So, this all started a couple of weeks ago. It was really a confluence of different things, between the Menagerie contest for the Snow Ooze and a few other factors, I just have had ice on the mind for a while. Everyone knows that in any multi-world setting, there will inevitably be a world of nothing but cold and ice. So, it seemed a missed opportunity for the M:EM. We have a little indication that there are some canon settings like this, but there's a lot of opportunity for us to do our own, particularly since for all intents and purposes, Wizards doesn't seem to have a lot of interest in embracing the snow type.

Well, since I've made our very own Artifact world, I thought I'd go ahead and embrace the next supertype and build around it. So far the world doesn't have a name, but there are a lot of details that have come together. I'll be incrementally adding small details together in the following posts, but I'm hoping I can get enough interest together that people will want to contribute and add suggestions to the framework I'm assembling.

Cosmology notes:
The world operates on a lunar calender. The reason for this is that the frigid world does not orbit any star. It is a world blanketed by eternal night, the only light known are the distant stars in the sky and the triple moons that circle the world, shining with their own luminescence. Very likely, the entire world would be nothing but powder and ice if not for one blessed source of heat.
The AuroraSolaris.
The astronomical phenomenon is unlike the lights that dance upon other worlds. It is the only source of heavenly warmth and the thin ribbon that keeps the world just shy of being totally frozen.
The Aurora Solaris, called many things by the different cultures, occurs with a predictable degree of regularity. Twice yearly, the phenomenon becomes more and more frequent until the activity reaches a zenith and the aurora blazes for approximately 2 weeks straight. Afterwards, it slowly ebbs off until its regular pattern asserts itself once more.
At approximately midyear, it reaches a low point, blazing across the sky for mere hours before glittering to nothingness.


So, the above is my solution for explaining both how the world remains frozen year round as well as the question of how life could possibly survive there. I know I'm essentially trading the sun for a heavenly phenomenon, but it doesn't operate on the same schedule that our own Sol does. As it is, I need to do some research into Lunar calenders so that I can appropriately understand how they measure time, but the presence of three moons gives me at least a lot of leeway to make crap up as I go along.

Mana:
The only real sources of warmth in terms of magic are the white mages, who are said to wield a fraction of the Aurora. All others have largely focused on channeling the different facets of the cold. Within every color though, there is a mana which is the core of the world. It has no allegiance, manifesting within every color, and yet it transcends that color as well. Those who have learned to channel that frozen mana are the most disciplined and powerful on the world, but also seen as outcasts. Their services are useful, but their hearts are cold and most do not trust them.



I actually have quite a lot in mind already structured for the races. It helps, in part, because I'm focusing on the classic enemy color structure, but even then, I mostly don't have any of their actual cultures down. Mostly their survival and trading practices, but not much in terms of other things.
I've got NOTHING for the humans so far really.

Aesthetically I am cobbling together a working world model out of Gaelic, Teutonic, and Inuit influences, with just a light easterly touch.

Anyways, I'll update more after some sleep, but I hope this has caused some interest to bubble up. Once we get into the meat of the worldbuilding, I imagine things will probably pick up, but there are still a few problems that I'm facing in regards to the nitty gritty structure o the world as well.

This looks pretty cool...



Anyway, seriously, this looks good. I'll look into this with more depth when I get the chance, which should hopefully be within the next two weeks or so.

I see what you did there, Raven. Pretty cold of you to just slip in a joke like that.

Anyway, I agree that the concept could work. However, I would like it if we could finish the commander world first...

Everybody needs to just chill out before they say something they'll regret.

At this point, I only have two real things to say:
One, that it can't be called the Auroroa [b]Solaris[//b] unless there used to be a sun which to name the phenomenon after.

Second, with three moons, their calendar would have a lot of divisions, because it would entail (at least) both the phases of each moon and their positions relative to each other. I imagine something like a Mayan calendar, where long-term patterns are the norm rather than the easily repeatable Gregorian one we use.

Perhaps the elves, aesthetically, should resemble 5-7 foot tall ouphes? The ouphe's fur and thicker builds seem practical in a world of ice.

