Everfrost
Everfrost, sometimes known as Thennfrost or Thenn's gold, is a form of rare magical ice prized for its ability to maintain an extremely its extremely low temperature when exposed to warmth.
Properties
Material Characteristics
Unlike dry ice, with which it is often compared, everfrost rarely appears white in coloration. Instead, everfrost usually appears as near translucent ice with a faint blue hue running through it. When liquefied, everfrost retains its pale blue hue and crystal-like appearance, which causes light to refract off of it in strange and seemingly illogical ways. In direct sunlight, it sometimes appears to contain flecks of golden glitter, which gives it its other name, Thenn's gold.
Physical & Chemical Properties
Everfrost is extremely cold. It resists heat and is said to even be able to snuff out nearby flames when expelled. Even when liquefied, everfrost can freeze room temperature objects. Simply touching the substance is highly dangerous for most mortals, inflicting freezing burns and killing cells on any skin or appendages that come into contact with it. In most cases, living tissue exposed to everfrost blackens, as if the creature is undergoing rapid frostbite. Some creatures have been said to have survived being fully frozen in everfrost, but such accounts are rare and appear to have happened under very specific circumstances.
Due to its extremely low temperature, many materials that come into contact with everfrost risk becoming damaged if they conduct its cold. Many pure metals and weak alloys such as iron or bronze are rendered brittle and break when applied to raw everfrost. Organic materials are also susceptible, with substances like bone or hardwood timber often freezing and snapping when improperly exposed. Furs and other insulates are the best materials for handling everfrost, with softer flexible woods like willow or yew often used to provide added structure.
Everfrost Petrification
In some rare instances, a creature whose body is completed sealed in everfrost instantly, the creature may survive in a suspended, hibernating state. Creatures frozen in such away usually lose consciousness, but can live for years while under these conditions. However, creatures locked in everfrost are vulnerable to shattering along with the everfrost that surrounds them and can only be released from it through a controlled melt using precision fire magic.Biological Mutate
Many assert that under particular circumstances, exposure to everfrost can transform a creature, endowing them with magical attributes or traits that reflect the extreme properties of the substance. The most well known of these legends involves the creation of the winter wolf; a kind of large, intelligent canine with ice-blue fur found related to dire wolves. However, there is no concrete evidence that the mere presence of everfrost can transform a dire wolf; in fact, most dire wolves flee or perish when brought into contact with the substance. However, everfrost's magical properties do suggest that it could be used in concert with other materials or compounds to alter a creature through arcane means. Such augmentation would likely require a specific ritual and additional spellcraft in order to ensure the full integration of the desired traits and the survival of the subject. Research into this process is on going at arcane institutes in Reikerk and Tamory, and is rumored to be of interest among the court wizards of several Varskogan jarls.Geology & Geography
Everfrost is quite rare in much of the civilized, mortal world, only appearing in regions with temperatures that remain below freezing year round. These are most often areas of high elevation or extreme latitudes. Places with connections to the ice giant realm of Thenngaard frequently also contain large deposits of everfrost.
Alpine territories like the Basceron and Shanindar Mountains do occasionally export some everfrost, but the largest producer and exporter of everfrost is actually the small Varskoga Jarldom of Chilldrift. Meanwhile in the northern hemisphere, the mountains of Rhalpalkan and the tundra lands of Ospeiria supply Iroa with everfrost.
Located on the easternmost point of the great Varangian Peninsula, Chilldrift is one of the most sparsely populated settlements in all Varangia. During the spring and fall, icecutters chisel blocks of everfrost from the natural everfrost glaciers near the source of the Witchfinger River. In winter, the conditions surrounding the glaciers are too dangerous for mortal laborers and the village's harbor becomes sealed in ice. By summer, two seasons worth of everfrost is shipped north and traded for grain and foodstuffs.
Origin & Source
Where it does occur naturally, everfrost is usually harvested from glaciers and ice shelves blessed (or cursed) by some kind of ice magic. Some claim that the frost breath of an adult or older white dragon contains everfrost and their lairs have often been reported to contain the substance.
The most well documented of these places are the everfrost glaciers at the headwaters of the Witchfinger River in southeast Varangia. These glaciers once spread across much of the Witchfinger Valley but are now continually quarried by the Varskogans of Chilldrift for export.
To harvest everfrost, the Varskogan icecutters don multiple layers of furs, often enhanced with fireside enchantments, and masks that cover their entire face. Upon arriving at the glacier must use tools made of alloyed or extremely rare and durable metal to remove sections of everfrost. In ancient times, this was done with mithril or adamantine but today most cutters use Skiensteel, a unique variety of steel forged in the mountain Jarldom of Skiencliff.
