Lifeforms · Constructed · Any
The Shalgiel
Known in these times as shalgiel, these beings were guardians created through ancient magic for purposes which are now forgotten.
Quest entry
Quest entry
Quest - Winter
Winter. The final frontier. For who truly knows, if spring will ever come. This months quest revolves around the concept of winter, in all its hoary splendor. Cold, death, decay, and torpid hibernation. Snow, ice, and fr… Open the quest
Full quest brief
Winter. The final frontier. For who truly knows, if spring will ever come.
This months quest revolves around the concept of winter, in all its hoary splendor. Cold, death, decay, and torpid hibernation. Snow, ice, and frost. These are the ubiquitous images of the long, bleak season.
We are looking for the finest examples of winter-themed submissions. The winners of this major quest, will become worthy recipients of frosty mugs and glasses, engraved with odes to victory, courtesy of Scrasamax! Good luck to all. Don your mittens!
Shalgiel, called "frostworms", "remorhaz", "snow worms", "ice spirits", "icegods", and a variety of other names which are hardly descriptive of the being itself) are very large creatures, though it is difficult to say just how large, because the entirety of such a being has never been seen. This is due to the conditions and locales which they inhabit and which precede them, and the superstition accorded them by the cultures which surround them.
It is perhaps useful to imagine them as being similar in general outline to a titanic centipede or worm of some kind, but this analogue quickly becomes outmoded when one stretches it to include a length of as long as a seventy feet, among other strange features of which we have only hints of. The body of a frostworm is known to be covered in an intricate structure of complex, overlapping plates of glassy or metallic-looking armor in iridescent silvery shades. It's loathsomely-thin many-jointed legs end in strange hooves, or possibly gnarled claws, or perhaps even man-like hands. Those who have encountered these beings from a closer remove have discovered them to be studded with numerous strange and hideous organs and extremities which have little obvious purpose, but which give the creature an overwhelmingly alien affect. In addition to the silvery plates of armor, the shalgiel's body is generally sheathed in jagged masses of ice and rime which hang from its length and encrust its segments in complex wind-sculpted whorls.
Their bodies are typically obscured by the clouds of ice and snow which they generate, which can surround them for as far as a mile and a half. Wherever a shalgiel goes this storm follows, and though it seems that they greatly prefer the high mountain peaks and glacial wastes where they are most often seen, it has not been unknown for these strange creatures to descend into the lands of mortals, bringing with them a sudden and deadly winter.
While the unenlightened often say that these creatures are gods, most sorcerors hold the theory that these creatures have gained this extraordinary ability through the burial within their bodies of ancient organs, devices, and machines of magic; these immortal monsters are the creations of ancient sorcery, made for unknowable purposes in elder ages. Some are of the opinion that in the time of the ancients the world was becoming desert, the sun god having come very close through the intervention of planar forces, and that the ancients, to save themselves from dying of heat, summoned up the snowgods to cool the world. Another theory holds that the shalgiel are another of the creatures brought by the ancients out of the Void (but even other sorcerors disbelieve the small faction who hold to this belief). In any case, a shalgiel brings with it heavy snows and ice storms, in a swirling column around itself, a blizzard which the creature naturally generates from its body and which is a necessary component of its survival.
Shalgiel cleave mostly to the great mountain glaciers and the frozen wastes which are their home. It is unknown what they prey on or how they are sustained, but it is known that corpses found frozen and stiff in the wake of their storms are often gnawed and dismembered in terrifying and monstrous ways. These creatures are immensely long-lived if not immortal, and follow the direction of a form of intelligence not like any born of Earth. It is known that these creatures can be dissuaded from passing through a territory if an offerings of a virgin or of large quantities of warm blood is made to them (typically it must be brought to the edge of their storm, where it is drawn in by a great wind; thereafter they will depart in a new direction).
It seems that they wander at random; no pattern, natural or pleromatic, has been determined to be followed by them, though some sorcerors have noted a kinship to certain emanations of Ra'hal, the Emerald Plane Of Duty. It is known, however, that when the crimson planet (most often known to sages as Tzorom, World of Blood, or by many other names to many peoples) shines in the sky, the shalgiel sleep- their storms dissipate and they bury themselves in great frozen mounds, rising again after the night is through. Only then do they cease their eternal blizzarding march.
