Frostfair

Frostveil’s surface has begun to settle: the sudden cold pockets have weakened, the worst winds have lifted, and stretches of snowfield previously crossed only by prepared expedition groups are becoming suitable for longer stays. Belowground, pressure shifts have opened seasonal routes through the ice. Aboveground, residents are clearing entrances, marking safe paths, and bringing their businesses into the daylight.

The change is part of a rare natural cycle within Frostveil’s immense ice network. As accumulated energy disperses, unusual winter weather spreads across New Ognos. Snow falls in places that seldom see it, frost takes unfamiliar forms, and regional conditions produce phenomena that researchers are still trying to explain. Cold-adapted creatures are emerging along newly accessible migration routes, some accompanied by young that have never experienced the surface. Others arrive alone, gather near settlements, or appear in snowbanks far from any known nesting ground. Frostveil’s residents have established a nursery to shelter the young while their migration patterns are studied. Frostfair has grown around these efforts: an aboveground winter gathering with warm food, markets, skating paths, shared accommodations, and a nursery full of increasingly curious creatures.

Visit Frostveil, help raise a snow beast, explore the winter conditions across New Ognos, and enjoy the surface while the season lasts!

Out of Character

Duration

• Frostfair will remain open from November 8th to February 6th.
• The Winter Exchange will close on February 13th.
• Daily nursery rewards and posting bonuses end on February 6th.
• Players may choose their snow beast’s final outcome through February 13th.

Collect & Spend Snowflakes ❄️

During Frostfair, participants earn 1 Snowflake ❄️ for every 500 words written. Snowflakes are the seasonal currency and can be spent in the Winter Exchange.

Daily nursery visits, posting bonuses, and selected milestones also provide small rewards throughout the event.

Festival Themes

Winter, snow, ice, frost, auroras, migration, fantastical creatures, nurturing, growth, exploration, hospitality, shared meals, warm clothing, winter markets, travel, discovery, and life aboveground.

Your Frostfair Snow Beast

Choosing Your Beast

Your first qualifying post involving a visit to Frostveil for Frostfair allows you to collect one snow beast from the nursery.

Choose from six species:

Species	Appearance & Natural Capability
Rimehorn	A woolly, six-legged creature with broad feet and translucent horns containing drifting snowflakes. It grows branching frost from its horns to create small shelters and windbreaks.
Snowmorrow	A plump, wingless dragon with velvet fur, crystalline back plates, and a thick curled tail. It breathes soft snow that it can compact into objects or loosen into powder.
Flurryfin	A hovering creature with plush fur, four flowing fins, and a broad fan-shaped tail. It swims through falling snow and carries small objects within its surrounding flurry.
Glasstuft	A long-eared creature with translucent limbs, fluffy shoulder tufts, and a glowing frost crystal within its clear belly. It temporarily makes ice transparent to reveal what lies beneath.
Driftskip	A fluffy creature with large hind feet, feathery cheek frills, and three ribbonlike tails. It burrows into one snowbank and emerges from another nearby.
Hushcoat	A broad-faced creature with a shaggy silver-white mantle and luminous markings beneath its fur. It softens nearby noise and vibration, helping those around it rest or move quietly.

Each player may collect one Frostfair snow beast. You may name it and identify a character as its carer.

After adoption, eligible posts from any of your characters can contribute to its event progress. You do not need to use the same character throughout Frostfair.

The Nursery

Your beast has a place at Frostveil’s nursery throughout the event.

Nursery staff provide food, shelter, supervision, and companionship whenever you are away. Missing a day does not harm your beast, reduce its progress, or weaken its relationship with its carer.

You can return whenever you are ready. Your beast will remain healthy and waiting for you.

Daily Care & Calendar Rewards

Your snow beast’s page includes a calendar covering the full event.

Each day, visit the nursery and choose a care activity to collect the day’s nursery reward. Activities include feeding, grooming, playing, and helping your beast settle.

Care activities produce a short response from your creature and contribute to its growth.

Daily Nursery Reward

• Complete one care activity to collect the day’s reward.
• Nursery rewards may include copper awards, Snowflakes, and other small prizes.
• The daily reward can be collected once per player per day.
• Additional visits on the same day do not grant additional rewards.

