 Winter Witch
Source Reign of Winter Player's Guide pg. 11, Inner Sea Magic pg. 43
The descendents of Baba Yaga rule the frozen realm of Irrisen, and possess a unique power stemming from their otherworldly origin and their ties to cold magic. This power is partly magical, partly political, and partly cultural. Known as winter witches, these scions of Baba Yaga have not bothered to hide their secrets from outsiders, for they understand that those who see winter witches not native to Irrisen working their frozen magic will simply assume the witches are agents of Irrisen. By opening up their traditions to those who have no direct blood connection to Baba Yaga or the ruling families of Irrisen, they spread the notoriety and infamy of their wintry magic far beyond what they could accomplish on their own. While winter witches are most commonly encountered in Irrisen, they could be encountered in any part of the Inner Sea region, where they work to increase Irrisen’s notoriety with each frozen spell and manipulative hex they cast. A winter witch has the following class features.
Familiar: Winter witches must choose a familiar that is native to the frozen north, even if they themselves operate in other regions. Traditionally, this limits winter witch familiar choices to bat, cat, fox, hawk, owl, rat, raven, or weasel. A winter witch who gains the Improved Familiar feat can select any familiar she desires, save for familiars with the fire subtype.
Cantrips: A winter witch adds ray of frost to her spell list, but does not automatically learn this cantrip.
Patron: A winter witch must choose her patron from one of the following patron themes: ancestors*, deception, enchantment*, endurance, moon*, occult*, portents*, stars*, transformation, trickery, vengeance*, water, winter*, or wisdom. An asterisk (*) indicates that the patron theme is detailed in Ultimate Magic.
Ice Magic: When a winter witch casts a spell with the cold descriptor, the save DC of the spell increases by 1. A winter witch cannot learn or cast spells with the fire descriptor at all.
Cold Flesh (Ex): At 1st level, a winter witch gains endure elements as a constant spell-like ability, but only against cold temperatures. At 4th level, she gains cold resistance 5, making her comfortable in near-freezing temperatures. At 9th-level, this increases to cold resistance 10, and at 14th level, it becomes immunity to cold. This replaces the witch’s 4th-level hex.
Hexes: The following hexes complement the winter witch archetype: beast eye*, blight, cook people*, evil eye, feral speech*, hag’s eye, hoarfrost*, ice tomb*, witch’s hut.* An asterisk (*) indicates that the hex is detailed in Ultimate Magic.
A winter witch can select the following hexes:
Frostfoot (Su): This ability works like the spider climb spell, but the surfaces the witch climbs must be icy. The witch can move across icy surfaces without penalty and does not need to make Acrobatics checks to run or charge on ice. She can move across regular snow without penalty, and heavy snow costs her only 2 squares of movement instead of 4.
Frozen Caress (Su): Whenever the winter witch casts a touch spell, she can infuse the magic with cold as a swift action. This grants the spell the cold descriptor, and adds 1d4 points of cold damage to the spell’s effect. If the touch spell allows a saving throw, a successful save negates this additional cold damage.
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