Universe D-2-L-U-D-G-V-Y-B-G-F-U-Z-A
Tentative name: Blizzard Winterland
Overview
As the name appropriately portrays, this universe is in an eternal snowstorm, all terrain covered in eternal, flickering white. What strikes as particular for this place are two things: The snow itself, and the life that continues to exist despite it.
A thaumic photograph of the area, ruined by the snow.
Speaking of the hazardous environment, the snow comes first: It’s not made out of water, or liquid, or any traditional material. It is instead composed of congealed magic: Thaumic energy that meshes together into small crystals that bounce against each other every time they either touch or pass by their respective areas of effect. As they’re billions and billions of small white crystals, this happens an innumerable amount of times, thus creating this constant blizzard, each flake refusing to stay in place.
This snowstorm of magical particles generates many kinds of interferences. It interferes with natural magical abilities, as well as magnetic and electric fields. Thaumic images refuse to work, instead showing a messy white, the kind of hue one only sees in worlds where color has been drained, or made to never exist.
Morphing abilities also malfunction while under the harsh climate of this plane. I learnt this the hard way.
A Snow Hare
Hardly a rabbit, really.
Despite the terrain refusing to stay in constant place, dancing to the whims of the everwinter, creatures with vaguely lagomorphic traits make their burrows and live under the unstable snow. How they maintain any sort of tunnel system is unknown, for any sort of logic would dictate this to be an impossible task. And yet, they persist.
Each burrow contains hundreds upon hundreds of them, and they will leave a burrow in hordes to create another one. This makes me believe whatever they feed on must reside deep underground, away from the snow’s reach.
Every time these groups of hares move from burrow to burrow, they attract the attention of packs of predators, such as…
Frostskulls
A very fitting name.
Despite their brutish appearance, these creatures are anything but brutes. They swiftly move throughout the snow, at times fluttering. My theory is that they skip atop the flakes of magic, using collected snow on their paws to then be propelled towards their target. The majestic dance of an extremophile.
The frostskulls hunt in packs of five, and sometimes several packs hunt together. They are planners, using their numbers to separate then corner the hares. Each of them can easily hunt three to five hares. Their hunt seems to always be bountiful, and yet, no matter how many hares are hunted, their numbers never seem to diminish.
How much total biological energy does this universe have? How is it stable?
The Kites in the Sky
I’ve only seen their silhouette.
Creatures I’ve only encountered once or twice. They are massive in size, and always too far up to discern the finer details of their anatomy. They do not have wings, an unusual sight as most non-winged flying creatures either take advantage of a gravitational oddity (Which is not present here) or use magic to stay in the sky (Which cannot be used here.)
Do they use a method similar to the frostskulls? I wish I had an answer, and yet, maybe some mysteries are best left unearthed, especially in places where every second overstayed is a second spent in the white-out.
The Last Tree
Way taller than you'd think.
The single stationary creature, or object in general, a massive dead tree stood in the middle of everything. I say ‘in the middle’ in a poetic sense, as there is no way of knowing whether it truly is in the middle of this universe. Regardless, it was the center of my known universe.
Perhaps it was the snow lowering one’s visibility, but the tree never seemed to reach an end, instead continuing on upwards until it disappeared into a white heaven. Looking down, one could see that it had no roots, its trunk extending downwards in a similar manner.
The tree had no other special traits, but it served as the only point of reference that allowed me to explore through the blizzard without getting lost: No matter where I was, I could never lose sight of the tree. It makes me wonder if, at one point, the tree was alive, and this place was no winter. Maybe at one point, the tree was full of leaves and flowers, and the hares burrowed not in fake snow but on grass and dirt.
Maybe this universe was born dead. Or maybe this is how it 'lives', disregarding universal entropy. Whatever the case, I will not stay to find out. I doubt I'll ever step back into this land of eternal freeze.