Rimefire Glade

Center of All's picture

Situated deep in a valley on Ice lies a small forest. The trees are like trees you'll find on any Prime tundra, except they're completely encased in ice and covered by snow. A dark sky hangs over the valley, but a faint light, like starlight, descends from the skies to illuminate the forest. The entire place glows like a magical, crystalline forest lit up by a full moon.

A small town, mostly of mortals -- humans and genasi of various types -- has grown up in the center of the valley. The buildings are built from the trees cleared out to make room for the town, and all of them glitter in the same moonlight glow as the rest of the forest.

The forest sees some of the typical wildlife expected from frozen forests on Prime worlds. Mammals with snowy white fur wander the woods, and occasionally an ice paraelemental or a tundra fey is seen moving among the frozen woods. But the flora and fauna in Rimefire Glade are not the sight people go to see.

Every several cycles, a bright, blue-white blaze runs through the sky. Some Prime greybeards call it an "aurora borealis" but that's not quite right. See, on Prime worlds, the aurora is normally green. In the Glade, it's pure rimefire, a chilling, beautiful rush of light through the dark sky above the valley.

On even rarer occasions, the rimefire hangs low enough in the sky to set the forest ablaze. The icy tongues of frozen flame lick across the treetops, covering them in a new layer of ice and lighting the sky up as brightly as the day. From within the valley, the sky looks covered in bright, sparkling lights. From the tops of the slopes surrounding the valley, the entire forest looks like a breathtaking field of gleaming gems stretching across the floor.

Truly, a sight any Sensate must see.

-- A record in a Sensate's travelogue.

sciborg2's picture
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Factol
Joined: 2005-07-26
Definitely need to use this

Definitely need to use this somehow. I love the idea of the flames leaving frost on the trees. Beautiful. Though without any magic to aid it, can plants grow in the Plane of Ice?

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Center of All's picture
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factotums
Joined: 2004-05-11
The beauty of the planes is

The beauty of the planes is that there are some things cutters just don't know the darks of.  But a few canny bloods and greybeards have come up with a few theories:

  • There's actually an Earth pocket underneath all the snow and frost and the trees are able to grow out of that.
  • To expand on the above, the "trees" aren't really trees, but intricate tree-like rock formations weathered over the ages by the rimefire aurora. 
  • The trees are a special breed of plant that is especially hardy and thrives in subzero temperatures.  They're from a distant Prime and were transplanted here by a freak magic accident.
  • The trees are actually protected or watched over by frost-fey spirits that dwell in the depths of the forest or by the townsfolk in the Rimefire Village.  Or both.

Hundreds of other ideas will work as an explanation.  I'd be interested in hearing your take!

As an aside, I will probably edit this article some since I just kind of threw it together and I think I could streamline it and make it sound better and more Planescape.

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