The region of the Arial that takes place at it's northern part.
Climate Anomaly
Despite the Arial continent's central equatorial position, the northern regions (including Northern Arial and the uncharted lands beyond) experience harsh, taiga-like, and tundra conditions. This is a direct, lingering consequence of the Virian Cataclysm.
During the Cataclysm, the shattering of the world fractured the local reality, leaving behind unstable, passive rifts to the Ergo plane. Specifically, micro-fractures to the Therme subplane act as massive "thermal sinks." Because the Therme plane can freely consume thermal energy, these rifts endlessly drain heat from the surrounding environment.
This planar bleeding results in:
-
The Freezing Dark: Unpredictable, rapid temperature drops and perpetual winter conditions that defy normal geographic logic.
-
Auroral Storms: The constant friction between the Matera and Eidos planes in these rift-heavy zones manifests as the vivid, swirling northern lights.
-
Ecological Adaptation: Only the most resilient flora, fauna, and cultures (such as the followers of Arialian Aspectism) can survive here.
This environment is the very reason the Aspectists revere Ark the Ice-Breaker (patron of the deep taiga and treacherous seas) and Ark the Sky-Weaver (who bridges the living and the dead through the auroral threads of the Eidos plane). To them, the cold is not just weather; it is the lingering scar of the Cataclysm, and surviving it is the ultimate proof of the Free Ark's liberation.