This world NEEDS giants. Maybe not many, maybe the survivors of a long-fallen civilization, maybe even myths/ruins/artifacts... but if there's an ice world and neither hide nor hair of a Frost Giant, We might have a problem.

I think one good thing recent WotC design has done is focus more on national and cultural divisions than a hard and fast line regarding color: The provinces of Innistrad and Polis of Theros have strong chromatic associations, but they aren't the monolithic cycle of white/blue/black/red/green place, and for human societies that feels more natural.

So for humans, I find it good if there are 2-4 sorts of societies. A few potential archetypes...
Xenophobe: White centric, with either black or blue. Insular, community-driven aurora-worshippers. Have a sharp divide between self/light/good and other/dark/evil. Distrust other humans and vilify nonhuman races
Steward: White and either green, red, or both. Alternate take on aurora-followers, who see it as their place to nurture and spread life and/or civilization. Neutral on militarism, and initially friendly to outsiders, though as effectively a proselytizing culture, they hope to eventually convert those they encounter to their way of thinking
Barbarian: Red and/or green. Do not build permanent structures or dwellings. Focus on personal or pack strength, and leveraging every advantage they can from the land itself. Neutral towards outsiders, but not sympathetic to anyone, outsider or their own, who can't keep pace and pull his or her own weight
Cult: Black and either blue or red. Serve a higher, non-aura power, real or imagined, in exchange for what is viewed as grace -- either protection, knowledge, sustenance, or some combination of the three. Could serve as minions of a nonhuman civilization better able to handle the world, or as their own thing, worshipping their patron as the aurora-followers worship the aurora, perhaps with some direct interaction if the patron is a real thing. Possible patrons are one or more gods or goddesses with darkness/ice portfolios, demons, dragons, giants...
Cold: Blue, possibly with any other nonwhite (since white is heat in this world). Similar to Heidar and his Rimewind followers, these humans have honestly taken to the ice and snow and made its power their own. They might be divergent from other humans in minor ways (such as an increased cold tolerance, or sorcerous powers), or their symbiosis with the ice might be purely a matter of cultural practices.
Tech: Blue/red, maybe with some white. Determined to create ways to live when the world doesn't provide them -- mine and burn coal or run major logging operations. Steam-powered artifice is possible. Strongly associated with fire/heat but not necessarily with the Aurora's pure and natural source of light/heat. Their existence would not be easy since they're constantly consuming resources to heat and light their homes and forges. Like a water-focused power in a desert-world, they provide bastions of "civilization" and comfort where none would otherwise exist

Technically it SHOULDN'T be called anything even remotely "Solar" since people tend to forget that's a PROPER APPELLATION for our specific star. You shouldn't even use the term Solar for any world outside our system.
With that in mind, I'm trying to be evocative, so I don't think there had to have been a sun since it wouldn't have been the star Sol either.
Which does remind me, I'll need to name the three moons at some point. Which is ironic since you're name is Luna.


The main problem taking that into effect is that there aren't any phases. They aren't reflecting light, but shining with their own. Their position as relative to each other is still true, but it's something I knew would probably make up the bulk of the calender. I expect each of the moons to have an effect on the measurement of the day, week, and month respectively, with position in the sky probably determining what the date at any given time would be. In theory, Lunar alignment would happen once a month in this method, giving an easy marker.

As an aside, this approach has really made me think of how much we take "Day" as a word for granted.

There really wouldn't be much point to that since... well, Ouphe is already a creature type. There wouldn't be much advantage to make the elves look like ouphes when I could just use Ouphes.

There's probably space for them, but that said, Frost Giant is probably a no, mostly because BLUGH that art... I would say use Frost Titan but they don't feel right in blue.
There's space enough for them, but we'll choose their place carefully.


