time in the Feywild that the magic there changed them forever.
The Feywild is a crazy magical place where feelings are stronger and magic is everywhere you look. If you stay in the Feywild long enough, you stop being a normal elf. You become something new. Your feelings start to control you.
Winter Eladrin feel sadness really deeply all the time. This is what winter means to their people. Winter is the season for thinking about sad things. Winter is when everything is cold and quiet and dark.
Winter is when nature stops growing and goes to sleep. If you have ever felt really lonely on a cold dark night, that is how Winter Eladrin feel every single day of their lives. They see the world through sad eyes.
They expect bad things to happen. They think about death and endings. Winter Eladrin look really sad when you see them. Their skin is pale like ice. Their hair is white or light blue like frost on a cold morning. Their eyes look like they have seen a thousand sad things. Their clothes are made of ice and snow.
When you stand next to a Winter Eladrin, you feel cold in your body. But you also feel cold in your heart. It is like all the good feelings leave your body. You start to feel sadness too. This is one of their powers. Just being near them makes you sad.
In the Feywild, Winter Eladrin build big beautiful cities made of ice. These cities are not like anything you have seen. They have stood for thousands of years. The buildings are very pretty and organized.
Everything is made with magic and ice. Winter Eladrin like to study books and learn things. They want to know everything about the world. They like knowledge more than anything. They are the thinkers and the scholars of their kind.
They want to get ready for hard times. They think that if you prepare now, bad things will not hurt you as much later. They like to save things and keep them safe for the future.
They believe that everything ends eventually so you must preserve what you have. Their cities are always cold like a winter day. This is their home and they love it. They spend time reading in libraries.
They study magic in tall towers made of ice. They make art that is sad but beautiful. They write music that sounds like the wind blowing through frozen places. This is their life and they are content with it even though they are sad.
When we talk about the game rules, Winter Eladrin have numbers that tell you what they are good at doing. Their armor class is 19. This is really hard to hit. Most monsters have lower armor class. Their 127 hit points means they can take a lot of damage before they die. Their ability scores tell you what they are good at.
They are really smart. Their intelligence is 18. This is very high. An average person has intelligence 10. Winter Eladrin are almost twice as smart as a normal person. They are good at thinking and making plans.
They can see through tricks and lies. Their wisdom is 17. This means they notice things that other creatures miss. They are hard to fool. Their constitution is 16.
This means their body is strong and they can handle pain and cold. But their strength is only 11 and their dexterity is only 10. This means they are not strong and they are not fast like other fighters. They do not have big muscles. They are not quick or nimble. This tells us they do not like to fight with swords and arrows up close. They like to use magic instead. Magic is their power, not their body.
How Strong Are They Really in Battle and What Can They Do
Let me explain exactly what a Winter Eladrin can do when you fight one in a real game. First, their ability scores tell you what they are good at doing. They have intelligence 18. This means they are very smart.
Winter Eladrin are really smart at understanding hard things and making plans that work well. Their brain is so good that it helps them cast spells in powerful ways. Magic needs a smart brain to work.
This is one big reason why they are so dangerous when you fight them. Winter Eladrin can notice things around them because they have high wisdom. If someone is walking up to attack, they see it coming.
You cannot trick them or fool them easily. They are tough with good constitution. They can take pain and survive in cold weather without problems. But they are only average at strength and speed.
They cannot hit very hard with a sword. They cannot move fast or dodge attacks well. They do not have strong muscles. They do not have quick reflexes. Fighting close to them with swords is a bad idea for them.
This is really important to understand when you are planning how to fight one. Winter Eladrin are not close range fighters. They do not want to stand next to you and hit you with swords. They want to stay far away and throw spells at you.
Winter Eladrin have a special power called Sorrowful Presence. This power is really important to understand. Any person who is near the Winter Eladrin within 60 feet has to make a wisdom saving throw.
A saving throw is like a test to see if you can resist something bad. The test is DC 13. DC means difficulty class. If the number is 13, it is pretty easy to pass but not guaranteed. If you fail this test, something bad happens to you. You become charmed. Charmed means something takes over your mind for one minute.
