Niflheim

The realm of primordial ice, this is also commonly called the Shadow Realm. Very few people know much at all about it, but Trefoil has had personal experience with it after a mishap created an unstable rift that, when buried under a metaphorical carpet, followed the Academy back in time and poured shadow creatures out into our world.

## General Description

The Shadow Realm is a dark place that is sometimes called the source of terror, of creeping monsters and the chill at the back of your neck. It is a sunless realm lit only by distant stars which requires warming charms to even have a chance to fight the bone-aching winds that gnaw straight through your body, sapping away warmth and color. It is a wild place with no known rulers but the cold and shadow.

* It is **dark and cold**. There is no sun nor moon, only wane starlight.
* **Colors are rare**, but some ice crystals can sparkle in iridescent beauty.
* **Ice and snow** cover most of the landscape
* A **howling wind** can bite through clothing and flesh alike, chilling you to the bone.
* Everything feels **wild and feral** and out to eat you.

## Known Methods of Access

* Portals under Trefoil Academy
* A created Rift between realms, which is illegal magic
* A natural Rift, sometimes formed on a full or new moon. From books in the Academy library: *"The veil to this realm thins on the full moon, and creatures from its dark depths and icy terrain sometimes cross to wreak havoc upon our own world."*

## Exploration

Limited, but with some detailed maps brought back by student teams who delved into the realm to a) search for a missing headmaster, and b) search for staff members who were shoved into the realm while under a Confusion spell by Westgaards.

### Survival

Light sources and heat are necessary for survival. In some areas, magical frost protection is required or you will freeze solid! Additionally, the longer a person stays in the shadow realm, the more that its taint begins to seep into them and corrupt them. This seems to impact people in different ways, whether driving them insane or making them evil. They will also eventually lose all color if left there for years.

### Notable Places

* Glacial Plains: like the arctic tundra, but swathed in only darkness and starlight.
* Ice-Tree Forests: the 'trees' here are formed purely of ice, their sharp branches twisted and gleaming in the starlight. The reflections and transparency create a confusing visual maze, though it is beautiful.
* Sharp snowy mountains with jagged, wind-carved ridges of rock and ice, all snow-swept and blisteringly cold. The wind howls through the icy crags, making flight dangerous. Avalanches are a constant threat, and the crevasses run deep into a yawning darkness, cracking down for miles through the ice.
* Deep, twisting caverns that seemed tunneled out by various beasts. These were sometimes lit by a bio-luminescent algae, but were home to many things that wanted to eat people.

## Denizens

While some creatures seem like shadow-corrupted versions of the familiar animals of Earth, some other creatures simply defy logic, some lack bodies, and some hunt by heat signature. Almost all of them seem to dislike the sun.

### Notable Species

* Shadow/Rift monsters (varied),
* Wraiths,
* Eidolons
* Ice Giants,
* "The Black Wave",
* Shadow Panther,
* Ice worms,
* Ice Elementals
* The Spawn of Nidhoggr (chaos dragons of ice and shadow)

### Notable Persons

* Nylora: a person who was rescued by Trefoil from the Shadow Realm
* Muninn: a Lorekeeper assigned to watch and record Trefoil Academy, whose notebook was ripped up by a poltergeist and scattered all over the school. The students found some of Muninn's research on the Shadow Realm on the scraps of notebook, very little of which was returned to the Lorekeepers.
* Academy staff who were briefly lost in the Shadow Realm: Ash, Danger, Paws, Ranger, (and others). The Westgaards used a Confusion spell on them all and then shoved them through the open rift, and students went in to rescue them while the staff were still confused.

## Theories and Questions

The Realm:

* Are there portals to this realm hidden within other realms?

Staff:

* What did the "misplaced" staff experience when they were lost in the shadow realm under Confusion?
	+ What did their rescuing students witness of their behavior?

NPCs:

* Did the shadow realm make Nylora evil, or was she already when she was banished there?
	+ Why was the Shadow Realm the place where she was banished?
	+ Did she gain the ability to steal magic there, or did she already have it?
* How did a Lorekeeper spend so much time researching there without being corrupted?