Frostfound

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"Towers and ramps and galleries and stairs of ice, raised and spun like an architect's honey-dream. No spider ever wove so complex a web. The towers are utterly pristine, untouched by human life, but a pitiable encampment squats by the dock."[1]

Frostfound is a castle of ice located in the northern Unterzee.

I Still Have My Question[edit | edit source]

Every year the people of Irem and Whither meet here for contests; they are trying to determine the difference between a question and a riddle. Those who prove themselves in the contests can enter the castle, which is sacred ground - but nobody has been deemed worthy yet.[2][3]

Let It Go...?[edit | edit source]

This section contains spoilers for the following Sunless Sea content: Frostfound. Proceed at your own risk.

You can find out more about our spoiler policy here.

"Light! A hundred rich and blinding colours filter through the ice. It's like drinking a kaleidoscope. It's like being kidnapped by rainbows. The colours shift with every step you take, revealing shining corridors. In each and every corridor, your reflection waits."[4]

Frostfound consumes its visitors' memories and stories, slowly degrading their minds. But then again, sanity is the cardinal price of knowledge.[5]

The castle was built long ago using the memories of a Traveller who went East; the corridors of Frostfound are implied to have been shaped by their past life.[6][7]

The Corridors of Frostfound[edit | edit source]

  • The Sapphire Chamber: "THIS WAS THE SKY" - a chamber dedicated to the High Wilderness and the hunger of the Stars.[8][9]
  • The Amethyst Gallery: "THERE WERE CASUALTIES" - a gallery filled to the brim with dead sky-behemoths, more vast than imagination permits.[10][11]
  • The Cavity: "THIS IS ONLY A MEMORY. THE CRIME IS FORGOTTEN. ITS SHADOW REMAINS" - a chamber dedicated to the terror and pain of the Red Science.[12][13]
  • The Emerald Vista: "SOMETHING SOUGHT, SOMETHING LOST" - an infinite depth of secrets and changes, with the strength of an unstoppable flood.[14][15]
  • The Diamond Bridge: linking the towers of Brite and Teneb, this bridge is bathed in the merciless light of the stars, bright as humiliation.[16][17]
  • The Iridescence: "KNOW YOURSELF" - a foggy chamber where one must confront and understand themselves.[18][19]
  • The Dark Room: the very center of Frostfound,[20] at once a caul and a coffin,[21] containing the secrets of the gods and the name of the castle's creator, written in their own blood.[22][23]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ Frostfound, Sunless Sea
  2. ↑ Take tea with the squatters at the dock, Sunless Sea "Every year, the people of Irem and Whither meet here, for - [...] Contests, [...] The difference between a question and a riddle. One day, someone will prove themselves enough to enter the castle."
  3. ↑ Ask the squatters about the castle, Sunless Sea "We get enthusiasts here, from time to time. Yes, you might be able to enter the castle before the appointed time. You might even find something of value there. But you'd be despoiling sacred ground, my friend. It will take your stories from you. It will take your essence, your self. And if you survive that, you'll likely anger the gods of the zee. Yes, they're real. As real as the corridors of Frostfound are. Stay away, my friend, stay away."
  4. ↑ The Corridors of Frostfound, Sunless Sea
  5. ↑ The Corridors of Frostfound, Sunless Sea "Over and over you go, in a tumble of furious limbs. You know all your weak spots. But so do you. Fingernails gouge your flesh, reach for your eyes. Words gouge deeper. At last you rise, trembling, your blood on your hands."
  6. ↑ Lose your mind, Sunless Sea "A dead wind which blew from the north. A hungry sun rode the wind. It made of memories a castle. There are mirrors in the ice. A thousand doors and none. The end of the chain is horizon's beginning. Horizon's beginning. Your throat is bleeding."
  7. ↑ Attend a service at the Chapel, Sunless Sea "The Priest maunders on about bones and fish and eggs, while the congregation sway ecstatically or eyeball you suspiciously. Bored, you examine the frescoes on the walls. A hunched figure raises a sharpened flake of stone above a pool. A castle rises frozen from the sea. Limbs coil from a star. Unhelpful. And now the service is over."
