Lore that I never got around to completing [Gelid Aldis]

[winterblood 11181]

Hey!  Back in winter last year I had an idea for a type of tree to be added onto LotC, I didn't have a lot of time to work on the post and to think everything out, so I moved at an extremely slow pace in working out the lore.  When Summer arrived, I began working on it a little more, but was slowly running out of motivation to complete it and wasn't really wanting to waste so much effort just for a mineman roleplaying server.  I had planned to write out an incredibly detailed post along with journals of a character who'd have relation to the trees and would be used for events, if the lore was ever accepted.  There'd be all sorts of data of the tree in the notes along with what the character would have experienced in dreams after touching the tree which had been one of the main reasons for him to have lost his sanity.

 

Since I don't think I'm really going to be finishing this up anytime soon,  I thought I'd post it here to see what people would think of the tree so far.  I might possibly get back to working on it later on, but I'm not all too sure.

 

 

[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y31aoMhoDeQ ]

 

https://gyazo.com/a5cc5fd20d89b0590bbfea77f0aa648b

https://gyazo.com/95053fe2ffb05c1a80059a06778c84ec

https://gyazo.com/bad86e8e3e30283dfb68de527b98efc3

 

Origins

The true origins of the Gelid Aldis is unknown by all on Axios, they’ve furtively existed for centuries long before the recent inhabiters of the Isles had arrived.  Native to the land, the ancient and enigmatic trees can be found sporadically throughout the snowy and frozen lands of the Isles where the white drifts seem endless or once the forests grow still due to being frosted over, and occasionally the peaks of mountains that have been eternally buried beneath layers of snow and ice and are forever whipped by bitter winds.

Knowledge of the trees had originally been discovered by an elf referred to as The Mad Alchemist Cihiris who was obsessed with the trees and was determined to learn about them.  While in the process of researching one he had come across, he lost his sanity.

 

“I have witnessed Her beauty, Her secrets.  No one else shall learn, for they will abuse Her powers…”

Quote from The Mad Alchemist’s journal after his return.

 

[The Gray Tree, 1912 by Piet Mondrian]

 

The Tree

 

“She stretched upward, Her gnarled and frosted fingers splaying and twisting about… Snow stuck to Her gray trunk which felt piercingly cold and rough as I grazed my hand over it.”

Excerpt from The Mad Alchemist’s journal.

 

A Gelid Aldis’ height ranges from twenty to thirty feet with wide spreading branches that droop low enough for an averaged sized human or elf to touch.  Its trunk and branches are an ashen gray, and the maple leaf-like leaves have a frosted blue hue to them.  The bark to the tree feels rather rugged and is quite tough, but the trunk and barbed branches themselves appear to be gnarled and seems to bulge slightly in certain, sporadic spots.  The roots dig deep into the frozen earth and the thorny branches cling tightly to their leaves, which would require a good tug to pluck free.

 

Spring and Summer [Malin’s Welcome - Sun’s Smile]

In these warm seasons, small silver flowers freckle the canopy of the Gelid Aldis which preface the growth of berries that vary between the colors of dark purple and black when ripened.  They’re around one to two centimeters in length [one inch] and when eaten, they cool your mouth as mint would, but are as sweet as a rasberry.  They are entirely safe to consume by the inhabiters of the land and maybe even be used to make naturally chilled juices or fermented into wine.The Gelid Aldis’ leaves don’t carry a frosted look in these warmer months, but still remain cold.  [2.3 degrees Celsius = 36.3 degrees Fahrenheit]  If they’re plucked from the thorned branches, they begin to lose their cool temperature as time passes by, eventually feeling like a mundane leaf after thirty minutes has passed.

The tree’s thick bark looks dry and is tremendously cold to the touch.  Brief contact with the bark and/or wood with bare skin is safe, but prolonged contact with the bark and/or wood will cause harm to the being touching it similar to that of a burn.  Its temperature is approximately around -78.5 degrees Celsius [-109.3 degrees Fahrenheit] which is just like dry ice.

A sapphire blue sap drips from the thorns protruding from the branches, and can be found seeping through the crevices of the bark in the colder months.  It is highly dangerous to touch, afflicting cold burns onto any exposed skin it makes contact within seconds-- which then commences the painful transitioning of flesh to stone. [See the BLANK section for more]

 

Fall and Winter [The Amber Cold - Snow’s Maiden]

A frost coats the leaves in these cooler seasons and they’re even colder than they typically are in spring and summer [-4.3 degrees Celsius = 24.2 degrees Fahrenheit] and take around forty-five minutes before having the temperature of a mundane leaf.

The tree’s bark and wood have grown colder with these months, being -80.5 degrees Celsius. [112.9 degrees Fahrenheit]  The sapphire hued sap begins to ooze through the little nooks in the bark which has blotches of dampness due to the viscous juices being present at this time.  The sap still holds its dangerous property of turning flesh to stone, but appears to be thicker than how it is in Spring and Summer.

 

 

What would have happened to a person if they were to touch a part of the tree in the winter is that their flesh would slowly and painfully turn to stone.  A way to reverse it would be to submerge the affected areas into warm water.  Cihiris had been crazy enough to allow the stone to spread over him entirely for the sake of gathering knowledge and experienced horrid nightmares relating to the trees.  Upon being brought back, he fully went insane due to his experience and became protective of the trees and their "secrets" that'd he get from the dreams which would most likely not be special, I haven't gotten to expanding that out yet.

 

Also, I hate that the forums bold everything copied in from google docs and that it cant be reversed.  Kill me.

[fighting evil by moonlight 455]

this is really neat!  i wish you would have continued it.  i especially like that it changes with the seasons; the seasons are so under used in current lotc lore (in my opinion).  with a little more fleshing out, i can see this becoming a neat addition to the current canon.  very cool concept.

[Archipelego 2188]

Hell yea ice trees