When you are charmed, everything you try to do becomes harder. You hit things worse. You avoid spells worse. Your attack rolls have disadvantage. Disadvantage means you roll the dice twice and have to use the worse number. This is really bad for you in a fight. If you get charmed, you are in big trouble.
Winter Eladrin can cast spells. Spells are magic powers. They can use some spells as many times as they want during a fight. They can cast Fog Cloud and Gust of Wind as many times as they want without getting tired. Fog Cloud makes a big thick cloud so nobody can see anything. The cloud fills a big area.
Nobody inside can see outside. Nobody outside can see inside. Gust of Wind blows a powerful wind at enemies and pushes them away from the Winter Eladrin. This pushes them back 15 feet. This is really useful because it keeps enemies far away. These spells help Winter Eladrin stay safe and protected.
They also have spells they can only use once per day. Once they use it, they cannot use it again that day until they rest. They can cast Cone of Cold once per day. This spell shoots ice out from them in a big cone shape. It hits a lot of people at the same time. It does 36 cold damage on average.
Damage means hurt. That is a lot of hurt. Cold damage is especially good because Winter Eladrin resist cold. That means they do not take as much cold damage. They also can cast Ice Storm once per day.
This spell makes a huge storm of ice and hail fall down. It hurts many people at once and makes the ground slippery so people fall down and cannot get up as easily. These spells can change the whole fight in just one turn.
When you hit a Winter Eladrin with a sword, they can hit you back immediately. This is called Frigid Rebuke. If you hurt them, they can force you to make a test called a constitution saving throw. The test is DC 16.
This is pretty hard to pass. If you fail, you take 11 cold damage. Cold damage hurts you and freezes your body. This is like their automatic defense. They also have Magic Resistance. This means they get better at avoiding spells. When someone casts a spell on them, they get advantage on their saving throw.
Advantage means rolling twice and taking the better number. This makes spells not work very well on them.
Winter Eladrin also have resistances and immunities. They do not take as much cold damage as other creatures. This is normal for creatures that use ice. They do not take as much damage from swords and arrows that do not have magic on them. Regular weapons hurt them way less.
They cannot be hurt by poison at all. They are immune to poison. They cannot be made blind by spells. They cannot be made deaf by spells. They cannot be made scared by spells. They cannot be made frozen by spells. They cannot be poisoned by spells. This makes them really hard to beat with normal tricks that usually work on other creatures. You cannot just stun them or poison them.
Winter Eladrin are not good at hitting things with swords. Their attack with a sword is only plus 4. This means they miss a lot. They do 4 to 5 damage per hit. This is not much at all. For comparison, a level 10 fighter might do 20 or 30 damage per hit. This is why Winter Eladrin do not like to fight close to people with swords.
They would lose a sword fight. So they use spells instead. Spells do way more damage. A Cone of Cold spell does 36 damage. This is way more than 4 damage. So a smart Winter Eladrin will stay far away and throw spells at you instead of running at you with a sword.
What About Tactical Combat and Strategy and How They Actually Fight
Here is the most important thing to know about Winter Eladrin: they do not run into fights with swords waving around. They are smart creatures. They think about what they are doing. They make plans. They stay far away. They use magic to fight. Think of them like a person playing chess.
They think many moves ahead while everyone else just reacts to what is happening right now. Their sword attacks only do 4 to 5 damage. This is not good damage. So they never want to fight with swords. They use spells instead to control the whole fight. This is their strategy.
If I was running a Winter Eladrin in a game myself, here is exactly what I would do turn by turn. First, I would put the Winter Eladrin somewhere good so its Sorrowful Presence can hit as many enemies as possible. This is very important because if people get charmed, they do everything worse. Then I would wait one round and let the enemies come closer to me.
Once they are all standing together in a group, I would use Cone of Cold or Ice Storm. This way I hit everybody at once. It is like throwing one spell and hurting five people instead of one. This is way better than hitting one person at a time.
