This content was originally included in the Coldsnap Player’s Guide. The original text can be accessed via Internet Archive here.

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The detonation of the Golgothian Sylex heralded the end of the Brother War, shattered the multiverse, and threw Dominaria into an Ice Age. After two thousand years of dreadful cold, Freyalise cast the World Spell, healing the multiverse and putting Dominaria in a state of rebirth known as the Thaw. During this time of change, societies on Dominaria vie for power.

New Argive, the Balduvian-Kjeldoran alliance, remains strong under the leadership of Balduvia’s Lovisa Coldeyes and King Darien of Kjeldor. The Juniper Order continues to strengthen the ties between Yavimaya and New Argive. Together, these three societies could unite eastern Terisiare.

Across the continent, in the still-frozen northwest, a power exists that doesn’t see the Thaw as a good thing—the Cult of Rimewind. For years, this secretive society of mages has been adapting its power

to the icy environment. Rimewind mages have found ways to use the ice like a lens, magnifying and converting mana into a new icy form of magic. The Thaw has sent their leader, Heidar, into a panic. He feels the cult’s power dwindling as the cold recedes. In a crazed effort to restore that power, Heidar ends Rimewind’s seclusion. He plans to refreeze the continent and destroy those who would defend the Thaw.

Heidar convinces both Haakon, the leader of the Knights of Stromgald, and Garza Zol, the new ruler of Krov, to join his cause. Haakon’s undead army will provide added muscle, and the elementalists of Krov will help Heidar reactivate long-buried Phyrexian machines. The undead and the Krovikans are important parts of the plan, but the great Phyrexian death machines, powered and controlled by Rimewind ice magic, are the keys to Heidar’s cold domination.

As the ice and snow push back into the thawing lands, the rumors soon follow. Skyknight scouts confirm word of a crazed wizard, movement at Tresserhorn, and Phyrexia reborn. Lovisa offers to lead her barbarian horde northwest to stop the Rimewind Cult and destroy the Phyrexian machines.

Heidars seers warn of the Balduvian horde approach. No longer working unopposed, he orders Tresserhorn to attack New Argive. Meanwhile, the wizards of Rimewind do their best to impede Lovisa’s progress with blinding ice storms and tracts of neck-deep snow.

While his wizards try to hold off the Balduvians, Heidar begins to animate the Phyrexian constructs. With no time to explore the Phyrexian technology, Heidar and the Krovikan elementalists manage to spell-rig the death machines, powering them with patchwork cryomantic energy. At the moment the Ice-Phyrexians begin to whirr to life, Lovisa’s forces arrive at the keep. Battle ensues, but when the constructs finally awake, it turns into a slaughter. Lovisa and her warriors are easily torn apart. Impressed by the constructs’ power, Heidar immediately sets out on a destructive rampage, raking down everything between the Boreal and Kjeldor.

Soon after, the armies of Stromgald engage the Kjeldoran army on the fields north of Kjeldor. Each force suffers great losses, but the Kjeldorans use their familiarity with the land to maintain the advantage. Even so, King Darien sends a team of skyknights to Yavimaya to summon the aid of his budding allies.

The appearance of the Rimewind, wielding blizzards and Phyrexian death machines, swings the battle against the Kjeldorans. In a moment of mad arrogance, Heidar turns the Phyrexian constructs on his allies, attacking the forces of Stromgald and Krov as well. The battle becomes chaotic, all sides fleeing from the relentless killing machines. The Phyrexians seem unstoppable.

Scrying from afar, Garza Zol sees the Phyrexian doom that could very well be heading for her city. She commands her assassins, hidden amongst the elementalists, to kill Heidar and stop this frigid whirlwind at its source.

Yavimayan allosaurus riders and shamans arrive to a horrible scene: newly frozen fields painted red with blood. The Phyrexians have moved beyond the battlefield to attack the city of Kjeld itself. The shamans form a circle and chant, and a warm glow emanates from them. The Rimewind wizards would have easily countered the shamans’ nature magic if Heidar weren’t lying face down in the snow, cut down by Krovikan blades. When the Yavimayan spell is completed, a great wave of heat and sunlight spreads across Kjeldor. One by one, constructs crumble, their icy power melted away.

Without Heidar and the Phyrexians, the Cult of Rimewind is easily outmatched, and soon they are no more. The war is ended and the snows begin to melt again. The New Argivian alliance is solidified as a triumvirate, with Kjeldor, Balduvia, and Yavimaya enjoying great influence over a now ice-free Terisiare.