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Also for this quest
Other entries under Quest - Winter.
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Winter's Gem
Bluest of sapphires; the ice-cold jewel. From its hoary breath flows the bitter winter winds. The Lady Karina sits there for all eternity, looking deep into the…
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Stamagast
Behold, the Harbinger of ill-tidings, the blizzard rider, the thief of winter, the Stamagast.
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Candenheim
The hyperborean realm of the Eternal Flame
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At The Foot of the World
At the foot of the World can be found both great treasure and danger! Adventure Awaits!
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The Frozen Woman of the City
Frozen to death by a penny pinching, cruel landlord, the Frozen Woman has found her vengeance against her killer, and now seeks to destroy those who might do un…
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The Glacier's Fist
Carved to bring glory to the Patient One, the silent and frigid Abomination that holds dominion over the frozen wastes, the Glacier's Fist is heralded as a dead…
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Winter's Tempest
Forged of destruction, in the name of hatred, Winter's Tempest is a cold echo of its parent blades, yet still it bears the destruction of the frozen elements.
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Iceman's Lantern
A small silver lantern, at whose heart there burns a shard of ice.
Use alongside
Submissions that pair well with this one at the table.
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Winter's Gem
Bluest of sapphires; the ice-cold jewel. From its hoary breath flows the bitter winter winds. The Lady Karina sits there for all eternity, looking deep into the…
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Candenheim
The hyperborean realm of the Eternal Flame
-
At The Foot of the World
At the foot of the World can be found both great treasure and danger! Adventure Awaits!
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The Frozen Woman of the City
Frozen to death by a penny pinching, cruel landlord, the Frozen Woman has found her vengeance against her killer, and now seeks to destroy those who might do un…
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Winter's Tempest
Forged of destruction, in the name of hatred, Winter's Tempest is a cold echo of its parent blades, yet still it bears the destruction of the frozen elements.
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The Glacier's Fist
Carved to bring glory to the Patient One, the silent and frigid Abomination that holds dominion over the frozen wastes, the Glacier's Fist is heralded as a dead…
Okay, Post Modern means today. As the Modern Era ended in (depending on who you are talking to from 1960s to 1990s). So how did we make this magical monster?
You need to reference when this "future time" is.
Now this write up is disjointed. It does not have the references to make sense. The description level is poor. It need more.
So how do the current age make a magical ice monster?
Either the creature needs to be technical, and they need to explain it from a magical point of view
Or the monster was made magical, and these technical people explain it.
Perhaps the monster was Atlantean in nature. It was used to deal with their global warming or manipulte the weather. They could however control theirs (of course one got loose and caused the last Ice Age before someone stopped it). It was locked away and we found it. We tried to use it. And well, things went bad.
Perhaps we went somewhere else to get this thing.
So would not this be a Pre-appocolypse study piece, as the ice monster seems to have broken things?
I'm guessing it was not supposed to be released, Moon. Hence, we find it in 'Advice Requested'.
I like the spark here very much. I get a Remorhaz meets Dune Worm vibe. 'Technological Organs' is a nice touch. This does seem like just a brainstorm at the moment, thouh a good one. I'll try to think of a few suggestions, Cap, if that is what you're after.
I have a question. How has this sub garnered 129 xp already? Bug?
This is supposed to be in work (advice requested)... I'm really not sure what happened
Advice Requested now show up on the main page, so people can actually notice them. Especially if someone comments on them.
If you didn't want people to comment, it needs to go into In Work Hidden or Public
Ah, I see you edited your original comment, Moon.
I edited it within 5-6 minutes of the original posting, as I saw the red marks at that point.
The description of these things was somewhat what I had in mind when I was referring to the Patient One in the Glacier's Fist. Thank you, Cap'n, for providing a fitting way to describe the nightmare-thing slithering in my mind beyond a serpent of ice.
Makes me tihnk of the Ancient Race codex, and this beastie would fit very nice into it. The tone is pretty good, a short Lovecraftian psuedo-Dune ice beast. I like it.
Cool! (Pun intended) :)
Nicely executed!