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Winter in Glorantha

By Bryan Thexton
Web Adaptation by Nick Eden

Note! This is a fan contribution. The information may be contradicted by official material.

Introduction

Winter is a major part of life and mythology in Dragon Pass and all along the northern edge of Genertela. In many other lands it is an occasional visitor, defeated in mythological times, but not completely driven away. Winter in Glorantha has many factors, both mundane such as cold, snow and ice, and otherworldly such as myths, daimones, spirits, and essences.

This article looks at winter hazards, then describes the effects of varying degree of winter. It will focus on winter in Dragon Pass, but references will be made to other areas.

Winter Hazards

Cold and Surviving It

Cold poses two main hazards, general loss of heat (hypothermia), and freezing of specific body bits (frostbite). In Dragon Pass these conditions are considered to be the weapons of Inora and her son Bright Cold, which are also frequently wielded by other Valindings. Both conditions can strike quickly in extreme cold, but can strike the poorly prepared even in quite mild conditions. Proper clothing and shelter can fend these off. The “Degrees of Winter” section below talks about what is considered appropriate for various conditions.

Contest: Resist the cold for a day or night
Target Number: 14
Appropriate Skill: Winter survival, wilderness survival -3, rural survival -5, cultural keyword for any culture used to winter-10.
Typical modifiers: -7 for each level clothes and shelter are inadequate for the weather, +5 for staying active, -1/10 the strength of wind for those in shelter or wind-proof clothes, -1x the strength of the wind for those not protected from it, poorly fed -5 to -10, tired -5 to -10, -5 for those not from a land not familiar with winter.
Results:

Any level of victory: survive a day or night with no penalty, with varying degrees of comfort.
Tie: No damage is done, but cold and miserable, with a -5 on the next resist cold test.
Any loss: the usual penalty, narrated as damage from frost bite or hypothermia depending on the nature of exposure. Hypothermia causes confusion, slowness, and fatigue. Frost bite causes numbness and eventually death of exposed flesh.

Getting wet is the enemy of staying warm. Aside from the obvious issues of getting rained on or falling in a pond, it is possible for wet snow to soak through clothes, or for snow to first stick to clothes then melt from body heat. Finally, clothing can get sweat soaked--yes, you can freeze because first you got too warm! Those experienced with winter dress in layers; and remove layers when working hard so they don’t overheat.

Wool retains a fair bit of its insulating ability when wet (raw, greasy, wool keeps it the best), as do some furs, so these are the preferred winter clothing. Wool does not stop wind especially well, however, so an outer layer of leather or fur is preferred (note for best insulation and wind resistance, furs are worn with the hide side out and fur in). Non-wool cloth becomes essentially useless once wet. In dragon pass folk mostly wear wool, and chuckle at outsiders who arrive in summer, proud of their fine cottons and silks. In most other wintry lands furs are the main winter clothing. Treat wet wool or fur as one level less effective than usual, treat other wet clothes as useless.

Reindeer fur retains its warmth when wet, or can alternatively be treated to make a hauberk that counts as medium armor (+3). The Rauthori bear hsunchen value its warmth during the weather just before and after their hibernation, and its protection during fighting season. The Uncolthings reindeer hsunchen, on the other hand, value bear hide as the warmest of blankets during the long winters on the tundra with their reindeer soul siblings. To avoid large scale raiding of each other’s totem animals, the two peoples have developed traditional challenges where a bear skin is wagered against a reindeer parka and a hauberk.

Lacking adequate clothes or the energy to make up for their lack, staying dry, getting out of the wind, wrapping up in a blanket, and getting close to a fire will all help survive the cold, so most folk stay huddled inside in the worst of winter. Generally houses in a given climate will be equipped to let their inhabitants survive the coldest weather that is usually seen in that climate, so that a Dara Happan avoiding a dusting of snow and a Heortling avoiding the bite of Bright Cold do it in about the same level of comfort—though as always, the level of comfort will vary by wealth!

