No one missed the Gelidites when they exiled
themselves. They were never trusted by the people of Yalain, who had cast the
Gelidites' ancestors down from the Ice Throne of Dericost in the Millennium War.
The Gelidites, in turn, mistrusted those who occupied their lands, and sank into
a cultish seclusion.
The Gelidites were obsessed with cold, perhaps because of their point of origin;
the lofty, frozen Plateau of Gelid, upon the lip of which had sat Sarvien's
bleak palace. They always shielded themselves from the sun with full, deep blue
robes. Led by a "Council of Three," they devoted much effort to the
study and worship of magics most chilling.
Theirs was an apocalyptic religion, which held that one day the sun would dim,
and world would freeze over. They believed that by studying frost-based magics,
and developing an affinity for the cold, they could survive this great freezing.
It is said that they planned to tunnel into a remote mountain peak, where they
would erect a great city, to be named Frore. Intruders from the surface would be
warded away by the bitter mountain cold and an inescapable maze of tunnels.
The Gelidites existed underground for most of the Age of Lore. After living
undisturbed, if shunned, amidst the population for millennia, the discovery of a
Lich living hidden in the mountains of Haebrous turned the public eye back to
the Gelidites. Although there has never been any proof that the Gelidites
resumed the proscribed arts of Dericost, they were blamed nonetheless. Many of
their number were taken in for questioning, and others were stoned on the
street.
The oppression did not last long, however, as the Gelidites quickly made known
the power they had amassed. The bodies of the Grand Inquisitor and his
assistants were found melting in the square of Farimeh, frozen and shattered
into hundreds of shards, their faces twisted into horrific masks of pain. After
this, no one would bother them for fear of incurring further wrath - they were,
after all, the descendants of the most reviled magicians in history.
A few years after the death of the Grand Inquisitor, the Gelidites silently
gathered their possessions and filed out of the cities in the dead cold of
night, and were never heard from again. It is suspected that they went, under
the leadership of the Council of Three (at that time consisting of the mages
Fenngar, Frisander, and Ferundi) to excavate the ice city, somewhere in the
fastnesses of the mountains. There have been no trace of the Gelidites, or the
mythical Frore, ever since.