  8. ↑ Sapphire Chamber, Sunless Sea "Every facet of the ice-crystal wall is the hard and depthless blue of a desert sky. You take one step further in, and that blue plucks at your senses. Vertigo spins you. A voice intones: THIS WAS THE SKY."
  9. ↑ Step into the sky, Sunless Sea "Yes, this blue is a brittle, savage barrier. Press against it and it will shatter, spilling you into the High Wilderness. The stars are hungry, and there is a horror upon you. Your head spins."
  10. ↑ The Amethyst Gallery, Sunless Sea "Perspective confounds you. This place stretches away every direction through a dusty purple haze, as if you float in a cloud. The air is chill and crackling. Vast and shadowy shapes hang lifeless in the distant cloud, fluid staining their hides. Whale-things and beast-things, bigger than dirigibles, bigger than cities. You are a speck in the cloud. Are you still inside Frostfound? Once again, there is a voice, lifeless as leaden type. THERE WERE CASUALTIES."
  11. ↑ Approach the colossi, Sunless Sea "Great sad dead eyes like stagnant crater-lakes. Mouths which could drink rivers. Your entire ship would be a glint on a speck in a pockmark on the least limb of these things. Every time you enter battle, you will remember this."
  12. ↑ The Cavity, Sunless Sea "You are bathed in crimson light, thick as cream. It warms your skin and fills your mouth with the taste of iron. THIS IS ONLY A MEMORY, a voice intones. THE CRIME IS FORGOTTEN. ITS SHADOW REMAINS."
  13. ↑ Surrender to the traces of horror, Sunless Sea "All living things are joined in the Chain: men and apes, bees and roses, messengers and stars. When the Red Science breaks it, even time is scarred. Now that scar has touched your spirit."
  14. ↑ The Emerald Vista, Sunless Sea "Rich deep fresh green of infinite depths and tints. If secrets had a colour, it would be this. It baffles and delights the eye. A chilly wind brushes you. SOMETHING SOUGHT, the voice intones. SOMETHING LOST."
  15. ↑ Peer into the depths, Sunless Sea "There are changes which will wash away all that you were and all that you are. Nothing is familiar. Everything is new as morning. Your sight is dazzled, your perceptions confounded."
  16. ↑ The Diamond Bridge, Sunless Sea "A narrow space of blinding light, all colours and none, between the towers of Brite and the towers of Teneb. Once on the Bridge, you will be exposed, like an insect in the desert, like a fresh carcass on the operating table, like a jewel in the sun."
  17. ↑ Cross the bridge, Sunless Sea "You stumble through a mounting haze of dread. The light tears at you. Thoughts wither like charring paper. Across, into the merely brilliant light of inner Frostfound."
  18. ↑ The Iridescence, Sunless Sea "The light here is very different. The ice-crystal walls are invisible behind a soft and luminous fog. Even the air is warmer. Your shadow paces you, stalking the boundaries of the fog. KNOW YOURSELF, a voice intones."
  19. ↑ Know yourself, Sunless Sea "What crimes have you forgotten? What shames do you bear? Or is cowardice your sin? Are you hypocrite enough to believer yourself flawless? Or do you glory in your crimes? The fog eddies away, and there your reflection stands with all its scars and stains and deformities. Take a long, long look, until you see yourself fade back into the fog, leaving only that exalted terror."
  20. ↑ The Dark Room, Sunless Sea "Almost silence. Soft breath. The crushing pressure of once-lived experience, as at the core of a star-corpse. Frostfound's lightless heart."
  21. ↑ Harvest a Star-Shell, Sunless Sea "Cradle it in your hands, that bubble-light fragility. It might be a caul or a coffin."
  22. ↑ Fumble in the darkness, Sunless Sea "Long ago a hungry monarch built a castle. The monarch saw a light in the south, in the palace of the south's queen. In those days, hungry as the monarch was, that light provoked nothing but appetite. But she was too far to devour. Over time, their correspondence calmed the monarch, and when the time came for the monarch to depart, the monarch's appetite was transformed, like blood into tears."
  23. ↑ TRAVELLER RETURNING, Sunless Sea "You permit your hand to drift outwards. Your finger touches the first letter of the Name. It flares instantly into light. Yes, this is what you wrote, before you went East. Blisters blossom on your finger-tip. The second letter. This is what he required, that fierce old creature in the dark. The third letter. When you came below, you knew it would hurt, but not this much. Not this much. The fourth letter -"
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