The Arcadian Icefields

"To Mom. I'm sorry for what I did. I hope you forgive me. I miss your warm embrace and your warm food. I miss the heat. I am cold." - Unknown journal entry found on a frozen adventurer's corpse, stuck in a fissure.

The Arcadian Icefields makes up about 90% of the landmass in Zidatzu, identified by the shifting snowbanks and snow dunes that shift constantly. But makes the Icefields dangerous is the actual icefields themselves: constant exposure to snow and ice created literally hundred square kilometers of ice sheets that form just over the solid earth, but because of the constant change in form has resulted in fissures being formed beneath the surface. It is quite common for adventurers and hunters to seek expeditions to the Icefields, only to have one surviving member explain to the citizens that their friend fell into a fissure and froze to death. Another common cause of death is the encounter of ice giants and white Dragonknights that call this place home. The ice giants make their native home here due to the weather causing blizzards that last 9 out of the 10 months of the Targonian year and the seclusion they actively seek. However, they don't go out of their way to hunt wanderers, unlike the white Dragonknights who attack whatever they see. No one knows how these white Dragonborn survive in the icefields (or scarier yet, thrive), but it is commonly believed that they must have a place of their own, probably with the white Dragonlord that rules of Zitadzu in the Dragonwars.

Geography

The Arcadian Icefields live up to its name: it mostly consists of rolling snowbanks that stretch for miles, the polar opposite of the sand dunes found in warmer climates like Nogahn Quiere. It also features large sweeping ice fields that are rumored to form over giant fissures that litter the nation the Zidatzu, making it very dangerous and hazardous for anyone to explore since a snowbank could very well hide a weak point in the ice and have them fall through with no help to get out. Besides that and the occasional odd brush from seeds blowing to the north from neighboring Eursia or Albish Granova, the Arcadian Icefields are mostly featureless. It is surrounded by the Northern Targonian Sea and the Redemption Coast to the east. It constantly endures a blizzard that lasts for 9 months out of the 10 in the Targonian calender.

Fauna & Flora

Flora & Fauna are exceedingly rare in the Arcadian Icefields, thanks in large part to the hostile weather it sees. For fauna, you have the occasional batch of snowberries that bloom for about 3 months, from 1 month before the blizzard ends and one month after it starts up again. Another one, more common the snowberries, are the cordalises, a type of root commonly found in the fissures of icefields which flourish underneath the weather but can't survive on the surface. For fauna, herds of caribou occasionally trek through the Icefields, coming in from the far northern tip of Eursia and its tundra condition. Snowbirds like ice hawks and berrybombers also do this trek. Inhabitants include ice giants, which find the constant blizzard to be their ideal condition, and the infamous white Dragonknights, who constantly harass the citizens of Haven and the rest of Zitadzu, their secrets of surviving on their own remains a mystery.

Natural Resources

Zidatzu, under better circumstances, would be home to many quarries of stone and ice, and the cordalises is a powerful and valuable alchemy ingrediant, and the caribou would provide great pelts and meat for hunters in the local area, but nearly of this is locked off by the constant ice and snow that perpetuates the Arcadian Icefields.

Alternative Name(s)

The Frozen Hell

Type

Tundra