The Winter Eladrin can teleport 30 feet away using Fey Step. It can do this as a bonus action. A bonus action means it does not use the regular movement to walk. So in one turn, the Winter Eladrin can walk 30 feet forward and then teleport 30 feet backward. That is 60 feet of movement in one turn.
It can go very far very fast. Its at will spells like Gust of Wind let it push enemies away if they get too close. So it can control who gets close and who stays far away. This is called battlefield control. The Winter Eladrin is controlling where everyone is standing.
What makes Winter Eladrin really tough is all the ways they can protect themselves stacked together. They take less cold damage. They take less damage from regular swords and arrows. They cannot be hurt by poison. They cannot be put to sleep or frozen or scared by magic.
They have high armor class so you miss them a lot. All of these things together make them super hard to kill. This means they are built to last a long time in a fight and not lose health fast. But they are not built to hurt you a lot. They do not do huge amounts of damage. So it becomes a long fight where you slowly wear them down.
In my experience running monsters, a Winter Eladrin can stay in a fight for 3 to 5 minutes of real time. This is like 5 to 8 rounds of combat. One round is about 6 seconds. So they can fight for 30 to 48 seconds before they die. Actually that sounds short but in a game it feels like a long time.
A winter Eladrin might stay in a fight while you fight many other things too. The best way for Winter Eladrin to win is to stay moving and use spells, not sword attacks. Think of them like a wizard’s guard. They are not there to fight close. They are there to make it very hard for you to get close to them.
They can make fog so you cannot see. They can push you away with wind. They can teleport and escape. Then when you are all standing together by accident, they cast a big spell like Cone of Cold to hurt all of you at once. It is about control and thinking, not about hitting hard and fast.
Understanding Winter Eladrin Personality and Culture and How They Live
Winter Eladrin are not just numbers in a book on a page. They are characters with real feelings and emotions. Winter means sad and thoughtful. If you think about how winter feels when you are sad and alone on a cold night, that is who Winter Eladrin are. They look at the bad side of things.
They expect bad things to happen. They get ready for the worst. In the D&D books, winter is described as a time of thinking and sadness and quiet. It is when the world goes to sleep. It is when animals hide and plants stop growing. Winter Eladrin feel this sadness all the time inside themselves.
If you talk to a Winter Eladrin, expect them to be sad and to talk about sad things. They might say things like “Everything ends eventually” or “Why make big plans when nothing lasts forever” or “Everything becomes darkness in the end.” But this does not mean they are evil or bad. They are just always sad and thinking about sad things. Their face looks sad when you see them.
Their hair is white like ice. Their eyes look like they have seen so much pain and suffering. When they move, ice forms on the ground where they walk. When they talk, their voice sounds like wind blowing through a frozen forest at night.
In the Feywild, the seasons are not just about the weather and temperature. They are about feelings and magic and emotions. The Feywild is a place where real things bend and change.
Time does not work the same way there. Feelings become real things you can see and touch. Winter is when all the energy of growing and living goes to sleep. It is quiet and dark and cold. Winter Eladrin feel this sleep in their heart. Some Winter Eladrin stay sad forever.
They never change. Others change between seasons like they change moods. They become happy in spring and their whole personality changes. They become angry in summer and they become aggressive.
They become peaceful in autumn and they become kind. Winter Eladrin see themselves as keepers of old knowledge. They build big libraries where they study magic and nature and the secrets of the world. They are like teachers and philosophers. They like to think about deep things.
They like to plan and prepare for the future because they know hard times will come. In their way of thinking, it is smart to plan for the worst and be happy if things go better than expected. You save today for problems tomorrow. They make beautiful art too even though they are sad. They write sad music that sounds like snow falling.
They carve ice sculptures of sad things. They write poems about endings. They are not happy about it, but they see beauty in sadness and thinking about deep things.
Comparing Winter Eladrin to Other Eladrin Types and How They Are Different
Winter Eladrin are one of four types of Eladrin that exist. Each type is different from the others. Let me show you how they compare so you understand what makes Winter special and unique.
