#i do love the ice and cold

[honourablejester]

Numenera Setting Notes: Points of Interest Part IV

Cracking open the Ninth World Guidebook for the weird and wonderful areas beyond the Steadfast and the Beyond. We’re heading south into the tundra of the Frozen South beyond the Southern Wall today.

Part IV: The Frozen South (Ninth World Guidebook)

Just the opening description of the Frozen South as an area makes me happy, but I really vibe with tundra and polar regions in fantasy. I have a thing with ice magic, with the polar night and polar day, with the calling ice. So, you know.

I also like two general setting details for the Frozen South: there’s a kind of common madness that comes from the silence and the isolation called ‘the evanescence’, which can result in someone completely isolating themselves to death, OR disassociating completely from humanity and becoming blankly murderous. Which is a cool background thing to have going. And then there’s the religion of the area, the Frozen South believes in thousands of ice gods called the Nacrescenti, who are so numerous that some people believe that every person in the Frozen South has their own Nacrescenti that watches over them. The Nacrescenti festival is called Thousand Eve and it’s on the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. There’s no organised Nacrescenti religion, because a person’s relationship with the Nacrescenti/their Nacrescenti is private and personal. And, again, I’m vibing with this a lot. Heh.

The Seraph Tempest, in the Southern Wall. This is written as a little mini adventure, and it’s lovely. The Seraph Tempest is a sentient ship/crawler-sized war machine lost in the honeycomb of caves riddling the vast artificial glacier of the Southern Wall. It’s being sought by a lot of people, including the ice automatons of the Southern Wall, who’d like to use it to expand the Wall, but also by others, because war machine. But the Seraph itself is sentient, and might have its own opinions, if allowed. I have immediate opinions here. But this is a lovely little mini-adventure.

The Spheres of the Urulivan Plain. Bright blue ‘glass’ spheres that mysteriously move around the ice plain when no-one’s looking, and make things very weird in their vicinity. Aging young creatures to maturity inside days, restoring spoiled food, disintegrating glass, making you lose the ability to say your own name, yeeting random objects into space, altering your eyesight, etc. They’re just weird, and people on the plains tend to avoid them. I would immediately try and poke one, because I’m like that.

The Turral, in Arxil, the Frozen City. AKA The Magnetic Peak. It’s an artificial synth-and-metal double peaked mountain that the city is built across that increases magnetism the further into you go, until you reach the centre where magnetism stops working altogether, but if you bring a level 6 or higher magnet into the inner chamber, you rip a hole through to another universe. Because naturally. The hole lasts an hour per level of magnet, and you lose the magnet. In theory this is controllable, but there’s no known way to pick which alternate universe you rip through to. The city mostly ignores this and lets it be to do its own thing. Despite the fact that the city fully does have an academy dedicated to salvaging and understanding numenera, as the whole city is built on a previous prior-world city, but let’s all leave the universe-ripping magnetic chamber alone, hmm? (Sidenote: the Academy of Antiquity itself is also pretty cool, with entrenched rivalries between the salvagers and the scientists. Cool place to set out from on adventures).

Dythe, on the western coast, one of the few towns on the coastal side of the lethal Matemal Mountains. It doesn’t have anything particularly notable besides its paralyzed but incredibly psychic mayor who runs the town via her family, but I just like the place. It’s a stubborn little fishing town on the lethally stormy coast of a lethally frozen mountain range, and it’s just chilling out here, still kicking. It does have a mysterious obelisk lying on its side just off shore, acting sort of like a barrier island, that is the exact twin of the Amber Monolith back in the Steadfast, and no one’s successfully made it into this one, so there is that. But I just like the town itself.

The Invisible Vale. Which is not invisible, but is defended by an invisible shield, which gives the vale a temperate climate compared to the tundra outside. The shield may be fading, but at a rate that’ll still leave the Vale warmer than everything around it for millennia yet. And it is, of course, run by a tyrant. Darcadian Everlar runs the city of Cyanachor in the centre of the Vale, a city of art and beauty, and seeks to eventually conquer all of the Frozen Lands. He’s helped by the fact that Cyanachor has ancient matter-replication devices called ‘Creation Pits’ in the caves beneath it that can supply endless raw materials for him. I’m not sure what it is specifically, but I’m getting powerful pulp SF, planetary romance, Flash Gordon sort of vibes from this place? Very ‘The Fantastic Journey’. Which I enjoy! Also, they have a deathly rivalry with the military of Arxil, above, owing to a previous assassination-and-takeover attempt, and I’m here for it.

The City of Smoke in Suruliath, the even-more-frigid tundra in the very south of the Frozen South. Which, sidenote, has ‘burst events’ where lethal crystal shards randomly explode upwards out of the permafrost, which is cool, that is a thing that happens here. But the City of Smoke is a vast flying city of smooth crystalline synth in a cloud of ‘smoke’. And if you fly up to it and attempt to enter/land on it, sometimes it’s solid, and sometimes it turns back to smoke. Or rather, back to nano-particles. It’s a pristine prior-world ruin, a whole city, interiors and numenera and artefacts and all, and a whole mirage of a city at the same time, that occasionally just completely discorporates itself on a whim and reconstitutes itself again later.

Moird, in Suruliath, on the coast of the Lucid Sea. For much the same reason as Dythe above, I just like polar coastal fishing towns, as a setting. IDK? Moird is on the coast of the Lucid Sea, also called the Last Sea, the last stretch of water between the continent and the South Pole. The Lucid Sea is almost always frozen over, but parts of it are clear, like Moird’s Erthan Bay, and the deeper central Reaches. And the people of Moird go spear fishing and whale hunting in razorboats, prior world ships that are basically floating heated ice knives that can cut through pack ice. For bonus fun points, in the Weird of the Frozen South, there’s a note that there’s a slumped 100ft tall humanoid frozen in the ice of the Lucid Sea, and it may be still alive.

