The Outer Cold refers to all territories beyond Raverie, Silver Lake, and established settlements such as Silentia. It is not a single place, but a broad designation used by Raverians to describe everything that lies outside regulated warmth, maintenance schedules, and civic optimism.
To the city, the Outer Cold is irrelevant. To adventurers, it is where unfinished systems accumulate. Nothing here is actively evil by default; danger arises from abandonment, misalignment, and survival without oversight.
The Outer Cold is defined by persistent winter conditions.
Common features include:
Snow-covered plains broken by frozen machinery.
Pine forests weighed down by frost.
Half-buried roads and rails no longer cleared.
Frozen rivers and collapsed bridges.
The cold is consistent rather than extreme. Snowfalls are frequent but gentle, creating a postcard-like landscape that hides hazards beneath its surface. Sounds travel strangely—muffled or delayed—lending the region an eerie calm rather than outright menace.
Scattered throughout the Outer Cold are remnants of Raverie’s expansionist projects:
Abandoned relay towers.
Decommissioned heating pylons.
Incomplete transit rails.
Frozen construction automatons locked mid-task.
These structures are not ruins in the classical sense. Many still hum faintly, glow dimly, or twitch when conditions align. They provide shelter, landmarks, and frequent complications for travelers who mistake partial function for safety.
The city does not reclaim these sites, preferring to write them off as inefficiencies rather than risks.
The Outer Cold hosts a disproportionate number of automatons that no longer serve Raverie.
These include:
Delivery constructs that lost their routes.
Civic guardians stranded during seasonal redeployment.
Industrial machines retired far from retrieval paths.
Without maintenance or updated directives, these automatons behave literally. They continue their last known task indefinitely, adapting poorly to new circumstances. Many are not hostile but become dangerous through persistence, size, or misinterpretation.
Travelers often encounter automatons performing pointless but elaborate routines: salting nonexistent roads, decorating frozen trees, or guarding nothing at all.
Not all inhabitants of the Outer Cold are mechanical.
Those who flee Raverie often do so for personal reasons:
Debt.
Legal trouble.
Ideological rejection of the Modi.
Fear of mechanized oversight.
These outlanders form small camps or travel constantly, scavenging abandoned infrastructure. Some are kind, some are desperate, and some have learned to weaponize the cold and isolation.
Raverie considers them irrelevant. Silentia considers them unreliable. Both underestimate them.
The Outer Cold is home to subtle, seasonal spirits.
These manifestations are rarely malicious:
Wisps that rearrange snowdrifts overnight.
Echoes that repeat festive music long after it fades.
Lights that guide travelers briefly before vanishing.
Such spirits are believed to arise where machinery failed during peak winter celebrations, absorbing residual intent rather than malice. They contribute to the region’s unpredictability without defining it as cursed or corrupted.
Threats in the Outer Cold escalate slowly:
Initial encounters are quiet and curious.
Danger arises through miscommunication or neglect.
Violence is situational, not ideological.
The region favors endurance over confrontation. Most threats can be avoided, misunderstood, or redirected. However, when conflict occurs, it is often prolonged and exhausting rather than explosive.
The tone remains adventurous and strange rather than oppressive.
Raverie depends on the Outer Cold without acknowledging it:
Excess machinery is discarded here.
Failed projects are left to freeze.
Escaped citizens are unofficially ignored.
This creates a boundary where the city’s ideals dissolve quietly. Official maps grow vague beyond a certain distance, and civic authority fades without ceremony.
The Outer Cold serves as Raverie’s narrative periphery.
It allows:
Exploration without political consequence.
Encounters with the city’s past decisions.
Whimsical danger unbound by civic logic.
Where Raverie is polished and controlled, the Outer Cold is patient and unresolved. It does not oppose the city—it simply waits, accumulating forgotten things until someone goes looking for them.
@Grinding Gears sometimes dump sabotaged machinery here.
@Silentia — The Quiet Shore exists within this periphery, embodying its ideological chill.
The Quiet Customs are less practiced here—rituals fade with distance from the city’s heart.
Deepwinter affects the Outer Cold, but without the Noel Modus, its winter is natural and unadorned.
Summary: The Outer Cold is the frozen wilderness beyond Raverie—a place of abandoned infrastructure, rogue automatons, exiled citizens, and subtle winter spirits. It is not a realm of evil, but of neglect and quiet accumulation, serving as a narrative frontier where the city’s order gives way to whimsical, unresolved danger.