The Citadel of Eternal Ice

The Citadel of Eternal Ice is a landmark in Landorya. The Citadel of Eternal Ice is a fortress-temple hewn entirely from a single ancient glacier, its spires and buttresses carved over generations into forms that echo the jagged peak… Geography: The Citadel occupies the summit of a broad glacial promontory several hours' travel from Frosthold, elevated above the surrounding wastes s… Climate: The Citadel maintains a supernaturally stable cold that Frostborn shamans describe as Glacius's direct presence. Even i…

The Citadel occupies the summit of a broad glacial promontory several hours' travel from Frosthold, elevated above the surrounding wastes so that it is visible from great distances as a pale gleaming mass against the grey sky. Its approaches are wide, flat ice-roads maintained by Citadel keepers, and its outer walls rise in sheer unbroken faces of translucent blue-white ice.

The Citadel maintains a supernaturally stable cold that Frostborn shamans describe as Glacius's direct presence. Even in summer's brief warmth, no surface within its walls softens or drips. The air inside is perfectly still and carries the faint resonant hum the Frostborn call the Singing Ice.

The Citadel was not built in a single generation but accumulated across centuries of devotional carving, each generation of shamans adding chambers, passages, and inscriptions to what their ancestors had begun. Its earliest carved sections predate the Age of Fracture, and certain runes in the deepest chambers use a variant of the Frostborn runic alphabet that even Elder Astrid Longmemory cannot fully interpret. During the Age of Fracture, the Citadel remained intact while surrounding settlements were abandoned, and it served as a refuge for those who could reach it.

It is said that Glacius descended into the Citadel in corporeal form only once — at the moment of the Frostborn's greatest despair, when the Age of Fracture had shattered all inter-clan bonds. His footprints, impressed into the glacier floor of the innermost sanctum in crystalline patterns unlike any natural ice formation, are still visible today. No shaman has attempted to inscribe over them.

The Citadel is maintained by a dedicated order of Keeper-Shamans who dwell within its walls year-round, tending the Vigil Torches, recharging fading runes, and conducting the daily devotional rites to Glacius. Frostborn pilgrims travel to the Citadel at key points in their lives: at their Frost Naming, at their coming-of-age hunt, before their bonding ceremony, and in the final winter of old age. The Citadel accepts all Frostborn who come in reverence and sends none away unfed.