The War of Undying Winter

The Vigil of Caudiel, the Unbroken Flame

Long ago, before mortal kings drew borders and before the stars found their rhythm in the sky, there came a time when the light of the world waned. This was the War of Undying Winter, when the Grol the dark god cracked the firmament and spilled hiscold silence into Ammondell.

The snows fell without end. The rivers froze midcourse, and even Liupan’s sacred streams whispered no longer. Trees stood like skeletal sentries. Fires flickered and died. Beneath it all, something ancient stirred—a thing that hated warmth, life, and song, born of the same chaos that Caudiel had banished at the world’s first dawn. Some call it the Pale Wyrm, others the Hunger Beyond Frost, but its name is lost, devoured by its own silence.

The gods turned their gaze, and for the first time, even the divine feared.

But Caudiel did not.

She climbed the mountain then called Dreadspire, the highest peak in Ammondell, so tall that it pierced the heavens and scraped the stars. There, she cast aside her mantle of gold and stood barefoot in the endless snow, a mother without armor, only fire, and faced the void that sought to swallow all.

For forty days and forty nights, she stood unmoving.
For forty days and forty nights, she burned.

Her light did not flicker; her flame did not dim. Her tears fell as golden embers, melting the snow beneath her feet until the mountain wept molten light. And each time the void surged forward, Caudiel raised her hand, and the sun rose again.

In that time, her hair turned to fire, her voice became thunder, and even the stars began to stir in their slumber. The snows receded in a wide ring around the mountain, unable to touch her warmth. Birds returned to the air, and distant bells rang out in cities that had thought the sun lost forever.

At the end of the vigil, the void could not endure her love.

It fled, howling like a wounded thing, and took its storm with it—into the deepest caves, into the cracks between realms. Caudiel collapsed into the snow, her body spent, but her heart still glowing.

Where she fell, a ring of golden fire carved a great valley into the mountainside, and the snow there has never touched ground since. From this place, warmed by the breath of the goddess, survivors of the winter gathered. They lit fires again, built homes, sang songs. And in time, the valley became the city of Glimminghallow, the First Free City, a beacon of light and knowledge ever since.

Even today, in Glimminghallow heart burns the Golden Flame, an ember said to be taken from the ashes of Caudiel’s vigil. It burns without fuel, never wavering, and is watched over by the Eternal Wardens, whose only charge is to ensure it never goes out—for if it does, the legends say, the Void will return.