> [!infobox|wikipedia] > # Frostway > [![[Frostway_small.webp|cover hsmall]]](Frostway.webp) > ###### Location Information > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Type | Point of Interest | > Location | [[Northern Reaches]] | > Defining Feature | Frozen sea-ice crossing to [[Val Noren]] | > ###### Status > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Status | Active | The Frostway is the frozen-sea winter corridor through the [[Northern Reaches]], the only reliable route to [[Val Noren]] when the open water turns untenable. Each cold season the sea ice closes the channels between the region's scattered islands into a single broken bridge of ice — and each warm season it recedes again, leaving no crossing at all. It is among the most treacherous stretches of terrain in all of [[Elandis]], and the sole working ground of the [[Frostwardens]], the brotherhood of ice-guides who hold a near-total monopoly on safe passage across it. ## Location & Geography The Frostway lies in the far north-east of [[Valtorra]], threading through the island chain of the [[Northern Reaches]] between the frontier town of [[Point Blackrock]] and the ancient ore-city of [[Val Noren]] on the chain's largest island. It is not a permanent feature of the map. In the warm seasons it does not exist as a road at all — the Reaches are simply a string of large, rocky islands separated by cold open sea, with no possible crossing. The ice on the higher parts of the islands likely never fully melts, but it recedes enough that the channels open and the way is closed to travellers on foot. When the cold seasons return, the sea ice forms naturally across the fractured chain, bridging the gaps between island and island until a continuous route of ice connects the mainland to [[Val Noren]]. There is nothing arcane beneath it: the Frostway is a natural frozen sea, not a phenomenon. What makes it deadly is the terrain itself and the things that hunt upon it. The crossing is never the same twice. Each year the freeze settles differently — currents, storms, and the hidden flow of the deep water beneath the ice cause shifts, cracks, and upheavals, so that no two crossings follow the same path. The ice is not one solid stretch but a broken patchwork of ice fields, frozen tide pools, narrow ridges, and isolated "ice islands", and the Frostwardens' work is to read that patchwork anew on every journey and find a path a caravan can survive. Certain stretches are infamous enough to carry their own names: - **The Shattered Fields** — huge swathes of broken, unstable ice where falling through into the black water below is a constant danger. - **The Howling Narrows** — a narrow canyon between two black spires, where the icy wind sets up disorienting echoes that confound navigation. - **The Veiled Rift** — a deceptively smooth, even plain that hides thin ice sheets stretched over deadly crevasses. A guided crossing takes around ten days on foot with luck on your side; seven if you are willing to gamble on the more treacherous routes. The weather windows are short, and the longer a caravan is out on the ice, the more the Frostway itself becomes the enemy. ## Hazards of the Ice Beyond the named stretches, the Frostway threatens travellers at every step: - **Sudden cracks** — a safe-looking ice field can split apart in the night, tilting and swallowing anything frozen into its surface down into the blackness. - **Avalanches** — built-up ice and snow on the black peaks can break loose and cascade down in a wall of falling rubble. - **Blizzards** — complete whiteouts in which even sound is muffled, and navigation becomes all but impossible. - **Thin-ice zones** — stretches that bear only light foot traffic; a heavy load or an ill-judged fight can doom an entire group. - **Aurora disorientation** — the auroras that light the northern sky can confuse night travel, painting false horizons and optical illusions across the ice. ## Monsters of the Frostway The terrain is not the only thing that kills out here — the Frostway is also hunted. The [[Frostwardens]] have learned the territories of its predators and route their caravans around them, but encounters still come. | Creature | Notes | | --- | --- | | Polar Bears | Enormous and aggressive, adapted to the harshest ice; they hunt isolated or wounded travellers. | | Winter Wolves | Travel in intelligent packs and mount seemingly orchestrated attacks on camps. | | Yetis | Lurk among the black peaks; territorial, and nearly impossible to spot in a whiteout. | | Abominable Yetis | Singular terrors — white behemoths