The Frozen Wastes

North of the Whitefang Mountains lies a vast steppe, a windswept sea of shortgrass, sedge, and lichen. No trees grow here. The landscape is broken only by rocky outcrops, low moraines, and kettle lakes. It rarely snows and almost never rains, but hail is somewhat common.

Caribou and mammoths graze the plateau, preyed on by wolves and saber-toothed cats and terrible things that crawl forth from the lakes in summer. Bands of mammoth herders roam in warmer months. But for the most part, it's an empty and forlorn place.

Impressions

Always

• A landscape so wide and empty you can see the horizon curve
• The constant wind, whispering and howling, tugging and lashing
• Patterns forming in the windswept grass or snow, or the growth of flowers, like runes that fade just before you can read them
• The swell of anger, the urge to inflict violence on your companions, as your temper and patience fray

Traversing the Wastes

The Frozen Wastes are inhospitable in a way that southerners can barely comprehend. On any expedition into the wastes:

• You need a knowledgeable guide, like a mammoth herder, who knows the ways of this place
• You need lots of firewood or dried dung, for you'll find no fuel and even in the summer the "nights" can be freezing
• The way will be grueling (from cold and mud and bugs); you risk exhausting yourselves/your supplies
• You need to watch out for predators, like wolves or mchebra-gris (kleztigrs, basically, see The Steplands)
• You need to watch out for kettle lakes, easily mistaken for ice or shallow standing water
• You risk succumbing to the Howling Curse, which taints much of the Wastes

Questions

• What precious flower grows only in the Frozen Wastes, blooming for a few days each summer? Why is it so valuable?
• What do you find most surprising about this place?
• What do you find yourself missing the most, out here in vast and empty space?
• What is ___ doing, that you find so damned annoying?
• If you had to kill ___, how would you do it?
• If it came down to it, which of your companions would you eat first?

Hooks

• A villain that the PCs want dead flees north, into the Frozen Wastes
• Only one thing can kill the Crombil, and it lies at the bottom of a kettle lake
• The dark ice glacier that contains the Howling Curse has begun to melt and recede

Terrain

Pick 1 or combine 2, or have someone roll the Die of Fate (d12).

Discoveries

For any of these, pick 1 or have someone roll the Die of Fate (d6).

Mammoth herders

Here's a typical band:

Size hamlet (~15-30 souls)

Population +0

Prosperity -1

• Trade with (pick 1 or 2)...

• other mammoth herders
• a farming valley
• a fortress-monastery

Resources

• Mammoths (wool, ivory, bone, dung)
• Sleds/sledges of bone, hide, timber
• Hunting (wild mammoths, caribou, hare, fish)
• Gathering (timber, ivory, bone, flint, herbs, dark ice Defenses +0
• Mammoth-mounted warriors
• Hounds and hunting drakes
• Spears/javelins tipped with dark ice, flint, bone, or bronze (crude)

About half of each band are youngsters, with the rest being able-bodied adults.

Elders rarely allow themselves to survive long enough to become a burden to the others. A band typically keeps a herd of 10 to 20 adult mammoths, plus a few young. They butcher their own beasts only when desperate, keeping them instead for wool, transport, and labor.

A band spends the warmer months on the Frozen Wastes, but spend the colder months sheltering in the caves, ruins, and forests of the Whitefang Mountains. They'll trade with valley farms or fortress-monasteries in spring, before heading out into the Wastes, or in autumn, before they encamp for the winter.

Something interesting: Mammoth herders tend to be impeccably polite, with drawn-out, formal greetings and elaborate, almost artistic ways of doing everything from lacing up a parka to butchering a beast.

Something useful: These rituals help identify those afflicted with the Howling Curse, who lack in patience and good grace. Alas, this means that mammoth herders interpret frustration or bad manners as a sign of being accursed.

Names

Tibetan-inspired: Bhokhi, Cheyez, Dangyi, Gamyang, Lhing, Jongash, Nayan, Ningo, Nyayelar, Paing, Ramang, Samanz, Sewas, Tawaro, Tsaru, Tsetse, Wasen, Yenphi

Trade & Barter

Commonly available

The following are special items in Stonetop, but commonly available among mammoth herders—if the PCs are on friendly terms with a band, they can acquire these items without having to roll. They do need to trade something of equal Value. Food, iron, glass, and wool are usually in demand.

They have little to no use for finery.

Special items

The following might be acquired among mammoth herders, but the PCs must roll Trade & Barter to acquire them. This is in addition to the special items on the Moves

& Gear handout.

When PCs Trade & Barter among a band of mammoth herders, they use the local

Prosperity (-1 by default) with disadvantage because it's a hamlet. On a 6-, they don't mark XP—this band simply doesn't have or want what the PCs are after/selling.

Services and favors

PCs don't need to roll Trade & Barter for the following, but they might need to Persuade people—even if they offer something of suitable Value. If the PCs are well-regarded by a band, they might get these boons for free, or without needing to Persuade anyone, or at a reduced price.

Dangers

Hazards

• Brutal cold and ceaseless wind, leading to hypothermia & frostbite
• Hail storms—annoying, pelting (d4 damage), smashing (d6 damage)
• Mud—sucking, cold, exhausting
• Slippery footing
• Still, reflective water hiding a sudden, plunging drop into a kettle
• In summer: swarms of midges/ mosquitos—annoying, distracting, painful, diseased
• Getting lost or misjudging time in the vast featureless terrain
• Whispers and visions, pushing people towards bloodshed, cruelty, and savagery
• Places tainted by the Howling Curse

Monsters

• Ice drakes, especially in warmer months
• Kleztigrs, called "mchebragris" in the local tongue
• Wolves
• A frythanc, nesting in the Whitefangs and preying on caribou or even mammoths
• Wraiths of those who died of starvation and want, or corrupted by the Howling Curse
• Spirits of the wild
• Tulpas, free-roaming or bound to something nearby
• Kyakaara, perhaps what remains of a corrupted band of mammoth herders