Each season is a different mood and a different way to fight. This is important because it explains what makes Winter stand out.
| Aspect | Mood | Strength | How They Fight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Winter | Sadness | Spell damage that hits many people and surviving damage | Stay back and control the fight |
| Autumn | Peace | Making people like them and helping | Use teleport to charm, avoid fighting |
| Spring | Happy | Teleport and help | Help friends move around |
| Summer | Angry | Huge damage and power | Run in and hit hard |
Winter Eladrin gives up the big damage of Summer Eladrin to be better at protecting and controlling the fight. Summer Eladrin hits harder with swords and is stronger.
Summer Eladrin have higher strength and do more melee damage. Winter Eladrin can hurt many people at once with spells. This is a big difference in how they work. Summer wants to get close and fight hand to hand. Winter wants to stay far away and hit everyone at the same time.
Autumn Eladrin are good at charming people and making them fight for them instead of against them. They talk good and trick people. They make you like them and want to help them. Spring Eladrin help their friends. They move their friends around the battle and protect them. They make their friends stronger.
They are support fighters. Winter Eladrin are the defense experts. They do not hit as hard as Summer. They do not charm as good as Autumn. They do not help as good as Spring. But they protect better. They control the fight better. They can hit many enemies at once. They are like a turtle of the Eladrin types.
They protect themselves and control the space around them. This makes them unique and special.
Playing a Winter Eladrin in Your Campaign and What To Expect
If your Dungeon Master puts a Winter Eladrin in your game, here is what you need to know. They are CR 10. CR means Challenge Rating. This is how hard a monster is in the game. A CR 10 monster is hard for a group of four level 10 players. It is a real tough fight. It is dangerous but still beatable. In my time playing games, Winter Eladrin are in the right spot for balance.
They are scary and make you feel worried but you can still win if you are smart and careful. If you are fighting one, remember that after they use their big spells, they are weaker. Their Cone of Cold and Ice Storm spells are scary. They hurt a lot. They can kill you if they hit you. But they only get to use these spells once per day each. After they use those spells, they cannot use them again.
They mainly just teleport and hide and use their fog spell. If your group has good damage and thinks about tactics and strategy, you can win. Just be patient and do not rush. A Winter Eladrin lasts 3 to 5 minutes in a real fight. After they use their big spells, they are not as scary and powerful. You can finish them.
You should focus on getting close to them quickly before they can cast the big spells. If you can get into melee range where they have to fight with swords, you will win because their sword damage is bad.
If you are the Dungeon Master and you are running a Winter Eladrin for your players, here is my advice based on experience. Do not try to fight your players’ best fighter in close combat. You will lose and die fast. Instead, put the Winter Eladrin somewhere good where it can throw spells at your whole group at once.
Make them feel like they are fighting the winter weather, not just a person with a sword. Use Fog Cloud to block them from seeing. This makes them confused. Push them away with Gust of Wind so they cannot get close. Use Fey Step to escape when things get dangerous. Use your spells to control the fight. Make them feel like the Eladrin uses magic and feelings as weapons.
The fight should feel like fighting winter itself, cold and lonely. The most important thing is to make the Winter Eladrin feel sad and pretty and beautiful, not just like a monster with numbers. Describe how the air gets cold when they appear. Describe how frost forms on the ground where they walk.
Tell your players how they feel sadness and hopelessness in their hearts. Make it emotional and real, not just number crunching and math. Tell them the Winter Eladrin looks at them with sad old eyes that have seen a thousand winters. Tell them how the creature makes them feel heavy and sad in their heart.
Tell them how lonely the creature seems. This makes the fight special and something they remember for a long time.
The Real Quick Version for Busy People That Want To Know Fast
Winter Eladrin are sad magical elf creatures from the magic world called the Feywild. They are CR 10 monsters. They are hard to hit in a fight. They use cold spells and sad feelings instead of just hitting with weapons and swords. Their big spells like Cone of Cold and Ice Storm only work one time per day each.
