The Day the Frost Gained a Face
Date: 310 Years After the Burning of Haugaeldr (310 AH)
Key Figures: The Stone-Sword Patrol of the Stone-Shield Commonwealth; Captain Finn Stout-Heart
It was a routine scouting mission along the edge of the advancing Jötunfósturs glacier. The Stone-Sword Patrol, led by the veteran Captain Finn, was mapping ice-flow patterns near a region known as the "Shattered Teeth." The air was preternaturally still and cold, the kind of cold that seeps into the soul. Visibility was poor, the world reduced to shades of white and blue.
Through the swirling snow, Scout Eira Quick-Eye saw a figure standing motionless on an ice ridge. She initially reported a lone Frost-Fang hunter. But as they drew closer, the details solidified into a shape of nightmare.
The giant was immense, even by their standards, its skin the pale blue of deep glacier ice, crisscrossed with cracks that pulsed with a faint, frigid light. Its eyes were solid, pupil-less pools of white. It did not breathe plumes of steam into the air; instead, the moisture around it flash-froze and fell as a perpetual, gentle snow. It was not merely in the frost; it was of the frost. It was the land itself, watching them.
Captain Finn's log entry, the first official record of the Hrímþursar, is famously terse:
"Third watch, deep frost. Encountered a single giant. Not Frost-Fang. Not of any clan. Its gaze was the ice. It was the ice. We are not alone in this waste. The enemy is not the winter. The enemy is in it."
The patrol retreated, unharmed but forever changed. The creature had not attacked. It had simply observed, its presence a statement more terrifying than any assault. The report, when delivered to the Jarls of the Commonwealth, caused a paradigm shift that shattered two centuries of understanding.
Until that moment, the Frost-Grasp was considered a force of nature—a terrible, magical, but ultimately mindless winter. The Hrímþursar transformed it. It was no longer a storm to be weathered; it was an army to be fought. The frost had a will. It had agents. It had a purpose: the complete and utter stillness of all life.
The First Sighting fundamentally redefined the struggle of Niflheimar:
A New, Existential Foe: The Hrímþursar became the physical embodiment of the Frost-Grasp's will. They were not another rival nation to be negotiated with or conquered; they were corruption given form, a plague of consciousness that sought to unmake the world.
The Great Fracture: The sighting created a new philosophical divide. The Stone-Shield Commonwealth and Free-Soul Collective saw the Hrímþursar as the ultimate enemy that necessitated unity and fortress-building. The Frost-Fang Clans were divided—some saw them as abominations, while others felt a dark temptation, seeing in their frozen power a perverse form of ultimate strength and release from mortal suffering.
The Corruption Within: The most terrifying realization was that the Hrímþursar were not born, but made. Any giant who succumbed to despair, who embraced the cold in their heart, could potentially become one. The war was no longer just outside the walls; it was a battle for the very soul of every giant.
The First Sighting marked the end of an age of simple survival and the beginning of a cosmic war. The giants of Niflheimar now knew they were not just fighting to live, but fighting against an active, sentient force that desired their absolute extinction. The frozen world now had a face, and it was filled with a silent, perfect, and endless hate.