Ice Wraith (Skyrim)

"These Ice Wraiths are lucid, serpentine creatures of magic, as if conjured from the frozen tundra and glaciers of Skyrim itself."

- Herbane

Ice Wraiths are swift, elemental creatures of ice and snow in. They move quickly and use powerful frost attacks.

Combat behavior

 * Ice wraiths fight with high-damage, frost-based melee attacks, and because of this, are quite tough. More importantly, they are very agile; they may not be incredibly fast when closing in at the Dragonborn, but they move through the air with slithering motions that makes them generally difficult to hit at range, and once they enter melee they are incredibly evasive. They slither in and out of reach with fearsome unpredictability, striking fast and then withdrawing out of reach again. This makes them almost as difficult to hit in melee as in range.  At close range, however, the constant stream of fire from the novice spell Flames works particularly well against them, as one's aim can be readily adjusted to compensate for the wraiths' swift movements.
 * As they are frost-based creatures, they will usually only appear in cold and snowy places. They can thus be very difficult to see (depending on the light) due to their transparency and frosty glow. This can make them even more difficult to hit. They are generally most difficult to make out when viewed against a snowy background on a bright day, but are usually easier to spot at night, when they will glow more than the snow around them.
 * Due to their nature, they are immune to frost damage, but weak against fire-based attacks.
 * Ice wraiths sometimes hide in the snow, and will ambush if given the opportunity, however they can be seen using Detect All Creatures or Detect Life.

Locations

 * The Midden (which is below the College of Winterhold)
 * The Serpent Stone
 * Throat of the World (this occurs due to level scaling. At low levels, wolves will be present instead)
 * Near Pinefrost Tower
 * Hags End (summoned by a hagraven boss)
 * Bonechill Passage
 * Shalidor's Maze (in Labyrinthian)
 * Weynon Stones
 * The ice covered areas of Solstheim
 * The Ice Wraith is also able to be encountered randomly mostly in snowy areas due to its nature.
 * Shrine of Mehrunes Dagon (down the stairs near the rock with the flag)

Quests

 * The Dragonborn must defeat an ice wraith on the island of the Serpent Stone to be initiated into the Stormcloaks.

Trivia

 * Ice Wraiths have lesser souls.
 * It is possible to contract the disease Witbane from an Ice Wraith.
 * The Wispmother claims that ice wraiths are in fact not creatures at all, stating that they are actually elemental manifestations rising out of Nirn itself.
 * This is also suggested by the fact that in Hag's End, two appear to be summoned by a Hagraven. They may also have been teleported as the hagraven teleports twice to different chambers with the same exact animation as the summoning animation.
 * In a conversation with Marise Aravel, it is discovered that Nords usually hunt ice wraiths for initiation rituals.
 * Often, the Dragonborn may confuse an ice wraith by circling around an obstacle keeping it on the opposite side.
 * While the name wraith may imply they are undead, they are not, in fact being elemental spirits of ice and snow (similar to how spriggans are elemental spirits of the forest). The fact that ice wraiths are not undead beings is further confirmed by their immunity to Detect Dead, Turn Undead and Sun Fire spells whilst simultaneously being able to be detected by Detect Life spells.
 * If a creature such as a bear ends up standing on top of one, the ice wraith may toss it quite a distance, often killing it.
 * Oddly, they sustain fall damage if knocked off a mountain, even though they float about.