(Planescape) Mountain of Ultimate Winter

[the Jester]

Hey guys, I was wondering if any of our Planescape sages (such as [MENTION=11697]Shemeska[/MENTION]) might be able to direct me to any lore regarding the Mountain of Ultimate Winter, home of the immoths (as described in a PS MC Appendix, er maybe 2?).

There is a chance that the pcs in my campaign will head there in a few levels and I'd like to check out existing information, if any, before simply creating my own whole cloth.

Thanks!

 

[Shemeska]

Off the top of my head, the immoth entry in the PSMC III and a short bit in 'The Inner Planes' are AFAIK the only material that covers the mountain and its denizens. It's not a ton, but the bit about words freezing into physical manifestations of themselves upon speaking them, and the Immoth seeking them out and collecting them, is a seriously juicy plot hook.

I used it in my own campaign several years ago, ultimately ending with the PCs finding out what the Immoth were trying to complete (from bits and pieces of those words) and the person who tasked/cursed them to that quest eons prior.

 

[TarionzCousin]

According to the Inner Planes supplement, the Mountain of Ultimate Winter is the coldest place on the paraplane of ice--which suggests that it is the coldest place in the multiverse.

Creatures "immune" to cold only suffer 1d6 hit points of cold damage per round; Non-natives must make a saving throw vs. spell or freeze solid.

The Mountain of Ultimate Winter is so cold it freezes everything, including words and concepts--which become tiny crystals worth between 100 and 5000 gp. Immoths and paraelementals come here to collect the frozen explorers so they can add to the collection in the Cave of Folly.

It's not a welcoming sort of place.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Here's the blurb from The Inner Planes, by our friends Monte Cook and William Conners.

This oft-mentioned location sits on the Precipice, amid a number of other icy mountains. Cold winds whip around the jagged peaks of this white monstrosity, which sparkles with icy crystals. Although most outlanders say that the Chiseled Estate [the fortress of Cryonax -- KM] is the coldest spot in the paraplane, they're wrong. That distinction belongs to the Mountain of Ultimate Winter, which suggests that it's actually the coldest place in the multiverse.

Nonnatives who come to the Mountain must make a successful saving throw vs. spell or freeze utterly solid in 1d4 rounds. Nonnative creatures that are immune to cold (such as ice toads or winter wolves) suffer 1d6 points of damage per round while here.

An area of true cold, the Mountain of Ultimate Winter freezes everything from words to concepts. These things become tiny crystals worth anywhere from 100 to 5,000 gold pieces, depending on the item and the buyer. The Mountain is also home to immoths and paraelementals, who like to capture explorers and store them -- frozen solid, of course -- in the Caves of Folly. (The collection isn't nearly as pristine or elegant as that in Arcolantha [which is a bubble of air with frozen creatures in it that will revive when thawed out -- KM].)

If using it in 4e, I'd suggest the following.
[sblock=The Mountain of Ultimate Winter]

• A region of the Elemental Chaos: The Mountain of Ultimate Winter, perhaps the coldest place in the multiverse, is in a persistent glacial region in the Elemental Chaos.
• Special equipment or magic is required for to survive here. If you don't have something that lets you survive extreme cold(such as an azer-forged cloak or a ritual of planar endurance), you die and freeze solid when you come here. Anything that permits you to survive the ambient environment still cannot avoid the effect of extreme cold -- even those immune to cold must make a DC 40 Endurance check when they take an extended rest or they loose 1d6 healing surges. When they have no more healing surges, they instead die as above if the next one is lost.
• Abstract Ice. Thoughts, words, actions, intentions, desires, fears, and concepts are all frozen solid as they are brought into being. The Mountain is actually made of these frozen ideas and crystallized dreams. They surround travelers here like a halo of light, sparkling snow, and once frozen, become part of the Mountain, never released into the world. This is mostly a cosmetic effect, though the larger, finer chunks often have value as gemstones to specific buyers.
• Inhabitants. Even for creatures immune to cold, the Mountain of Ultimate Winter is not a pleasant place. Virtually the only creatures that live here are natives specifically to this place -- ice elementals and immoths, by and large. The latter are said to be "from" here, and their ability to freeze an enemy's actions in place (and use them later) certainly speaks to their familiarity with frozen...everything. Other cold-loving creatures may dwell here for a few days, though they don't often form permanent homes, since they can rarely survive, and there's not much in the way of edible things, unless one can eat the frozen concept of food (which is what Immoths are said to derive sustenance from). The wildlife here is often lost and desperately hungry, while the native elementals and immoths are self-interested and pitiless, with many enjoying the display of frozen corpses, and regarding simple body heat as crime enough to kill an individual.
• Adventures.The feature of the mountain to freeze words and thoughts leads to it being a destination for those who want to think the unthinkable, or speak the unspeakable. It is something of a confessional for many, who go there with the express intent of leaving some awful concept frozen forever in that mountain. Creatures considering such a journey need protection, not only from the natives, but from those who may want to discover the secret, sent along to expose the idea that wants to be locked away forever. Alternately, the party may be on the other side -- recruited to track down a lost thought or secret held within the mountain. The immoths especially resent this theft from their "libraries," and may go far across the planes to regain a cube of ice with a taboo thought inside.

[/sblock]

...and then in a fit of inspiration, I statted up an Immoth!

YAY!

 

[the Jester]

Hey, thanks guys! That adds a lot of detail to what I had (which was just the bit in the immoth entry in the PS MC Appendix they're in).

I like your immoth, but it is likely to be a few levels too high for my group.

I'll have to come up with a few options for them for survival; maybe a friendly ritualist or some kind of planar protection garb or something.

Awesome, many thanks again! And Kamikaze Midget, I'll probably end up using your 4e write up of the MoUW as is or very close to. Nice work.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Yar, I figured they should be epic tier since they live in the coldest place in the multiverse...which is pretty frickin' epic...but I'm glad you like 'em! (replace their stats with any brute's stats, maybe give 'em some cold resist, slap on the freeze power/release power abilities, and yer good to go!)

Since I'm futzing around with a PS4e campaign, this hits a sweet spot for me...Immoths are kind of awesome, but so obscure that not that many folks have seen one in action.

 

[the Jester]

Yeah, during the 3e era I had an exiled tribe of immoths in a dungeon, allied by cruel necessity with an insane, bile-infected beholder named Red-Eye, so I have a good bit of history with them.

Your version of them is fantastic; Freeze/Release Power are awesome.

 

[the Jester]

This is a "My Players Don't Look" post, so I'll sblock it. (I don't think it's likely any of them will be on ENWorld anytime soon anyhow, but just in case!)

[sblock]Among other ongoing plotlines in my campaign is a bastardized adaptation of Dead Gods. Basically, the pcs are trying to discover what artifact, lost to all knowledge and memory, this crazy ogre guy Quah-Nomag is seeking, and they've managed to find out that all memory of it was wiped out long ago by some kind of uber-powerful epic ritual. Said item, of course, is a certain dead fellow's Wand...

Well, the Mountain of Ultimate Winter is one of the possible approaches to finding it that they are likely to consider after they (presumably) find some clues in the dungeon that they're currently about to storm.[/sblock]