Inora is a daughter of Kero Finn, and was her first protector. She would freeze all those who tried to approach her mother, so that Kero Finn was once surrounded by hordes of frozen animals, people, and gods. Umath was the first to defeat her, using his winds to disturb her static cold, in so doing freeing her frozen victims and giving him the opportunity to lay with Kero Finn. Orlanth used his own storm powers to drive Inora away from most of Kerofinnela before claiming her place as Kero Finn’s protector. Inora has been defeated many times since then, but has always found shelter with her mother. Ever since grandfather mortal died, her freezing has often led to death instead of preservation. In the darkness she tried to preserve order around her by freezing it more and more solid, finally freezing even herself in time to help hold Arachne Solara’s net..

In the Storm age, Inora lay with Vadrus once, after he promised to drive off Orlanth for her. Inora loaned him her freezing embrace, and bore him a son, called Bright Cold, who later became one of Valind’s more loyal followers. He never had the courage to face opponents openly, but rather tries to nip off their toes and finger, ears and nose, with his frosty bite, until they are helpless and easy prey. Both Inora’s embrace and Bright Cold’s bite have been frequently stolen by the other Valindings.

Snow and Ice

Snow poses two challenges both when falling and when on the ground. When falling, it limits vision, covers objects, and in large amounts can collapse roofs. When it is on the ground it can make getting around difficult for the unequipped. Either falling or on the ground snow can vary significantly, so typical snow is described in each of the “Degrees of Winter” paragraphs below.

Falling Snow

Snow blocks vision even more effectively than does rain, so in heavy snow vision may be limited to javelin throw range, or in the worst snowstorms even less. Snow clouds are seldom as black as summer thunderstorm clouds, but are often a thick grey, further attenuating and diffusing the weak winter sun. When snow is also falling, the weak and diffuse light can make even mid-day a dim and confusing time, so that people can get lost mere minutes from their dwellings.

Major snow falls most often occur as the weather is changing. The worst blizzards occur as mild weather is replaced with cold and windy weather, so that the snow is not only heavy but is blown and drifted by the wind.

Snow on the Ground

Once snow is on the ground, it reflects light, making days and even nights much brighter than they’d be otherwise. On clear days in moderate cold, the snow can shimmer with an almost blinding brilliant white that seems to contain all the colors of the rainbow. A light grey layer of cloud steals the colors, leaving the landscape white and dreary. On clear nights the snow reflects so much light from stars and even moon that it can be almost as easy to travel at night as during the day, aside from the cold.

Many animals can forage for food under modest amounts of snow, but deep snow can make grasses too deep, bury berry bushes, and generally make life difficult for animals.

The winter snows in Pent lead to lush spring grass, much better grazing than in Prax. However of the main Praxian herd beasts only the bison can survive the cold and can forage under the snow for food. The Pentan nomads have little difficulty avoiding bison rider charges then defeating them through flanking tactics. Worse for the bison riders, the Pentans greatly value bison hides as blankets or jackets. As a result, the bison riders also stay south of the snow line, protected by the presence of the other tribes which can more effectively fight the Pentans. Still, in unusually cold winters small bands of pentans often roam into the greatlands, hoping to find vulnerable bison.

Ice

Ice is famous for its slipperiness of course, but bare ice is rarely found. Aside from open water that has frozen, ice is most commonly the result of freezing rain. Heavy freezing rain will coat everything in ice, causing tree branches to break off (or entire trees to shatter under the weight in extreme cases), and coating the ground or top of the snow in slick ice. Not only does this make travel difficult, animals have a hard time breaking through the ice, so large animals can’t get to food, and smaller animals and birds that burrow into the snow can get trapped under the ice, and suffocate or starve.

Ice can make crossing water much easier, but the unwary may find that it is not as strong as they thought. In calm water ice forms quite evenly, however where there is a current ice forms more slowly and does not grow to the same thickness. So while the shallows of a river may be thickly coated in ice, in the channel where the current runs the ice may be too thin to support an adult. Wilderness survival or similar skills can be used to determine if ice is safe or not.