The everfrost is chisled into blocks and slid using ramps of carved everfrost onto sleds or sleighs. They are then wrapped in alternating layers of fur and leather for the protection of the drivers and the offloading crews. The sleighs are then pulled down the Witchfinger, either over its frozen surface or offloaded onto rafts during late spring and early autumn. The sleighs are usually by teams of Varskogan sled dogs. Larger cargoes are sometimes pulled by reindeer, however, this has been known to attract remorhazes and other large carnivorous monsters.
Life & Expiration
Everfrost is prized precisely because it does not melt at the same temperature as naturally occurring ice. Pieces of everfrost remain solid well above 0° Celsius and do not seem to be even slightly effected by most temperature increases found in nature. Several experiments conducted in the schools of Qartago finding that it will remain solid even when left under direct sun in the Marrow Desert.
However, everfrost does have a melting point of approximately 1480° Celsius or 2,700° Fahrenheit. This is well above what most smiths can produce without magical aid. Yet even quite close to its melting point, the temperature the everfrost gives off itself remains quite cool.
History & Usage
History
Everfrost is believed to have been used throughout the Mithril Era, though few records describe it or its use outside of the legendary accounts of encounters with giants and their kin. It is often said to have been created by the giant god Thenn and to be his most prized possession. Among followers of the Ordning, Thenn desires to transform all the world into a realm of ice and snow and that one day, a winter storm shall slowly blanket the world in everfrost. This is said to be one of the signs of the Twilight Era.
It should come as no surprise then that the Frost Giant were believed to be the first to harness everfrost. Legends in the frozen wilds of the world have long told of frost giant berserkers with lethal liquid everfrost coursing through their axes. This technology was said to have been stolen by the first dwarves of the Bluefrost Mountains and from them the knowledge of everfrost enchanting passed to mortalkind.
Everfrost first came into common knowledge during the Palladian Era. However, unable to wield the magical substance through artifice or spellwork, the Tao-Tē and the Palladians that obtained it simply placed the substance around objects they wished to keep cool, rather than utilize the substance as a component of a cohesive invention. Most Palladian everfrost is thought to have been harvested in the Basceron and likely traded in exchange for Palladian finished products.
With the Sundering Arcana, the alchemical and arcane applications for everfrost expanded. At first, the use of everfrost-imbued items seemed restricted to the goliaths and giantkin of the Bluefrost Mountains, and the Jagat dwarves of Varangia. However, over the next two centuries of migration, the process of harvesting and enchanting items using everfrost spread throughout Auloa. Despite this, access to everfrost remained quite limited, with most enterprising artificers relying on trade with the dangerous frost giants of the southern ice flows. Eventually, several mortal settlements developed the infrastructure and resources necessary to obtain their own supplies, leading to the establishment of formal trade routes and mercantile contracts.
Everyday use
Everfrost is most often used as a component in alchemical and arcane enchantment or artifice. The most common of these products are magical items, such as the frostbox and bag of colding, which are used to store and transport perishable foods and goods. Everfrost has been used in larger scale artifice workings to cool entire rooms or structures, but such projects require a great deal of raw material and are thus exceptionally expensive. These workings can be in the form of arcane glyph work or integrated along with piping and engineered structures.
Small amounts of everfrost can also be used to create faint enchantments to clothing that cool the wearer, allowing them to endure extremely high temperatures. These enchantments appear in a variety of garments, from industrial wear, adventuring gear, defensive armor, and even expensive statement pieces for elite consumers in warm climates. These garments are usually referred to as breezecloth.
Everfrost has also been used for centuries as both a component in military ordnance and as a weapon itself. Frost giants first discovered the process of infusing a weapon with everfrost sometime before or during the Mithril Era. The first mortals to hone this technology were the dwarves of the Bluefrost Mountains and their tradition remains alive among the dwarves of the Jagat Kingdom deep in Central Varangia. Weapons infused with everfrost inflict cold damage in addition to their usual damage. Sometimes the enchantment can be enhanced further to for additional effects, such as slowing an opponent down, causing frostbite, or even freezing a foe solid.
Everfrost is sometimes used to infuse arcane focuses with energy to enhance evocation spells such as ray of frost. Some mages have attempted to use everfrost to preserve living creatures in a state of suspended hibernation but the results of these experiments have yet to so consistent survivable results.
Hazards
Working in close proximity to everfrost presents a great deal of challenges. Cutters and mages that do not have biological adaptations for the cold must wear special gear in order to handle working with such a volatile material. Additionally, exporting everfrost usually involves sealing the material in several layers of furs and leather or sand and then placing the sealed block in a crate made of a flexible pine or willow wood. Vessels that transport everfrost often place wards onboard as well to ensure the raw material doesn't freeze any moisture below decks, which can result in damage to the craft and possibly sink it.
by Nathan Marciniak
A rare sphere of pure everfrost
Type
Metaphysical
Value
1.4 its weight in gold
Rarity
Rare
Color
Pale blue
Melting / Freezing Point
~1480° Celsius
Common State
Solid
Related Locations
Related Species
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