said to hunt by scent and track a camp across miles of broken ice. | | Frost Worms (Remorhazes) | Rare, but warm burrows have been found near the Rift; the ground can collapse without warning. | | Frost Giants | Ancient, few, and nomadic, believed to walk the Frostway only in the coldest seasons; their footprints carve dangerous valleys into the ice. | | Rocs | Colossal birds of prey that nest among the high black peaks; they stoop out of the white sky to snatch beasts of burden and stragglers from the ice. | Two things draw the hunters together more than chance would explain. The first is the Riftshards — at least one such shard lies buried out on the ice, discovered in a cavern during the Bloody Nails' crossing, and Riftshards draw monsters to them. Given how thickly the predators range across the whole crossing, it can be assumed that others lie scattered through the islands, and this is the underlying reason the Frostway teems with hunters where empty ice should not. The second is noise. Large groups moving across the ice send vibrations down through it that draw the monsters in from miles away. The Frostwardens know this well — it is half the reason they keep to small, quiet caravans and careful routes out on the open channel ice. A marching army is the worst thing imaginable to set upon the Frostway, a truth the [[Valtorran Empire|Crimson Empire]] learned to its cost when it forced its advance toward [[Val Noren]] across the ice. ## Havens of the Frostway Over the centuries the [[Frostwardens]] — and the desperate merchants before them — have found and built a handful of safe havens where a caravan can shelter: - **Blackrock Shelters** — small caves and natural hollows in the great jagged rocks, reinforced with timber and stone by past travellers and often marked with old [[Frostwardens|Frostwarden]] sigils. - **Old Cairns** — ancient stone cairns where a fire can be lit safely without weakening the ice beneath; the oldest sometimes hold hidden stores of supplies, or offerings left for the dead. - **The Singing Arch** — a natural stone arch among the black rocks that hums low when the wind threads through it, held to be a lucky place to camp. - **The Hollow Isle** — a larger, stable ice island with a sunken centre, sheltered from storms by sheer ice cliffs, used for multi-day rests when blizzards trap a caravan. > [!quote] Frostwarden Saying > "Out on the Frostway, a roof over your head and a wall at your back is the difference between seeing tomorrow or being another whisper on the wind." ## [[The Bloody Nails|Campaign: The Bloody Nails]] #### [[Session 33 - A Camp Alight]] With the [[Valtorran Empire|Crimson Empire]] occupying [[Point Blackrock]] and holding the [[Frostwardens#Crews|Fox Crew]] captive to guide its advance, the party freed the wardens and a crowd of civilian refugees and led a stampede north onto the ice. They reunited at the edge of the Frostway, where [[Vaeleran]] introduced the rescuers to the bewildered wardens as "The Bloody Nails", and the crossing began. #### [[Session 34 - Mourning Bells]] The journey continued under an unrelenting storm. After a respite at a cairn shelter and a near-mutiny among the frightened refugees, the caravan pressed deeper into the ice fields. The wardens led the party into an unnatural gouge in the ice and a humid, moss-lined cavern at its end — where a large egg and a warping dimensional rift forced an immediate retreat. Days later the scouts found the frozen massacre site of the Wolf Crew, every member dead in the ice; a bell rung in their memory set off a tremor, and three Remorhazes erupted from the ravine walls. #### [[Session 35 - The Frostway]] Reaching the Hollow Isle, the party found [[Frostwardens#Crews|Kellan]], sole survivor of the Wolf Crew, who revealed that the Frostway's monsters had been roused not by chance but by the vibrations of thousands of Imperial soldiers marching on [[Val Noren]]. Choosing the Veiled Rift over the Shattered Fields, the party crossed the thin ice by ritual, weathered a Yeti ambush and a catastrophic avalanche, and made the final stretch under cover of magic. They emerged at the outskirts of [[Val Noren]] to find the city walled, encircled by a sprawl of Imperial tents, and crowned by a single ominous pillar of smoke. ## Trivia - The Frostway is a road that exists for only part of the year — in the warm seasons it is open sea, and the "crossing" is simply a chain of islands with no way between them. The Frostwardens' entire craft is built around a route that the world erases and redraws with the turning of the seasons.