Masks and Frost

The gold masks and the iron masks are both Huangxing's personal guard, and beneath the two faces lies the same story: ten years spent serving the Mandate, credit taken by others, and comrades who died one by one waiting for reinforcements that never came.

The three in the snow never belonged to the Mandate. Disciples of the Blackwater Crew, butchers who hold the snowfield, bomb carriers with ice strapped to their backs — cold and Sha-Chi sealed all of them in. One lies under the drift, one chews frozen meat by the block, one is waiting to burst.

A mask hides the face; a rind of frost hides the body. The reasons differ, the end looks much the same.

• Gold Mask: short blades and a light, uncanny step; they throw knives on the move and vanish by arcane means, then reappear without warning. The day they put the mask on, they resolved to tear the rot out of the Mandate root and branch.
• Iron Mask: black robes and a broad, heavy blade, breaking skill with sheer force. They move like ghosts, and when they reappear the blade is already falling toward the crown of a head.
• Snowveil Lurker: Blackwater Crew disciples who pair ice techniques with Transcension, carrying crescent scythes and hiding their breath beneath the snow. Strike the snow with the Loong Trident to break the camouflage.
• The Frozen Butcher: butchers of the snowfield, copper masks pitted green and yellow by wind and ice. They eat frozen meat and worse, vomit filth that poisons, and their blades carry a chill that stiffens the limbs of anyone cut too often.
• Ice Powderkeg: frost coats the head and the great bomb on the back, icicles jutting from both. It charges anything living to die with it, and fire sends the Sha-Chi inside out of control until it bursts on the spot.

A lurker under the snow cannot be spotted by eye; hammer the surface with the Loong Trident to force it out, then fight. The ice powderkeg dreads flame — one fire attack and it destroys itself.

Gold and iron masks live on stealth and the sudden rush. Watch the direction they reappear from rather than swinging at the afterimage.