There is something about frozen wastelands and snow-capped mountains in media that calls to me. Maybe it's the brutal beauty of it, or the themes of people overcoming the odds and surviving in these places. In games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, I would routinely go back to the snowy starter areas just to walk around and enjoy whatever they had to offer. I love survival games like the Long Dark, and the Frostpunk games are literally my favorite games of all time.

Of course in real life, I stay inside bundled up and warm for most of the winter, so it's definitely an appreciation of the idea more than the actual thing. But with that said, I want to work this love of the cold into my world-building. I am starting a series on several of the more interesting frozen isles and the peoples that live on them in the Skies of Mor-ladron (SoM).

This will probably be a high-level synopsis of each place/group to serve as a foundation for me to go back to if I want to dig deeper into the nitty-gritty. As of writing this, these islands have not been discovered by the powers that reside near the Worldstorm, so they have been left to their own devices...for now.

Here is one such people: The Edenwode, keepers of the eternal flame.

Edenwode

In the before times, the people of Edenwode were blessed by the deity of the sun, who gave them a spark of creation in the form of an eternal flame. The flame kept them warm and their wode green through most of the year, even while the surrounding lands suffered through long, harsh winters.

The people of Edenwode soon became known as great warriors as they defended their slice of paradise again and again against raiders and invaders. During the demon wars, heroes wielding sun-blessed armor and weapons forged from the eternal flame appeared on the front lines and the Edenwode was held in high esteem by many nations around the world.

But as we know, the gods left and the world shattered. The land grew colder and over the next 150 years the eternal flame, with no deity to sustain it, started to diminish.

Today, the eternal flame struggles to keep Edenwode above freezing during the coldest times of the year and sometimes the frost does not completely melt away as it should. During the short summer months, only the hardiest plants can be grown for food, providing much less sustenance than the populace was once used to. Still, is much more than can be grown in the tundra beyond.

Only three suits of sun-blessed armor and five such weapons remain unbroken from the demon wars, and the flamesmiths are no longer able to coax the flame into weapons and armor. They are only capable of crafting small sun-blessed trinkets. Edenwode has fallen far from the luxury and power that it knew before.

This decline has forced the people of Edenwode to look outside the borders of their woods for resources. Small villages have sprung up where such resources are plentiful—around lakes for fishing and near veins of iron ore for mining. Each of these villages received a small portion of the eternal flame, about the size of a campfire, to help protect their villages from the cold and for communication, as the flame priests can speak through the fires. However, these smaller fires do not last forever and need be be re-infused by the eternal flame every couple years. This is a major and solemn event, for the village is without its flame while this happens and it can take a week, even two if the weather is bad enough, for the flame to be returned reinvigorated.

The tale of the decline of Edenwode is a familiar one: a powerful city or kingdom falls once its source of power fades. But how does a sun-worshiping and sun-powered people change and adapt their culture to one of cold and survival? I think this could be an interesting culture to explore, particularly looking at more intricate details.

Would these people crossbreed their hounds with frostwolves to create a stronger breed to pull sleds across the icy wasteland? Or would they stick to something more fire-based, giving the hounds or beasts of burdens sun-blessed collars to help protect against the cold?

What do you think?

As an aside, you might have noticed that I have only referred to the people of Edenwode rather than naming an ancestry/race. This is because I am not yet sure who would live here. On the one hand, it could be a cool way to introduce a new ancestry that I have not yet added to SoM. On the other hand, I don't want to add just to add. Looking at the Draw Steel ancestries, I could see the people of Edenwode being humans or Gol (chaos-aligned humans), some kind of elf, or even orcs.

What do you think would fit well here? Something I listed above, or maybe a completely new ancestry?

What should I work on next?

• Should I dig more into the people of Edenwode?
• Write about the magical small folk who live in the wake of wandering giants?
• How about the industrial dwarves (or maybe ratfolk) who fight against the cold with steam/clockwork/arcane machines?
• Should I write about the dangerous creatures of cold that stalk the tundra, or the demonic hobgoblins who turned a volcano into a fortress from which to launch their conquest?

Let me know what you'd like to see in a comment, and watch for the next post!