Daily Posting Bonus

Make at least one eligible IC post during the day to earn a posting seal and a separate bonus reward.

After your beast is unlocked:

• Posts from any of your characters can qualify.
• Posts do not need to feature the beast or take place at Frostfair.
• Multiple posts on the same day grant one daily posting bonus.
• Posting also contributes to your beast’s growth.

Care and posting rewards can be collected separately. You do not need to complete both to receive either one.

Missed Days

Milestones count your total participation days throughout the event. Consecutive attendance is not required.

A missed day leaves that calendar square uncollected. Previously earned rewards, growth, stamps, and badges remain yours.

Growth Stages

Your snow beast develops through three stages:

Stage	Visible Changes
Nursery Young	Small proportions, a soft juvenile coat, and early signs of its species features
Growing Beast	A larger body, fuller coat, and visibly developing horns, fins, crystals, markings, or other features
Mature Beast	Adult proportions and fully developed species features

Both care activities and IC posting contribute to growth. Regional participation unlocks additional customization and development choices.

The Winter Passport

Each beast’s nursery record includes a passport with a page for every quadrant of New Ognos.

The winter cycle produces different conditions across the island. Nursery staff use observations and materials from these regions to help the young develop their coats and learn to control their abilities.

Your eligible posts in each quadrant automatically contribute to that regional page.

What Counts?

• Any of your characters may contribute.
• The post must be assigned to an appropriate location within the quadrant.
• Your beast does not need to appear in the post.
• No particular activity, weather encounter, or character behavior is required.
• Posts do not establish that your beast traveled with the character.

Regional Milestones

Posts in a Quadrant	Unlock
1	Regional passport stamp and access to that region’s nursery outing
3	A choice of regional appearance features
5	A choice of regional ability enhancements

Each post contributes to the quadrant of its recorded primary location.

Regional features are adapted to your beast’s species. Available choices may include coat colors, luminous markings, frost patterns, crystalline growths, or changes to existing fins, frills, and horns.

Ability enhancements provide options for its final development. The number and scope of retained abilities depend on its final registration as a Pet, Companion, or character.

Nursery Outings

A regional stamp unlocks a short automated outing associated with that quadrant.

Choose how your beast approaches the outing and receive a short result. Outings can provide small finds, rewards, and achievement badges.

These activities do not require an accompanying IC post.

Achievement Badges

Badges appear on your beast’s record as you complete care activities, post, explore regions, and unlock development milestones.

Examples include:

• Settled In: Complete your first care activity.
• Familiar Face: Care for your beast on ten different days.
• Winter Correspondent: Earn ten daily posting seals.
• Four Corners: Collect all four regional passport stamps.
• Outing Enthusiast: Complete each regional nursery outing at least once.
• Coming Into Its Own: Unlock your first regional ability enhancement.
• Ready for the Journey: Reach the Mature Beast stage.

Badges record your progress throughout Frostfair. Selected milestones also grant rewards.

Frostfair In Character

Above the Ice

Frostveil’s surface remains cold, but marked festival areas are suitable for ordinary winter travel with appropriate clothing.

Residents are making the most of the change. Shops bring their stock upstairs, families share meals beneath the open sky, and visitors arrive to see a part of Frostveil that was previously difficult to reach.

The mid-ice settlements remain active. Descent points connect the festival to established homes, storage, services, and shelter below.

Beyond the maintained areas, Frostveil still has sinkholes, ice vents, predators, and unstable routes. The seasonal change makes exploration possible in more places, though it does not make the entire territory safe.

The Upper Commons

The Upper Commons is Frostfair’s central gathering place.

Marked paths connect market stalls, accommodations, nursery enclosures, geothermal facilities, and descent houses. Staff maintain the main routes, post weather notices, and direct visitors toward suitable shelter when conditions change.

The Winter Exchange

The seasonal market sells winter clothing, provisions, equipment, unusual seasonal goods, and supplies for travelers.

Visiting merchants bring products from across New Ognos. Food stalls serve hot meals and drinks, while outfitters rent sleds, skates, and cold-weather gear.

The Thawhouse

A geothermal bathhouse with communal pools, private soaking rooms, changing facilities, and an adjoining inn.

