Verra Frost-Tongue — Captain of the Ethereal Corrections Bureau

Ability Scores

STR

10

+0

DEX

18

+4

CON

14

+2

INT

14

+2

WIS

16

+3

CHA

8

-1

Combat

Armor Class: 17; Half-plate and Dex
Hit Points: 100; Hit Dice: 12d10
Initiative: +7
Speed: 30 ft.
Proficiency: +4
Passive Perception: 17

Attacks

Heavy Crossbow (Serialized)+81d10 + 4 piercing

Shortsword+81d6 + 4 piercing

Cold Breath (1/Long Rest)DC 14 Con4d6 cold

Personality

Speaks in short, clipped sentences using administrative jargon. She frequently pauses to check a small ledger or polish her spectacles. Her voice is like ice cracking on a frozen pond—clear, sharp, and utterly devoid of warmth.

Ideal

Order. The world must be categorized, filed, and balanced. Chaos is a failure of management.

Bond

The Bureau of Ethereal Corrections. Its laws are her scripture; its stamps are her seal of approval.

Flaw

She is incapable of recognizing the value of anything that cannot be measured, weighed, or taxed.

Backstory

To Captain Verra Frost-Tongue, the universe is not an epic poem; it is a ledger, and she is the auditor of existence. Raised under the rigid Silver-Claw Prefecture, she was taught that the greatest sin is an unaccounted variable. When her father died with an undisclosed debt to the Crown, his spirit lingered in their family home—a sentimental anomaly that Verra found intolerable. While her siblings wept at the hearth, Verra systematically filled out State Form 4-B: Spectral Encroachment. She watched without a tremor as the inquisitors dragged his wailing essence into a soul-thimble for 'rehabilitative labor.' Before they left, she plucked a single, perfectly symmetrical silver scale from his cold throat, polishing it into a mirror that reflects only her own unblinking clinical gaze.

Now, she serves as the state’s premier exorcist in the soot-choked undercity. She does not hunt for glory or gold; she hunts because the dead are 'illegal squatters' who occupy space without paying the tax of breath. She has processed thousands of souls—mothers looking for lost children, soldiers seeking peace—with the same numbing efficiency. To Verra, a ghost is simply a clerical error in the grand design of the state, a smudge of red ink that must be scraped clean with cold iron and colder logic. She carries a small, woolen sock on her belt—not out of love, but as Evidence Exhibit A, a reminder that even the smallest sentiment is a breach of protocol.

Abilities & Actions

Audit of the Void (Umbral Sight)

Verra has darkvision out to a range of 90 feet. While in darkness, she is invisible to any creature that relies on darkvision to see her. She gains a +3 bonus to initiative rolls.

The Creditor’s Monocle (1/Short Rest)

As a bonus action, Verra peers through her cracked spectacles. For 1 minute, she can see into the Ethereal Plane up to 60 feet. She gains advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks to track creatures that have the Undead type or are incorporeal. If a creature is hidden by magic, she perceives a faint faint silver outline around it.

Corrective Measure (Stalker's Flurry)

Once on each of her turns when she misses with a weapon attack, she can make another weapon attack as part of the same action. This represents her relentless need to 'fix' the error of a missed shot.

Cold Iron Foreclosure (3/Long Rest)

When Verra hits a creature with her heavy crossbow, she can declare a 'Foreclosure.' The target takes an extra 2d8 cold damage as the frost of her heritage coats the bolt. If the target is Undead, it must succeed on a DC 15 Charisma saving throw or be forced into a shimmering, translucent cage of force for 1 round (as the Banishment spell), representing their temporary removal from the 'living ledger'.

DM Notes

Verra speaks to adventurers as if they are unruly interns. She will ignore pleas for mercy, responding only to 'logical inconsistencies.' Signature gesture: She cleans her spectacles with a silk cloth while a target is dying, only looking up once the breathing stops to mark her ledger. Reaction: If offered a bribe, she will calculate the exact tax penalty and add it to the 'bill' she intends to collect from the player's corpse.