Our story (so far)
Southerners call it the Frozen Waste. We call it home. Here is the short version — the long one takes about a thousand years and the narrator is asleep.
Icewrack sits just south of the Barrier — the great wall of peaks at the top of the world — right by the Northern Sea. Through the middle runs the Blueheart Glacier, which shaped the land, the trade and the magic of everyone who lives here.
- Before anyone wrote things down
The glacier with a heart
The Blueheart is older than every record. Frost mages say it has a heart of its own that picks rare students, gives them very long lives and leaves them to guard the ice with nothing but books for company. Cozy.
- The old days
The Ice Wizard of the Crown
An old hermit lived at the very top of the glacier and quietly looked after the whole realm. Nobody saw him much, but everyone agreed winters were nicer while he was on duty.
- The Frostiron years
Forges by the sea
The Frostiron Tribe settled the northern shore, mined glacier sapphires and forged steel. Proud, talented and still weirdly unknown down south.
- The arrival
A kid who froze rivers
A girl named Rylai turned up, sent north by parents tired of frozen wells and icy orchards. The Wizard took her as his apprentice and once sent her to the Boiling Sea, where she turned all the steam into snow with one word. Show-off.
- The big nap
The Wizard clocks out
Lessons done, the Wizard went down into the glacier to sleep for a thousand years. He left Rylai his staff, his robe and the whole city. She's been Steward ever since.
- The Treaty of the Old Keep
A wyvern moves in
The ancient eldwurm Auroth settled into an abandoned keep, and the local sheep started vanishing. Rylai went over to sort it out, and Auroth's helper Thrael suggested a deal instead of a fight. The city got the Frost Avalanche cloak; Auroth got the keep. Neighbours ever since.
- Recently
Snowballs, brawls and guests from the south
Ymir of Cobalt made the White Fields and the Wolfsden Tavern famous. Then travellers from the southern kingdoms sailed into Frostreach and, with a little local help, chased the dragon Zaug away from Snowcap Lake.
Copper, sapphires & white wine
We pay in copper coins and Frostiron sapphires. Down south we're famous for wolf and tusk-fox furs and for the Icewrack White — a wine the Nivan gallants will fight duels over.
Things beyond the Barrier aren't always peaceful, so the volunteer Frost Brigade patrols the passes each winter. Mostly they rescue lost sledders and break up snowball fights.