The Frozen Sea is a body of water found completely frozen over between Norsca and the Chaos Wastes, and is east of the Sea of Chaos. It is a dread fable to those reavers and seadogs who prowled the Sea of Claws and warmer waters of the south. It is exactly as it's named: a vast ocean frozen into a world of ice. To a Norscan seaman, there is something almost unholy about the sight, the rolling waves of the sea turned into a thing as lifeless and still as solid stone. It can make onlookers feel incredibly small and feeble looking down at the unmoving waves of ice, and for some, a greater appreciation for the awesome power of the gods, for Norscans believe them to have done this to the sea, crushing, killing, and leaving its frozen body for all to see.[1a]
Those that dare traverse the Frozen Sea on foot will find themselves using the rolling landscape to shield themselves from the northern wind, sheltering within the frozen overhand of the unmoving waves that mark the plain's surface. To do otherwise is to suffer "as though unseen phantoms stabbed at the body with blades of ice with every step, trying to drag it down into the ice below with every numbing touch".[1b]
What little food there is comes in the form of seal meat and ice crabs, and perhaps whatever marine life exists beneath the ice. Meanwhile, mutation becomes more and more likely as one grows closer to the enormous wall of ice and rock that marks the eastern boundary of the Frozen Sea, and the coast of the Chaos Wastes. Towering hundreds of feet above the sea, every inch of the craggy cliffs appears jagged and lethal. With no sign of any break in the wall, the cliff appears as regular as the wall of a titan's castle, and just as imposing.[1d]
Trivia
- Four days from an Aesling quarry in the Norscan cliffside, a great, smooth artificial furrow can be found. This level patch of ice cuts its way through the unmoving waves in either direction, winding its way as far as the eye can see, while being wider than the entire village of Vinnskor. Travelling within the confines of this trench protects against the harsh northern winds, but a nameless dread can be felt even before entering it. Indeed, a shadow can be seen beneath the ice, one belonging to a mutant kraken, whose grey tentacles are marked with great green welts save on their underside, which are instead puckered with hundreds of plate-sized beaks that snap and slobber with idiot fury. Upon sensing prey, these tentacles break through the ice in search of food. Its scaly blubber can shift between grey, scarlet, purple, or even stripes of yellow-and-black[1d] as its frustrated tentacles claw at the ice. Indeed, a single tentacle can sheer through armour and potentially flay the flesh from bone. The kraken has an infernal cunning, able to bait victims into reach of its tentacles by holding one of their comrades within its coils.[1b] The kraken is also noticeably larger than prometheans and the whales found in the Sea of Claws, with all-too human eyes that are each the size of an ox.[1d]
- As it turns out, the furrow mentioned above was caused by a massive Chaos ship, whose crew mates were discovered piled up in the hull, their bodies frozen together in one immense mass of frozen flesh and furs in a failed effort to keep warm. Such was the grisliness of the scene that even the Kurgan Vallac, an old-hand at slaughter and carnage, who had seen his first battle as a babe sucking his mother's teat, was struck by the morbid scene. It reminded him of the profane bone-callers who sometimes practiced their abominable sorcery among the cairns and barrows of his people, instilling unclean life into the husks of fallen warriors. Yet not all of the crewmen were Norse. Just as many sported features from lands unknown to Norsca, their only constant being the tattoos and scars, the medallions and talismans of the Dark Gods in divine unity of ultimate Chaos. According to Einarr Steelfist, the ship was once mighty, a terror to the Elven citadels when its black sails appeared on the horizon. Eventually, the hunter became the hunted, and in an effort to escape - after being weakened and chased from the seas - the captain thought to hide in the very lap of the gods. Einarr explains that the gods had no use for the weak, and so when the captain came near enough to think himself safe, the gods abandoned him to the ice and snow.[1c] The ship would eventually sink into the frozen depths when the kraken pulled it down in pursuit of Einarr and his comrades.[1d]
Source
- 1: Palace of the Plague Lord (novel) by C.L. Werner