Yeah, for humans I was planning on dividing them up by an uneven grouping focusing on natural interaction rather than purely color.
For one, with all the other various races, some more isolationist than others, it makes sense for some to be more divided than others and some to have very little in the way of contact with humans, which would impact how humans themselves grouped. Take Green for example, which is primarily in the elves demesne. The elves live in the lowlands where they are more shielded by weather, allowing for forests to grow. They're position means there would be relatively little overlap between the humans that share their lands and the ones in the highlands. The highlands are primarily W/R simply because of geography.
The Geographical division is probably going to end up like this, though this is very roughly me shooting from the hip.
W/R Highlands
G Lowlands
U/B Fae territory
W/B Wastelands

The main problem here is that it tends towards being uneven, which I find somewhat vexing but...

Actually leaning pretty hard away from tech and more towards arcane solutions.
There is some use of geothermals, but I can only think it's probably the red humans who do it since if I were a Yeti, I wouldn't want to try to mess with fire, what with being covered in hair...
Anyways, the main reason I'm responding specifically to this one out of all the ones posted is that one of the things I'm at a bit of a loss for is determining, really, which of the cultures pulls metal out of the land. It doesn't feel right on any of the others, so that basically leaves only humans but that's providing for a LOT of others with a relatively small pool of one facet of one division of a people.

Oops. My bad. Forgot about no sun=no phases. I suppose you could have their light affect each other, such that their relative brightness is a factor in the calendar.

What other planets do you have planned in this system? We've known of (I believe) 5 other planets since ancient times, because they're visible as "moving stars". I can only imagine a world without a sun as being more sensitive to the stars in the sky (especially since they wouldn't have to remember where the stars were last night).

There's definitely a focus on astronomy on the world, but besides being a vague concept, I haven't thought through many of the details.
The idea about other planets is intriguing but somewhat foiled since one of the things that was most notable about ancient planet observation was their unusual movement.
Ice World, and any other worlds that might occupy their system wouldn't rotate around any central point. They wouldn't move any differently than other stars. They'd also have the issue of being a dark spot since... well, it's the reflection of the sun that made the planets stand out as "moving stars" as well.
We take the sun for granted so much that it really takes a lot to imagine a world that doesn't function as ours does. For another, it's difficult to think of a world without any real seasons either. I can only imagine there's still motion present within the planetary body itself for two reasons, one being the shift in the night sky, the other being that a world actually needs that motion to keep the core from cooling. I mean, I could handwave some magic in there, but I mentioned there is some geothermal harnessing going on.

With all that having been said, the sextant is probably one of THE most common tools in anybody's arsenal.

Some ouphes do look a bit elvish aside from their height. Pointy ears, semi-human face, strong mandible. You just have the added bonus of fur, which could be useful in a cold environment. Unless your elves have no problem taking pelts for survival, which could also be interesting. They could also have some magic that allows them to make use of human skin/fat as insulation against the cold if they don't want to kill forest-dwelling animals.

You got that right. I keep shooting blanks here, don't I?

On the other hand, suppose you had an Earth-sized (or whatever multiple) rocky planet orbiting (at the proper distance) a black hole that isn't at the galactic center. For the sake of safety, let's assume it's not a quasar or other harmful-jet-emitting black hole. That could allow for, if not other planets, at least an interesting counter-sun; a point in the sky that stars disappear from as the day goes on.

Doesn't solve the seasons problem, though

Nah, my elves have no problems with killing things.* Hell, the current elf king murdered his brother to get the throne. He had a good reason for it, so it's not like it was an ambitious power grab.
I haven't actually thought of what that was, but we'll get to that when we get to it.

*They'll kill things in the wild without any compunction, it's the domestication of animals that they don't cant to.

I have set up that elfin magic is totemic by nature. It's all grounded in symbolism and reality, which is supposed to be a mirror of the fae illusion magic. So, with elves, you get a lot of charms and totem armor. They likely have totems that summon creatures too, similar to the time spiral totems except they'd be smaller and be more indicative of summoning the actual creature instead of turning the totem into it.

It's a cool idea, but I don't think it's right for this world. Leans a little too far into the science of things, and while I feel a lot of astronomy could still be grounded in fantasy, things like black holes and the advanced mathematics and science needed to observe them really are too advanced.
The seasons problem I sort of pseudo solved with the idea of the two week auroras that come twice a year. Which is grounded in how long days and nights last in the extreme polar regions.