Travel

Snow is most often fairly fluffy, able to be greatly compressed. This makes for laborious walking as even the lightest of humans will sink in it quite deeply--in extreme cases this can be hip deep, making walking through it essentially impossible. The most common way around this problem is the use of snowshoes. These come in various forms, but are most often consist of a roughly oval (but possibly pointed on one or both ends) frame of wood, with a board running across it a little in front of the middle. Leather straps on the board attach to the wearer’s boots. Aside from a gap for the toe, the rest of the frame is filled with a mesh of lacquered animal gut or tendon. Larger snowshoes will support heavier walkers, or allow travel through fluffier snow. Every culture living in a land with substantial snow fall has some sort of snow shoe, generally well adapted to their most common terrain and snow conditions.

When snow gets packed, it becomes either like weak ice (if it is below freezing) or slush (if it is at or above freezing). However very cold snow does not pack well, so perhaps surprisingly paths through the snow are easiest to walk on in cold weather, where they provide good footing, whereas in milder weather they will quickly become either slippery or slushy.

The slippery nature of packed snow makes sliding easy in winter. People take advantage of this to move quickly, or to slide heavy loads.

Sleds, on runners of wood, bone, or (rarely) metal, travel more easily over snow than carts or wagons move over trails in the same area in warmer weather. Horse drawn sleighs—well loaded with furs for the passengers—are the quickest modes of long distance travel that most Gloranthas will ever experience. The Uncolthing (reindeer Hsunchen in the West) use skis to skim across the tundra. The Heortlings all know to attach oxen shin bones to their boots to make ‘skates’ vaguely similar to modern speed skates, but more apt to break or twist out of position. Most people then push themselves along on these sliders using a spear or metal shod pole, but a few clans have the technique to roll from side to side, propelling themselves along as quickly as a cantering horse—although stopping or turning at these speeds requires great skill.

Heavy loads can also be slid along the snow. Smaller sleighs pulled by a person on snowshoes allow large amounts of food and other bulk goods to be moved between steads in Sartar in winter. An ox can pull a tree trunk or large bundle of branches across the snow, so much lumbering is done during winter. In Tarsh, thick blocks of ice are cut from upland ponds, then hauled on sleds to special insulated ice houses near the large cities, from where blocks of ice are sold all year--at exorbitant prices--to the newly rich merchants there.

Snow can hold a fair amount of water in mild weather. Sometimes snow falls already very wet, sometimes rain falls on snow and gets soaked in. In either case, if the temperatures subsequently fall much below freezing, the top of the snow freezes into an icy crust, its thickness and strength depending on how cold it gets and how wet the snow was. This sort of crust will often support children, alynx, or wolves, but is only rarely strong enough to support adults. It can be quite dangerous for hoofed animals, as their feet will generally punch through the crust easily, but the crust may be sharp enough to scrape or cut their legs. A weaker, flakier, crust will also occur when snow falls in mild conditions, then gets subjected to colder conditions and heavy wind. In areas that are quite cold but fairly dry, the entire snow pack may essentially take on this texture, making it quite firm and not too hard to travel on. This is frequently experienced in Pent, where young warriors take advantage of it to carry out daring raids on other tribes.

Other Aspects of Winter

Freezing makes a variety of things easier or harder.

Wood splits more easily when frozen, so after cut trees are hauled back over the snow, they are usually also split and stacked for drying, to be burned the next winter.
Hunters and trappers are busy in winter for a variety of reasons. Fur animals have thicker pelts in winter, so this is the season to trap them. Snow makes animals easier to track, and dependent young are not generally a problem. Further, once caught, the animals freeze rather than spoil, so hunters and trappers can spend long stretches out in the wilds without having to do more than keep their catch away from scavengers.
The ground freezes during the winter, so storage pits that are covered over are essentially inaccessible during the winter.
Getting water in winter can take a lot of work. In cold weather almost all open water is frozen over, as are shallower wells. Therefore either ice has to be chopped or drilled through, or snow has to be melted. Farmers spend more time out in extreme cold conditions than they’d like getting water to their animals.
Trolls adore the long nights and cold temperatures of winter, so most frequently raid nearby lands during Dark season.

