FROST ETERNAL

"I've guided seventeen expeditions into the Land of Glass. Each time, I swear it will be my last. Yet I find myself drawn back, haunted by the beauty and horror of that twisted landscape. There's a strange seduction to the place - the way the aurora reflects off the glass plains, creating kaleidoscope patterns that seem to whisper secrets if you stare too long. Sometimes I wonder if the spirits of the dead are calling us all, reaching out through the broken remains of the world to pull us toward some incomprehensible future.

If you're reading this and planning your own expedition into the FROST, remember - the glass doesn't just reflect what's there. Sometimes it shows you what you might become."

• Compiled by KTR-597, Katarina Orlov, Senior Cartographers Guild pathfinder and former mercenary, Day 19 of The Dead Moon, 124 AP

Unlike the mud lands of central europe, where the earth itself seems to constantly shift and devour, the land of frost presents a deceptive stillness. The snow-covered plains and glittering ice fields create an illusion of pristine beauty that masks the nightmares lurking beneath. In the summer season - if one can call a few months of slightly less brutal temperatures "summer" - the permafrost retreats just enough to reveal the blackened bones of civilisation: twisted rebar skeletons of cities, half-buried military installations, and the occasional pristine bunker, its contents untouched since the world burned.

Standing on the precipice between the relative safety of the mud lands and the frozen horrors of the FROST, Ograd has earned its reputation as the City of Mercenaries. Defensive outposts constructed from the armored hulls of destroyed war machines encircle the settlement, topped with observation posts where gunners maintain constant vigilance against both mutant incursions and the occasional Machine-Hybrid that wanders too far west. 

The streets of the brutalist concrete city are crowded with traders hawking survival gear of dubious quality, mercenaries advertising their services with elaborate tattoos denoting their specialties, and expedition planners poring over incomplete maps in dimly lit taverns.

The creatures that call the FROST home have evolved to thrive in conditions that would kill unprotected humans in minutes. Expeditions have catalogued dozens of distinct mutant species, though classification remains difficult as rapid evolution continues across the region.

The Wendigos of the northern forests represent perhaps the most immediate threat to expeditions. These evolved mutants, standing two to three times the height of a human, possess elongated limbs and phenomenal climbing abilities that allow them to pursue prey through even the densest pine forests.

Their most unsettling adaptation is their vocal mimicry—the ability to perfectly replicate human voices, often using the last words of previous victims to lure new prey. In recent years, the creatures have grown ever bolder and now even enter the outskirts of cities and settlements, attempting to lure their prey out into the cold night.

It is in the brief thaws of summer that most expeditions make their attempts, racing against the returning cold to extract whatever treasures remain. Radioactive hotspots dot the landscape like invisible landmines, their presence revealed only by the bizarre growth patterns of mutated flora or the occasional pools of unnaturally coloured snow that glow faintly in the endless night of winter.

The typical FROST expedition resembles a military operation more than an exploration party. While most explorers enter the lands of Frost on foot, larger expeditions may use vehicles, retrofitted with additional armor and enclosed heating systems.

While the largest expeditions may include several vehicles and dozens of personnel, it is often the smaller, less “noticeable” groups that achieve greater success rates.

Essential personnel include pathfinders, hired to guide the expedition along known routes with less danger, mechanics capable of performing repairs in sub-zero conditions while wearing full thermal suits, and as many gunfighters as possible, to fight off whatever creatures might come for the expedition.

In the heart of this frozen hell lies its most terrible region - the Land of Glass. This vast region, encompassing what was once the European part of Russia, bears the most visible scars of humanity's final wars. Here, at the epicentre of multiple nuclear detonations, the very earth was transformed. The sand and soil fused into smooth, undulating plains of obsidian glass, creating a warped mirror that reflects the broken sky above.

The glass is not uniform—it rises in jagged spires where cities once stood, their final moments captured in twisted, frozen waves of vitrified concrete and steel. In other areas, it forms basin-like depressions, some miles across, where entire military bases were vaporized in a heartbeat.

The glass itself is mottled with veins of strange metals and composites that sometimes pulse with an inner light when radiation storms sweep across the land, creating a beautiful but dangerous spectacle of light.

It is no small feat for an expedition to cross the Land of Glass and be willing to carry on. Many lose their will to go on and either return to Ograd or, in more extreme cases, simply sit down and stare at their own reflections in the glass, losing themselves until they freeze to death.

Those that make it across, often make camp just on the edge of the Land of Glass - a grave mistake, as one of the biggest dangers of the region still lurks this area...

The true terror of the Land of Glass is not its appearance but something that is mostly invisible at first. As the unwary members of an expedition huddle in their tents for a bit of warmth, black tendrils enshrouded in crackling violet light seemingly manifest out of thin air and draw near.

The Land of Glass serves as a nexus for irregular Nanoweave activity, possibly caused by the nuclear bombardment during the wars of the Great Collapse. In this region, the microscopic nanobots of the Nanoweave have evolved far beyond their original programming.

When these nanobots encounter human tissue, they attempt to transform it!

The unfortunate souls who fall victim to a nanobot transformation undergo a metamorphosis so profound it defies classification as either death or evolution. Their flesh becomes a battleground where technology and biology wage war for dominance, neither fully winning.

These so-called Machine-Hybrids - although Nano-Hybrids would be a more fitting term if the cause of their transformation was better understood - represent a horrific fusion of human anatomy and technological growth, violet light pulsing through translucent skin that has hardened into something resembling both armour plating and circuit boards. Their limbs elongate into impossible proportions, sometimes splitting into additional appendages tipped with claws or tendrils that can rip through reinforced steel.

An expedition that has braved all of the dangers of the FROST finally reaches the remains one one of the fabled Dead Cities.

Before long, they find an entrance and tunnels that lead underground. Here, the treasures of the old world are abundant - as are the dangers!

The expedition encounters a horde of mutant creatures, descendants of the reaper agent's victims...

At first, the member of the expedition manage to stand their ground and fight off waves of humanoid creatures.

But soon, larger mutant creatures join the fight...

... and one by one, the members of the expedition meet their doom!

A lone warrior has managed to escape the carnage and is moving ever deeper into the underground.

After a while, she finds what the expedition has been hoping to find...

...a still-functioning power core from the pre-collapse era!

The warrior leaves the underground and hastily retreats from the Dead City, embarking on a lonely journey back to Ograd.

Back in the city, she finds a vendor willing to pay the high price she is asking for - the warrior has lost many of her friends and is determined to make enough money to not have to go back into the Frost for the rest of this cycle!