I don’t know what it is about polar settings in fantasy? Well, science fantasy in this case. Or science fiction, too, with Starfinder and Verces’ night side. I just like frozen settings when there’s mystery and horror and magic about. Maybe I read/watched the Snow Queen too young? Or, again, I can probably blame some of it on my dad reading us Robert W. Service’s The Cremation of Sam McGee as a bed time story as kids. That probably shapes a person, maybe. Heh. But yes. I very much enjoy the Frozen South in Numenera. A very excellent piece of the setting!

[turtleblogatlast]

I am once again reiterating that Leo could and should be a figure skater because what are ice skates if not twin blades? What is dual blade swordsmanship if not a dance-like performance? Using the skates as blades themselves could let Leo make portals be his ice rink no? I rest my case. ⛸️

[little-pondhead]

Both Danny and Phantom have freckles. The only reason Wes can’t use this fact on his conspiracy board, however, is because Danny has freckles in the summer, and Phantom has freckles in the winter.

Every time Wes tries to convince people that Danny and Phantom are the same person, people around him being up this fact and his whole argument crumbles to the ground. He spends weeks trying to find any possible reason Danny’s freckles are on the opposite sides of the seasonal scale.

This is the only reason Danny’s identity has not been blown yet.

[here-comes-the-moose]

I’m so glad that Season 3 basically confirmed one (well basically two) of my biggest Wrecker headcanons- he would love to fish and would love boats.

[yache-berries]

*sends them off to Unova for their umpteenth honeymoon in my school's clubhouse room*

[bylertruther]

sucks that the party is supposed to be important n meaningful and yet [to me, it feels like] the duffers put more effort into scoops troop than them. sad sad sad i'm gonna walk off a cliff immediately

[tillman]

coffee order tierlist.

[good-beansdraws]

Thinking of a fantasy au teamup.... ❄️🔥

[hewantshisbrideback]

"M'lady? You look sad. Are you thinking of your sister?" The dwarf patted her on the hand. "The Crone will light your way to her, never fear. The Maiden will keep her safe."

"I pray that you are right."

Brienne II, A Feast for Crows

[petoskeystones]

whoa thats crazy do you think their ghosts were friends though

right now on beechey island its 23 degrees fahrenheit and raining and theyre sharing john hartnell's shroud talking about outfits they would wear if they werent ghosts (they see a lot of modern outfits on the tourists that come to visit them)......... john torrington is like i think i could rock jeans :D and john hartnell is like you could absolutely rock jeans <3 i think i'd like to wear a flannel shirt and a different toque :) [live liam braine and tom morgan reaction]

so short answer, i've thought about it a normal amount, and my answer is yeah

[icewindandboringhorror]

sneeping with his legs up over his head for some reason... weird boye

[iristial]

[princeloww]

broadchurch fic named after christina perris jar of hearts.........

[coulsonlives]

Re-reading the comics and I totally forgot how dark they are

[siren-of-agony]

Ready To Comply

The Winter Soldier's last mission. | slight Stucky vibes but mostly fighting the conditioning.

Longing - Kurt Uenala / Rusted - Kayak Jones / Seventeen - Sir Chloe / Daybreak - Pallbearer / Furnace - Martin Stig Andersen / Nine - Sleeping At Last / Benign - With Teeth / Homecoming - Chris Linton / One - Harry Nilsson / Freight Train - Sara Jackson-Holman // The Winter Soldier - Henry Jackman //// Not Human - elegant slims / Poor Isaac - The Airborne Toxic Event / Lose Your Soul - Dead Man's Bones / Dead In This House - IAMX / Bullet Proof.. I Wish I Was - S. Carey / Splintered - Aisha Badru / Killer - The Hoosiers / Kitchen Fork - Jack Conte / Where Is My Mind - Safari Riot / Expectations - Sir Sly / empty crown - YAS / the Simplest Words - The Narcissist Cookbook / Asleep (Acoustic) - Sleeping At Last / Superhero - Johnny Hollow / Woke Up A Rebel - Reuben And The Dark / Fallin Infinite - Black Math / Elsa's Song - The Amazing Devil / Bullet With Butterfly Wings - Karen O / Bioluminescent - Softwire / I am the Antichrist to You - Kishi Bashi /Souls on Fire - Mad Gallica / железо поёт - Flёur / Older - Autoheart / Real Pain - Indigo De Souza / Human - Daughter //// Farewell To Bucky - Alan Silvestri // End - Hayden Calnin / Of - Nrthrn / The Line - Aure

I couldn't find a playlist that used the Winter Soldier's activation code so I simply made one. Working in these restraints was actually very fun and I have to say, I'm incredibly proud of this one. I feel like all the songs I picked for his words work both musically and lyrically and the order of the other ones was picked very deliberately as well. Normally this kind of rant goes in the tags but I wanted to include it here to ask that if you ever listen to a playlist of mine from start to finish, make it this one :D

___________________________________________ Taglist: @gottawhump @painsandconfusion @bright-whump @whumpwillow @dont-touch-my-soup @mostlydeadallday @kim-poce @lonesome--hunter @getyourwhumphere @not-your-housekeeper98 @yesthisiswhump @waitingforrescue @i-can-even-burn-salad @lazy8whump @painful-pooch (If you want to be taken off or included for coming playlists, please let me know!)

[iniziare]

Tag drop: Dorian Pavus