Degrees of Winter

Around Freezing

When experienced: Beginning and end of winter (early Dark season and mid-storm season in Dragon Pass), and occasional mild spells in mid-winter. In areas that don’t normally experience winter, the occasional blast of wintry weather will typically be like this.
Type of precipitation: Wet snow, rain, or freezing rain--which falls as rain but turns to ice as soon as it hits anything. Rainfall may be substantial, snowfall at this temperature is usually moderate, and either very fluffy or quite wet. When temperatures are dropping from these conditions then snowfall may be substantial. If the ground is not yet frozen, the snow will end up as slush, and freezing rain will melt quickly. If the ground is already frozen, or there is already snow or ice on the ground, the new snow or ice will stay. If there is already snow and then it rains some of the snow will melt, but what is left will become soaked to a considerable depth, becoming wet snow that will pack down heavily.
Other hazards: Traveling in these conditions is often difficult. It may be icy, slushy, or thick with wet snow that is hard to walk through. When the ground is frozen, melt water won’t soak in, so low lying areas may flood quickly. Ice covering rivers and ponds will be growing thinner and softer, making it untrustworthy. When days are above freezing and nights below, the multiple freezing/melting cycles can be quite destructive to anything with water or ice trapped in it (these cycles will also heave paved roads and drive stones up in fields).
Survival: Any moderately heavy clothing will do the job, even just extra layers of normal clothing. In even fairly light clothes an adult can be outside for some time without discomfort, or for prolonged amounts of time when working hard--in Sartar it is not uncommon to see young men splitting wood dressed only in boots, gloves, and trousers in this sort of weather. Hypothermia can still strike in these conditions after hours of being outdoors without adequate clothing. Frostbite will only generally happen with the help of wind or if hands or feet are wet. Snow melts easily at this temperature, so keeping clothes dry can be a problem, and when camping out a mattress of evergreen boughs or other material is needed to provide a dry resting place, but aside from that a good fire or a lean-to will give enough protection given decent clothes and a cloak or blanket.
Other notes: Fresh snow at this temperature packs easily, making fine if rather wet snowballs. It may also make crunching noises when walked on.

Mild Cold (below freezing to around -10C/15F)

When experienced: Nicer days in late Dark Season, and much of early Storm Season in Dragon Pass. This is about as severe as weather gets in many regions where snow is seen most years but only stays for a week or two.
Type of precipitation: Snow, usually either light and fluffy, or denser and easily packed. Small snowfalls may occur while the temperature is in this range, but larger snowfalls will typically occur during transitions between these temperatures and colder ones.
Other hazards: When in the sun and out of the wind, these temperatures can seem quite pleasant with the right clothes, however wind can make it seem much colder. Snow will stick to clothes at this temperature, then gradually met, potentially soaking it through. These temperatures will freeze still water, but won’t provide much thickness, and won’t freeze swiftly flowing water at all. Finally, many a day of these conditions is followed by nights a degree or two more severe, with temperature falling rapidly after sundown, making hypothermia or frostbite a very real hazard for those accidentally stuck outdoors.
Survival: These conditions demand thick leggings and typically a heavy coat or cloak over a thick sweater, along with high boots, wool or fur mitts or gloves, and some sort of head covering. Bare fingers or wet feet will eventually suffer frostbite under these conditions. Snow will still melt easily, so for resting, a bed of some sort (such as cut evergreen branches) is generally needed, and fresh snow may not be safe to burrow into. A lean-to to with a good fire burning in front of it will be adequate for those with good clothes and some blankets, rugs, or an extra cloak to wrap up in.
Other Notes: Snow in these conditions usually packs well, making ideal “snowball snow.”