After they use those spells they cannot use them again until they rest. After that they mainly just teleport away and hide using fog. They have a power called Sorrowful Presence that makes people near them sad and weak. Think of them like winter that fights you with magic and emotion.
They are good at staying alive and not taking damage and controlling the fight. They are bad at doing damage with regular weapons and attacks. If you fight one, try to get close and fight them in melee before they can cast their big spells. This stops them from doing much damage.
If you run one as a Dungeon Master, put them in a good spot away from fighters and make the cold sad feeling important as much as the game rules. Winter Eladrin are one type of Eladrin. They protect and control more than they attack hard. They use their brain and magic instead of their muscles and strength.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts About Winter Eladrin
Winter Eladrin are sad and beautiful creatures. They show what it means to be melancholy and thoughtful in the magic world. They are not just monsters to beat in a fight. They are characters to understand and think about.
Whether you fight them or run them in your game, remember that Winter Eladrin use smart plans, feelings, and magic to win.
They do not use strength and anger. They teach us that in D&D, the scariest monsters are not always the ones with the biggest swords. Sometimes the scary ones are the ones that make you feel sad and hopeless.
They control the space around them. They use thinking instead of just hitting things hard. The next time you meet a Winter Eladrin in a game, stop and think about them. See their sad nature. See how smart they are.
See how they use magic and control instead of power. Then roll your dice and have a good fight that you will remember for a long time.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Can a Winter Eladrin be good or nice in a game?
Yes they can be. Eladrin are fey creatures. This means they are not good or bad by nature. They just follow their feelings and the rules of the Feywild. A Winter Eladrin could be a sad teacher that helps your group learn things. They could be a bad guy you feel sorry for because they are so sad.
They could help you even though they are sad about it and do not want to. They could be your friend even though they are sad. D&D lets you make creatures into anything that fits your story.
A Winter Eladrin that runs a library and teaches people could be cool. A Winter Eladrin who runs a store and sells things and is sad but honest would work. There are many ways to use them in your game.
2. What if I want to play a Winter Eladrin as my character instead of fighting one?
If you want to play an Eladrin as your character, you use different rules than what we talked about for monsters. Your Eladrin character is not as strong as a monster Eladrin. Your character is just a normal person who is an Eladrin.
You would be able to teleport like the monster can. If you are a winter Eladrin character, one person near you has to make a test. If they fail, they get scared of you. You would be sad and thoughtful all the time.
Your game numbers would be small, not big like a monster. You would be a real character with feelings, not a monster. This is much more fun to play. You are sad but you can still fight and help your group. You can grow and change. Your sadness can go away if you have good experiences.
3. How do Winter Eladrin change to other seasons like Spring or Summer?
Eladrin can change what season they are based on their feelings. When you rest at night and sleep, you can pick a new season if you want to. If a Winter Eladrin becomes happy about something, they might become Spring.
If they get angry at something, they become Summer. If they feel calm and peaceful and happy, they become Autumn. This only happens at night when they rest and sleep. They do not change during a fight or during the day. Some Eladrin stay winter forever because they are always sad and feel sad emotions.
Others change often based on what they are feeling that day. This is what makes Eladrin interesting and different. They can change and grow based on what they feel. Their mood and their season are connected.
4. What level should my group be to fight a Winter Eladrin and will it be fair?
A Winter Eladrin is CR 10. This means a group of four level 10 players should find it hard but fair. If your group is level 12 or higher, it will be easier to fight. If your group is level 8 or lower, or if you have only three people in your group, it will be very hard or maybe too hard and unfair.
You can make it easier or harder based on what your group needs. Maybe give it less health. Maybe add more creatures to help it. Maybe give it fewer spells. Maybe use only one big spell instead of two.
The goal is to make sure everyone has fun and the fight is fair and balanced. A good fight is scary but you can still win if you are smart and prepare.
Attribution and Content Note
This blog post is a guide to the Winter Eladrin from Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition. The information about their game rules and powers comes from official D&D sources and D&D Beyond.
The story and personality of Eladrin comes from official D&D books like Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes and Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse. This is written to help new players understand the game better.
