Cave of the Frozen Scars

Red Crest Islands by Naelin

The westernmost mountain range of the Red Crest Islands is full of interesting features meeting at roughly the same point: Just by the source of the Vyka river, both a normal plains, a white forest formation and a badlands desert meet with each other by the side of the mountains.
But perhaps its more interesting feature is a cave, found low in a mountain slightly south of the river, containing a pool of an impossibly cold liquid that emits a dense white fog. Anything that touches this liquid is instantly frozen, turning living matter into brittle chunks in mere seconds.

A Search for Explanations

Beliefs

People from Red Crest believe that the pool was created by a mythical, supernatural being. Most of them assume a Night Dweller lives at the bottom of it and is the source of the liquid.
The pool is believed to have supernatural powers and be a source of good luck and fortune. People come from all over Red Crest (And even Thaur) to get cave-branded, believing they will carry the good fortune on their skins that way.

Theories

The more science-driven try to find some physical explanation for this pool of liquid fog. They estimate that it is a gas that somehow became so cold that it turned into liquid and that maybe a subterranean cave system is feeding this gas to the pool from a gas pocket, while somehow super-cooling it in the process.
Attempts to catch this gas in jars and cool it back to the liquid point have failed miserably.

Cave Branding

Branding, the method of marking the skin of a person or creature by pressing a red hot iron on it in order to create a scar, is sometimes used in the archipelago as a way to print designs on the skin that can be read through fur or feathers.
The people of Red Crest discovered some centuries ago that cooling the irons by putting them in the pool, instead of heating them on a fire, can be used for a similar purpose but with some stark differences:
The pain is minimal compared to the horrible burning of traditional branding and, if left for a short enough time, the hair of a furry will grow back, but without colour, looking white. This method is known as Cave Branding or Freeze Branding, and only people of furry races use it.
People go to the cave to get branded on this way from far away, sometimes paying big sums of money to get personalized irons with intricate designs for it.
Many natives of Red Crest, though, use simpler, traditional designs that sometimes represent the things they want to empower or have luck with. Cave brands are important for the natives of Red Crest and are a source of great pride.

Type

Cave

Location under

Red Crest Islands

Owning Organization

Principality of Red Crest

The Haan Archipelago

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Danae by Naelin

The cartographer Danae from the City of Birdland in Thaur was commissioned to draw a map of the Haan Archipelago for the second edition of The Book of the Habits and Beasts, published in the 3rd of Birthing, 3 E.Ru.
Danae took advantage of the enclyclopaedia's team of researchers to gather precise information and went himself into research expeditions to survey remote areas. His work resulted in what is considered the most accurate and widespread map of the Archipelago to this day, which details even most of the coasts of the Savage Isles.