Mother Winter

## Description:

Mother Winter, sometimes called The Winter Mother or Mother of Frost, and affectionately referred to as Frau Holly, is the primordial personification of the Season of winter, believed into existence sometime in the Age of [REDACTED] while humans were still tribal slaves to the Wad-Thet and Lizardfolk. She is classified as an Over-Deity, and is believed to be at least partially reflected in every Indo-European winter goddess that has ever existed throughout human history; this partial reflection has earned Mother Winter a great many names and a consistent mass of followers from many races that have helped bolster Mother Winter's power.

Mother Winter has many forms, and can assume one or more of a myriad appearances depending on the situation and her intent in that moment; she can appear to be a beautiful young woman clad all in white furs and a long dress, or a short old motherly woman with a crooked cane of pine wood and an oversized coat. During her time spent leading the Wild Hunt, she may appear as a terrifying warrior woman astride a giant white horse, clad in icy plate armor wielding any number of weapons. Despite these many potential appearances, Mother Winter is always a thin, pale Caucasian woman with white or blonde hair dressed in white, gray, or blue with blue, gray, or white eyes; the manner in which she appears to a person is indicative of her intentions with that individual, with certain appearances interpreted as omens of death while others are omens of joyous wintry celebration. Mother Winter's biological age changes between every appearance, but her chronological age is estimated to be several million years old, predating gods like Odin and Zeus by substantial margins.

Mother Winter's absolute control over ice and winter grants her powerful Divinatory abilities. These powers make Mother Winter impossibly intelligent; in the Froderlands, she is known to use the Hinterland's frozen moon, Baogan, as a giant eye in the sky, with which she knows all that goes on across the Hinterland. It is said that Mother Winter knows all that goes on as long as even a single snowflake lays in the vicinity. Mother Winter's wisdom is similarly immense; she is older than all the modern factions and many modern races, and predates all modern gods, which makes her knowledgeable about the distant past which has been long forgotten to even the most astute of Antediluvian scholars.

Mother Winter finds most modern technology to be unnatural, abhorrent, and antithetical to the things for which she stands. As such, she keeps the Froderlands in a perpetual state of Medieval understanding; outside of the Froderlands, she fights against the use of weather-manipulating technologies and often aids Elves and Fairies in their wars against the other races. Mother Winter enjoys freezing equipment, sinking expeditions beneath layers of ice, and flooding glaciers to flood the self-built cities of man.

Mother Winter's understanding of Magic is encyclopedic and all-encompassing. She understands how the Ley Lines operate, where they operate, and her control over aspects of nature allow her to manipulate them as well; she has the power to freeze planets solid, induce Ice Ages with a wave of the hand, and impart knowledge so powerful and so long forgotten that it brought down Mageocratic empires with the snap of a finger.

### Personality:

Mother Winter's goals are entirely beyond mortal comprehension, and likely independent from the Realms of mortals entirely; Mother Winter's long-standing reign as the Over-Deity of Winter ensures she retains great power over her Domain and the gods/goddesses beneath her. By all accounts, Mother Winter has what any deity could ask for, and has no direct enemies or conflicts which could ever threaten her. Instead, much of her time is spent maintaining the balance of Nature and receiving and maintaining the worship of the mortals within her grasp, especially the races of the Froderlands.

Mother Winter's temperament is notoriously unstable and unpredictable, much like the Season which she embodies. She demands worship and punishes laziness or insult swiftly and brutally; anyone who displeases, ignores, or insults her will meet a frigid end. Mother Winter's reputation for this temperamental behavior is especially known to the Fae and the inhabitants of the Froderlands. Mother Winter does, however, has an impressively large ego and self-worth, which causes her to undertake complex schemes and plots to kill or torment the mortals who wrong her; she is vindictive, often petty, and faced with little else to do than interfere in the matters of mortals.

Despite her reputation for living in her palace, [REDACTED], on the moon Baogan, Mother Winter is the opposite of hedonistic; her Domain prevents life from flourishing, and as a goddess she has no need of food or other worldly pleasures. Within the world of the Divine, Mother Winter is considered to be an old-fashioned goddess with an appreciation for her power and the finer aspects that divinity offers her.

Mother Winter has very little trust for anyone, even other gods; she has expressed a greater degree of trust for mortals because mortals are much easier to manipulate and sway than the divine. Mother Winter is not paranoid, however, as her position is solidified and she faces few immediate threats to her power.

Mother Winter subscribes to no religion, as she is herself a powerful goddess. Instead, she is a primary deity for many world religions, including the Giants, most residents of the Froderlands, and the Fae.