Balestrider

The Balestriders are enormous creatures out of Freljordian legend, known also by the second name of the Wanderers. Counted among the sentient beasts of the frozen north, they appear in the tales of the region as a dark omen. These giants keep to the coldest ground, ranging across the arctic reaches along the northern edge of the Freljord, and the legends set them roaming the wider ice rather than any single home. The oldest sagas place the Balestriders in the ages before mortal civilization, when the Three Sisters, Avarosa, Serylda, and Lissandra, ruled the Freljord. Through the pact Lissandra struck with the Watchers, entities from beyond the Void, she gained the power of True Ice and turned it on the land's creatures. The Balestriders were twisted far beyond their original form by that otherworldly energy, made monstrous and bound to the will of the Three, marched to war alongside armies of Iceborn warriors and troll kings. When Avarosa and Serylda learned the true nature of the bargain and refused to serve Lissandra's masters, the twisted Balestriders were among the forces she rallied before the walls of her fortress. Magnificent and terrible, moving at the command of the sisters, they were loosed in the War of the Three Sisters that tore the frozen continent apart. Their connection to Anivia is a story of sacrifice. Facing a march of towering Balestriders she knew she could not slay, the Cryophoenix plunged into the ice beneath their feet and shattered her own body to entomb the colossal creatures in the frozen depths.