Cold-drakes

Kevin Ward - True Cold-drake
People
Cold-drakes
General Information
Origins	Bred by Morgoth in Angband
Locations	Angband, Northern Waste, Withered Heath, Grey Mountains
Affiliation	Morgoth
Rivalries	Dwarves of the Grey Mountains
Members	Scatha
Physical Description
Lifespan	"Long and slow"
Distinctions	Cold-breathing

”

Now the least mighty - yet they were very great beside the Men of those days - are cold as in the nature of snakes and serpents, and of them a many having wings go with the uttermost noise and speed...

Turambar and the Foalókë

Cold-drakes were dragons that were unable to breath fire, but instead could possess an icy "cold breath" which froze people and induced fear. Morgoth bred and used cold-drakes in the late First Age. After the War of Wrath, some cold-drakes were found in the waste north of the Grey Mountains.

As the millennia passed, their numbers grew, until they became a serious threat in the later centuries of the Third Age to the Dwarves that mined the Grey Mountains. In T.A. 2589, Dáin I, King of Durin's Folk, and his second son Frór were slain at the gates of their hall by a cold-drake. The attacks of these fearsome creatures persuaded the Dwarves to migrate eastwards from the Grey Mountains, and it was soon afterward that their realms in the Iron Hills and at Erebor were established.

Portrayal in adaptations

2018: The Lord of the Rings Online:

Cold-drakes appear throughout the northern lands of Middle-earth, particularly in the Ered Mithrin where they serve "Hrímil Frost-Heart", a dragon who consumed one of the dwarven Rings of Power. Hrímil's mightiest spawn, the cold-drake "Vethúg Wintermind", was the one to slay King Dáin I and his son Frór in Thikil-gundu, "The Steel Keep" (otherwise known as Dáin's Halls). The game's cold-drakes often project icy breath, even though the exact nature of the "cold breath" of Tolkien's cold-drakes is simply not known.