Visitors use it to warm up after excursions, meet friends, recover from travel, or spend a quiet evening away from the market.

The Open Table

Long communal tables provide a place to eat, rest, and meet other attendees.

Meals are served throughout the day. Spare blankets and sheltered seating are available, and visitors do not need to make a purchase to stay.

The Snow Nursery

The nursery shelters young snow beasts in enclosures suited to their needs.

Some require deep snow for burrowing, others prefer suspended snowfall or quiet nesting spaces. Staff supervise introductions, answer questions, and help carers learn what their beasts enjoy.

The young are curious about visitors. They are also learning abilities that occasionally complicate feeding time.

The Iceworks

An area for skating, snow construction, ice carving, and winter games.

Visitors can work on small sculptures, contribute to larger projects, build temporary shelters, or watch increasingly elaborate creations take shape.

The Descent Houses

Staffed access points connect the surface festival with the mid-ice below.

They serve as meeting places, information stations, and dependable shelter. Weather notices and route updates are displayed at their entrances.

Winter Across New Ognos

The cycle affects more than Frostveil.

Different regions experience unusual snowfall, frost, and temporary changes to familiar terrain. Conditions vary by territory, and further phenomena may appear as the season develops.

• Northwest — Aurora Snow: Luminous flakes fall beneath bright winter skies. Accumulated snow retains its colors after the aurora has faded.
• Northeast — Suspended Snow: Clusters of snow hang among branches and above sheltered ground, descending when disturbed.
• Southeast — Seafoam Flurries: Snow forms above breaking waves and drifts inland, leaving branching ice formations along sheltered shores.
• Southwest — Glassfall: Transparent flakes accumulate into thin sheets that preserve impressions of passing creatures, objects, and travelers.

Local communities are adapting in their own ways. Some establish winter markets or viewing points; others need help maintaining roads, protecting supplies, or understanding unfamiliar conditions.

Prompts & Hooks

• Bring your shop, workshop, or household aboveground and discover what needs changing.
• Share a meal at the Open Table with someone you have never met.
• Your snow beast learns something useful, then starts applying it at inconvenient times.
• Borrow a sled and find that controlling it is considerably harder than expected.
• Visit the Thawhouse after an outing and encounter someone you hoped to avoid.
• Help clear a path between a surface entrance and the festival.
• Build an ice sculpture with a partner who has very different ideas about the finished piece.
• Follow unusual tracks through a region affected by supernatural snow.
• Collect observations for the nursery while traveling elsewhere on New Ognos.
• A young snow beast repeatedly approaches the same descent point. Investigate what has caught its attention.
• Spend an evening watching the auroras from a sheltered surface camp.
• Help someone prepare for their first experience of substantial snowfall.
• Discover that your beast has begun responding to distant calls beneath the ice.
• Prepare for the returning migration and decide whether your beast will join it.
• Your idea here!

The Returning Migration

As the winter cycle approaches its end, the snow beasts begin responding to changes beneath Frostveil.

Adults gather near seasonal routes. Young beasts become more attentive to distant sounds and vibrations. Nursery staff begin preparing those returning to the wild, while carers consider whether their beasts will remain with them.

Characters may help observe the migration, identify suitable routes, escort groups, prepare supplies, or investigate discoveries exposed by the shifting ice.

Your Beast After Frostfair

At the end of the event, choose one outcome:

Outcome	What Happens
Pet	Your beast remains with a character as a Pet, retaining its selected appearance and approved Pet capabilities.
Companion	Your beast becomes a registered Companion, with its final abilities set for that category.
Character	Your beast becomes a playable character, developed from its species and selected features.
Release	Your beast joins the returning migration, granting a special species-themed reward.

Earned appearance features remain available when preparing its final registration.

Releasing a beast is a supported outcome. Nursery staff help it prepare for life with its own kind, and the player receives an exclusive reward associated with the species they raised.

IC Event Notes

Head to the Events Board and create a new post with [Frostfair] in the subject line.

For festival threads and initial snow-beast adoption posts, set the Primary Location to Frostveil.

Winter-related threads elsewhere should use their actual location. Regional passport progress follows the recorded location of eligible posts.

Each pair or group should start a separate thread to keep board formatting consistent.