Harald Frostfury
Harald Frostfury — The Encounter
Horned raider whose frostbound shield freezes the breath in your lungs · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Harald Frostfury
They name him Frostfury along the freezing coasts, where the longships come ashore with the first blizzard and the smell of cold iron. Harald is no jarl and no sorcerer; he is the man at the prow who took up a shield cut from a frost-giant's hearthstone and never let it thaw. The rune-graven boss drinks warmth as a sponge drinks water, so that those who close with him find their fingers stiffening and their breath stolen before the first blow lands. He fights as the old reavers fought, sword and shield together, breaking shield-walls with the bash and bellowing his fallen kin back into the fray. Skalds say he swore an oath beside a black fjord that no warmth would touch him again until the slight against his hall was answered in blood, and the cold took that oath literally. Where Harald wades, the surf freezes around his boots.
Run Harald Frostfury in Sixty Seconds
- Hold the line. Harald is an add-on melee anchor, not a boss — drop him in front of a bigger threat and let him soak the charge.
- Open with the shield, not the sword. Wade into the tightest knot of PCs so Frostbound Shield slows multiple foes, setting up your first Rime Burst.
- Kill-priority: the kiter. He wants the fast, ranged, or skirmishing PC — shield-bash to knock them prone, then sword them while they're down.
- When bloodied, spend Rime Burst freely. Half the party's speed before they can reposition, and use Raider's Bellow to leap on whoever drops your ally with advantage.
- Three ways to run him: lone champion guarding a chokepoint; shield-wall pair-up with a giant; or a frozen vanguard of three stacking slows ahead of a rime-lord.
Harald Frostfury
Medium humanoid (human), neutral evil
CR 2 · 450 XP · GUIDELINEFrostbound Shield. Harald's rune-graven shield weeps a perpetual rime. The first time a creature ends its turn within 5 feet of him and within reach of his shield, its speed is reduced by 10 feet until the start of its next turn as ice crusts its boots and joints.
Cold Endurance. Harald has advantage on saving throws against being frightened, and difficult terrain made of ice or snow costs him no extra movement.
Actions
Multiattack. Harald makes two attacks: one with his frost-touched sword and one with his shield bash.
Frost-Touched Sword. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) slashing damage plus 3 (1d6) cold damage.
Shield Bash. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d4 + 3) bludgeoning damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 13 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.
Rime Burst (Recharge 5-6). Harald slams his shield to the ground, exhaling a 15-foot cone of biting frost. Each creature in the area must make a DC 13 Constitution saving throw, taking 10 (3d6) cold damage on a failed save and having its speed halved until the end of its next turn, or half as much damage and no slow on a success.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Raider's Bellow (Reaction). When an ally Harald can see within 30 feet is reduced to 0 hit points, Harald lets out a war-cry. He moves up to his speed toward the creature that downed his ally without provoking opportunity attacks, and his next attack against that creature this round is made with advantage.
A broad-shouldered Norse raider in a horned helm, white beard frosted stiff, his round shield wreathed in pale blue rime that turns the air to mist around him.
Harald Frostfury, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEPack Instinct (signature). Harald Frostfury has advantage on attack rolls against a creature if at least one of Harald Frostfury's allies is within 5 feet of the creature and isn't incapacitated.
Actions
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) piercing damage, and if the target is a creature it must succeed on a DC 12 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.
Reactions
Guard the Master. When Harald takes damage from an attacker within 5 feet of Harald Frostfury, Harald Frostfury may bite that attacker, dealing 4 (1d8) piercing damage.
A grizzled war-hound bred on the cold coasts, its fur rimed white, loyal only to the man who pulled it from a snowdrift as a pup.
Guideline numbers — formula-tuned and read from the miniature's design, not yet table-proven. Tell us how it ran in the comments.
How It Fights — by Tier
Same creature, scaled threat. The traits never change; only the numbers move.
Open by wading into the densest cluster so Frostbound Shield slows two or three foes at once, then Rime Burst the moment three bodies are inside the cone. Kill-priority is the party's mobile striker. Pair him with a bigger frost threat or a giant boss; he is the shield-wall anchor, not the centerpiece.
Same play, scaled up: open into the cluster, Rime Burst on recharge, shield-bash to keep a key target prone. He soaks frontline damage while a flagship enemy works the backline. Use Raider's Bellow to punish whoever drops his ally and swing the focus fire.
Run two or three Frostfuries as a frozen vanguard ahead of a frost-giant or rime-king boss. Stack their shield-slows to lock the floor, fan their Rime Bursts to blanket the party, and let Raider's Bellow chain them toward whoever breaks the line first.
Put Harald Frostfury on the table
Download the presupported STL and run the fight tonight — the model, and the encounter that comes with it.
Get the STL on MyMiniFactory →Clay Cyanide Companion Rules v1
How a bound creature acts
- A companion acts on its owner's initiative, immediately after the owner.
- It uses the Companion block above — roughly ×0.6 HP and damage, no recharge abilities, and at most one reaction trait.
- It moves freely; it takes its Action only while its owner is conscious.
- At 0 HP a companion is broken, not dead — restored on a long rest unless your table rules otherwise.
Original Clay Cyanide material © Clay Cyanide LLC — explicitly not the non-SRD official sidekick rules.
Questions, Asked at the Table
What CR is Harald Frostfury?
His home tier is CR 2 (Tier 1, levels 1–4): AC 14, 52 HP, +5 to hit, save DC 13. Scaled stat lines for Tier 2 (CR 6 feel) and Tier 3 (CR 11 feel) are provided in the tiers block so you can drop him into any party level.
Can Harald Frostfury be a companion or ally?
Yes. As a raider-captain he reads well as a sellsword shield-bearer or a reluctant ally bound by oath. Use the Greybiter companion block for his war-hound, or run Harald himself at his Tier 1 line as a hireling who anchors the front while the party strikes.
Is Harald a spellcaster?
No — his frost is an artifact of the rune-graven shield, not arcane casting, so effects like counterspell or dispel magic won't shut down Frostbound Shield or Rime Burst. Targeting or sundering the shield is the in-fiction way to strip his cold.
Tell Us How It Ran
This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 ("SRD 5.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC and available at dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document. The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
Clay Cyanide Miniatures is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored, or specifically approved by Wizards of the Coast LLC. This content is compatible with the fifth edition of the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game. Companion rules, lore, names, and original mechanics © Clay Cyanide LLC.
Technical Specifications
32mm, 75mm
STL, Pre-supported STL
Standard or ABS-like resin, 0.05mm layer height
Yes — ready to print, optimized supports included
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