The planet is cold because its primary source of heat and magic has been critically damaged. At the planet's core was the Sun-Heart, a primordial sphere of concentrated solar energy and creation magic. It was the world's engine, providing warmth, fueling life, and sustaining the planet's magical field.
The Catastrophic Event:
Over a millennia ago, an unknown cataclysm—a war between forgotten gods, a botched world-altering ritual, or a collision with a void-entity—shattered the Sun-Heart. It wasn't destroyed, but fractured, like a cracked engine block.
The Consequences:
The Great Leak: The Sun-Heart's energy now constantly bleeds out into the void instead of circulating through the world. This is the primary reason for the global cooling.
The Magical Ice Age: The leaking energy interacts with the upper atmosphere, creating a permanent, magical "Frost-Grasp"—a field that dims sunlight, amplifies cold, and causes perpetual winter.
The Rise of the HrÃmþursar: The Frost-Grasp is not merely a weather pattern; it's a raw, chaotic force. It coalesces into sentient entities of cold—the HrÃmþursar (Frost-Giants)—who actively seek to extinguish all remaining heat, seeing it as a flaw in a perfect, frozen world.
The volcanoes are not natural features. They are the colossal, desperate, and ultimately failed geomancy engines created by the ancients in a last-ditch effort to stave off the cooling caused by the Shattered Sun-Heart.
The Original Plan: The World-Forge Project
Faced with the bleeding Sun-Heart, the planet's most advanced pre-Growing civilization (the likely precursors to the modern Giants and LÃtillfólk) initiated an audacious plan. They couldn't repair the Sun-Heart, so they would create a planetary network of artificial replacements.
The Technology: Using immense geomancy and rune-craft, they drilled deep into the mantle, tapping into the planet's residual geothermal power.
The Purpose: Each volcano was designed to be a localized "Furnace-Heart," pumping heat and magic into the atmosphere to create stable, habitable zones. They were meant to be a patchwork solution—a life-support system for the entire world.
The Catastrophic Failure: The Resonance Cascade
The project was fatally flawed. The magic required to activate the Furnace-Hearts was too similar to the energy of the shattered Sun-Heart. Upon activation, the network created a magical resonance cascade.
Instead of generating stable warmth, the system created a violent feedback loop with the Sun-Heart's fracture.
This caused some Furnace-Hearts to erupt catastrophically (like the one that destroyed Haugaeldr and Sun-Ridge), while others fell dormant or began operating at a dangerously low, unstable output.
The failure didn't just doom the project; it worsened the initial fracture and scarred the planet with unnatural, volatile volcanic zones.