Cold, burning, unforgiving; it stretches out as far as the eye can see in all directions, a white wasteland. Icy air sweeps across the ground, creating drifts, the frosty sisters of desert dunes, as the whirling winds dance and swirl among the rocks that provide the only texture to an otherwise desolate land. The blistering air scorches the lungs as gales howl bitterly, rending the silence and echoing across the forsaken territory. Far, far in the distance, barely visible through the blowing snow and clouds that perpetually hold back the sun’s warming rays, tower the massive peaks and barren crags of the frigid Mephistopheles Mountains, the sanctuary of the damned.
Vision blurs with speed as the mountain range races closer; miles and miles of hostile environment flash by, home only to species perfectly adapted to the short days and long nights without any nourishment. Here, motion, as an Arctic hare disappears into a secret burrow; there, the Glacier Basilisk sits as still as a statue, blending almost fully with its surroundings, invisible to all but the sharpest of eyes. As the mountains approach, details appear, coniferous vegetation ideally suited to thriving in a land that fights to destroy it every moment grows from the sides of the cliff faces, clinging to the rocks with prodigious determination. Slowing finally, the true nature and enormity of the natural wonder that is these harsh imposing towers becomes clear.
Millions of years in the making, what secrets must these ancient wonders hold? Caves carved out of the cliffs lead to tunnels, dark and deep, unseen caverns in the bowls of the earth slowly forming, eroding over centuries undisturbed by the outside world, abandoned to the ravages of time.
And yet… from the mouth of one comes a light; a pale, white light that seems to shine directly into the soul, awakening ancient, instinctual terrors, memories of frozen fear and death, the stuff of nightmares. Closer, clearer, the light becomes brighter and brings with it a sound. The sound of ice flows breaking apart and frozen rivers cracking and shifting; the sound of a far off avalanche and tree limbs, weighed down with snow, snapping, falling. A sound that contains the promise of glacial devastation, the horror of eternal winter and unending cold.
The source of the light and sound slowly comes into focus; a massive creature of ice and night is sprawled on the ground, the light emanating from its cracked, scaly body and the noise reverberating from a partially open mouth filled with teeth that match the stalactites and stalagmites of the cave. Colossal white wings provided a blanket, like snowfall on a hill while a range of ridges and valleys jutted up from the tip of the jaws to the end of the tail that curved and turned around the cave like a frozen river. Eyes the size of pools lie closed, immense lids covering them while steam is barely visible rising from open nostrils as the creature breathes the steady breath of sleep. Four legs are folded beside the beast, each one ending in talons the size of mighty ships, sharp, deadly, cold.
The Lord of the icebound wilds slumbers in her cave, an archaic entity of infinite wisdom and power, glorious, beautiful, awful… awaiting the day that brings her out of the depths of hibernation to once more roam the world, searching for another region full of life upon which to inflict her terrible rein.