Nice elves.

Actually, if you're going to make the Auroras tied to the magnetic poles (assuming they roughly line up with the orbital poles because we have no evidence they would not in most cases), then your polar regions would actually be around the equator. I am assuming that the heat is coming directly from the Auroras, since I don't see anything suggesting otherwise.

Other than that, I don't have anything else regarding seasons; it would seem that everything involving them -mating seasons, hibernation habits, growth of trees, etc.- would work off of the regularity of the Auroras and/or the alignment of the moons.

In fairness, the Solaris Aurora doesn't act exactly like ours, since it cascades all the way down the world. I do think there probably would be something about the aurora that influences magnetics, meaning compasses are about as useful as sundials. Thereby cementing the sextant's dominance! Bwuahahaha!
Oh, and yes, the aurora is a warm phenomenon, straight down to how it is viewed, with colors more reminiscent of sunset than of the normal greens and blues. (Though in fairness, purple and red are fairly common in the aurora as well, but that's due to the charge passing through nitrogen rich environs rather than the more prolific oxygen pockets)

Honestly, we're looking at an entire world of evergreens and perennials, so plantlife gets a pass of "I don't have to explain that".
Everything else is probably related to what you said though. Then again, I haven't exactly defined what caused the aurora, particularly without a sun causing it. I dunno, it's magic.

In which case, you wouldn't have polar regions (and I realize now that I hadn't specified that I mean polar as full of ice, like the Arctic and Antarctic), unless the Aurora moves extremely slowly.


Well, if it was my idea, I would make it tied to the mana of the world -not a specific color, but the mana base of the world itself- and have the mana pop up through the crust in random (or at the very least unpredictable) locations. Since you wanted an ice world originally, I would ditch the idea of colder polar regions (it hasn't been clear to me whether you have or not), and just have the unstable nature of the mana and its ties to the world's core just kind of wreak havoc with the magnetic field. Going a bit further with the idea of mana geysers, you could make the energies physically the visible colors of mana -white, blue, green, red, and I would go with deep purple rather than pure black- but rarely just one color bursting out of any one geyser. Certain civilizations (i.e. those with leanings toward colors or combinations) would spring up around these mana geysers, but the magic would not be explicitly tied to the geysers themselves.

Pretty much the entire world is arctic. I mean, the Aurora was only concepted as a means to keep everyone from just having frozen to death ages ago.
For the record, the Aurora is very variable. It happens pretty regularly, but the amount of time it lasts varies with the "seasons". Other than that, it occurs, on average, about every 2 rotations. (or whatever the "day" analogue is going to be.)


Nah, tying it to the mana sort of works in pseudo-reverse of what I'm really seeing. In part because white mana is tied, thematically, to the Aurora. There aren't mana geysers either, though there might be regular geysers and hot springs in some places.
As I mentioned above, there aren't arctic regions. The entire place is arctic with only a few exceptions, such as the lowlands, which are still cold as hell, but are more or less shielded from the harshest elements. Its where the elves settled.

But overall, I actually don't feel like I have to explain it. Kind of an example of explaining the trick killing the magic.

I just wanted to lay out how I would do it; I fully expected you to have a method much more involved than my lazy attempt there. I'm highly inclined to explain things, as you may have noticed.

You make me think of two things now, though:

1. How are you planning on making circadian rhythms? I imagine long circadian cycles based on the rise and set of one or more moons would be the best idea.
2. Will you address the high wind speeds?

Lunar influences seems to be the most natural option, so that's likely to be what I go with, though only if it comes up. Doesn't seem like the thing that might.

As for the winds, yes, there are certain areas that are a death sentence to be in. The wastelands. Nobody goes to the wastelands unprepared, it's suicide. For more reasons than you might imagine. The wastelands are vampire territory.
There are enough mountains to act as a buffer for the more habitable lands, with the lowlands being the most shielded.