Moderate Cold (From -10C/15F to -20C/-5F)

When experienced: In Sartar, this is common day time conditions in late Dark season and common night time conditions in early Storm Season.
Type of precipitation: Snow is common in this temperature range, with heaviest accumulations as warmer or colder weather is moving in, but light dustings may happen during more stable conditions.
Other hazards: Only swiftly flowing water will be free of ice, but ice may be thin over springs or where there is a moderate current. Exposed flesh will suffer frostbite within an hour or two, and with any wind frost bite may even strike fingers and toes protected by lighter gloves or boots. Carrying metal will chill hands even through mitts.
Survival: These conditions call for head to toe warm clothing, with mitts rather than gloves, and with a face wrap or a good hood to keep cheeks from freezing if there is any wind. Snow does not easily melt from these temperatures, so it is possible to dig out a snug shelter in a snow drift (or to pile up snow then dig out the middle). A fire in a basic shack would also be adequate when combined with a good pile of blankets.
Other Notes: At this temperature snow does not stick together well. Previously wet snow will be crusty. This is ideal winter travel weather, with runners sliding easily but the cold not being too severe. Trolls like the easy travel conditions too!

Hard Cold (From -20C/-5F to -30C/-20F)

When experienced: In Sartar many nights and occasional days in late Dark Season dip this cold. This is common day time temperatures in parts of Pent.
Type of precipitation: Snow may be heavy as this weather arrives, sometimes including blizzards that can last for days, but snow is rare once the air is this cold.
Other hazards: In the lower part of this range even swiftly flowing water will freeze over, but not always thickly. Exposed flesh will suffer frostbite even without wind within an hour. Wood that has not been thoroughly dried will creak noisily under stress, and will break more easily. Frost will coat beards, mustaches, and eyebrows. Carrying anything will tend to chill hands uncomfortably quickly.
Survival: Multiple layers of warm clothes are needed for prolonged exposure to these conditions. Burrowing into snow still works, however as snow is often dry, it can be risky. Snow will stay unmelted within feet of the fire in an uninsulated shack. Thick log walls, packed earth, or other forms of better insulation, when combined with a fire, make sleeping with only a thick pile of blankets tolerable. Those in less well insulated shelters clump together to share body heat.
Other Notes: Snow often creaks at these temperatures. Trolls love these conditions, as not only is travel easy, but humans and their herds are usually huddled indoors, which eliminates the hard work of hunting them down.

Extreme Cold (From -30C/-20F to -40C/-40F)

When experienced: In Sartar a few Dark Season nights will get this cold, and in extraordinary years when Valind’s forces attack in force there may be days this severe.
Type of precipitation: Generally none, although snow on the ground will be so frozen and powdery that it may blow very easily.
Other hazards: Everything is frozen solid. Cold creeps through every gap in building or clothing with almost cutting force. Breathing can get painful. Eyelids and noses can freeze shut. Even heavy clothing won’t stop frostbite after prolonged exposure. Everything is very dry, which combined with the cold can make leather and even living lips crack. Wood breaks easily, especially if not thoroughly dried.
Survival: Fur parka over fur clothes over wool, with multiple layers also on hands, feet, and head, will make these temperatures survivable, if never comfortable. Snow does not hold together as a building material, but Valindings and others with extreme cold weather survival skills know how to make shelters out of ice. Thick walls, a large fire, and plenty of blankets will still not make things comfortable, but will prevent any serious damage.
Other Notes: Metal gets brittle, trees may explode. Even trolls may find this weather chilly, but they enjoy that their lead maces will shatter most human weapons in these conditions.

Fimbulwinter (Colder than -40C/-40F)

When experienced: The Great Darkness, the heart of Valind’s glacier, the heart of Inora’s mountain fastnesses in mid-winter.
Type of precipitation: Frost will grow over almost everything, but the air is squeezed too dry for any other precipitation.
Other hazards: Wood shatters easily. Metal becomes fragile. Any exposed flesh suffers severe frostbite in minutes, breathing deeply can freeze the lungs.
Survival: Barely possible. A thick fur parka over fur clothing over heavy wool, with the face wrapped and deep inside a fur lined hood, will be enough to keep you warm while you are active. No amount of clothing is adequate once you are resting. Shelter and fire, or magic, are essential.
Other Notes: Many odd, even magical effects may happen in Glorantha under these conditions. Magic could get frozen, beings may freeze solid without dying, and so on. Only ice trolls like these conditions, although other trolls may still venture forth, but they’ll complain about food and trollkin all being frozen solid.

Latest revision: 5 July 2005, nme